100 Years Ago

On November 1, 1918, the worst transit disaster in New York City history occurred just outside Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The wooden cars of the Brighton Beach line of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit (B.R.T.) company left the tracks, crashing inside the tunnel beneath the busy intersection where Flatbush Avenue, Ocean Avenue and Malbone Street met [Google map]. The Malbone Street Wreck killed nearly 100 people and injured more than 250. Criminal trials and lawsuits arising from the accident dragged on for years, contributing to the bankruptcy of the BRT. The name "Malbone Street" became associated with the disaster; it's known today as Empire Boulevard.

Brooklyn's corridor of diversity

Today's New York Daily News highlights the diversity of Brooklyn's southern reaches, especially along the fabled B/Q subway line:

Immigration experts said the rich mosaic of cultures now found in southern Brooklyn rivals the well-known ethnic diversity found in Queens along the 7 Train — dubbed the “International Express.”

Brooklyn now has its own “Immigrant Express” — the Q/B Train — cutting through Flatbush to Brighton Beach and home to growing numbers of foreign born residents from Guyana, El Salvador, Poland, Armenia and Turkey.

“This corridor is as diverse as the corridor we see on the 7 Train,” said City Planning Department immigration czar, Joseph Salvo. “The bottom of Ocean Parkway has become a real United Nations.”
- Boro turning into a world, Jeff Wilkins and Elizabeth Hays, New York Daily News

Q Train Beverly Road subway platform

In 1970, Census Tract 520 in Ditmas Park [sic] was 92.1% white. Less than a quarter of the population was foreign-born, and most of them were Italian and Jewish. Today, the neighborhood is a miniature United Nations, with nearly two-thirds of the population coming from other countries.

Although Elmhurst and Jackson Heights have a larger percentage of foreign-born residents, the city's demographer, Joseph Salvo, said it's the convergence of racial and ethnic diversity that distinguishes Ditmas Park.
- In a Diverse City, Ditmas Park Takes the Cake, New York Sun, May 26, 2005

Census Tract 520 comprises the eastern half of Ditmas Park West, my neighborhood neighbor to the south, plus the blocks between Newkirk and Foster Avenues.

[TinyURL]

Related Content

More love for the Q train, 2008-09-09
Flatbush by rail with Francis Morrone, 2008-07-10
DCP's Census Fact Finder, 2007-12-13

Links

Boro turning into a world, Jeff Wilkins and Elizabeth Hays, New York Daily News, 2009-03-17
In a Diverse City, Ditmas Park Takes the Cake, New York Sun, 2005-05-26

Masstransiscope

Captured on my cellphone while riding the Q train to a candlelight service Sunday evening.



This art project was in disrepair for nearly 30 years. It's only visible from the right side of the Manhattan-bound Q or B train while the train is moving.

Links

Masstransiscope, Bill Brand
Bill Brand's Project Blog

90 Years Ago: The Malbone Street Wreck

On November 1, 1918, the worst transit disaster in New York City history occurred just outside Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The wooden cars of the Brighton Beach line of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit (B.R.T.) company left the tracks, crashing inside the tunnel beneath the busy intersection where Flatbush Avenue, Ocean Avenue and Malbone Street met [Google map]. The Malbone Street Wreck killed nearly 100 people and injured more than 250. Criminal trials and lawsuits arising from the accident dragged on for years, contributing to the bankruptcy of the BRT. The name "Malbone Street" became associated with the disaster; it's known today as Empire Boulevard.

More love for the Q train

Part of the Beverly Road subway platform on the Q line.


A writer in today's New York Observer romances the Q:

I love the Q train. O.K., I love the B, too, but it's the Q that's stolen my heart.

When I moved back to Brooklyn in January, the biggest factor in finding an apartment was its proximity to this train line, and especially to the 7th Avenue station (a nice change of pace after riding the G train for three years). It's just far enough into Brooklyn that I am in a quiet, residential neighborhood, but also only the third stop into the borough, easily depositing me anywhere I need to go in Manhattan.
- Brooklyn, The Borough: Can the Q Be the Next L?, Nicole Brydson, The Observer

She parrots the fiction that "Ditmas Park" equates "Flatbush." And she heralds what may be the death knell for the livability of my neighborhood: the arrival of celebrities. Comparing the Q to the L does not bode well.

Like the L train of the early ‘00s, the neighborhoods along the Q/B line have seen new crops of people popping out of its stations along a path rumbling through central and southern Brooklyn, from Downtown, Park Slope, Midwood and Ditmas Park, through Sheepshead Bay and, via an expert right turn, Brighton Beach and Coney Island. The Q line even has some of the same digitally enhanced trains that graced the L line a few years back.
...
Not only is the Q/B line convenient, with a recent sighting by Page Six Magazine of Brooklyn celebrity darling Michelle Williams dining with new beau Spike Jonze at popular Ditmas Park eatery The Farm on Adderley (off the Cortelyou Q stop), the perception of southern Brooklyn seems to be getting a makeover.

Related Posts

Flatbush by rail with Francis Morrone

Links

Brooklyn, The Borough: Can the Q Be the Next L?, Nicole Brydson, The Observer

Flatbush by rail with Francis Morrone

Writing in today's New York Sun, Francis Morrone extols the charm - yes, charm - of the B/Q subway line that runs through the heart of Victorian Flatbush:

Two things bring charm to the line. One is that many of the original subdivisions of early 20th-century Flatbush remain intact. These planned communities are picture-perfect railroad suburbs of riotously eclectic bungalows and mansions on tree-shaded streets, many with brilliant design flourishes such as landscaped medians, or the illusion of spaciousness that comes from planting trees at the house line rather than the curbline. It's fair to say that for cleverness of planning and quality of architecture, these communities rank among the finest of their kind in America.
- Savoring the Brighton Line, a Rare MTA Charmer, Francis Morrone, The New York Sun, July 10, 2008

This is the landmarked Avenue H subway station on the Q line in Flatbush, Brooklyn. It was originally a sales office for Thomas Benton Ackerson's real estate developments in the area. Ackerson is one the developers responsible for my neighborhood of Beverley Square West in Victorian Flatbush. This is the only wooden station house in the New York City subway system.


Morrone briefly samples the neighborhoods of Prospect Park South, Ditmas Park, and Fiske Terrace-Midwood Park. He's written much about the architecture of this area. But today, his focus is the ride itself:

This would not be evident to riders but for the other thing that makes the line so delicious: From Prospect Park to Coney Island, the trains run entirely out of doors. From Prospect Park to Avenue H, the trains run in an open cut. From Avenue H to Sheepshead Bay, the trains run on an embankment. From Sheepshead Bay to Coney Island, the trains are elevated. The stations have the air of country railroad depots.

The Q train's Beverly Road subway platform


Morrone doesn't say much about the architecture in this article, but he does highlight one house in Ditmas Park:

Look for 463 E. 19th St., at the end of the block at Ditmas Avenue. The 1906 Colonial Revival beauty was designed by the great Brooklyn architects Slee & Bryson and has a rounded, jutting front porch with the most beautifully turned wooden balusters you'll ever see.

463 East 19th Street, Ditmas Park, Flatbush, Brooklyn

Related Posts

• Forgotten Flatbush: The Albemarle Road Pedestrian Bridge, November 25, 2007
  

Links

• Savoring the Brighton Line, a Rare MTA Charmer, Francis Morrone, The New York Sun, July 10, 2008
  
• John Petit's Visionary Home Designs, Francis Morrone, New York Sun, October 20, 2006
  
• Generations of Dynamism in Flatbush, Francis Morrone, New York Sun, October 13, 2006
• The Little Station in the Woods tells the whole story of the Avenue H Station House.
  

Beneath New York: The Marine Grill Murals

Marine Grill Murals (1/6), depicting Native Americans in canoes rowing out to greet a schooner.


A: They're rat-infested, crowded, dirty, smelly, and noisy enough to deafen a banshee. However, they are safer than they used to be. And they have magnificent tilework from the golden age of public transportation.
Q: What are the subways?

I work in downtown Manhattan. I remember when these tile murals were installed in the Broadway-Nassau Subway Station, astonished when they were revealed. These murals are unusual, even for the subway: they were not originally designed for or located in the subway. They're also an object lesson in preservation: they were almost lost forever to residential conversion:

The 1913 Marine Grill murals by Fred Dana Marsh, now installed in the Fulton/Broadway/Nassau complex, were originally in a basement restaurant of the McAlpin Hotel on Herald Square. The developer converting the hotel to condos agreed at the last minute to preserve them. While the workers managed to remove most of the ceramic tiles without breaking them, they simply piled them at random in two dozen crates. MTA Arts for Transit had the crates delivered to a TA bus garage with some free floorspace, and a group of college interns spent their summer playing jigsaw puzzle! They were reinstalled at Broadway/Nassau in 2000.
- Artwork: Marine Grill Murals, 1913, www.nycsubway.org

Marine Grill Murals (2/6), depicting pilgrims arriving at a Dutch settlement on the shore, complete with windmill and hangings.


A 1990 article from the New York Times provides more background:

A collection of colorful terra cotta wall panels designed by the late muralist Fred Dana Marsh that depict New York City's nautical heritage is looking for a new home. For over 40 years the 24 panels were the backdrop for the 250-seat Marine Grill at the McAlpin Hotel on Herald Square, which opened in 1912 and between World Wars was one of the city's more fashionable restaurants.
...
Preservationists failed in a bid to have the restaurant designated by the Landmarks Preservation Commission but the wall tiles may be saved if a museum or historically oriented group can use them at a new location.

- POSTING: From the McAlpin; Nautical Tiles, Anyone?, By Richard D. Lyons, Published: January 21, 1990

Marine Grill Murals (3/6), appears to depict a British Man-o-War firing cannons in New York Harbor.


A 2001 article, also from the Times, follows up after the murals were installed in the subway:

It would have been hard for Susan Tunick, president of the Friends of Terra Cotta, to imagine a happy ending a decade ago [ie: 1991 or so, shortly after the above NY Times article was written] when she saw dumpsters at the McAlpin Hotel on Herald Square filled with fragments from the fabulously ornate Marine Grill murals of 1912 by Fred Dana Marsh. "It was truly devastating," she recalled. "I could not go near it."

That is not where the story ended, however. A rescue effort began that eventually involved the New York Landmarks Conservancy, the Municipal Art Society, the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
...
Students working under Vel Riberto of the M.T.A. Arts for Transit program reassembled the jumbled pieces, which were turned over for conservation to the Alan M. Farancz Painting Conservation Studio and then reinstalled by New York City Transit workers as part of the overall renovation of the station.

"Something about this terra cotta brought out the best every person had to offer," said Sandra Bloodworth, director of Arts for Transit. "It was the opportunity to put Humpty Dumpty back together again." The project cost about $200,000.

- POSTINGS: Rescued McAlpin Hotel Murals From 1912 Find a Home in the Subway; For Terra Cotta, Terra Firma, By David W. Dunlap, Published: April 29, 2001

Marine Grill Murals (4/6), depicting Robert Fulton's steamboat Clermont (1808).


Marine Grill Murals (5/6), depicting the Mauretania (1906).


Marine Grill Murals (6/6), depicting the Fall River Line steamboat COMMONWEALTH in 1908.


It's also nice to see these murals show up in a visualization of the redesigned Fulton Street Transit Center, the construction of which has been disrupting traffic above and below ground for the past two years:

Fulton Street Transit Center: A view east to the A/C mezzanine, which will improve connections to the J/M/Z platforms. Credit: LowerManhattan.info. Source.


I found some more information, including descriptions of what's depicted in each mural, in This Week in New York. This helped me make out as best I can what's depicted in each mural:

The landmarked terra-cotta murals, designed by Fred Dana Marsh, reveal the history of New York harbor, making their 2000 move to this downtown station near the water rather sensible. The murals depict Native Americans rowing out in canoes to greet a large schooner, pilgrims landing on the shore (look for the Dutch windmill and the two people being hanged), Robert Fulton’s Clermont steamer, a luxury liner sailing in front of the more modern New York City skyline, and lots of other ships bearing a multitude of international flags. In addition to the murals (of which there were originally twenty at the McAlpin), the intricately carved ironwork entrance gate to the restaurant is on display as well.
- Exposed bodies and marine murals at the Seaport [Note: Skip past the gruesome photos preserved Chinese prisoners bodies from the Bodies exhibit.]

Ironwork gate from the Marine Grill Restaurant, Broadway-Nassau Subway Station


I can find little information about the artist. Although a Google search turns up hundreds of hits, most of them simply duplicate the same information. He was born in 1872 and died in 1961. There is a Fred Dana Marsh Museum in Tomoka State Park in Ormond Beach, Florida, near Daytona Beach.

Links:

• NYC Subway Tiles (Flickr Group)
  
• Subway Art Guide (nycsubway.org)
  

Garden (and more) Diary, June 17, 2005: The Fourth Garden, Four Gardens

[Transcribed from note book. Written while on the R train to work]

My good deed for the day: Letting a fat man on the subway know his fly is open.

I can relate. I've done the same in the past week. It's not easy for a fat man to be aware of his appearance below the chest. Easier, more comfortable, to stay in the head. There I can be as thin as I remember I was.

John and I bought a house. I've written nothing for so long. Major events like that can just slip by without notice. It's a big house. So far, it's too big for the two of us. And it needs lots of work. I'm trying to do a little each day, but it's hard.

---

Got off the R at Rector Street. Now sitting on a bench in the graveyard of Trinity Church. "Here lies ..." "Sacred to the memory of ..." Even the bench is worn, low to the ground. To remind us, I guess.

I like to walk through here on the way to work. From our new home, my commute offers more opportunities to do so. Reminders of impermanence to help me keep work in perspective.

The gardens here - the cemetery is a garden - are simple and beautiful. Massive hostas, irises, past bloom. Daylilies, clouds of them, in fat green buds, just about to announce summer.

I'm starting my fourth garden in New York City. Some day it will be on the Victorian Flatbush House & Garden Tour, probably years before the house itself is. I can aim for 2008, the year of my 50th, three years away.

There are at least four gardens to be developed: two sides, the front, and back. All have something different to offer. Each can welcome visitors in its own way. All will relate to the house, and relate the house to the grounds. It's already happening, as I come to understand the house and what it wants.

Well, off to work ...