Dear Friends and Colleagues,
We are pleased to announce that we will take part in the 54th Annual NEW YORK ANTIQUARIAN BOOK FAIR at the Park Avenue Armory.
You can click here to view our online catalogue.
We hope you will visit us at Booth C1.Sincerely, Donald Heald |
 |
|
|
124 East 74th Street, New York, NY 10021 | T: 212 744 3505
www.donaldheald.com | info@donaldheald.com |
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
54th New York Antiquarian Book Fair
Sunday, March 23, 2014
NEW YORK CITY TIMELINE - 1799
1799
Apr 2
The Manhattan Company is formed.
June
Jacob Housman, a future developer of Florida's Indian Key, future county seat of Dade County, is born in Staten Island.
Sep 22
Irish immigrant James Jackson dies in Manhattan at the age of 28. He will be buried at the potter's field, located at the future site of Washington Square Park. A backhoe working on the site in October of 2009 uncovers his gravestone. His body will not be found.
Dec 22
Twenty-one-year-old Gulielma "Elma" Sands leaves her home in the Lispenard Meadows area of the future Greenwich Village.
Dec 24
The body of Elma Sands is found at true bottom of a well near her home. Boyfriend Levi Weeks, a carpenter, is taken into custody and indicted for murder, although the evidence is circumstantial. He will be exonerated when Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr defend him, and will soon move to Natchez, Mississippi, and become a major architect.
New York City
When Colonel William Stephens Smith, son-in-law of John Adams, runs into financial problems he sells the unfinished Manhattan home he began last year on what will become East 61st Street to wealthy merchant William T. Robinson. ** The summer home of Scottish-born shipping merchant Archibald Gracie is completed, on the eastern side of Manhattan. ** Wholesale merchant Joshua Isaacs build a clapboard home at the future Bedford Street - the first house in the future Greenwich Village. ** The thrice-weekly Gazette Francaise newspaper, begun in 1796 by the Claude Parisot and Company, ceases publication. ** The Manhattan Company, formed as a water company that will serve 2,000 homes through 25 miles of piping. At this year's end the company - now serving mainly as a bank - has cash resources totaling $447,029. ** Yellow fever strikes the city. ** A house claimed to be dating back to this year is built in Jamaica, Queens, for the Reverend Abraham Ketelas. ** A carriage house - the future 1826 Mount Vernon Hotel - is built at the future East 61st Street.
Staten Island
The New York State legislature passes an act appointing commissioners to select sites on Staten Island, appraise the lands for their value, appropriate them from their owners, and erect quarantine stations on them. A Marine Hospital/Quarantine Station is erected in the St. George neighborhood, largely due to fears over Yellow Fever. ** The 8-acre Fountain Cemetery on Staten Island opens on the site of a Revolutionary War skirmish and an Indian burial ground. The first burial will take place in 1802.
© 2014 David Minor / Eagles Byte
Thursday, March 20, 2014
ST MARK'S BOOKSTORE READYING FOR MOVE
The famous and one-of-a-kind St. Mark's Bookshop is preparing for a move to a new location. The Friends of St. Mark's Bookshop Committee - local leaders, business people, authors, artists, and publishers - are asking for your support as St. Mark's transitions to its new role in the community as store, event space, and literary non-profit.
Along with its unique selection of books not often found elsewhere and its fame here and abroad, St. Mark's Bookshop will be mounting a new reading series, as well as forming a consortium of like-minded independent bookstores in NYC and across the country to promote a culture of thoughtful debate in a time of shouting.
St. Mark's Bookshop's 60 day Indiegogo campaign has made close to $8000, 16% of our $50,000 goal. We still need at least $17,000 more to even make a deposit on the new space, and $42,000 to reach our goal, which will halve Indiegogo's fees.
If you haven't done so already, share this campaign on your Facebook, Twitter, blog; tell your friends; decry and lament! But spread the word.
Sunday, March 9, 2014
BRONX INVADES MANHATTAN
75 YEARS AGO TUESDAY, PUTINESQUE BRONX BOROUGH PRESIDENT JAMES J. LYONS PLANTED HIS FLAG AND ATTEMPTED TO SEIZE A PIECE OF MANHATTAN!
A LECTURE WILL COMMEMORATE LYONS' STUNT.
On March 11, 1939, Bronx Borough President James J. Lyons invaded Manhattan and tried to annex a piece of it for his borough! With his driver in tow he climbed to the highest point in Marble Hill and planted the Bronxflag. Marble Hill, though physically attached to the Bronx in 1913 with landfill, was legally Manhattan territory.
To mark the 75th anniversary of B.P. Lyons' audacious stunt, on Tuesday, March 11th Manhattan Borough Historian Michael Miscione will offer a lighthearted multimedia presentation about the curious history of Marble Hill.
See a photo of the flag-planting, read an amusing New York Times article about the event, and get complete details about the lecture here:
Sunday, February 23, 2014
460 - BURY THEM NOT
Apart from the stone water tower, few major
construction projects were under way but, as
usual, the layout of lower Manhattan was
undergoing constant change. Settlement of the
affairs of the late (29 years ago) property owner
Captain Robert Richard Randall finally drew
to a close when the U. S. Supreme Court cleared
his land title to the area around today’s
Washington Square. The original will, by the
way, had been drawn up by no other than
Alexander Hamilton. The freed funds will be
used to purchase land on Staten Island for
construction of Sailors’ Snug Harbor, a
retirement home for, “aged, decrepit, and
worn-out sailors”, and to provide for its
maintenance.
As for the Square itself, it had at one time
been a potter’s field, where the city’s poor
were buried in unmarked graves. Which
made it a handy repository for criminals
hanged on a nearby gibbet. But in New York,
real estate rules and over the last four years
the poor were reburied elsewhere and
expensive homes constructed around the
perimeter. New graveyards, especially for the
poor, will, of necessity have to be located away
from lower Manhattan as the Common Council
this year bans them from all land south of Canal
Street. Meanwhile street construction goes on
between 13th Street and Canal Street. Eleventh
Street is laid out except for the two-block section
between Broadway and the Bowery, construction
there blocked by the apple orchard of council
member Henry Brevoort, a buddy of Washington
Irving’s. The second incarnation of Grace Church
will rise on the site in 1843. Four blocks to the
south, on lower Third Avenue one of the city’s
many public markets will be laid out this year
and named for the previous owner of the land,
the late former governor and U. S. vice-president
Daniel D. Tompkins. More changes to the city’s
infrastructure are in the works this year as
incorporation papers are filed for the Manhattan
Gas Light Company, which will soon be
providing gas street lights for the new
neighborhoods.
Part of the impetus for the move of old money
further uptown is the deteriorating condition
of the area known as Five Points on the east
side of the city a few short blocks northeast of
City Hall. Here, where Park and Baxter streets
intersect and Anthony Street thrusts its way
into the crossing, buildings erected on formerly
filled-in swamp land, the old Collect Pond,
have begun to collapse in on themselves, driving
out all but the most destitute. And there are over
13,000 of these unfortunates, existing in streets
of flop houses and taverns, precursor of the
tenements of the Lower East Side and the Bowery
of future decades. Letters are beginning to appear
in the New York Sun, complaining that these
slums are not being demolished.
Across town (in today’s Triangle Below Canal
Street, or Tribeca neighborhood), sits St. John’s
Park, one of the city’s more exclusive
neighborhoods. Now, in 1830, the residents
have erected an iron replacement for the wooden
fence that had surrounded the park they all face.
As in a latter-day Gramercy Park, the gates are
kept locked, the property owners all having their
own keys. After the U. S. Civil War our budding
millionaire Cornelius Vanderbilt will knock
down the fence, level the park’s greenery and
convert the area into a stable for new toys, the
iron steeds of his New York Central & Hudson
River Rail Road.
Broadcast on WXXI-FM / Simon Pontin's Salmagundi - April 2006
© 2006 David Minor / Eagles Byte
Monday, February 17, 2014
459 - THE EARLY SNOWBIRD
So far, as the residents of the New York City area
welcomed in the year 1830, there would have been
few complaints about the winter. James Stuart
noted that the streets of Manhattan were so dry it
was necessary to sprinkle them to keep the dust
down. But, downstate or up, New Yorkers are
suspicious of nice winter weather anytime before
mid-April. They were not to be disappointed.
welcomed in the year 1830, there would have been
few complaints about the winter. James Stuart
noted that the streets of Manhattan were so dry it
was necessary to sprinkle them to keep the dust
down. But, downstate or up, New Yorkers are
suspicious of nice winter weather anytime before
mid-April. They were not to be disappointed.
Exactly one month after Christmas the mercury
headed for the cellar. Water transportation was
halted between the city and both Philadelphia
and Albany.
According to Stuart, “. . . all hands were set to
work in order to have the ice-houses filled with
that article which is so indispensable in a warm
climate. The ice-house attached to the boarding-
house where we were living contains thirty tons
of ice; and, as no ice is into an ice-house here
which is not perfectly clean and clear, so that a
lump of it may be put into a glass of water or a
bottle of wine, as much care is necessary in
selecting the ice perfectly pure from the ponds,
as in packing it in the ice-house.” He mentions
that his Hoboken neighbors the Stevenses keep
large supplies of ice both here in New Jersey
and at Albany, for use on their steamboats
during the warmer weather. Northeastern forests
near the big cities are being depleted of wood,
much of it for the bark, which is ground up
by tanneries to produce a tannin-rich liquid for
soaking animal hides, softening them to create
pliable leather. The spent liquid is then put to use
polluting nearby rivers and streams. Man-made
recycling at its worst; at least until new
technologies come along.
Unlike most residents of the area Mr. and Mrs.
Stuart have no ties binding them to the colder
climates. He writes, ”On the 29th January, I set
out on a long-projected expedition to Charlestown,
NewOrleans, the Mississippi and Ohio.” Left
to our own devices after the snowbirds have
flown, we’ll hang around the mouth of the
Hudson and see what’s going on during the
rest of 1830. The Stuarts will return at the
beginning of summer.
Stuart have no ties binding them to the colder
climates. He writes, ”On the 29th January, I set
out on a long-projected expedition to Charlestown,
NewOrleans, the Mississippi and Ohio.” Left
to our own devices after the snowbirds have
flown, we’ll hang around the mouth of the
Hudson and see what’s going on during the
rest of 1830. The Stuarts will return at the
beginning of summer.
Meanwhile, the city’s search for decent water
is ongoing. In April work is completed on a
27-foot high stone tower on 13th Street, built
to contain Philadelphia engineer Thomas
Howe’s iron tank, designed to hold 230,000
gallons of water. A system of twelve-inch iron
pipes will be laid to carry the water under
Broadway and the Bowery to supply three and
a half miles of streets with water, capable of
being pumped sixty feet above street level.
is ongoing. In April work is completed on a
27-foot high stone tower on 13th Street, built
to contain Philadelphia engineer Thomas
Howe’s iron tank, designed to hold 230,000
gallons of water. A system of twelve-inch iron
pipes will be laid to carry the water under
Broadway and the Bowery to supply three and
a half miles of streets with water, capable of
being pumped sixty feet above street level.
Two types of power are at work in this project-
water and political. The Manhattan Company,
a brainchild of Aaron Burr in the late 1790s,
had been formed to bring Bronx River water
downtown. But Burr had a more important
goal in mind, slipping language into the
enabling legislation to turn the entity into a
private bank. Now, in the fall of 1830, State
attorney general Greene C. Bronson will sue
to have the Manhattan Company's charter
dissolved, arguing that the company not
only has no right to be in the banking
business, but also has not fulfilled its main
obligation to deliver drinking water. Company
lawyers will keep this one tied up in the courts
for the next two years. Proponents of alcoholic
abstinence will leap into the fray, citing the
lack of good drinking water as the excuse for
intemperance. The waters will remain muddied
(you should pardon the expression...or not) for
some time to come.
water and political. The Manhattan Company,
a brainchild of Aaron Burr in the late 1790s,
had been formed to bring Bronx River water
downtown. But Burr had a more important
goal in mind, slipping language into the
enabling legislation to turn the entity into a
private bank. Now, in the fall of 1830, State
attorney general Greene C. Bronson will sue
to have the Manhattan Company's charter
dissolved, arguing that the company not
only has no right to be in the banking
business, but also has not fulfilled its main
obligation to deliver drinking water. Company
lawyers will keep this one tied up in the courts
for the next two years. Proponents of alcoholic
abstinence will leap into the fray, citing the
lack of good drinking water as the excuse for
intemperance. The waters will remain muddied
(you should pardon the expression...or not) for
some time to come.
Broadcast on WXXI-FM / Simon Pontin's Salmagundi - April 22, 2006
© 2006 David Minor / Eagles Byte
Saturday, February 15, 2014
SEAPORT MEETING DATE CHANGE
|
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
