Michelle Stein
Kevin Roche is an architect whose roots lay in mid-century modernism. He was one of the primary architects at Eero Saarinen's firm, and when Saarinen passed away in 1961, Kevin Roche and another Eero Saarinen and Associates partner John Dinkeloo founded KRJDA, where Roche has worked since. Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen's new study, Kevin Roche: Architecture as Environment, spans the full range of Roche's career and his impact on major sites worldwide.
Roche's most famous works in the city are perhaps buildings like the Ford Foundation headquarters or his contributions to the United Nations complex, but those visiting New York City are likely to be stopping in a number of museums. With that in mind, here are a number of spots where Kevin Roche contributed to the design of some of the major museum—and zoological—attractions in New York.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Eighty-second Street and Fifth Avenue
Central Park Zoo
Sixty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue
Similar to Roche’s work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (not only in the eight years it took to complete, which was twice as long as was intended), the work of the Central Park Zoo was in large part a renovation, although the renovated original buildings do not contain any of the exhibitions of live animals. The zoo had nine buildings from the 1930s remaining, and Roche used four of them in the renovation. He maintained the original trees and sculptures from the original park, as well as renovating the sea lion pool, which serves as a central and memorable point in the zoo. Roche’s additions to the zoo were intentionally understated. One of his renovated buildings includes a bookstore, which in some ways also recalls the changes made at the Metropolitan Museum, criticized for emphasizing itself as an attraction more than a house for art. On the other hand, Roche could b
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By: [email protected],
on 3/16/2011
Blog: Yale Press Log (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: History, Art, Jewish Studies, Museums/Exhibits, Notes from a Native New Yorker, Books, Add a tag
Michelle Stein
From now until March 27, Harry Houdini (born Ehrich Weiss) takes the stage at the Jewish Museum on the Upper East Side with Houdini: Art and Magic. The museum was crowded with visitors, much like Houdini’s performances. The exhibition looks both at Houdini and his craft, as well as at the art that has been created around the mythology and legacy of Houdini (the companion catalogue, edited by Brooke Kamin Rapaport, offers more detailed information while maintaining the structure of the exhibition). Houdini himself used the visual arts to promote his work. He created lithographic posters for shows, and many of his feats were captured on film. These works enabled Houdini to present a face to the public and fans. But just as illuminating are the works by contemporary artists which reference and appropriate Houdini to create new ideas, and their art is interspersed throughout the exhibition. It would seem that Houdini was just as important to his contemporaries as to future artists. While Houdini was performing, his works served as an escape for spectators from the troubles of their time. Houdini’s transformation from an immigrant child who moved frequently to a world famous performer also suggests that he might have served as a reference point for other Jews and immigrants working to assimilate into American society.
In the contemporary art world, Houdini has become a major reference point for a wide variety of artists in different forms. Sometimes the reference is as clear as a depiction of Houdini, while in other pieces it is his feats that are used for new artistic purposes. The famous contemporary artist Matthew Barney has an entire installation in the exhibition, The Ehrich Weiss Suite. It includes pieces from his Cremaster cycle, a series of five films that were created from 1994 to 2002. The films cover a wide variety of themes and questions, and interweave many different cultural and historical references, including famous figures like Houdini, as played by Norman Mailer in Cremaster 2, and by Matthew Barney in Cremaster 5. The installation at the museum, in a room that can only be entered by glass door, includes seven pigeons that roam around an acrylic coffin.
Another contemporary artist, Petah Coyne, whose work “Everything That Rises Must Converge” is on display at Mass MoCA until April, created a hanging sculpture from shredded cars made while she was reading both a great deal about Houdini and World War Two. The audio guide included Petah Coyne’s description of the links between art and magic (similarly referenced in the exhibition’s title), and both disciplines’ connections to transformation.
This only scrapes the surface of the works by contemporary artists in the show, but in honor of Women’s History Month, it is worth moving on to mentioning an exhibition upstairs, "Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World)". Maira Ka
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By: [email protected],
on 12/9/2010
Blog: Yale Press Log (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Notes from a Native New Yorker, Religion, Jewish Studies, Architecture, Add a tag
Michelle Stein
The second grade at my elementary school studied New York City in social studies every year, and fieldtrips, of course, were an ideal way to put our social studies learning in action. Annie Polland’s Landmark of the Spirit was a nostalgic reminder of our trip to the Eldridge Street Synagogue and Lower East Side, replete with a trip to a candy store and to the Lower East Side institution Guss’ Pickles.
At the time of our visit, the synagogue was still undergoing the renovation that was completed in 2007. Writing after the completion of the renovations, Polland looks beyond the Eldridge Street Synagogue’s architecture to the history of its founding and its development as a community institution until 1945, when the mortgage was finally paid and—in celebration—the mortgage papers burned.
Reading Landmark of the Spirit, I was struck by the similarities in Jewish life on the Lower East Side in the 19th and first half of the 20th century. The presidents and other congregational leaders of the Eldridge Street Synagogue congregation had to contend with costs of upkeep, the mortgage on the building, the need to attract both cantors and congregants to the Synagogue. The High Holidays (Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur) were so heavily attended as to require tickets, of which there are still copies and reproductions of them in the book. Tickets are still essential to many congregations’ High Holiday services, as depicted in “The Larry David Sandwich,” an episode of the television show Curb Your Enthusiasm, which finds Larry David purchasing tickets for services from a scalper. Of course some things have undoubtedly changed; one of the later chapters discusses women’s contributions to the Eldridge Street Synagogue community, which were not as well documented as those of men in the early years.
The struggle between the Jewish identity that had been cultivated in Europe and creating new communities in New York and the United States as a whole is evident throughout Polland’s text. The Orthodox community of Kahal Adath Jeshurun (later Kahal Adath Jeshurun and Anshei Lubtz) at Eldridge Street Synagogue had to react and stay popular in a city where many were turning to Reform Judaism. This began as early as Eldridge Street Synagogue’s opening, which seemed to act in some ways as a testing ground for maintaining Orthodox Jewish communities.
The congregation also had to contend with the move of many leaders from their congregation uptown. Polland describes the way in which businessmen became the new vision of Jewish male community leaders. But their wealth is also what led them to new neighborhoods uptown. It is also clear though, that Eldridge Street Synagogue remained a grounding point for many, no matter where their lives took them.
Nowadays the idea of maintaining a membership in a synagogue after moving seems quite unlikely. At the same time, this early struggle for identity resonates just as strongly as other elements of Eldridge Street Synagogue’s history. Today, distinctions between Orthodox and Reform communities are well-defined, but Jewish identity is constantly fluctuating, and institutions shift along with new ideas and trends, or remain true to something they see as more traditional. Reading about developing American Jewish identity in the past through one of the institutions that served as a cent
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By: [email protected],
on 11/30/2010
Blog: Yale Press Log (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: History, Economics, American History, Notes from a Native New Yorker, Add a tag
Michelle Stein
Yale Press’s books manage to take the reader all across the world, and look in depth at a great many topics. They also have a great many books that delve into the city of New York, where I was born and have thoroughly explored. I hope to also explore many of the books from Yale Press that tell the stories of many aspects of city life. To start this series, I’ll take a look into 18th-century trade in New York with Thomas M. Truxes’s Defying Empire: Trading with the Enemy in Colonial New York.
This past Thursday, Americans across the United States celebrated Thanksgiving, a meal that reflects one shared by the pilgrims, newcomers to the land, and the Native Americans who already lived on the land. The holiday has become a happy one, marked by eating. Some might note that this day of Thanksgiving Americans celebrate glosses over much of what followed that first meal. Peace in the colonies did not last for long between the colonists and Native Americans, and once colonial America established itself, tensions developed between Britain and the colonies. 1754 marked the start of the French and Indian War, which was a war primarily focused around territorial disputes between Britain and France, and that had a major effect on life in the colonies. Notably, the British were intent on cutting down the French’s supplies, and this was ultimately best accomplished by limiting the trade of the colonies, whose trade was already hampered by British restrictions. Defying Empire takes a close and fascinating look at trade in New York during the French and Indian War.
New York City, as a central trading point, was unwilling to give up its trade with the French even as they fought the British. Truxes weaves together a great many characters and events, telling the story of the periods of open channels or blocks on trade between the colonists and the French. Throughout the French-Indian war traders based in New York were able to continue trade with the French through a variety of illegal means, often forging documents and trading under the flags of the Dutch and Spanish. French agents, government officials, businessmen, and informants all appear in this book, working to maintain trade between the American colonists and French, and some who were intent on preventing it.
The many businessmen involved in skirting the law act in line with their business interests, but most importantly demonstrate a frustration with British rule. The Flour Act, passed in 1757, prohibited the export of grain and flour beyond Britain and its colonies, a decision clearly intended to block the French’s access to supplies, but one that was problematic for colonial traders. The act presented the same problems as laws like the Stamp Act, placing undue burdens on colonists who provided Britain with much of the empire’s wealth.
Truxes works to illuminate a piece of history that may not be taught in a regular American History class, but nevertheless, it fits in like a puzzle piece with the traditional story of the lead-up to revolution. Reading Defying Empire is also a great opportunity to return to historical New York, where today Wall Street dominates trade and cruise ships often dominate the piers and ports. Sea trade has changed, though some elements are the same. On Slate, Rose George is writing the story of her time on a container ship, and in her first