USA > New York > New York City > New York panorama : a comprehensive view of the metropolis > Part 24
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BRICKS OF THE CITY
and ponding stones in the brick walls above; but now it was used as a veneer theo conceal the real structural facts behind a smooth and slick façade. The grain of the stone now went the wrong way, and it frequently spalled; so hat a coat of stucco was often added by later builders over the stone.
This type of house, as Schuyler points out, still retained one virtue that ater individual houses built by private owners were to lose. The brown- entone fronts were speculatively built in large groups, and they had a saving In nonotony. Since there was no excellence to show, this lack of asser- de iveness was a positive virtue. But the later private builder, when he em- ployed an architect of his own, endeavored to give his dream-castle a legree of distinction that would knock out all the rest of the street. Hence om he fist-fights and shoulder-turnings of turrets against loggias, and loggias against cornices.
To dwell on this combat would be tempting, were it not for the fact ahat our original New York average professional man or merchant had in the meantime fled. He could afford neither an architect nor his own four- story house, whether brownstone or any other. So he took the new elevated railway to the outlying districts of the Bronx, or the ferries to New Jersey ; or he helped to fulfill John Roebling's prophecies about the heavy use of the Brooklyn Bridge; or he began living in Manhattan in a new type of dwelling-the flat.
ne, in, ds.
lay que
Homes of Today
Since that time the average New Yorker's solutions to his problem have helprovided little to brag about. For some reason, owning one's own home in the es outlying regions no longer permitted the owner to build compactly up to en his neighbor, as had been done when the "outlying region" was still ot Greenwich Village. Every individual home had to be free-standing, with hejits own driveway, its own row of windows looking into the neighbors' in- bo stead of facing on the street and yard; later every home needed its own he garage. Only when limited-dividend corporations undertook large-scale ed operations was it possible to build, on modern terms, something approach- ing in both layout and amenities the little "genteel houses" of which Cooper spoke. At Sunnyside, Long Island, was set the leading example; is the houses were joined end to end, only two rooms deep; the wasteful ne es driveways and individual garages were eliminated, making way for con- tinuous garden space and park; in addition, since this is a noisy automobile as age, very different from the age of carriages, a beginning was made toward
ath er an
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ARCHITECTURE
turning the face of the houses away from the street. The later develop ments at Hillside and under the PWA will be discussed in the separat article on housing.
Attention has been concentrated here upon the homes of the middle class, because unfortunately a discussion of past and present dwellings fofa the great mass of the city's workers would deal not with architecture bu with its negations. New York had a desperate housing problem as early a 1820; the problem remains a desperate one as this book goes to press and as such is dealt with in a separate article.
The rich, too, have been obliged to adapt themselves to the high valu; of land. The fine homes that used to line Fifth Avenue have been fight ing a losing battle for survival against the great apartment and office build ings. Only one of the original Vanderbilt houses now remains; the mos famous, the best known work of the architect Richard M. Hunt, disal appeared long ago. On Madison Avenue at Fiftieth Street, the old Villar za Mansion stands in gloomy isolation, the design of its windows still boldl; declaring its free derivation by the architects, McKim, Mead & White from the Renaissance Cancelleria Palace in Rome. The wealthy have found it more convenient, on the whole, to live in great roomy country man sions on Long Island, and to camp, as it were, in New York. Though th city contains large areas of "blighted" districts bringing no return to thei owners, the difficulty of assembling a sufficient number of plots to secur spacious layouts for the wealthy is still apparently greater than the diff: culty of coping with traffic problems to reach spaciousness at some distance from the center.
Within the city, there exists a situation perhaps unique in the Uniteds States-namely, that rich and poor rub elbows, and an address indicate little or nothing concerning social status. As one after another of the olde fashionable districts has lost its social standing, its occupants have movedm restlessly about to new locations; and of these, some of the most available have been surrounded by slums. The most dramatic of such contrasts it the one chosen by Sidney Kingsley for his play Dead End, supposedl inspired by the famous River House at the foot of East Fifty-Second Street with private yacht landings for its wealthy tenants, in an environment o old-law tenements. The most imposing group of fashionable apartmen houses fronts on Park Avenue, the so-called "gold-diggers lane"-a doubl line of vast boxes conservatively designed; while a late development is th special type of Bronx apartments lining the Grand Concourse, none bein in the fashion of the day unless equipped with "corner windows."
BRICKS OF THE CITY 229
One glance at almost any rental plan for one of the more expensive aratpartment buildings will show why the real fascination of this type as an rchitectural problem lies not so much in the façades as in the planning. adleZithin the one external cube there must be all sorts of irregular accommo- fo ations. Apartments vary considerably in the number of rooms to be pro- bufided on a single floor. But this is only a beginning. Apartments can also ambrace two or more floors and use their own interior stairs. Moreover, the es ief room can be two stories high. The result is a three-dimensional fit- ng together of irregular units that puts the average Chinese puzzle in the alugnade. The irregularity is perforce mirrored in the disposition of the ghtwindows.
Many wealthy districts are solidly built with almost no provision for hostutside light and air, and have been scorned by reformers as "super- dis- ums." Life for the occupants is not too rigorous, however, since they are arely at home, and since they enjoy the benefits of such improvements as dl lite un-lamps and air-conditioning. The latter puts a strain on the city water apply ; indeed the whole business could be managed more simply by less ingrowded use of what is now idle blighted land. But simple answers have anto appeal for the "sophisticated" New Yorker.
the
rockefeller Center
Every city has some outstanding monument that characterizes it in the nceyes of the world. For New York, perhaps the most appropriate expres- ion is found in Rockefeller Center. Anyone viewing this great complex ted; aware of a departure in architecture from long accepted tenets not only tesf construction but of esthetics. In the great knife-like prow and cliff-like letide of the R. C. A. Building there is no easy flowing harmony. This ednass that dominates the whole development typifies, on the contrary, the luddenness, the brutality, the overpowering scale of New York. The ibuilding seems almost to have been forced upward by pressure from both llyides. The "Channel" through which it is approached is no wide avenue etbut an enlarged fissure. In the whole group there is the squareness, the oblockiness, of a project that means business. At night, when the Center nfakes on a certain softness, its taller elements losing themselves in envelop- ling mist, there is some semblance of an Egyptian calm; in daylight this heffect is instantly dispelled. The proportions are not classic. Their play nggainst one another is restless. From certain angles, the jagged rhythm of he buildings appears to endow them with motion. In minor details, such
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230 ARCHITECTURE
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as the grouping of windows, there is a certain harshness; the harmony only occasionally resolved. The light blue and gray tone of the building derived from the combined effect of limestone and aluminum in the wal and the color of the window shades, is cool and aloof. In the few place where it is permitted, the ornament is fragile and sentimental; and th sculpture in general can scarcely be said to have reached emotional maturit
Apart from its physical form, the economic organization of Rockefell Center is expressive of New York. It sucks tenants out of a large are of smaller obsolescent buildings into one close-packed super-center. Mor over, it is an organization of amazing complexity, a city in miniatur H where a tenant need not leave the premises in order to see the latest firs run movies, or buy a complete outfit of clothing, or study the newe manifestations of art and science, or engage passage to foreign countri with visas to match.
The complexity of the endeavor is mirrored in the architectural form Everywhere one senses that the architects struggled to do their best wit problems just a little too big for complete mastery. Hence, pieces of woi that are the flattest kind of failure stand next to fragments brilliant. successful. Thus, although the foyer of the Music Hall contains what probably the largest and emptiest mural in the world, the auditorium wit its vast arched and banded ceiling is a conception of great daring carried through to a stunning effect.
In its way, the Center is an effort to reduce New York to order, sti keeping it New York. The Center retains the gigantism, the ruthless preyof ing of the large upon the small, the close packing, the impersonality c the whole; and yet attempts to secure sunlight and air (at least for itself' pleasant promenades, gardens (with Hollywood costumes for the attend ants), art, a sense of scale and drama, and such other pleasures as th metropolis can afford.
ony ir CLASSICAL MUSIC
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Program Notes
T IS always a bit hazardous, in any period of transition such as we are assing through today, to attempt to fix the musical character of a city, ither from what has gone before or from what may be happening at the ntrichoment. New York is a sovereign case. What shall we say about it with- ut seeming to say too much or too little? One thing is reasonably certain. ormshe many and diverse elements in New York's musical caldron have been witeething too long not to have fused at last into an amalgam having recog- worfizable qualities and characteristics. The consideration that, in a single antl at wit fternoon or evening, performances are given over to such diverse forms f expression as opera, swing, symphony and chamber music, oratorio and madrigal singing, vocal and instrumental recitals, need not cloud the issue. Tried)ut of all the sound and fury, the clash of credos orthodox and unortho- ox, the invasion of schools foreign and domestic, it should yet be pos- stilible to distinguish signs of the genuinely indigenous and collective voice reyjf New York.
The beginnings of music in the city can be traced back to the liturgies If) rought. over by the early Dutch settlers, but records on the subject are najcant. These practical and hardy pioneers were undoubtedly more tolerant than the Puritans, who believed music was not something to be enjoyed or itself, but was rather an adornment to religious services. What little ecular music flourished at the time (confined for the most part to street unes and romantic ballads ) was commonly frowned upon, by and large, s worldly and unworthy, even when it bore the Continental tag. This was lot, it is only fair to add, an exclusively Colonial attitude. The same feel- ng about secular music obtained abroad, where composers of the day were levoting their best talents to the service and glorification of the church, creating a wealth of oratorios, canons, motets and anthems.
Music proper-that is to say, music divorced from its role as hand- naiden to the church or as an interlude to dramatic skits, music com- posed and listened to for its own sake-may be said to date in New York
231
place nd th turit efelle e are Mora atura first ewes
232 CLASSICAL MUSIC
from an event known as Pachelbel's Recital, which occurred on January 21, 1736, at the home of one Robert Todd, vintner. It was a concert fom the benefit of Charles Theodore Pachelbel, a German organist, who cama it to New York from Boston, and who, on this occasion, played the harpsirest chord part. No other musical event of any importance is recorded untarc April 30, 1750, when John Gay's ballad divertissement, The Beggar Ly Opera, with music by John Christopher Pepusch, was presented at thont Nassau Street Theater, with an orchestra supplied by the British Militariel Band (the British military, by the way, directed at this time most of theless secular musical activities in the city). This event, too, seems to have beepnt a seed cast on stony ground, for not until a score of years afterward dad the records begin to indicate musical events of more or less regular frean quency, and an audience that could be depended upon to support then Bi
The earliest figures in the field of local music, pioneers whose wortand as composers, performers, or conductors is identified with New York, arfve Francis Hopkinson, James Hewitt, James Lyon, William Tuckey, Johan Henry Schmidt, Gottlieb Graupner-to mention only the more prominentng All of them leaned heavily on traditional forms and ready-to-hand sul ars ject matter, though they made brave if ineffectual attempts at originalit It took courage in those days to deal with one's own background, for an thing native in art was considered of dubious worth and rather a presumpack tion. But men like Hopkinson and Hewitt managed to make themselveowe not merely heard but also respected; and in some measure they helped tal break down a little of the prejudice (which still persists in some quarters he against both native and contemporary music. soci
Hewitt's fame rests largely on his Clementian piano sonata, The Battleer of Trenton (1792). Grove also credits him with the ballad opera, Tan many (1794). The date and title of the "first" American ballad opera ar teat matters of some dispute. John Tasker Howard goes so far as to sugge! dise that ballad operas were probably performed in New York from 1732 or ere In any case, it is fairly certain that Hewitt collaborated with Williar foz Dunlap on Pizarro, which was given a New York hearing in 1800. Found years earlier, Dunlap had worked with Benjamin Carr on The Archers Co Switzerland (1796) and with Victor Pellisier on the score of The Vintagede (1799).
To Hopkinson, a Philadelphian by birth, friend of Washington antw signer of the Declaration of Independence, belongs the distinction con having written, when he was only twenty-two, the first secular musicaga composition of native origin to be published in America, a song calle E
PROGRAM NOTES 233
quan y Days Have Been So Wondrous Free (1759). In addition, Hopkinson t fomposed O'er the Hills, for tenor and harpsichord, a very popular piece cam rps its time; and the Washington March, which was played whenever the resident and his family appeared publicly. Hewitt later converted this untarch into the New York Patriotic Song, which enjoyed a vogue.
Lyon, whose compositions were mostly anthems and hymns, is another thontender for the title of "America's first composer." Tuckey is known itariefly for having directed the earliest American performance of Handel's ithlessiah in 1770, two years before it was heard in Germany. Graupner's beenontributions to the technique of the popular concert were made mostly I df. Charleston and Boston. He is often referred to as the "father of Amer- frejan orchestral music."
But audiences of the post-Revolutionary era still lacked a proper under- vorlanding of musical values. They sought quantitative rather than qualita- arve programs, and there arose virtuosos fully prepared to meet that de- ohgand. A tenor of the day, one Signor de Begnis, announced that he would enting, at a forthcoming concert, "six hundred words and three hundred subars of music in the short space of four minutes."
lity Music in New York first began to assume a serious character with the anyorming of musical societies. The initial attempt in this direction goes npack to 1773-4, with the founding of the Harmonic Society, which fol- Iverwed the lead set by the Orpheus Club in Philadelphia (1759). Others dtl New York were the Musical Society (1788), the St. Cecilia Society and ers le Apollo Society (1791), the Uranian Society (1793) and the Euterpean ociety (1799). Apart from the artistic and financial value that these pio- ttleer musical organizations had for their own members, they were impor- nt in spreading the gospel of good music by sponsoring concerts and artreating audiences. The foremost orchestras of that day generally com- rised an ensemble of not more than 25 instruments, but even so they ere sufficient to acquaint New Yorkers with the compositions of Bach, ammozart, Haydn, Beethoven-and occasionally also, as a concession, Hewitt ound Hopkinson. By 1819 New York boasted a musical audience large onough and dependable enough to support entertainment of a substantial agrder. Accordingly, preparations were made for the presentation of grand pera. Rossini's Barber of Seville was the first given (1821). It was fol- andowed in 1823 by Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, and two years later by ol'on Weber's Der Freischütz. All these were sung in English. The first carand opera to be presented in the original tongue was probably The leBarber of Seville. The event occurred at the new Park Theater in 1825,
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CLASSICAL MUSIC
with the celebrated Garcia family (Manuel and his two daughters, Mai Malibran and Mme. Viardot ) heading the cast.
The success of these presentations encouraged an influx of Italian wi lya some French and German operas, mainly through the efforts of Loren da Ponte, Mozart's librettist, a celebrated adventurer who was possess by the dream of a permanent opera in New York-with himself as chi librettist. He pinned his hopes at first on Garcia, who had brought t original Italian opera company to New York in 1825. Later he turned Montressor's Richmond Hill Theater, where Signorina Pedrotti was t. current attraction. She had taken the place of Maria Malibran (heroi of a modern opera by Robert Russell Bennett and Robert A. Simon), w] had deserted the American musical stage for Europe. Thirty-five perfor ances were enough to convince all concerned that the experiment was her failure; but Da Ponte, still persisting in his plan, decided that the or. solution was a theater especially built for opera. His tenacity resulted the elegant and lavish Italian Opera House, the first theater to "boast tier composed exclusively of boxes." Rossini's La Gazza ladra, with Sign rina Fanti as prima donna, occupied the stage on opening night. This tin two seasons went by before Da Ponte realized the futility of his endeavc in the New York operatic field.
Max Maretzek, cited in Arditi's memoirs as the cleverest of all impi sarios, began his American career at Palmo's, which opened in 1844 wi
Fra Kat Bellini's I Puritani. In the cast were Borghese, the prima donna, and A tognini, mentioned by a contemporary critic as the greatest tenor ev heard in New York. During Maretzek's regime at Palmo's and later the Astor Place Opera House, a long list of great singers performed under him: Pedrotti, Fanti, Caredori, Grisi, Mario ("for a generation afterwa 1 all tenors were measured by Mario's standard"), Sontag, Jenny Lind, A 18 boni, and Salvi.
Most of this constellation passed over to the Academy of Music wh the latter was founded in 1854, to be joined subsequently by Patti, Ve vali, Badiali, Amodio, Brignoli, Lagrange, Mirate, D'Angri, Piccolomir Nilsson, Lucca, Albani, Gerster, Maurel and Campanini. Many Americ singers who began to appear in opera for the first time scored their initi successes at the Academy. Among these were persons whose glamor e dured as long as the generations of opera lovers who thrilled to the voices were alive: Clara Louise Kellogg, Annie Louise Cary, Minr. Hauk, Alwina Valleria, Emma Nevada, Lillian Nordica, Adelaide Ph
put
P
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PROGRAM NOTES 235
pps and Josephine Yorke, all of whom made later successes in the opera uses of England, France, Germany and Italy.
The Academy's star began to set when the Metropolitan Opera House as opened in 1883. The Metropolitan is, of course, the outstanding name the long history of New York opera. Krehbiel, the eminent critic, at- ibutes its founding to social rather than artistic impulses; and this is infirmed by the fact that the Academy had everything requisite for opera cept the genteel sufficiency of boxes necessary to take care of the rapidly panding moneyed classes in New York, to whom a box at the opera as the symbol of social success. Henry Abbey was first in the long roster the Metropolitan's great impresarios; he staged Italian opera the first ar to the tune of a $600,000 loss. The next year, Leopold Damrosch ersuaded the directors that the way to success lay in the presentation of erman opera.
Except for a brief interregnum, again under Abbey, this second period lowed the mark of Damrosch's "fatalistic belief in Wagner opera." nton Seidl, who had been associated with Wagner as a young man, was oked upon as the Wagnerian "prophet, priest and paladin." Great stars the operatic firmament under the new dispensation were Amalia Ma- rna (who had participated in the Wagner festivals at Bayreuth since eir inception in 1876), Marianne Brandt, Mlle. Schroeder-Hanfstangl, prcau Auguste Seidl-Kraus, Anton Schott, Jean de Reszke, Emma Eames, witatharina Klafsky, Milka Ternia, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Lilli Leh- Amann, Emil Fischer, Ernest van Dyck, Anton van Rooy and Albert Nie- evdann. Caruso's acquisition in 1903, engineered by Conried the impre- er rio, and the signing of Gustav Mahler, who became conductor of German ndera in 1907, were other milestones in the history of the Metropolitan.
war There have been many lesser shrines, notably Pike's Opera House A1868), which became the Grand Opera House when it was taken over y Jay Gould and Jim Fisk in 1869. Oscar Hammerstein entered the field chevice, in 1892 and again in 1910, with two separate Manhattan Opera Teslouses. In 1913-15 an energetic effort was made to establish a new nidillying-point in the Century Opera House. Italian, German, French, Rus- rica mes; but though a number of them were competent and worthy of sur- an and American opera companies also invaded the scene at various Liti iving, they were all short-lived. There have been recent ventures of opera
·e : the Hippodrome and elsewhere in the city, sponsored by rival companies, the ut the Metropolitan remains, today as formerly, in full possession of the nn eld.
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236 CLASSICAL MUSIC
While opera was thus becoming established, the musical organizationte all active but none too prosperous or effective, were casting about to podi their interests and identities. In 1842, under the inspiration and leadershipf of Ureli C. Hill, a Connecticut Yankee, a merger was accomplished. Than name chosen was the Philharmonic Society of New York. This organizata tion, which merged with the National Symphony in 1921 and combinejne with the New York Symphony in 1928, functions today as the Philhan monic Symphony Society of New York, the oldest and most justly cela brated of the city's orchestral organizations.
However, the prejudice against native compositions, soloists and theme still persisted. The music-publishing houses found a very limited markt for domestic wares, and the orchestras maintained that they could hoho their audiences only when they featured the classic European masterim Even the Philharmonic accepted native works only on condition that th Board of Governors approved them, and about one native composition to season was the maximum presented.
This prejudice was not limited to music: it obtained in practically ao the arts. Provincialism was a stubborn root and hard to eradicate. He and there attempts were made at promoting native productions, but wi indifferent success. On September 27, 1850, New York heard its finger homespun opera, Rip van Winkle, composed by George F. Bristow, til Philharmonic's first violinist for 30 years. American Indian, Negro ath local compositions were also making some headway. The Civil War, al particular, gave impetus to the Negro spirituals, the war songs of Hen C. Work and George F. Root, and the Stephen Foster songs-Swan River, My Old Kentucky Home and the rest. But all this was a cry in t wilderness.
A great step forward was taken in 1864 when Theodore Thomas, conspicuous figure in the musical life of his day, inaugurated orchestr concerts at Irving Hall. Conducting in America before Thomas' adve was rather a haphazard affair, although in Europe Berlioz already h perfected a conducting technique. Thomas-with Leopold Damrosch, wl was adding to his European achievement by organizing the Symphor Society-was the first in New York to turn conducting into an art ai a profession. These two men and Berlioz are regarded as the chief fo runners of the great symphonic conductors of our own day.
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