• • Misinformed people have spread the incorrect assumption that Mae West was in the tall, modernized Women's House of Detention. Not only was the House of Detention not around in 1927, since it was designed during the Prohibition Era, it would look quite unlike the elaborate nineteenth century jail, which beautifully matched the rest of the judicial complex. [The left foreground area shows a low-rise masonry market building designed by Douglas Smith in 1883.] • • People who make this mistake include actor David Duchovny, whose motion picture "House of D" [2004] paid homage to the former correctional facility [erected 1931, Sloan and Robertson, architects; demolished 1974]. When I interviewed the Yale-educated actor, he proudly told me Mae West had been locked up there. I winced.
• • In this 1883 illustration, the Jefferson Market Jail is on the far left. That is the structure that would be razed and replaced with an ugly Art Deco House of Detention [1931-1974] that resembled an upright milk container. This one acre lot — — formerly a jail, and once a house of detention — — is now a garden.
• • Preservation takes many forms. Greenwich Villagers, led by Margot Gayle, stopped the city from destroying the courthouse and clock tower. Another Greenwich Villager has preserved some of the cultural history of the jail and courthouse by situating a few scenes in her play Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets here.
• • Jefferson Market history buffs might enjoy jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/
• • What's left? What was spared by the wrecking ball?
• • What is left of the magnificent nineteenth century courthouse, with its iconic fire tower and "Old Jeff" (its beloved chiming clock), is in deplorable condition — — an unsafe deterioration that has been ignored by the great minds that run the New York Public Library.
• • Instead of fixing the front portico of the former courthouse, for instance, which had dangerously detached from the building (letting the rain and snow penetrate and rust the iron framework), the Fifth Avenue goons diddled away almost $200,000 of City funding [i.e., taxpayers' money] by planning a teen music lounge for the library's basement. Oh, yes, it's clear the New York Public Library bigwigs need to read more books about architecture and landmark preservation, we'd say.
• • Here is an article that appeared (shortly after Mae West's birthday) about the overdue restoration of the New York City landmark. Staffmembers at The New York Times are no longer as careful about fact-checking as they used to be, alas. Fortunately, reporters can refer to the blogosphere and correct their errors with our guidance [even if they do not credit our blogs].
• • A Long-Needed Restoration for a Victorian Gothic Masterpiece • •
• • Jefferson Market Courthouse • •
• • The former Jefferson Market Courthouse, a Victorian Gothic masterpiece in Greenwich Village, will undergo a $7 million renovation to fix its façade, windows, roof, and tower and shore up its structural integrity, city officials announced today.
• • The building — — at 425 Avenue of the Americas at West 10th Street — — now houses a branch of the New York Public Library. But it is in a precarious state.
• • A report completed in February by LI/Saltzman Architects, an architectural preservation firm, found significant deterioration in the building’s sandstone and brickwork. The deterioration, which included open mortar joints and cracked stone, had allowed water to penetrate the building’s façade, causing the stonework to move and settle and rusting the iron framework.
• • A sidewalk bridge has been in place for four years outside the library to protect passers-by from falling pieces of sandstone, caused by the corrosion of the iron framework and cracks throughout the stonework. The entrance portico on the Avenue of the Americas has detached from the building and is leaning slightly toward the street. The funding will go to not only correct these issues and return the façade to its original splendor, but also to shore up the previous deficiencies that led to the original deterioration.
• • About $7 million has now been dedicated to the project.
• • The City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, a Democrat who represents the Village, has allocated about $4.1 million to the renovations, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has contributed about $2.2 million. State Senator Thomas K. Duane allocated about $700,000 to the project when he was a Council member. Ms. Quinn and Mr. Duane joined the president of the New York Public Library, Paul LeClerc, for a financing announcement at the library this afternoon.
• • Christopher Gray of The Times described the building’s rich history in a Streetscapes column in 1994.
• • Designed by Frederick Clark Withers and Calvert Vaux, the building was erected between 1875 and 1877. Over the years it was used, among other things, as a Women’s House of Detention [sic — if reporter Sewell Chan cannot get this straight, then I hope he reads this!], and a police academy. It was a courthouse until 1946, and after that, changed hands among various agencies. ...
• • • •
After noticing his errors called out here on the MAE WEST Blog, Sewell Chan adjusted the date the courthouse closed from an incorrect 1927 to a corrected 1946. He also revised the following paragraph.
• • Designed by Frederick Clark Withers and Calvert Vaux, the building was erected between 1875 and 1877. Over the years it was used, among other things, as a jail and a police academy; an adjacent Women’s House of Detention stood on the site from 1929 (when construction started) until 1973 (when it was demolished). The main building served as a courthouse until 1946, and after that, changed hands among various agencies. By 1959, when the preservationist Margot Gayle began a local effort to save the building, it had been abandoned and slated for demolition. Local residents — — including the architect Harold Edelman, the urban theorists Jane Jacobs and Lewis Mumford, the poet E. E. Cummings and the actor Maurice Evans — — joined Ms. Gayle’s effort, and in 1961, Mayor Robert F. Wagner announced the building would be converted to a library, which occurred in 1967.
• • In the mid-1960s, the building was painstakingly restored under the direction of the architect Giorgio Cavaglieri. Mr. Cavaglieri, who died in May [2007] at the age of 95, inserted air conditioning, elevators and library furniture into the building.
• • “He took countless photos to ensure accuracy in replacing a stained-glass window and carved black walnut doors,” Douglas Martin wrote in his obituary of Mr. Cavaglieri. “But features he designed as new — — rather than copied — — were contemporary in material and style. The new entrance to the old circular stair tower, for instance, was through a sleek glass door set into the old carved limestone. The most striking addition was a stark catwalk above the main reading room.”
• • Mr. Gray described the restoration as “the first real instance of a successful historic preservation project in New York City, at a time when skepticism to such a novelty remained very high.”
• • In 1995, the two-ton bell in the tower of the courthouse was tolled, for the first time since 1898, to mark a new slate roof and the completion of the library’s renovation. Now, it seems, the building is crying out for restoration yet again.
— — Source: — —
• • The New York Times — — www.nytimes.com/
• • Byline: Sewell Chan — — http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/author/schan/2007/08/21/
• • Published on: 21 August 2007
• • The Jefferson Market Branch Library is located at 425 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10011. Greenwich Villagers still refer to the roadway as "Sixth Avenue."
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
NYC
Mae West.
No comments:
Post a Comment