“Over centuries of development, New York has produced a series of climax forms, architectures that have reached an effective state of perfection. Like the squares of Georgian London, the canals of Venice, or the boulevards of Paris, the nineteenth-century brownstone rows of Manhattan and Brooklyn, the stepped skyscrapers of the Twenties and Thirties, and the apartment bluffs overlooking central Park or the Hudson River are our native achievements, the result of singular processes of development and the outcome of the specific social, historical, cultural, and creative character of New York.”

Michael Sorkin, Twenty Minutes in Manhattan

The Master Gallery is pleased to announce the second show in our Lobby Gallery.  Resident photographer Darcy Rogers, a recent transplant from the San Francisco area, will be our next featured artist. Darcy moved to New York City two years ago to pursue photographic and artistic endeavors. Her fine art work has been showcased at the Academy of Art 625 Sutter Gallery, the APA Something Personal Exhibition in San Francisco, and Kris Graves Projects in New York. She has shot for such clients as Prudential, the New York Observer, and Inked Magazine. She continues to photograph environments and portraits. Her work can be viewed at darcyrogers.com. We will be hosting a reception in the Lobby July 17 from 7pm to 8pm.  Please stop by to meet Darcy and enjoy her photography.

Book Culture, on 114th near Broadway, is launching a new book 7 pm Tuesday June 25–“Change at Jamaica”, by Marshall Messer. Messer steers this story from the viewpoint of a New York City cabbie, college dropout, Woodstock follower, and blues harpist. Meet him and support our local independent bookstore! Book Culture has frequent visiting authors, discussions, and readings. July 1st, 7pm, we can hear Marlene Lee read excerts from “The Absent Woman”. Rumor has it that Lee used to be our neighbor when she lived on 103rd street. read more…

Do you know any teenagers who could use work experience or community service credits this summer? The Riverside Park teen corps is looking for volunteers to work in the park this summer, for three hours on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, between July 9th and August 29th. It’s a great opportunity to get outdoors, meet other teens, and learn about urban forestry and gardening. Their website tells it all: https://riversideparknyc.org/riverside-teen-corps/

With all the spring flowers abounding, stroll through Strauss Park, a tiny triangle bordered by West End Avenue, Broadway, 106th and 107th streets, and for a few moments reflect on the transience of life and fortune. Strauss Park is a memorial to the owners of Macy’s, Isidor and Ida Strauss, who died together in the Titanic disaster, 1912. Isa refused to leave her husband on the deck of the sinking ship; Isidor was then, too, offered a seat in a lifeboat, but refused to take it in advance of the other men. Ida gave her seat to her maid, along with her fur coat, telling the girl, “I won’t need this any more”.

Isidor was a Jewish German immigrant who arrived in the US in 1854 as a young boy. Having spent most of the Civil War in Europe, trying to sell cotton to finance the Confederacy, he returned to New York as a young man after the war. He and his brother, Nathan, persuaded R. H. Macy to allow them a crockery concession in his store’s basement. The brothers eventually bought out the entire business by 1888, and then opened the world’s largest department store, Macy’s at Herald Square, in 1902.

Isidor and Ida lived just down the street from the park, in a frame house on Broadway near 105th, where they had seven children. Their eldest, Jesse, was the US Ambassador to France during the tense years of 1933-1936, a period of economic depression and the growing influence of Hitler.

Isidor and Ida, and their decision to remain together in death as they had in life, is portrayed in three films: The Titanic (1953), A Night to Remember (1958), and the more recent Titanic with Leonardo di Caprio (1997).