art

The Inwood Pottery Studio: An Oral History with Lorrie Goulet

Lorrie Goulet and the Inwood Pottey Studios

Since launching Myinwood.net I have posted quite a bit on the Inwood Pottery Studios; which once occupied Inwood Hill Park. The pottery, the houseboat community, the idyllic setting of a nearly forgotten era has always fascinated me. So, I was thrilled when I received an email from a former student of the Pottery named Lorrie [...]

Read the full article →

Inwood’s Mount Olympus: The Seaman Mansion in 1869

Old Seaman Mansion in Inwood New York City

A while back I wrote a history of the old Seaman mansion that once stood on the grounds currently occupied by Park Terrace Gardens. Today the only trace of the Seaman estate is the crumbling marble arch located down the hill on Broadway. The following description from 1869 finds the home occupied by its original [...]

Read the full article →

Inwood Pottery Studio

Inwood Pottery Studio, New York City

Inwood Hill Park has seen its share of activity through the centuries, but little has been written of the pottery studio that spawned generations of world class artists. The Inwood Pottery Studio was founded in 1923 by Harry Voorhees and his wife, Aimee LePrince Voorhees. While Harry was a former railroad and elevator engineer from [...]

Read the full article →

Inwood During the Great Depression

Inwood in the Great Depression, NYC

One of the most important if not enduring images of the Great Depression is Dorothea Lange’s haunting portrait of a migrant worker cradling her two young children. Her eyes tell a personal story of quiet desperation, while the photo itself serves as a tragic commentary on a country in the throes of economic devastation so [...]

Read the full article →

CKG Billings Estate

Billings Mansion, Inwood, New York, 1910

We’ve seen photos documenting the splendor of old Northern Manhattan. Breath-taking mansions of a grander time, now gone except for a forgotten arch or lost driveway meandering around a city park. That these architectural wonders were photographed at all is remarkable. But to step inside one of these homes, to see the art, the table [...]

Read the full article →

Uptown Arts Stroll: Featured Artist Sky Pape

Inwood Hill Park photo

Artists, working in a variety of mediums, have long been attracted to Inwood.  From impressionist Ernest Lawson painting his ever changing views of the Spuyten Duyvil to sculptor George Grey Barnard who found quiet inspiration in his Fort Tryon studio, the area was and still is teeming with creative minds. For the last seven years [...]

Read the full article →

Artist Ernest Lawson

Ernest Lawson

The natural beauty of the Spuyten Duyvil has long been the inspiration for artistic endeavors. Its marshland, slick currents, wildlife and humanity struck a particular chord within turn of the century painter Ernest Lawson. Often painting landscapes, Lawson, for much of his life, focused his impressionistic brush strokes on that narrow spit of water separating Manhattan from the Bronx.

Read the full article →