Since launching MyInwood.net I’ve read thousands of century-old news accounts regarding all things Inwood, but the following article, written in 1916, is one of my favorites.

Isham Hill article, New York Herald, September 26, 1913

The account contains so many elements from my little corner of the neighborhood—The Seaman Estate, Isham Park, the still-standing Hurst house on Park Terrace East and 215^th and the 215^th Street stairs—all frozen in a unique turning point in Inwood’s history.

While poorly written, the article, published in the New York Herald, captures the Park Terrace area as Broadway developers ascend the 215^th Street stairs to discover a lush and unspoiled paradise they knew was ripe for urbanization.

New York Herald
Sunday, September 26, 1913
ISHAM HILL, A BEAUTY SPOT, OPENED TO PUBLIC TRAFFIC
Gift of Park Site and 215^th Street Station Stairway Encourage Further Developments

Is Isham Park and its environs at the threshold of a new era in the development of this noble and long neglected area of the westerly heights section of Manhattan?

Three years have elapsed since when, in September 28, 1912, there was held a civic celebration of the gift of Isham Park to the city of New York by Mrs. Julia Isham Taylor and Miss Flora E. Isham.

215th Street stairs, New York Herald, Sunday, September 26, 1913.

In the interim the park has grown into a place of quiet rest and beauty, a somewhat long double flight of steps has been erected from 215^th street and Broadway to the crest of the hill at Park Terrace East, the Daughters of the American Revolution, Fort Washington chapter, have been placed in possession of a quiet nook in the old Isham family mansion, an additional gift of land has added to the area of the park, Seaman avenue has been opened, regulated, graded and curbed, with sewers now being set and to be completed in about six week’s time, the work of opening Park Terrace East, 215^th street and a section of Cold Spring road (Indian road) along the banks of the Ship Canal is progressing toward completion.

Isham Mansion, New York Herald, Sunday, September 26, 1913.

Also, afternoon tea, toast and crackers are being served by Mrs. Frank Glynn in the stately old dining hall of the Isham homestead, and John Connolly, faithful park keeper the last four years, continues to watch over his bit of grass, flowers and “darlint” trees in the constant fear that ere long a few of these, his friends and boon companions, will be pulled up by their roots by the giant “Progress” to provide an uninterrupted way for still another lateral leading westerly from Park Terrace East, thence connecting with Broadway by steps, or some form of circuitous hillside route yet to be constructed.

Isham street on the south, 218^th street on the north, Broadway on the east and the Ship Canal on the west mark the physical boundaries of the small area of the delightfully located and overlooked Isham Hill and Park, the key to the future of which is the 215^th street subway station, a few hundred feet east of the staircase continuation of 215^th street.  Another factor of the future that, however, is to be reckoned with is the inevitable trend of automobile traffic from Broadway north from Isham street ad south from 218^th street, into Seaman avenue and along the Isham hill ridge the instant these improvements are fully completed.

There cannot be even the shadow of a doubt that the natural attractions of this and the Inwood-Hudson region then will prove sufficiently strong in their appeal to effect a division of at least a goodly percentage of the more leisurely automobile traffic that now clings to Broadway.  The advent of this traffic will mark the day when the builder of the higher grades of apartment houses will discover Isham Hill and its advantages.

Home of

Rich in romance and historical data, Isham Hill is the location of the Isham, Dyckman, Seaman (Dwyer) and other homesteads of the earlier years.  At the top of the 215^th street stairway, however, are two modern dwellings of high cost and attractive appearance.  One is the home of William H. Hurst, president of the Stock Quotation Telegraph Company, vice president of the New York News Bureau Association, and prominent in other corporations the other, the home of Gerald S. Griffin, a civil engineer.

Old Seaman Mansion, New York Herald, Sunday, September 26, 1913.

To the north of these rises the stately home of Thomas Dwyer, known formerly and for many years as “Seaman’s Folly.” This has direct entrance to Broadway, and commands superb views of all the surrounding country.  In the same neighborhood is the residence of John Mara, and the old Dyckman mansion, now occupied as St. Phillip’s Home, lies just beyond. The next lateral north of 218^th street is 225^th street, which emphasizes the seclusiveness of the Isham Park neighborhood.

New York Herald, Sunday, September 26, 1913.

Isham Park, the original deed of which—the gift of Miss Julia Isham Taylor—was dated July 17,1911, extends from Broadway to the Ship Canal, parking the centre of the hill, east to west, between 213^th and 214^th streets and park frontage for the greater number of all the remaining Isham Estate lots.  The park also has a most advantageous strip of additional frontage along the entire westerly side of Cooper street, the southerly extension of Park Terrace East, to Isham street.  On April 15, 1912, the area of the park was considerably enlarged by a gift of land from Miss Flora E. Isham.  The estate of William B. Isham controls the remaining lots.  Some easy and adequate means of reaching the crest of Isham hill, except by climbing the long flight of steps provided at 215^th street, where an escalator would have solved the problem, is all the region needs to bring it well within the scope of the demand of just such builders as have improved the better parts of the Fort Washington avenue and other Washington Heights sections.

Mute evidence of the correctness of this forecast is the trend of apartment builders along the lower and less attractive level of Broadway.  Here, at No. 5,000 Broadway (212^th street), Grenville Hall, an elevator apartment house, has been a distinct success.  Further north, in Broadway, at the southeast corner of 215^th street, and comprising the southwest corner of Tenth avenue (the route of the elevated-subway line) two new five story non-elevator apartment houses are being completed by Charles Flaum, a builder who sold them several weeks ago to Thomas E. Loughlin, an investor.  These houses contain fifty apartments of three, four and five rooms, at $8 average monthly rent a room, and are fifty per cent rented, although unfinished.

Of the eight stores (seven in Tenth avenue and one at the Broadway corner), six have been rented at $600 to $2,000 each for those in Tenth avenue.  Knap & Wasson, the agents, say they are not making concessions.

In the opposite (west) side of Broadway the Reville-Siesel Company is completing a fifty foot non-elevator house, containing twenty-four apartments of three rooms and bath in the rear and four rooms and a bath in the front, and four stores.  Eighteen of the apartments are stated to have been rented at $7 to $8 a room average monthly rental, and three of the stores.  McDowell & McMahon are the agents.

These rentals are in no way indicative of the prices builders might expect to obtain for higher grade elevator apartments atop Isham Hill, but serve merely to indicate the trend of the demand to districts north of Isham street.

Seaman Arch on Broadway and 216th.

On the west side of Broadway, formerly known as the Kingsbridge Road, at 216^th Street, stands a neglected and nearly forgotten monument to Inwood’s past.  The great marble arch, constructed in the 1850’s, once led visitors to the glorious Seaman mansion, which, until the 1930’s, stood on the current site of Park Terrace Gardens on Park Terrace East and 217^th Street.

Just before the turn of the twentieth century the old mansion and surrounding property, built by the descendants of Dr. Valentine Seaman, who introduced the small pox vaccine to the United States, were rented to a group of wealthy equestrians.

What follows is an 1896 description of the new riding club that includes a spectacular sketch of the arch as it was seen before the encroachment the modern infrastructure and apartment buildings, which would soon wipe the mansion, but not the arch, off the face of a once rural little fiefdom.

Harper’s Bazaar
November, 1896

SUBURBAN RIDING AND DRIVING CLUB

The rapid improvement of the annexed district of New York for business purposes has been steadily despoiling the rural drives, which for many years have been one of the chief charms of the metropolis for horsemen.  The closing of Jerome Park two years ago for a public reservoir, and the temporary disuse of Jerome Avenue, due to the building of the new Central bridge over the Harlem River, forced the riders and drivers to seek other roads for reaching the suburbs.  Or many years the Jerome Park clubhouse was, by common consent, the rendezvous for gentlemen who owned and drove fast horses for pleasure, and its abandonment left them without a stopping-place on the east side of the city, save the many road-houses which line Jerome Avenue.

The rapid improvement of the drives on the west side of Manhattan Island, on the other hand, has attracted most of the riders and drivers to that side of the city. And Kingsbridge Road is gradually taking the place of Jerome Avenue.  That it will be the driving centre of the city in years to come is shown by the number of fine drives recently finished, in course of completion, and planned for that section of the city. What better place, therefore, could be selected for the new home of the lovers of horses than this thoroughfare?

A number of the leading spirits in the old management of the Jerome Park clubhouse got together two years ago and formed the nucleus of what is now the most promising organization of its kind within many miles of the metropolis.  The Suburban Riding and Driving Club has met with unusual success and already numbers among its members most of the better class of horsemen in the city.  Its clubhouse at 217^th Street and the Kingsbridge Road is a convenient stopping place for gentlemen driving in or out of the city on the west side, and its comfortable reading-rooms and smoking-rooms, café and restaurant attract a goodly attendance of members almost every bright day.

The Old Seaman Mansion (Source- Harper's Bazaar, 1896)

The Harlem River Speedway, now building and destined for use within a year or two, the new French Boulevard overlooking the Hudson River, and now almost completed, with Dyckman Street, already open for public use, to connect the two great boulevards with Kingsbridge Road, will offer to New York horsemen a circuit of fine drives not to be equaled by those of any other city in the country.  The upper end of the Speedway turns into Dyckman Street just under Fort George Heights, and will pour its steady stream of fast horses into that thoroughfare to seek other avenues of return to the Park and other drives of the lower part of the city.  Dyckman Street, a mile of fine level drive, intersects the Kingsbridge Road at 204^th Street, and connects the new French Boulevard with that and the Speedway, at Inwood, just west of the Kingsbridge Road.  Thus is completed a network of fine public drives, combining opportunity for fast driving, fine views of both the Hudson and Harlem rivers, and complete isolation from the thickly settled parts of the town.

216th and Broadway in 1895 (Source-Harper's Bazaar)

Only half a mile above the junction of Dyckman Street, and standing on a hill a few hundred feet back of the highroad, stands the new home of the horsemen in what for many years was known as the “Seaman Castle.”  The Suburban Riding and Driving Club is as thoroughly secluded as any other spot on Manhattan Island.  The massive arched stone entrance attracts much attention from the passers-by, but the road up to the clubhouse winds around the side of the hill, and thus isolates the building.  Once inside the grounds, the picturesqueness (sic) of the place is perhaps its most noticeable feature.  The property has been laid out with an eye for the landscape effect, and with much success.  Facing the entrance is a small pool with a fountain in its centre, which is supplied from a stream falling over the rocks from the hill above, where stands the clubhouse.   The road bends around through a grove of trees, and finally emerges at the crest of the hill facing the old homestead of the Seaman family.

The building, which is of white marble, faces west, and from its porch and front windows can be seen the silvery line of Spuyten Duyvil Creek, a mile or so above, winding its snakelike course toward the cleft in the hills which overlook the Hudson.  Through this opening the “Rhine of America,” with the Palisades beyond it, can also be seen.  From the back and north end of the building the valley of the Harlem, with the river itself winding through it, is also spread out before the eye as in a panorama.

Southwest of the clubhouse are the stables and sheds for the accommodations, both temporary and permanent, of the members’ horses.  A large white marble stable was found on the property when the Suburban club took possession, but additional sheds have been added.  Near the stables, too, is the great quarry from which was taken the marble for the buildings on the place. The great archway entrance, the “Castle” itself, the stable, and even the walls that surround the property, are built of the fine quality of marble that was found on the land.  On the side of the hill just below the clubhouse are extensive greenhouses, which furnish flowers for the decoration of the rooms, while vegetable gardens on the property supply many of the necessaries of the kitchen.

Main Hall of the old Seaman mansion (Source-Harper's Bazaar, Nov., 1896)

Within, the building has been altered somewhat for its new tenants.  The bedrooms have become private dining rooms; the great dining-hall and parlors are used as a café, public dining room, and reception-room; while an old conservatory at the southeast corner of the “Castle” has been altered for a smoking and “sun” room.  Over $10,000 has been spent in alterations and repairs on the clubhouse and grounds by the members of the Suburban club.

During the winter the wives and sisters of the members make the place attractive by a series of receptions at the clubhouse, while sleighing and driving parties frequently stop there.  A number of other attractive features have been added.  Golf links have been laid out on the big meadow west of the “Castle,” and twenty-six acres of land afford ample opportunity for the sport.

Interior of Seaman Mansion (Source-Harper's Bazaar, Nov. 1896)

Over two hundred members have been enrolled already, and the list is growing rapidly.  The men who headed the movement for the new club, and who have since been elected to the principal offices, are representative horsemen of the better class, and their names guarantee the permanency of the organization.  The initiation fee is set at $25, and the annual dues are the same figure.

Today-Inside the arch looking out.

For another description of the Suburban Riding and Driving Club, click here.

"Pop' Seeley's cabin at the foot of Cold Spring Road in 1893 photograph by Ed Wenzel. (Source: New York Historical Society)

Sometime before the turn of the twentieth century, on the northernmost tip of Manhattan, a folksy, business savvy and somewhat mischievous fellow named “Pop” Seeley set up shop in a quaint little cabin in the shade of a mighty tulip tree on the shores of a then meandering and muddy creek called the Spuyten Duyvil.

Today the location of the tulip tree, allegedly the spot where Peter Minuit swapped the island of Manhattan for a handful of trinkets, is marked by a boulder with a plaque proclaiming: “According to legend, on this site of the principal Manhattan Indian Village (Shorakkopoh), Peter Minuit in 1626 purchased Manhattan Island for trinkets and bead then worth about 60 guilders. This boulder also marks the spot where a tulip tree (Liriodendron Tulipera) grew to a height of 165 feet. It was, until its death in 1938 at the age of 280 years, the last living link between the Reckgawawanc Indians who lived here.”

Seeley cabin in 1906 photo.

A stone’s throw west of the tulip would have been Seeley’s cabin…

Former resident Aimee Voorhees, who would later construct a pottery works a short distance from the Seeley cottage, described “Pop’s” home as a “small white frame house more than a century old. It was built for a retired sea captain seeking a snug harbor. We have never been able to find but his name…but Pop Seeley told us stories about him. Pop lived here until he died.” (Helen Worden, Round Manhattan’s Rim)

Inwood Hill Park, as we know it today, wasn’t even a spark of an idea when “Pop” Seeley moved into the peaceful cove now buried under a soccer field made up of landfill from later subway digs—at the time, Inwood Hill was referred to locally as Cold Spring Mountain.

So who was “Pop” Seeley?  That is truly is a question for the ages.

How or even when “Pop” Seeley arrived on the banks of the Spuyten Duyvil remains a bit of a mystery.  A popular fellow with fisherman and reporters alike, the details of his early life remain somewhat murky.  “Pop,” it would seem, had a different story for nearly every person he encountered. He told some writers his name was Abraham, others Lynch, but his real name, most likely, was Andrew Jackson Seeley.

According to a New York Times article dated July 3, 1910,  “If you are lucky you may run across ‘Pop’ Andrew Jackson Seeley working at his boats along the creek front.  ‘Pop,’ as he is affectionately and familiarly called by most everybody in that neighborhood, is sort of a self-constituted ‘guardian’ of the old tree, and, in his way, almost as interesting.  He doesn’t have a whole lot to say to a stranger at first, but if you can get him to talking he may tell you that he has lived within the shade of that old tree for more than a score of his eighty years.  He may tell you, too, just how much he loves and protects it from vandal hands.”

“The Old Man of the River,” The New York Times reporter continued, “has been most everything—soldier, sailor, fireman.  Fought many a good fight back in 61’, was a member of the New York Fire Department for seventeen years, and as a sailor has been over many a foreign sea.”

“Pop” simply reveled in spinning fantastic yarns—and from there his legend just grew.

Boss Tweed climbs into rowboat before fleeing to Spain. Could the boatman have been "Pop" Seeley? (Frank Leslie's Illustrated Dec 18, 1875)

In 1921 an old-timer would tell reporter Eleanor Booth Simmons that Seeley “was a boatman and a great character, and he always had charge of things in these parts…I’m told it was Pop who rowed Boss Tweed, the Tammany ringster, out to the ship by which he escaped to Spain when he was sentenced to imprisonment for embezzlement in 1875. Pop lived in that old house alone, for he couldn’t get along with his family.”

Something of a curmudgeon, “Pop” was known to complain bitterly about his ill treatment as a non-union man working the docks— but where?  A well-worn Brooklyn directory from the years 1889-1890 lists an Andrew J. Seeley, occupation “boatman,” as being employed by Bush C. Hicks.  Could this have been “Pop?”

Even his time in the neighborhood, if you could call the undeveloped swampland a neighborhood, remains in doubt.

In 1915, the year of Seeley’s death, writers of his various obituaries couldn’t even agree on how long he had lived in his little hideaway nestled between the Hudson and Harlem Rivers.  Had he lived there all of his life or just a “score” of years?  No one seemed to know.  That his obituary was published in no less than three New York papers stands testament to his influence on those who passed through the region—many returning year after year just to have a talk with “Pop.”

Regardless of his sketchy origins, “Pop” Seeley would become the unofficial mayor of the marshy shallows of the area then called “Cold Spring.”

In choosing his homestead, Pop carefully selected a shady spot close to a spring from which once flowed water so sweet and icy-cold that its presence was well-known throughout the region. Seeley would initially list has address as being at the base of Cold Spring Road.

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

On November 13, 1897 amateur historian James Reuel Smith would write, “The ‘Cold Spring’ is some eight hundred feet south of the most northern point of Inwood, and on the east side of it.  It is about one hundred feet from the shore of Spuyten Duyvil Creek, or as it has come to be known as in it’s enlarged and modernized condition, the Harlem Ship Canal.  It is some six feet long east and west, and three feet wide north and south.  Its water comes out from under a piece of rock, and a springhouse is built over it of just the dimensions of the spring and some six feet high.  From this house a pipe runs the distance of some ten feet into a barrel sunk in the ground.  The overflow runs out of the barrel near the top and into the Creek.” (The Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century.)

But Pop’s oasis had so much more to offer than just crisp and natural water that was fit to drink— it had long been a favorite among anglers who knew the Spuyten Duyvil to be flush with striped bass.  The marshy waters were also a choice locale for oystermen who used the fertile creek to seed their oyster beds before taking the young bivalves elsewhere to mature.

Seeley Cabin in 1904 photograph.

So, it was in this tranquil oasis that “Pop” Seeley had the idea to open a boathouse complete with a modest marina where he would sell and repair old yachts—a marina that would flourish well into the early twentieth century.

Not surprisingly, Seeley’s business endeavors did not end there. In addition to his boat business, “Pop” operated a store on the shore where fishermen and sun-scorched day-trippers could purchase refreshments for steamy summer afternoons on the water spent, rod in hand, swatting flies and discussing the state of the Union.

And, in those pre-prohibition years, it is safe to say that “Pop” Seeley likely sold more lager than bait.

An inset in the below photo, snapped in 1906, indicates that “Pop” was an official distributor for the A. Liebler Bottling Company—which bottled, among other things, a product many still drink today.

Seeley Cabin in 1906 photo. (Note inset with Liebler Bottling Company sign.)

Incorporated in New York City in September of 1887, the A. Liebler Bottling Company, did a brisk business from their plant on 128^th and 10^th Avenue “bottling, selling, and delivering lager beer, soda-waters, and aerated waters, with its name and certain marks and devices blown and impressed thereon.”

At the time, the company’s top-selling product was Yuengling beer.  Still in business today, the popular brand holds the distinction of being America’s oldest brewery.

Turn of the century postcard for the Liebler Bottling Company.

Of course there was the matter of “Pop’s” water supply. Seeley himself, who, by some accounts, would have it plugged, because it competed with his flourishing beer and soda sales, controlled the cold spring.

In June of 1898, Smith, who had visited the spring just a year earlier and described it as “the largest…within the corporate limits of the City of New York,” would lament: “As this spring interfered with Seeley’s sale of soft drinks to boatmen, he put a padlock on the spring house, and filled in with earth the space where the water appeared outside, so that the overflow runs into the creek below the level of the tide.” (The Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century)

Smith would later describe local reaction to the closing of the well as “incendiary.”

Nevertheless, “Pop” would remain, until his death, a well-liked character despite his many flaws and eccentricities.

Pop Seeley obit The Sun February 13, 1915.

According to his obituary, published in the Sun on February 13, 1915, “Andrew J. Seeley, often referred to as ‘The Old Man of the Hudson,’ since he spent eighty four years on the banks of that river, dropped dead yesterday at a lunch wagon at Broadway and 216^th Street.  Mr. Seeley was one of the most picturesque characters of the Inwood district and was a favorite with many boaters, who visited him yearly. In his heyday he was considered one of the best scullers on the Hudson, often winning the admiration of other experts by his agility in falling out and climbing into a frail scull without upsetting it.  He lived with his eighty year old wife at the foot of Cold Spring road and the Hudson River.”

Pop Seeley obit from the New York Herald, February 18, 1915.

Another obituary, published in the New York Herald would report, “Andrew J. Seeley, the aged boatman of the Spuyten Duyvil and known to everyone in that vicinity as “Pop” Seeley, stepped into a coffee wagon at Broadway and 216^th Street last night and after ordering a sandwich dropped dead.  He was eighty-five years old and it was said his death as the result of general collapse.

Despite his age “Pop” Seeley could row a boat as strongly and skillfully as he did many years ago when he had a reputation as a sculler.  In the last forty years the police have credited him with numerous rescues off drowning persons in Spuyten Duyvil.  Only a month ago he saved a woman and her child.

His specialty was the rescuing of boys who insisted on swimming in the dangerous channel.  His boat was always at the ready for an emergency, and he pulled many of them out of the water.”

What follows is a description of an encounter with Pop Seeley written by a first class passenger on the electric launch Aria after the vessel made a stop at Seeley’s boathouse in 1904.  On October first of that year the account was printed in a periodical titled “Our Paper.”

“On the northern end of Manhattan Island will be found a place marked on the map as Spuyten Duyvil.  Although a part of the great New York city, it has not kept place with the populace’s grand march onward, but retains a great deal of its original simplicity.

Very near here is the King’s bridge of the Revolutionary time, which marked the outer barriers of the British forces and which was very carefully guarded by them.

Spuyten Duyvil Creek, itself, can be entered from both the Hudson and Harlem rivers and is a convenient thoroughfare for the smaller boats.

Here are planted the tiny oysters, and from here, when of the right size, millions of them are taken to larger beds.

No wise person ever attempts to swim across the Creek, as there are many treacherous little eddies and under currents to hamper the swimmer.

The story runs that way back in the time when the Dutch held sway over the island, a German was left by his fellows of one side of the Creek.  When he discovered their departure, heeding no warnings, he threw himself into the water, exclaiming, “I will swim across it in spite of the devil!” and away he went to his own destruction. Since then the place has born the name of Spuyten Duyvil.

On one side of the Creek is the Cold Spring Mountain—so named from the many springs of pure, cold water, which bubble out among and over the rocks.  Here, over the mountain, the Indians used to stealthily approach and make their mightily raids upon the unsuspecting villagers, and then, with a fierce war-whoop, triumphantly return, laden with their spoils.

But, in spite of all the wonderful happenings there in by-gone days, Spuyten Duyvil would be to us but simply a place of interest which we visited, had it not been for two personages whom we met there—known far and near in this region as the ‘powers that be’ of the Creek—Pop and Ma’am Seeley.  They are types of those kind-hearted people one sometimes meets in little out-of-the-way places—ignorant of the ways and workings of the great world, but well versed in local legendary lore and the simple mysteries of their own home life.

It was Pop who met us with outstretched hands, not a haughty New York shake, but a warm grip.  As an especial proof of good fellowship, according to his custom, he first made a pretense of spitting on his hands before extending them cordially.

It was Ma’am who welcomed us no less warmly and invited us to call, treating us with as much consideration as though we had been her especial guests.

A simple, kind-hearted old couple are they, who although not given to worldliness, live quiet, helpful lives, enjoying what pleasures come to them, without trying to seek outside interests.  Although living right in the shadow of New York city, Ma’am solemnly informed us she had never been to a theatre or a picnic in her life.  Her careful training has evidently extended to her daughter, who recorded but one picnic on her list of pleasures, and who, until her marriage, had never seen the inside of a theatre.

Pop seemed to delight a good deal in telling how he escaped the strict clutches of his better half.  Among his escapades was a visit to Coney Island by night, and one to the Aquarium at the battery by day.  He declared that Ma’am lay in wait for him with a broom when he at length stealthily returned.

Pop was a non-union man and gave us quite a spirited talk on the far-reaching powers of that organization.  A large building had to be left uncompleted because its builder did not “belong.” Other buildings put up by independent parties, were injured almost beyond repair.  No boats could get loads unless they were unionists.  He told the story of a thirty five cent pet-cock, which rapidly increased to a dollar and a half because it could not be sold unless a man went along to fix it.

The Seeley home is a small, unpainted house, presenting a better appearance inside than out.  The front commands a view of the wharves with their numerous houseboats, waiting for chance buyers or for some repairs. A little to the right of the house is the inevitable hen yard with its few tenants.

Following the well-worn path, protected by the many trees, you come to one of the famous cold springs and near it—if you please—is a building no less important than the one in which A. J. Seeley supplies his customers with tonics and a few of the luxuries of life.

Here you may find Pop at almost any hour, and here it is that pleasure parties stop to refresh themselves, or eat their luncheon and, as he would tell you, “to see Pop.”

Just back of the store stretches a long line of woods, and pedestrians may find many pleasant and well-beaten paths to take them to the top of the mountain. It is an ideal place to reach on a hot day.

Our memory steals back to the time when we left Spuyten Duyvil and our friends there.

It shows us Pop, leaning over a large pan, with a huge piece of watermelon in his hand.  Next we see Ma’am, with hands upraised and eyes turned heavenward, devoutly thanking God that a boat, stolen while left in her care, had been recovered.  There is Annie, earnestly telling of her miraculous escape from the owls of the wood, and of her thwarting their attempts to pick out her eyes by throwing her apron over her head.  The sleepy, frightened eyes of the tired little boy follow us wistfully.  Last, but not least, we recall the members of the crew returning to the Aria laden with their spoils, watermelon and tonic, so generously provided by the Seeley’s.  Then farewell to Spuyten Duyvil.”

Aftermath of Fire on 207th and Broadway (photo taken: January 4, 2012)

A massive fire ripped through a building on 207th and Broadway last night.  Above are before and after photos of the devastation.

For news and additional photos click on this news link from DNAInfo.com.

Princess Naomi and her grandchildren in 1930's photo taken by Reginald Bolton (Source:NYHS)

Since moving to Inwood  I’d heard stories of an almost mythical figure known only as Princess Naomi, who, in the 1930’s, took up residence near the old tulip tree in Inwood Hill Park. The site of the tree, which was felled by a hurricane in 1938, is now marked by a boulder with a plaque claiming to be the spot where Native Americans sold the entire island of Manhattan for a handful of trinkets. But for years, or so I’d been told, the shady spot along the Spuyten Duyvil, belonged to Naomi.

The story of Naomi fascinated me and I decided to make a trip to the National Museum of the American Indian to make an inquiry. What I received was an earful and an education on the public’s romantic notion of Indian life as presented in both history books and popular culture.  “First of all,” I was told, “there is no such thing as an Indian Princess.”

“Have you ever heard of an Indian King or Queen or Duke?” the woman asked in an unabashedly mocking tone.

“No,” I apologized, not meaning to offend.

Soon a rational discussion began, but the helpful staff of librarians and historians could find no mention of Naomi, sometimes spelled Naomie, in their records.

So the hunt continued—but gradually I began to stumble on bits and pieces of Naomi’s life and times in Inwood Hill.

Her real name was Naomi Kennedy.  She hailed from New Orleans.  And, if the stories are to be believed, she was of Cherokee descent.   (The original inhabitants of the area had been the Lenape.)

New York Evening Post, 1935.

According to a 1935 column in the New York Evening Post, titled “A Good Time on a Quarter,” tourists, curious New Yorkers and children could take the subway to 207^th Street and “lunch with an Indian with a gold tooth.”

The Indian, of course, was Naomi.

According to the article, in order to reach Naomi, one had to “walk west into Inwood Hill Park and take the plainly marked trail to the Tulip tree where Hendrick Hudson stepped ashore to barter with the Indians.”

And while the writer of the Post article, one Henry Beckett, may not have had a full grasp of Hudson’s voyage nor the politically correct vernacular of the modern age, he had met Naomi under the tulip tree in 1935 and left behind a description for the ages.

Tulip tree and cottage, 1913. (Source: Library of Congress)

According to Beckett, “Just beyond the tree, now dying at last, is a small brown house with green shutters. Go around to the front porch.  Unless unlucky, Indian braves and squaws in rocking chairs making souvenir trinkets of bright beads. Speak boldly, for there’s not a tomahawk on the premises, and ask for Princess Naomi.”

“Okay friend,” she said, using the Cherokee word for “righto,” when I requested a pow-wow. “Step inside and have a chair while I get my specs.”

Although her skin is coppery, the princess has a smile that is literally golden because of a gold tooth.  She wears Indian clothes decorated with much beadwork.

Boxer Bill Kennedy; record: (His boxing record: won 19 (KO 3) + lost 28 (KO 10) + drawn 10 = 62)

“Cherokees,” she said, “don’t have much show around here, so I am lucky to have this place.  I come from Oklahoma and my tribe used to live in Georgia, where they learned to speak English.  Well, I always wanted to come to New York, but my son, a boxer—he goes by the name of Billy Kennedy—told me I couldn’t stand an ordinary house, with steam heat, so he put in an application to get me the post of caretaker here.”

Thus it happens that a Cherokee princess is now queen of the Vale of Shora-Kap-Pok, a glen where the Weckuaesgeek once lived.

Naomi then went on to tell the reporter that she had held the post for the past six years.

“I must be the goods,” Naomi said.

Princess Naomi in front of Indian caves in Inwood Hill Park. (New Yorks Times, Nov. 15, 1936)

“All of the Indians in the city, about 600 of them, members of fifty tribes, come to see me.  Some make baskets, bracelets, and moccasins. Those on the porch now are Iroquois.  I get along with them all—Algonquians, Mohawk, anything.  I’m vice-president of the United Indians of America, a Brooklyn organization.  September 29 is Indian Day up here.  Big Doings.”

Naomi went on to tell the reporter, “Back in the woods a bit is what’s called an Indian cave, but between you and I and the gate-post, I don’t believe Indians ever lived there. It leaks.  Oh, here comes Chief White Eagle. My tribalman.”

“The chief,” the article continues, “who lives at the Y.M.C.A. and is a CWA recreation leader, wants to establish a real Indian village, with tepees and more substantial houses, all in Indian style.”

Interviewing Chief White Eagle, the reporter learned more of the plan for an Indian village in the park: “Indians would come here from all over.  Railroads could advertise it. Grand publicity.  I have a general plan for the village, but in order to lay it out right I must first fly over the ground in an airplane.”

Following up on Chief White Eagle’s comment, the reporter wrote: “The Chief’s countenance was as solemn as a Chief’s face should be. If the idea of using an airplane to lay out an Indian village struck him as incongruous, he did not show it.”

In summary, the Post reporter wrote, “The attractions of Inwood Park include glacial pot holes, with boulders maybe 50,000 years old, a shell heap indicating hundreds of years of Indian feasting, the pottery studio of Harry and Aimee Voorhees and the Dyckman Institute with its collections.

You too dear reader can lunch with an Indian princess on the shore of the Spuyten Duyvil (Harlem Ship Canal to you). Bring your own lunch.

EXPENSES: Subway: 10 cents. Large root beer served by princess: 10 cents. Bead trinket: nickel.  Total: Two bits.

Princess Naomi, Utica NY Observer, 1932

But Princess Naomi was much more than a local curiosity.  She was part of a growing neighborhood of which she truly seemed to care about.

Niagara Falls Gazette, Dec. 24, 1932

Several years before the article in the Post, Naomi saw a group of nearly thirty Inwood kids sliding and playing on the then frozen Spuyten Duyvil.  According to a 1932 article in the Niagara Falls Gazette, Naomi warned the children that the ice was dangerously thin; but kids being kids, they failed to heed her warning.

A short time later the ice gave way.

Naomi and her son Bill were helpless to stop the unfolding tragedy as they watched the kids take the icy plunge from the window of their cottage.

As the wet and shivering children scrambled out of the Spuyten Duyvil many likely made their way to Naomi’s cottage, described as a wooden shack directly across from the old Isham Park Yacht Club.

Unfortunately one child, ten-year-old James “Red” McGuire, who lived on Cooper street and attended Good Shepherd, drowned in the tragedy.

Of course there are other sources that mention Princess Naomi including the oral histories collected by author Jeff Kisseloff in his book “You Must Remember This.”

In one section Kisseloff  interviews Dorothy Menkin who moved to Inwood from the Bronx in 1933.  In the book Menkin describes the Inwood Hill Park of her youth: “There were two peach trees at the very top overlooking Dyckman Street.  The kids used to eat them, and of course they got sick.  Then there was the famous tulip tree.  It was almost dead then.  They were propping it up with cement.  The Indians would come in September and dance around that tree and sing their songs.  Princess Naomi had her little gift shop next to the tree.  She was some character.  She was in costume all the time, but come Sunday she took the costume off and walked around 207^th Street with high heels and everything.”

Another former Inwood resident, Mary Devlin, who was born in 1900, also had fond memories of Princess Naomi.  From her description to Jeff Kisseloff: “I used to take my children up to Inwood Hill Park every day.  There was a big spring right by Princess Naomi’s shop.  I would bring my empty milk bottles, fill them with water, and bring them home.

Princess Naomi was lovely.  My children were crazy about her.  She had a little museum with trinkets and things.  On Labor Day weekend, they had pow-wows every year.  The Indians came from all over, and they pitched their tents.  Then the men would put up a platform, where they all did their dances, and they had Indian contests.”

Annual Indian Day Festival in Inwood Hill Park, New York Times, October 1, 1934

But while these staged gatherings were thrilling events for the children of Inwood and the surrounding region, the participants themselves often had misgivings about the performances.

Native American Gloria Miguel, who lived in Brooklyn, dreaded the subway rides to Inwood.  Half Algonquin and half Cuna (a Central American tribe), young Gloria, who answered to Bright Moon at home, described her childhood experiences to Jeff Kisseloff:

“When I went up to Inwood, it was like a big spotlight on me.  I went along with my family because they took me, but I was very shy about it. I didn’t want people to look at me or take photographs of me.  It wasn’t until later that I realized that my background was something to be very proud of and that those people were just ignorant.

I had a North American outfit that my mother made for me.  It was a little dress made of cloth with some fringe on it.  I had moccasins and a beaded headband.  It was just a show outfit.  It wasn’t from the background of my people.  Since my parents did this for show business, they dressed according to what the show was.  They both had authentic costumes at home.  I just sat in my costume and watched.

Indian festival day in Inwood Hill Park, 1930's. (Source: Public Places of Childhood, 1915-1930, Sanford Gaster)

With the pow-wows (where she met Crazy Bull, the grandson of Sitting Bull) they were grasping onto the culture, trying to be proud in their way.  That moment was there for them before going back to welfare and their own neighborhood.  It was their way of holding on.”

Robert Moses

By 1938, Robert Moses, as part of his development plan for the park, evicted all of the residents, legal or illegal, of Inwood Hill.  There were house-boaters, potters, squatters and of course Princess Naomi and her son Billy Kennedy, a featherweight boxer who helped build and paint fences in the park when he wasn’t in the ring. (His boxing record: won 19 (KO 3) + lost 28 (KO 10) + drawn 10 = 62)

Years later, Moses would say of the eviction process, which included chopping down what was left of the tulip tree: “There were other trees, many decrepit. In the middle was a kiln where an Indian princess taught ceramics under dubious auspices. She had a son who didn’t work. Both were on relief, and the relief checks were delivered to the princess at a mailbox fastened to a tree. The hullabaloo about disturbing the princess, the kiln, the old tulip tree, and other flora and fauna was terrific.” (Public Works, 1970).

Where Princess Naomi wound up after her unceremonious eviction in a mystery to this writer, but hopefully someone reading this article can help fill in those missing pieces.

Broadway near Academy Street in 1925.

This holiday season, like many of my Inwood neighbors, I chose to remain home when I would really rather have been sunning myself on just about any faraway sandy beach.  So, instead of climbing the walls, I took several walks in a convenient oasis just several blocks away—Inwood Hill Park.

The brisk hikes reminded me of an article I read not long ago in the New York Herald which advised cash strapped New Yorkers that they need not stay at home—that natural wonders lay just a short hike away.

While the below piece was written in 1912, it holds as true today as when it was written a century ago.

New York Herald, July 21, 1912

New York, Herald
July 21, 1912
Vacations “on the Half Shell”

"The Dyckman House," by Ernest Lawson, 1913.

“The stay-at-homers solved the vacation problem.  Instead of moping because they cannot go to the seashore or the mountains and spend a ‘wad’ of money, they smile optimistically and take their vacations ‘on the half shell.’  Furthermore, they declare it a great sport.

Within the borders of Manhattan alone, unappreciated because unsought, the stay-at-homes are finding the beauties of the South of France and rural England, the romance of the Riviera and the serenity of a Swiss valley, each in capsular form and waiting to be taken at the rate of one a day.

A five-cent fare, either by the Broadway surface car or the subway brings you to Dyckman street.  Here you can take the open highway.  You may be inclined to loiter under the shadow of the towering oaks and elms of Inwood, and to spread you picnic lunch on the huge boulders along the way, not knowing the beauties further on. But wait!  A short block from Broadway to Prescott Avenue there is an abrupt turn, and you enter picturesque Bolton Road.

It seems like a bit of rural England, and looks it, too, with a dash of the Isle of Wight, the River Thames and the Embankments thrown in.

From the brow of the hill nearby there is a marvelous view of the Palisades and the Hudson.  A bit further and you come to the forbidding walls of the circumspect Magdalen Home on the river side.  To the right is a deserted mansion commanding a splendid view of the Palisades and the river.  Further on is atypical countryseat.  It would cover many city blocks and extends from Bolton road down to the Hudson.

Straus residence on Bolton Road.

A little further on is the old Isidor Straus country place, the last house on Manhattan Island.  From every point at this end of the island are extended views of the Hudson and Harlem rivers, Fordham Heights, the Hall of Fame, Bronx Park and the uplands of Long Island, while directly opposite are the Englewood cliffs.

A few paces beyond is a strange formation of rock which is the Mecca of many a geological class.  It is the product of some pre-glacial period.

The James McCreery home on Inwood Hill.

The return trip may be taken by the roadway close to the river, past the McCreery and numerous other old Knickerbocker mansions that will have passed when the City takes over this section as a park.  One of these old homes now furnishes the background for a well know moving picture concern, where ‘Wild West’ pictures by the score are produced with no other mountain scenery available than the Palisades.  The river road, though less secluded than Bolton road, is nevertheless quaint and picturesque, and a bit more like Normandy than cosmopolitan New York.  St. Michael’s Villa, which stands high on the opposite cliffs, makes the illusion complete.

Having made the detour to the upper portion of the island, the foot of Dyckman street is reached.  Here the motor ferry may be taken to the Palisades side, but that is really another day’s jaunt.”

Happy Holidays Inwood!

Bad Girl by Vina Delmar

In 1928 pulp fiction author Vina Delmar burst onto the publishing scene with “Bad Girl,” a shocking and scandalous exploration of pre-marital sex and pregnancy. At the time of its publication “Bad Girl” was considered so racy it was banned in parts of the country. The petite 23-year-old with porcelain skin and lustrous black hair worn in a bob, seemed perplexed by the controversy surrounding her first novel. “I spent three years and a half working on the book. I wrote it about people I know because I lived among them and saw them daily,” she would tell one critic.

The controversy however, proved extremely profitable. Before the book hit the shelves the young author was given a $10,000 advance.

Vina Delmar

The following year, Delmar, born Alvina Croter in New York City in 1904, published two more lurid tales of modern women living in the big city. Both “Loose Ladies” and “Kept Woman” explored the sex lives of pent up New York women.

“Kept Woman,” for the most part, was set in Inwood, and its pages included descriptions of familiar streets including Dyckman, Vermilyea, 207th and Broadway. Avon Publishing described “Kept Woman” as “a great novel of the life of the ‘other’ woman.”

Kept Woman by Vina Delmar

According to the book jacket, lead character Lillian Cory “was flattered when well-to-do, good-looking Hubert Scott fell in love with her, but she found herself faced with a painful decision when she learned he was married and could not be divorced. Should she suppress her emotions and turn away from him-or should she give in to their love and become his mistress?”

In one scene two cheating couples are making dinner plans when Lillian, the heroine of the story, suggests, “How about the Arras Inn?”

“Why the Arras Inn?” a member of the party asks.

“Because nobody else seems to have thought of a place and the Arras Inn is in my neighborhood and I can duck right home after I’m fed,” Lillian responded.

The book continues:

“The ride back to Inwood was the same as the one to the roadhouse…Hubert drove at twenty miles an hour and Lillian smoked and thought what she would order at the Arras Inn. Lobster for choice. But suppose they didn’t have lobster? A club sandwich, maybe. Or a chicken salad.

When the couples arrived at the Arras Inn, Delmar continued:

The Arras Inn was on Broadway, a few doors off 207th Street. It was a long, narrow place with latticed walls and colored lampshades. There was music, singing, and once or twice a fire to vary the monotony.

There was lobster. Everybody ordered lobster. Little talking was done as the party chewed small, thin claws and delved hopefully into large, fat claws. Hubert had mayonnaise all over his mouth. Lillian didn’t think it very becoming. She wanted to tell him to use his napkin, but she was afraid it would make him angry. She kept her eyes resolutely turned away from him.

The waiter came and carried away the shells. Lillian ventured a look at Hubert. There was still some mayonnaise down in the corner of his mouth. May came to the rescue.

“Big Boy,” she said, “wipe your mouth and if your nose needs blowing for God’s sake blow it before it starts to show.”

Hubert wiped his mouth.

Everybody lit cigarettes.”

And so ended an imaginary dinner in an imaginary restaurant on the corner of Two Hundred and Seventh and Broadway—as far a most readers unfamiliar with Inwood would assume.

Arras Inn ad NY Evening Telegram July 1913

But the Arras Inn was a very real place indeed. After all, Vina Delmar was an uptown girl and had likely dined at the Arras Inn on a number of occasions.

Arras Inn 1925

For several decades, beginning not long after the turn of the century, The Arras Inn was considered one of the finest dining establishments in northern Manhattan—and Delmar’s description of the restaurant, when compared to old advertisements, news clippings and vintage photographs, seems completely accurate.

Arras Inn interior from vintage postcard

Located at 4928 Broadway, a few doors south of 207th Street, currently a pawnshop, the Arras Inn provided city dwellers with not only fine food, but also music and entertainment. A 1913 advertisement in the New York Evening Telegraph boasted “dollar fish dinners” and a menu that included crab, steamed clams, chicken gumbo, planked sea bass, soft shell crabs, squab, chicken, corn on the cob, grilled sweet potatoes, Virginia ham, hot corn muffins and cantaloupe.

Arras Inn Interior, 207th Street and Broadway.

Arras Inn New York Evening Telegraph, July 1916

Arras Inn ad in the New York Evening Telegram, July 29 1922

New York Times, 1922 Prohibition raids

After the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919 the management of the Arras Inn thumbed their noses at Prohibition and became one of the better-known speakeasies in the developing young neighborhood.

With a wink and a nod, stealthy bartenders would pour real beer into twelve ounce ceramic mugs emblazoned with the phrase “I’m on the water wagon now.”  To the casual observer it would appear that these lawbreakers were sipping cups of coffee.

In late September 1922, according to the New York Times, a team of Federal and local agents known as “The Dry Squad” raided the Arras Inn where “they said they found 120 bottles of real beer.” Before the team departed they issued summonses to owner Paul Boehn and a waiter named John Cronan who resided at 537 East Thirteenth Street.

New York Times, 1928

On February 11, 1928, after closing for the evening, a fire broke out in the kitchen of the Arras Inn. As smoke billowed from the building a man named Joseph Klein, his wife and two young children were in a deep slumber in their apartment on the second floor.

On Broadway, patrolman Louis Schwartz  reacted without a thought for his own safety and sounded the alarm before running into the smoke filled building to rescue Klein and his family.

Firemen responding to the inferno raised ladders to the window and were able to lower Klein, his wife and two young daughters to safety before the flames engulfed the entire block. Seven other storefronts, including a vegetable store, a tailor and a grocery were completely destroyed in the blaze.

And while the file closed the book on the Arras Inn, Vina Delmar went on to a long and distinguished career as a Hollywood screenwriter.

Arras Inn in 1926

While her books were banned in Boston, her work titillated Tinsletown producers. Even in the late 1920’s, the studios well knew that “sex sells” and treated Delmar like visiting royalty.

Loose Ladies by Vina Delmar

While Delmar would achieve critical acclaim in Hollywood, she was nominated for an Academy Award in 1937 for her screen adaptation of “The Awful Truth,” she found life on the west coast dull and tedious. ‘It’s not a fertile field for a novelist,’ she would once say of her work in California. Like a character in her romance novels, Delmar was a New Yorker through and through and longed for her former haunts in the Bronx and northern Manhattan.

Delmar would later explain that the real life inspirations for her characters were found on the streets, barstools and subways of the only place she had truly felt comfortable—the New York City of her youth.

Women Live Too Long by Vina Delmar

“‘I came to know, first hand, the girls who go to Coney Island, who pack the medium-sized movie theaters and write fan mail, who chew gum, work for a living, put on lipstick in crowded subways, and try to live on $1.60 a day. Some of them are tough and some of them are not. I grew up with these people, and when I decided to write, I wrote about them. It seems to me that if you’re going to write, that’s what you have to do. Don’t wander into strange lands, but write.’”

While pockets of the nation were horrified by Delmar’s graphic depictions of the sexual proclivities of fictitious big city women, no offence was taken in Inwood where the raven-haired enchantress of urban pulp became an unlikely local hero.

In the fall of 1929 O.O. McIntyre wrote in his syndicated New York by Day:

“Inwood, which is the uptown Dyckman Street section glorified in Vina Delmar’s “Kept Woman,” evidently does not resent the chiffon chimera of the ladies in love with love which the novel created. A drug store heralds the Vina Delmar sundae and a little gown shop is to be called The Vina Delmar. Inwood, it might be added, is chiefly a community of self-respecting people with a neighborly flair, and is not hard boiled.”

Vina Del Mar passed away in Los Angeles on January 19, 1990.  She was 86 years old.

Arras Inn, undated photo.

Location of the former Arras Inn, currently a pawn shop.

“Dum vivimus vivamus”
-Motto of the Hoboken Turtle Club

According to legend, as the history of most social clubs is so often based, the Hoboken Turtle Club was founded in 1796. It is reputed to have been the oldest social club in the United States.

The club was the brainchild of John Stevens, a former Captain in George Washington’s Continental army. An inventor, lawyer and treasurer for the State of New Jersey, Stevens amassed a fortune through shrewd real estate investments, the invention of a screw-driven steamboat capable of ocean navigation and marriage into an extremely wealthy family. Among Stevens’ holdings was the Stevens Castle, currently the home to the Stevens Institute of Technology.

But, despite all of Stevens’ accomplishments, he had a problem. Turtles.

According to an 1878 New York Times article, Stevens’ riverfront Hoboken, New Jersey estate was plagued by conniving cold-blooded reptiles, which often poached his prized European chickens.

One day Stevens hired a local shepherd boy to go down to the riverbank to investigate. As the chickens dug for clams on the muddy shore, the boy sprawled out on the ground nearby engrossed in a romance novel.

Suddenly, according to the Times “a huge turtle, with an arched back completely covered with moss, crept out of the river, seized an unsuspecting hen by the leg and dragged her off to his felonious retreat on the river bottom.”

Ever the soldier, Stevens declared war on his hard-shelled nemesis in a most ingenious manner. He summoned a group of wealthy Manhattan businessmen to cross the Hudson to dine on turtle soup. “He was remarkable in his selection of great eaters.”

Hoboken Turtle Club medal.

The Times described the members of the newfound Hoboken Turtle Club as “one of the weightiest assemblages of solid men to be found between Wall Street and the Treasury Department.”

Their motto: “Dum vivimus vivamus,” Latin for, “As we journey through life, let us live by the way.”

The feasts often went on for days and, after several years, the Hoboken Turtle Club had devoured the local supply of turtles.

Soon these powerful men who had been duped into pitching tents on the Jersey side of the Hudson numbered several hundred. Before long they would move their annual feast into the city. By 1878 Tammany Hall was hosting the event. A giant turtle shell emblazoned with the letters “H.T.C “ hung from the balcony.

As the years passed, entrance to the club became one of the most coveted memberships in town. In an 1896 speech marking the 100th anniversary of the Turtle Club, the organization’s president, William Sulzer, noted that Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Burr and Clay had all been Turtle Club members.

By the 1890’s, the Turtle Club had fallen on hard times. Membership was down. Still the party went on. Manning the soup kettle for the latter half of the 19th century was a man named John Tarbell; described by many as stout, clean-shaven and secretive. Tarbell’s talents were renowned among turtle aficionados. His turtle soup recipe, a “state secret,” was shared only with the president of the organization. Two days before the guests arrived Tarbell would enter the cookhouse with his turtle, “its flippers tied and its eyes abulge with apprehension.” Forty-eight hours later the turtle would “emerge in a soup that is fragrant, palatable and nutritious.”

Hoboken Turtle Club photographed after relocation to Kingsbridge. Note the Seaman Mansion in the background. (Image courtesy of Don Rice)

In June of 1893 the Turtle Club found a new home in the old Kingsbridge Hotel, once the site of Hyatt’s Tavern; an important drinking establishment dating to the days of the Revolution. William Sperb, a veteran member and turtle enthusiast purchased the old hotel to ensure the club’s survival.

There, on the Spuyten Duyvil, members achieved truly remarkable levels of excess unheard of even in the Club’s early days. It was not uncommon for a man to drink ten cocktails before breakfast, but the amount of alcohol consumed was hard to measure, because, as a bartender at the King’s Bridge Hotel told one reporter, “the veterans drink their cocktails from pitchers.”

Breakfast was served at 8:00 a.m., and, according to a Times article published that year, “consisted of cocktails, stewed eels, fried eels, baked and fried bluefish, porterhouse steak and turtle steak.”

Members of the Turtle Club were not simply there to dine; they were expected to participate in the preparation of the feast. Famous members, including “such men as John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr adopted the rule that no one could partake of turtle unless he had taken some part in its preparation.” Dinner was served at 4:00 in the afternoon and consisted of boiled eggs, brandy and, of course, turtle soup.

Frank Leslie's Illustrated September 7,1889.

Surprisingly, the secret to a good turtle soup is not turtle. In 1878 Tarbell confided to a reporter that, “You see, this is turtle soup of the best kind, but there’s not much turtle in it. It wouldn’t do you know. Too much turtle spoils turtle soup…If 1,500 turtles made any better soup than six; we’d have the 1,500. But they wouldn’t; they’d spoil it. It would be so rich, nobody could eat a cupful of it.”

Tarbell’s hearty concoction was so famous it was reportedly served to French General Lafayette when he visited America.

The main ingredients, Tarbell told the reporter in a hushed tone, were vegetables including: potatoes, turnips, cabbage, radishes, peas, beets, tomatoes, cucumbers and cauliflower. Of course there were other ingredients Tarbell refused to divulge.

So what does turtle soup taste like?

Dr. I. I. Hayes, a polar explorer and Club member, compared the taste of turtle to fried seal’s liver and walrus bacon. It was said the soup was so rich that no man could eat more than two plates, but of course, members had consumed a huge breakfast. Not to mention a superhuman number of cocktails.

While many had never tasted seal’s liver and walrus bacon, the 1887 Times article provided this description:

“To receive a turtle soup you must first chop a hard boiled egg very fine in the bottom of your plate. Then you squeeze into the egg the juice of half a lemon, and pour into it, also, a teaspoon full of mellow old Otard brandy from a bottle, which furnishes you a drink at the same time. The egg is to prepare the plate, and the drink is to prepare the stomach. Then your plate is filled with soup, and while the egg struggles from the bottom to float on the surface, you lay aside all earthly thoughts, forgive all your enemies, and forget all your creditors and put a teaspoon full of it into your mouth. Then you remove the spoon and shut your eyes, and your soul, on the wings of sensuous thought, passes outward into lotus land, and for a time you are lost in a dream that is so still, so perfect, and so all absorbing that you wish, lazily and sadly, it might never end. But you swallow the soup and open your eyes, discover that the face of nature is unchanged, and then, your intellect having reasserted its sway, you conclude that the turtle, like the swan, yields its only perfect symphony in its death.”

Unfortunately the Hoboken Turtle Club, whose name had been changed in 1892 to the New York Turtle Club, would once again resume its nomadic existence.

Kingsbridge Hotel in turn of the century postcard by Charles Buck.

On October 27th, 1903, the Old Kingsbridge Hotel was destroyed in a fire that swept through the Kingsbridge area. At least twenty other buildings were destroyed in the inferno.

By 1938, the Club was meeting in the Rathskeller of Manhattan’s Terminal Hotel, where inscribed above the door, a sign read, “When you enter this cellar, you meet a good feller.”

Shortly thereafter the former Hoboken Turtle Club faded into memory.

Read more Inwood history here.

As summer winds down, I thought it might be fun to share a photo of an old swimming hole that used to be a source of great fun and entertainment near the turn of the last century.  The area, on the bank of the Hudson River at  Dyckman Street was called the “Inwood Bathing Beach.”   This not so little oasis in those days before air conditions was one of several installations to dot the local waterways during the summer months.

Inwood Bathing Beach, NY Tribune, July 15, 1906

According to the 1906 account from the New York Herald, “A novel resort far uptown on Manhattan Island is the Inwood Bathing Beach, at Dyckman (206th) street and the Hudson River. The clean sandy beach, the fine stretch of water and the bathing houses have combined to make this especially popular. It is only three minutes walk from the Broadway cars and there are accommodations for 1,500 persons at a time. A lifesaving crew is at hand for the protection of bathers, and swimming masters afford instruction to those who are not competent swimmers. Boats may be secured for rowing, and refreshments are served in the pavilion.”

For the curious: The building in the upper right of the photo is the original Jewish Memorial Hospital.

Tubby Hook today

Recently, MyInwood.net reader Frank Yannaco wrote in to tell me about the concession stand his family once owned and operated inside the Isham Street entrance to Inwood Hill Park.

Inwood Hill Park Concession stand on the corner of Isham and Seaman in 1977. Louise & Frank Yannaco pictured with merchandise in the background.

We soon began a dialogue that included a promise of photos and descriptions of his life in Inwood.  True to his word, Frank soon emailed me photos and descriptions from Inwood’s not so distant past.  I would like to thank Frank for his valuable contribution and encourage other readers to reach out and do the same.

Yannaco family poses for photo in front of the concession stand in 1977.

"Joe" and Frank Yannaco, 1960

According to Frank, “Joe’s” Concession Stand was located in Inwood Park on Isham Street across the street from Good Shepherd Church. My Family owned the stand from the mid 1920′s when the Presbyterian Medical Center was built.  It was given to my Grandfather James Pupley and his brother Peter by the NYC parks department when they arrived in this country from Greece in the 1900′s. They went to the Parks Department with the idea to sell snacks in the park. His original stand was on the site of the Presbyterian Medical Center. They asked him what park he wanted to relocate to and he chose Inwood Park.

Joe (his real name was Pete) sold candy, soda, hot dogs and ice cream. Frank and Louise, his niece, took it over in 1971 and remained until 1988. It has since been torn down. All the original owners – James, Pete, and Frank and Louise (my parents) have passed away.”

Along with his description of the concession stand, Frank also included this ode to Inwood in the 1950’s penned by his wife, Mary:

Mary Tolfree (Yannaco) and sister Eileen TolfreeSherman Avenue on Easter Sunday, 1957

Inwood in the 1950′s we did not
have a TV much less the Internet.
You got together at friends homes
to watch a show in black & white.
There was not many “networks” or “choices”.
A phone I don’t think so.
The stoop was the meeting place.
Your relatives were down the block
or a bus ride away to the Bronx.

Our Family went to St Jude’s Chapel
on Sundays and said the Rosary
as a family every night.
Our friends waited on the stoop for us
to come down.
{The Bazaar was held for many years
to make money to build the church.
Before that, mass was held in the movie theater.}
Then you were Proud to be a Catholic,
bless yourself in public when
you passed a Church,
and bowed at the name of JESUS.

All the stores were closed on Sunday.

Regina's Bakery, 1958-Eileen Tolfree

Except for Regina’s Bakery.

The Tolfree kids on Academy Street next to Moe's Candy Store in 1957 (four of seven children in the family)

My mom Eileen worked there back in the 50′s
In Washington Heights there was a bakery
called Home Made Pastry on 188th
and St. Nicholas Ave. She worked there for years.
On Sunday that was servile work unless
you had to feed your family.

Our family The Tolfrees lived at
584 Academy Street.
We 3 boys and 4 girls have 24 children; with
grandchildren we total around 92 decedents of
Herbert and Eileen Tolfree.

We lived across from Moe’s candy store.
Remember the egg creams and cokes in
the paper cone and metal holder cups.
The stools that spun and Moe.
We lived near the corner and there was
a “Meat Market” at 584.
Outside in the nice weather Pop with his umbrella cart would sell hot dogs and orange drinks.

Mary (right) and her sister Rita Tolfree on Academy Street looking east down Sherman Avenue

I moved from 584 in 1959.
Went to Saint Jude’s School till
3rd grade 56-59.
Remember 1st grade Sister Mary Magellan
and Miss Scott from kindergarten.
All of my family went to either St. Jude or Good Shepherd.

First Friday Mass at St Jude’s Chapel.
Remember the luncheonette near St Jude.
We would go there for breakfast after
First Friday Mass before returning to school because we had fasted from the night before.
Those were the days.
Navy Uniforms white shirts and beanie hats.
Back then women and girls would wear hats, then scarves, then doilies and then tissues.

Now we don’t wear hats at all!!!

Louise & Frank Yannaco working the concession stand in May, 1977.

Across from Good Shepherd in Inwood park
there was a octagon stand that sold hot dogs, candy and soda.
The man’s name was Joe, so they called him.
His real name was Pete.
He was my husband Frank Yannaco’s uncle.
Then he retired and Frank & Louise
Yannaco took it over.
It was in the family for 40+ years.
They gave up ownership in 1989.
Louise also worked at Miramar pool in the 50′s.
near the pool was a luncheonette on 210 St
and 10th ave.
Frank’s grandfather owned that in the 50′s.

Tolfree Girls at the Academy Meat Market on Sherman and Academy in 1959

Remember the fish store with the live fish.
The Bazaar and Miss Rinegold.
The stoop we sat on and
the gutter we kept out of.
(They had nothing to do with rain.)
Connecting roofs we climbed over.
Fire escapes we use to hang out on.
Both my husband and I were born in
Jewish Memorial hospital.
Re-named in 1936 in honor of the
Jewish Soldiers who died in WWI.

Inwood for me was a real
neighborhood back then.
In the heart of NYC zip code “34?.
Even though I did not know it then.
My neighborhood was special.
The “Super” would wash the floors
every Saturday and polish the brass
handrails and mailboxes.
On Saturday everyone
would clean their house.
Nobody worked on Sunday because
you went to mass and had a special
dinner to prepare for the family.

Rita Tolfree on confirmation day, Academy and Sherman, Moe's Candy Store, 1952

Neighbors you could turn to by just
yelling out the window or down the alley.
The place many of us yearn for now.
I think Inwood is still that place,
my building is still standing and
I’m sure 50 years later people are still yelling out
the windows to their neighbors….

"Ward or Public School No. 52 was a landmark on the southeast corner of Broadway and Academy Street from 1858 to almost 1957. This picture dates from about 1902, or midway of that period. Note the gas lamp with a mailbox on the lamppost. At the right is the house where the caretaker lived." -Source- William Tieck, Schools and School Days.

In 1858, the year Inwood’s first school was constructed , the area wasn’t even yet known by its current name. Locals, of whom there were few, all referred to the region on Manhattan’s northernmost tip as “Tubby Hook.” Folks downtown hardly even considered the backwater region as being part of their city.

So imagine the surprise when a monolithic, rectangular red-brick structure capped by fourteen chimneys rose from a cow pasture on what we now know as Academy Street and Broadway.  Everyone, locals included, were puzzled as to the need for such a large and modern structure. There were barely enough children in the area to fill even the first floor. Besides, children in those lean times, like their parents, literally lived off the land, and were needed in the fields to care for the crops and herd cattle. Who really had time for school?

Public School 52 on Broadway and Academy in 1930. Note old and new schools sit side by side before demolition of old school in 1956.

According to the late Kingsbridge historian William Tieck, “the growth of the Tubby Hook school was so slow that during the first thirty or forty years of its existence only the lowest floor of the three story structure was used. Because School Commissioner James MacKean was one of the prime movers in the erection of the building, it was long known as “MacKean’s Folly”. The land itself was donated by Isaac Michael Dyckman, who retained an active interest in the school until his death in 1899.” (Schools and School Days in Riverdale, Kingsbridge and Spuyten Duyvil, 1971).

"Even as late as 1908, when Public School 52 celebrated its fiftieth anniversay, it was surrounded by the wide-open spaces shown in the remarkable vista above. The picture was taken in a northeasterly direction overlooking the junction of Riverside Drive with Broadway and Dyckman Street. To the right of the school is the mansion-like dwelling of the caretaker, Mr. O'Neill. Landmarks include the original Mount Washington Presbyterian Church; above its steeple, the now abandoned powerhouse at 216th Street; and, on the horizon, the two buildings of the Catholic Orphan Asylum and Webb's Academy and Home for Shipbuilders. A string of subway cars is barely visible on the distant-and then new- elevated line running up Tenth Avenue. Note the trolley tracks and gas lamps." Source: William Tieck, Schools and School Days.

More than a century before Tieck’s seminal work on the history of education in the Kingsbridge section of New York, a reporter from the New York Herald visited the old Ward School 52 as part of an annual examination of city schools.

According to the article, dated June 16, 1865, “The new and progressive schoolhouse at Tubby Hook is one of the most interesting monuments of that beautiful and romantic region. Yesterday the annual examination of the classes was made by Mr. S. S. Randall, the General Superintendent of Schools, with the assistance of Assistant Superintendent N. A. Calkins, H. Kiddle and William Jones. There were eight classes—five grammar and three primary—consisting of one hundred and fifty children in all. They were under the management of Mr. G. Miller, the principal, and his three pretty and intelligent lady assistants. Indeed, all the lady teachers of New York are pretty and intelligent—so much that, in this respect, they differ from the teachers of other cities. They seem to be appointed for their beauty and intellect. The examination was careful and searching, and embraced mathematics, astronomy, geology, history, grammar and a variety of other studies. All the classes acquitted themselves well, and the result of the examination was by no means discreditable to them.”

Ah the ladies…but we digress.

The sturdy old building stood for nearly a century, with civil war heroes and other famous men passing through its doors before it was demolished in 1956 to make room for an addition to the newly constructed J.H.S. 52.

What follows is a 1911 newspaper description of Inwood’s first public school during its prime:
The Sun
March 26, 1911
TUBBY HOOK’S OLD SCHOOL
ANTIQUATED STRUCTURE UPTOWN WHICH HAS A HISTORY.

Something About the District in Which It Stands—Many Well Known Men Went to School In Old 52—The Late John B. McDonald One of Them.

In the upper end of the city, on Manhattan Island, surrounded by up to date apartment houses, electric railroads underground, and in the near distance over-head trolley roads, the elevated part of the subway as well as the main line of the New York Central Railroad, stands an old fashioned brick schoolhouse where formerly a genuine excuse for absence from school was given by the parents of pupils as “the boys were needed to drive the cows to pasture.”

The Sun, March 26, 1911

Up to about twenty-five years ago the place, 206th Street and Broadway, was known as Kingsbridge Road.  Inwood: locally and unofficially it was also known as Tubby Hook; muddy in winter, dusty in summer and looked upon by a non-resident as not being part of the city of New York. The origin of the name Tubby Hook may be traced to a family named Tubb who lived in the neighborhood of a point of land just a short distance south of the Spuyten Duyvil. This locality was later known as Inwood on the Hudson, warranted by the extensive woods surrounding the Dyckman tract of land, and is known now as Dyckman street and Broadway, about a hundred feet south of where the old schoolhouse stands.

To get at the history of this old familiar landmark, which is part of our present local school system, it is necessary to inspect the records of the township of New Haarlem, of which Washington Heights forms a part. A few years after the town was established in 1658 by the last of the Dutch Governors, Peter Stuyvesant, the famous one legged soldier recognized the need of some one person to perform the duties of a schoolmaster for the poor children of the district; the population of Manhattan Island at this time, December 4, 1663, was about 2,000 souls. The Schepens, or Magistrates, held a lengthy meeting, and at its close “a capable man” was appointed; but the very limited means of the residents prevented them from contributing toward the schoolmaster’s salary.

The best they could do was to give two dozen schepels of grain each for his support. The absence of money made it obligatory on the part of the Magistrates, Daniel Tournier and Johannes Verveelea, also Jan Pieterson Slot, who could not write his own name, to petition the Director General and Council of New Netherland for a grant in aid of the appointment of Jan La Montegne, Jr., son of a physician, who was one of the first settlers of New Haarlem. At the time of his appointment the future schoolmaster, who was secretary of the Board of Magistrates and a parish clerk, resigned to take up his new duties at a salary of fifty guilders ($20) per annum, which was considered “the least possible salary.”

For seven years, or until 1670, Mr. La Montagne served in the capacity of schoolmaster, when he moved away. Hendrik Van der Vin succeeded him and fulfilled the same duties at a salary of eight times as much as that paid to Mr. La Montagne. The increase in the schoolmaster’s salary was evidentially too much for the residents, for when his salary was not forthcoming in 1678 it became necessary to make a house to house canvas for subscriptions, which netted 300 guilders, an matters were squared with New Haarlem’s second schoolmaster, at least for the time being. This subscription, together with the rent of the town meadows, was devoted to the salary and support of Mr. Van der Vin, who agreed after some persuasion to accept it for the first year, after which his full salary was assessed upon the residents. The town also voted to rebuild his residence. Nevertheless he lived in poor circumstances and finally fell into debt, the town being compelled in 1682 to pay a bill of $6 for Van der Vin’s pens, ink, paper and writing material.

Reginald Pelham Bolton, a civil engineer, and a well known resident of Washington Heights, whose ancestors owned considerable property in the neighborhood of Bolton road, just west of Broadway and near the old schoolhouse, has in his possession a large quantity of old time official records, one of which bears testimony that Van der Vin was a gentleman well acquainted with Latin and Spanish, remarkable for his accuracy, methodical in his habits and very precise in his duties as a clerk.”

He was succeeded by John Tiebout, who resigned after some years and gave way to Guiliaem Bertholf, who served for one year. Tiebout returned and served until 1690, when he and his family of twelve children moved to Bushwick. Tiebout was succeeded by a young man, a recent arrival from Vlissingen by the name of Adrien Verrautl, and “judging from his penmanship, a scholar,” who filled the place until 1708 when he became voorleser at Bergen, N.J., being recommended by the people of New Haarlem.

Religious discussion of an acrimonious nature left the town without a schoolmaster for about fourteen years, or until 1722 when John Martin Van Harlingen arrived from Holland, who held the position until 1741, although for a long time after this the New Haarlem church people made no appointment. The war of the Revolution did away with education; something more important at this period, many sought protection inside the American lines, returning after evacuation to find their homes ruined.

Chapter 189, Laws of 1801 enacted by the Legislature then holding its twenty-fourth session at Kingston, N.Y., provided that a sum of be raised by a tax for the further support of government, such moneys to be invested in real securities and the interest thereof to be expended for the instruction of poor children in the most useful branches of common education. A town meeting was held in this year and arrangements were made to lease a portion of the common lands to establish an academy for the education of the children of the township, these lands were then situated in the old Ninth ward of the city of New York and caused considerable controversy with the city. A legislative act caused the land to be sold, the proceeds to be placed in the hands of various trustees, who paid $3,500 to the trustees of the “Hamilton School.” The exact date of the establishment of it is in doubt, but references show it to be prior to 1820. Valentine’s Manual shows the Hamilton free school to be located at 181st street and Fort Washington avenue, the teacher then (1852) being Hosea B. Perkins, who died in 1903, the trustees being Isaac Dyckman, Tunis Ryer and John P. Dodge. This school was the predecessor of the present school system on Washington Heights.

Public School 52 in 1905 Postcard

In 1858, when the population of Manhattan Island was about 750,000, the Tubby Hook school—now Public School 52—was formally opened, the land upon which it stands being given to the city by the late Isaac Dyckman, on condition that a school be erected thereon. Until recent years only the first floor was used.

In 1903 a change was made in the building, which measured 40 by 70 feet, with classrooms about 16 square feet, the census of the old red school being less than 150, an addition of twenty-five square feet was added, the class rooms enlarged, the top floor occupied, giving more room, making the census of the school at the present time about 300, including about two dozen in the kindergarten. At the same time that the addition was made the old familiar brick walls were given a coat of paint and the “old red school” became a rich cream in color. It is only within the last few years that the old time stoves were replaced by steam heat.

John B. Mcdonald: "The Man Who Dug the Subway."

It is questionable if any school in greater New York can show a list of well known graduates that are more respected in the community, among the alumni being the Rev. William J. Cummings and two brothers, John and Frederick; Lieut. Samuel K Allen, a graduate of West Point; his brother, Ethan Allen; J. Crawford McCreery, a partner of the dry goods firm; Samuel Isham, the artist and author; also his brothers, William and Charles; Dr. Norton Denslow and William Wallace Denslow, the well known illustrator and cartoonist; Elijah Cutts, late Senator from Minnesota; Joseph Keppler, artist and editor of Puck; Counsellor William Flitner and brothers, Walter and Charles; and William S. Hartt, director of the Tropical Fruit Growers Association. The old school also furnished some civil war heroes, such as Col. Charles N. Swift and Thomas C. Wright, both of whom rose from the ranks during the war; Col. Cornelius Schermerhorn, John Whalen, first Corporation Counsel of Greater New York and at present the president of Bank of Washington Heights; Blake Wales and his brother Alexander, Corporation Counsel of Binghamton in 1908; Robert Veitch and his son Charles of Dyckman Street; Theodore and Benjamin Barringer, both physicians, Former Alderman John J. McDonald, Andrew Thompson, one of the active members of the Stock Exchange; his brother William, and last but not least John B. McDonald, “the man who dug the subway,” and who died a week ago.”

-

Not long ago I received an email from MyInwood.net reader Cherie Magee with an inquiry into the Johnson Ironworks, once located on Inwood’s Spuyten Duyvil. It seems Cherie had inherited some old family photographs along with a generations old story about an ancestor who may have worked at the ironworks.

Johnson foundry in 1923.

She wrote:

“I was doing some research on the Isaac Johnson Foundry and your website came up. Terrific site! Thanks for all your information. I am trying to find out if there are any records about the foundry and its employees. I think my Great-Great Grandfather may have worked there.”

Cherie soon forwarded the photos she believes are images of foundry employees taken somewhere in the area around the ironworks. She’s hoping someone reading this post might provide a valuable clue to help put her photos into perspective. A true reader challenge.

She wrote:

Timothy Sweeney

“I was always told that my Great-Great Grandfather worked at a foundry in Spuyten Duyvil and that one of his daughters – my Great Grandmother, worked for the Delafield family – also in Spuyten Duyvil. I have found them living there in the 1890 and 1900 census.

My mother dug through some old family photos and there are several terrific photos of my Great-Great Grandfather, Timothy Sweeney. One of the photos was taken with 11 other workers. The photo is entitled “The Corporation” and three of the other workers are named as well. They are all holding pick axes. The Isaac G. Johnson Foundry is the only foundry I found in that immediate area, so I am wondering if there are any records still around that might confirm his employment at this foundry. Someone also mentioned to me that New Yorkers (in particular apparently) referred to their local governors as Corporations…so I was wondering if that could apply here. Could these men in the photo perhaps have been foremen and were jokingly being called the Corporation? I don’t imagine there would have been a lot of formal type photos of laborers.”

"The Corporation"

“I have also included a few other photos – Timothy Sweeney (my Great-Great Granpa) and Dan Hayes, his son-in-law. They are the same two in the photo by the railroad tracks. Could the tracks have been by the Foundry? The next two I have no idea where Dan is – but the stone-walls certainly look like someplace in that area. The last two photos – I was wondering if they could have been taken at the Miramar Pool. Do you have any other photos of the pool to compare these with? Unfortunately, none of these photos are dated.”

Dan Hayes

Dan Hayes

Dan Hayes and Grandpa Timothy Sweeney.

Site presumably near the old Johnson Ironworks.

Swimming area presumably near the old Johnson Ironworks.

Being interested in the Johnson Ironworks, Cherie’s request immediately caught my eye. While I was able to rule out the Miramar pool as the location in one of the photos, the trail ended there.

That’s where you the reader come in: If anyone has any information, photos, records or even old family histories of the Johnson Ironworks, I encourage you to write in. The foundry once had a workforce of some 1,200 men, so I imagine there are some historical treasures still floating about.

For more information on Inwood’s old Johnson Ironworks, click here.

Nugents Bar, 1979

There was a time not so long ago when Inwood had a thriving bar scene.  Up, down and between Dyckman Street and 207th, there were some 100, mainly Irish, bars. While a few bars, The Piper’s Kilt, The Liffy, Irish Eyes, as well as a few others still remain, most disappeared as the demographics of the neighborhood changed in the 1960′s and 70′s.  In his tome to the neighborhood, “The Inwood Book,” John F. McMullen paid tribute to the taverns and pubs of  his generation in a poem entitled, “The Bars.”  What follows is McMullen’s poem accompanied by a series of photographs and advertisements of the Inwood nightlife of McMullen’s generation.  I hope this post sparks more memories and generates more photographs from an Inwood bar scene of not so long ago.

The Bars
Reprinted with the permission of John F. McMullen-aka “JohnMac The Bard.”

I grew up in an Irish/Jewish neighborhood.
The Jewish lads went to school and studied;
the Irish went to the bars.

To be sure, many of us also went to school
and played sports and went out with girls
(no sex, though).
But we went to the bars
underage
after games
after dates
after softball games
before and after dances
to watch the Sunday football game
and for every other damn reason.

The Broadstone
the Willow Tree, Erin’s Isle
Chambers’, McSherry’s, the Inwood Lounge
Doc Fiddler’s, Cassidy’s, Jimmy Ryan’s, Keenan’s Corner
Dolan’s, The Pig n’ Whistle, Freehill’s, Terminal, Old
Shilling
Markey’s, McGolderick’s, Carmor, Rooney’s, Grippo’s,
Minogue’s.
Well, you get the idea.

We knew the bartenders by name.
George Lynch, Pat Gallagher, “Sunshine,” Georgie Costello,
Chris, Fred, Tommy, Mara, Dan, John, Joe, Kathy-in-Erin’s
and they all bought back. “The next one’s on me, Mac”
(and you never leave after a buyback).

We hung out there
we talked
we laughed
we sang
we sometimes fought
…and we drank.

But we didn’t just drink in the bars
we drank in the park
we drank at parties
we drank at football games
we drank at dances (from a hidden flask).

Many slowed down as they grew up
many stopped altogether
and some were stopped only by the grave.

“The drink” was a macho factor.
If you told a fellow he had diabetes,
he’d stop taking sugar.
If you told some of my friends that they shouldn’t drink, they’d say
“What do you mean? I can hold my liquor.”

They planned to drink until they died
and they did.

I still think we had more fun
than the Jewish guys
(unless they were getting laid).

Burnside Pub 1978- 4742 Broadway Near Dyckman- Heights-Inwood Newspaper

Burnside Pub

Burnside Pub, Broadway Between Dyckman and Thayer

Garry Owens, Corner of Dyckman and Vermilyea

Hedgehog Inn, Academy and Broadway

HedgeHog Inn

Melody Lounge 1974- Heights Inwood Newspaper

Wigwam Inn, 75 Sherman Avenue, 1960

Archie's Pub ad, Heights-Inwood, July 7, 1976

Donemay Pub ad, Heights-Inwood, March 28, 1979

Donemay New Years-1979, Heights-Inwood newspaper

Fort Tryon Seafood, Heights-Inwood, July 7, 1976

Salt and Pepper, Heights-Inwood, March 28, 1979

The Last Stop, The Washington Heights Citizen & The Inwood News, March, 1990

The Last Stop, The Washington Heights Citizen & The Inwood News, May 1990

The Last Stop, The Washington Heights Citizen & The Inwood News, May, 1990

The Last Stop, The Washington Heights Citizen & The Inwood News, Sept., 1990

The Melody Lounge, Heights-Inwood, April 29, 1981

The Melody Lounge, Heights-Inwood, July 7, 1976

Melody Lounge 1974- Heights Inwood Newspaper

Keenan's, 1979

Hitching Post 1975 Heights-Inwood Newspaper

Garry Owen, 1979

Emerald Tavern, 1979

Donemay Pub Broadway and 213th 1980 - Heights Inwood News

Again, thank you to John F. McMullen for sharing his poem. “The Inwood Book” can be purchased on Amazon. Also a special thanks to Claire Anne Gray of the Piper’s Kilt for providing the wonderful vintage photographs.

I encourage all readers to share their own memories of Inwood’s bar scene of old by using the comment box below. If you have any photos you would like to share please let me know. I will be happy to add them to this post.

Cover of January, 1944 Inwood Chatter

In this January, 1944 edition of the “Inwood Chatter,” produced by the students of P.S. 52 in Inwood, New York City, the nation remained locked in the grips of the Second World War.  It must have been a trying time for the children of Inwood as funerals of returning dead, war rations and talk of battles in far off lands dominated local conversation.

The students of P.S. 52 were all too aware of the war that raged around the planet.  In this issue, students wrote about sacrifice, death and their wish that the war would soon end.

On page 32 student Doris Kessler contributed the following poem:

WAR FEVER
Why must I think of war again
Of that bloody and sickening battle
Of the children’s cry and the wounded man’s sigh
Of the people who are driven like cattle.

Why must I think of war again
Of those cruel and tyrannical men
Of the Nazi’s sneer and the people’s fear
Of the hundred imprisoned as ten.

Why must I think of the war again
Of those slanty-eyed men of Japan
Who slaughter and mangle and torture a being
Not caring that he is a man.

Each day I stop and think of this
And am ever so grateful and glad
That a free people, a happy people
Are stopping these leaders so mad.

What follows is the complete edition of the “Inwood Chatter” from January, 1944. If you have any old copies of the Chatter that you’d care to share, please let me know. This particular edition is from the collection of Inwood resident Don Rice.

1234►

Inwood Chatter, June, 1943

My grandmother used to have a saying: “Use it up.  Wear it out.  Make it do, or do without.” She had learned the expression during World War II and it stuck with her for the rest of her life.

In June of 1943, the students of P.S. 52 in Inwood were learning similar expressions, or, at times, just making them up. On page 28, eighth grader Sanford Locks writes: “These are the times that try men’s soles.  Look at mine they’re full of holes.”

Another eighth grader, Gloria Petrilli wrote of the precious ration books that saw the folks back home through the war. “Oh ration stamp of pink How you make my mother think! And precious little stamp of blue Please tell her to make the most of you.”

What follows is an image gallery of the June, 1943 students of P.S. 52.

This edition, I should mention, is from the collection of Don Rice.  I thank him for his contribution.

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1925 Photo of George Hadley's Grave

Not long ago, a descendant of George W. Hadley contacted me.  She was working on her family tree and had seen her ancestor’s name in a post on this website.  I told her that George Hadley had been buried in an old cemetery on 212th Street east of Broadway, but that the graves had all been moved to a plot in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. About a year earlier I made a trip to Woodlawn to see the monument to Inwood’s founding fathers. I even sent her a photograph of the new marker bearing Hadley’s name.   Still, I was curious and did a bit more digging. What I discovered was a scene right out of Poltergeist; with children using the burial site as a playground. What follows is a report from a 1921 edition of the New York Evening Post that might not be for the faint of heart.

New York Evening Post Headline, June 21, 1924

The text of the article reads: “A graveyard for a playground! Children romping over age-worn tombstones and digging up for their playthings the skulls and crossbones of the early settlers.

This situation, condoned by mothers in the Inwood section because “there is no other place for them to play” came to light today on 212th Street.

The graveyard is the old Nagle burial ground. Once in its soft sandy soil under marble tombstones were buried such aristocrats as the Vermilyeas, Sages, Chapmans and Hadleys, pioneers of north Manhattan. Today these stones may still be found, some bearing dates as far back as 1814. Some are under tangled masses of underbrush. Others form hobby-horses for restless youngsters.

Skulls Carried on Parade

There is no definite information on the point of the number of pioneers who still are buried in the cemetery. Recently, for instance, some of the bones were carried “on parade.” Children had unearthed them, put them atop rude poles and were holding a ghastly saraband of their own.

This spectacle so aroused Arthus Coleman, janitor of a nearby apartment in which sixty-six children live, that he telephoned the Health Department to determine what could be done about it.

“It’s not in our jurisdiction,” came a voice at the other end, according to his recollection. And then the receiver clicked, indicating the complaint wasn’t wanted in tat city department.

“The children have been playing in the graveyard ever since I can remember,” said Mr. Coleman today. “Sometimes the policeman on the beat chases them out, but they go right back the next day.

“When the children aren’t in there, the mothers are, hanging up clothes.  I don’t know who owns it, but I understand it is owned privately. I understand that some of the best old families in this section are buried there.”

The Real Estate Directory of Manhattan lists the property as belonging, since 1878, to Jane V. Claflin et al., Westport, Mass.

Among the tombstones decipherable today are the following:  Robert B. Chapman, died 1865; Eliza Titus Chapman, died 1869, Jacob Vermilyea, died 1828; Rebecca Vermilyea, died 1828, Joanna, wife of Gardner A. Sage, died 1842; Emily, wife of William H. Sage, died 1844, Joseph Clement, died 1814,  Christiana, wife of Robert W. Chapman, died 1867, George W, Hadley, died 1859 at eighty-one years old; and Mary, wife of George W. Hadley, died in 1880 in her one-hundreth year.

New York Evening Post, June 21, 1924

Bones Thrown Into River

The names mean nothing to the children who were found there at play today.

“Wait’ll we get some bones,” said one of the boys who were plating there.  ”The men took away some and throw ‘em in the dump near the Harlem River. Pleanty of bones, though.  I’ll get a shovel and we’ll dig some.”  His enthusiasm subdued only when hs suggestion was refused.

“Oh, c’mon, let’s,” another, even younger boy pleaded.  ”It’s a cinch, mister.”  Deep holes in the ground indicated other demonstrations had been given.

A group of girls about the same age seemed willing to participate.  the children joined in the search for bones that might be on the surface, scurrying through a maze of quilts, towels, and clothing which waved little majesty over the dignified tombstones.

Mothers of the neighborhood know of no way to stop the procedure.

“It isn’t very nice, is it?” said Mrs. Thomas E. Alwaise, mother of three, whose apartment overlooks the plot. “But there isn’t any other place near here except the dangerous street and the dump lots.  They’ve been playing there six years that I know of  and nobody pays any attention to it unless they dig up skulls.  Then they get spanked–some of them.  Thank goodness, mine are too young to dig,”

Mrs. F.J. Handechuch, another mother of two, who lives near the graveyard, said:

“Why it’s been going on for years.  The police pay no attention if they don’t catch the children parading with skulls on sticks. Only the other night my husband went out and stopped the boys from digging up a grave over there,” she said, pointing to a spot not fifteen feet from her sitting room window.  ”He didn’t like the idea of digging up graves and, besides, he didn’t want them to leave such a deep hole for the smaller children to fall into.”

Inwood Chatter

In January of 1943 America, Inwood and much of the globe were transfixed by the horrific battles of World War II.  That very month, as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill sat down for their famous meeting, allied forces were finally able to force Japanese troops off of Guadalcanal.  The news from this far off spit of land in the Pacific was certainly a moral booster, but so many lives had been lost.  Nearly every family was affected by the war.  They had lost loved ones, they had endured food rationing; it was as if the whole world had been turned upside down.  But still, patriotism persisted.  And when Inwood lost one of its native sons,  Navy Lieutenant John James Powers, in a bombing raid over the Coral Sea the previous year, the students of P.S. 52 dedicated an issue of the school’s “Inwood Chatter” to Power’s heroic sacrifice.  After all, Powers was an alumni.  He had attended the school as a youth and later went on to George Washington High School after graduation.

Before the suicidal raid, Powers told his men, ”Remember the folks back home are counting on us. I am going to get a hit if I have to lay it on their flight deck.”

Lieutenant John James Powers

After posthumously awarding Powers the Medal of Honor, President Roosevelt, in a national radio address, delivered these stirring words: “He led [his squadron] down to the target from an altitude of 18,000 feet, through a wall of bursting anti-aircraft shells and swarms of enemy planes. He dived almost to the very deck of the enemy carrier, and did not release his bomb until he was sure of a direct hit. He was last seen attempting recovery from his dive at the extremely low altitude of two hundred feet, amid a terrific barrage of shell and bomb fragments, smoke, flame and debris from the stricken vessel. His own plane was destroyed by the explosion of his own bomb. But he had made good his promise to ‘lay it on the flight deck.”

After her son’s death, Power’s mother, who later christened the USS John J. Powers, came and spoke to the children of P.S. 52.  Her talk, and the thought that he, like them, had wandered the halls of the school they knew so well, had a profound impact on the youngsters.

This is the story of the children of Inwood in time of war.

Scroll through the below gallery to see the entire January, 1943 edition of the “Inwood Chatter”.

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Modern day Inwood is likely the most dog friendly neighborhood in all of Manhattan.  But, there was a time when man’s best friend instilled terror in the hearts of the few residents of northern Manhattan.   Below is a 1919 account of the hunt for a pack of wild dogs and a young boy who unwittingly set foot in their den:

Wild Dogs Headline, The Sun June 16, 1919

“It was on Saturday afternoon that Jimmy Gail made his thrilling discovery, stumbling into the lair of the wild dogs that have coursed at night, savage and fierce tongued, over the great sweep of ravines and hills and forests rising northward between the ramparts of the Hudson and Broadway from 181st street to the rock pinnacle which juts out over Inwood Valley on a line with 202nd street.

That was forty-odd hours ago, but the widely separated residents of the Rockefeller Park and the former Bennett estate, who know what it is to leap from bed in the middle of a bitter winter’s night to fire vainly at gray wolves marauding in the heart of New York City, were still talking yesterday about Jimmy’s adventure, hoping that it means the end of probably the most extraordinary plague of wild beasts that a city ever knew.

Sculptor George Grey Barnard

The whole district, which is roughly a mile long and from a quarter to half a mile wide, is the wildest and most naturally beautiful in all New York and above 188th street, as one approaches the studio of George Grey Barnard, the Cloisters, and the Sacred Heart School, on the other side of Fort Washington Avenue, there are scarcely a dozen houses in the primitive expanse.

Tryon Tower, on the site of the old Fort Tryon, the former mansion of C.K.G. Billings, overlooks the tract of wild land, and still further north, hidden among the gigantic boulders and the tall trees, is Hill Cottage, the country home of G. Axson Jones, manager of the Harlem branch of the United States Mortgage and Trust Company; the Abbey Inn, overlooking the Hudson at 200th street, and finally, on the pinnacle overlooking Dyckman street and the Inwood Gorge, are the greenhouses of A.N. Kinney, Captain, U.S.N. retired. And among these few and far separated houses are woods and gullies and cliffs as rude and untamed as northern Maine or the Adirondacks, alive with small game and a happy hunting ground for dogs gone wild and reverted to savagery.

VEXED AND OFTEN ALARMED

Sculptor Barnard, Mr. Jones, Capt. Kinney and others living in the tract have been vexed and often alarmed by the night prowlings of the pack whose long hidden den was found on Saturday by Jimmy Gail, and they long ago lost count of the blue ribbon chickens and prize ducks, not to mention pet dogs and cats, and even a calf, that have been snatched by night from coop and dooryard. Mr. Jones, the banker, mourns a dozen fine white ducks, which the wild dogs made off with last month, while he sent bullet after bullet after them through brush and timber.

There have been times when there was greater cause for alarm than the safety of cherished fowls. More than once as guests of Capt. Kinney or Mr. Jones have struck out over the snows on winter nights to make their way down hill toward the Dyckman street subway station they have seen dim shapes slinking ahead of them, circling like wolves; and once, only a few weeks ago, a gaunt, gray brute more resembling a timber wolf than any dog that ever gnawed bone made a sudden rush at Mrs. A.E. Hetzner and the man escorting her as they hurried along the Hudson bastion just north of Hill cottage. The man happened to be carrying an automatic pistol and let drive with it, but he missed in the dark and the dog wolf was over the cliffs toward the river rocks out of sight almost before report followed flash.

The Abbey Inn, Fort Washington Avenue and 198th street

Policemen have fired at the pack innumerable times, usually without result, but Mr. Jones, a first rate shot with pistol or rifle, and Capt. Kinney, whose navy experiences taught him something about the swift, accurate handling of firearms, have had better luck. The banker has bagged four dog wolves, one a mighty brute apparently half collie, half mastiff, and the Captain has five to his credit. Hugh Pechar, manager of the Abbey Inn, has shot three at long range by the trick of hiding out at night in the timber and patiently waiting until he could draw a bead on the night prowlers.

HAD MANNER OF WOLVES

Wolves they are, whatever of dog blood is left in them, and they begin their coursings every night after the manner of wolves, their leader, a great brute which has never been hit, though he has been fired at a hundred times, beginning with one ringing call to the pack, a midnight chorus of howling which echoes till dawn. How many are left in the pack can only be surmised by the vexed residents of the park, but there are at least a score in spite of the good shooting of Kinney, Pechar and Jones.

But Jimmy Gail’s exploit and adventure may mean the end of the pest, for luck gave the kid a chance to uncover the den where they have been hiding and breeding. Jimmy is a town boy who knows a lot about tame dogs, but who has a good deal to learn about dogs gone bad, otherwise he would never have poked his stub nose into the cave which runs back among the rocks and woods in the precipitous hillside between Bennett and Fort Washington avenues, a stone’s throw north of “The Cloisters.”

He went with his big sister Jane from their home at 160 Madison avenue on Saturday to visit his godmother, Mme. Marie Herbet, and her son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, at Hill cottage. In the early afternoon, while sister was sketching from the cliffs behind the Billings garage, Jimmy wandered downhill and southward in a tangle of underbrush and small trees that clung somehow to the crags behind “The Cloisters.” He started a rabbit and was pursuing cottontail with whoops of glee when his ear caught the queer melody of sounds—whinings and short barks—coming from the hillside only a few feet from the hole into which the indignant bunny had dived.

The kid promptly investigated, following the sounds, and presently broke through a small. Close clump of briars, which had concealed a three-foot opening to a cave in the rocks. Without a thought of possible danger Jimmy crawled into the hole and saw the sight of a lifetime—thirty or forty puppies in various stages of growth romping, snarling, biting at each other, complaining from hunger, all scatted over the bed of broken sticks and dead leaves which carpeted the shallow cave.

OLDER PUPPIES HOSTILE

The older puppies, a few of which were a third to a half grown, were distinctly hostile and showed their teeth at Jimmy, but the littlest bundles of fluff climbed all over him and fought to lick his cheeks. He was having a lot of fun when a shadow darkened the cave mouth and he looked up to see a big and angry mother dog, which snarled menacingly. Jimmy threw sticks and stones until mother backed away and whisked out of sight, and then he, too, with a puppy in each arm, scrambled out of the cave and ran for sister Jane.

Later in the evening, when Mr. Jones came home from the bank and heard the news, he called Capt. Kinney by phone, and the pair, with revolvers, went to the cave guided by the excited Jimmy and his no less excited sister. When they got there they found that more than half of the puppies were gone, the larger ones, but fifteen were still romping and frisking among the sticks and the dead leaves. Both men had suffered enough from the depredations of the pa’s and ma’s of these babies to warrant lethal action, but they couldn’t bring themselves to shoot. The puppies were too pretty. Several seemed to be almost pure collie, but the most were cross breeds of half a dozen blood mixtures, in which bulldog, setter, mastiff and plain hound showed clearly enough.

So Mr. Jones and Capt. Kinney gathered up the puppies and took them home after first blocking the cave entrance with big rocks, and yesterday they were wondering just what to do with their prizes. They may keep two or three of the best looking breeds, and they expect to give away a few, but, in the end, one supposes, painless execution will be the fate of the unfortunate offspring of the outlaws.

MAY HAVE FLED IN ALARM

The important thing is, however, that the lair of the wolf dogs has been found, though why it was that more of the big hunters were not in or around the cave when Jimmy blundered into it is a mystery. Probably the half dozen or more of the brutes that may have been in the den when Jimmy came along crashing through the brush and rocks took alarm and fled when they heard him approaching. But the discovery means very likely the wiping out of the wild pack.

Mr. Jones and Capt. Kinney told a reporter for The Sun yesterday that they will ask permission from the agents of Mr. Rockefeller to organize a wild dog drive, which will take in the whole district, and if that sporting event comes off it will be the most exciting wild animal hunt in these parts since the effort was made two or three years ago to drive deer on Shelter Island.

Estate of C.K.G. Billings

Where the dogs came from originally is something of a puzzle, but Capt. Kinney told yesterday one story he had heard of their origin. Five or six years ago a woman was motoring in Fort Washington avenue, near the Billings mansion, and with her in the car was her collie, a splendid specimen of his breed. She stopped the car to look about at the scenery and suddenly the collie sprang from the car and was gone in a flash over the east side of the road and down among the rocks and underbrush. She called vainly to him for hours and came back day after day to hunt for him, but it was never any use. That was the last she ever heard of Laddie. He was a lost dog from that day to this. Capt. Kinney and Mr. Jones reason that Laddie just went wild for some reason that human beings simply cannot fathom, and that as time went by he established a family and, perhaps, became the leader of the pack. They think that the big wolf dog they have often seen slipping like a ghost over the snows and among the trees, the leader they have sent many a bullet after, is none other than the lost collie.”

Inwood Pottery, 1926, Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

In the early part of the twentieth century a pioneering woman named Aimee Le Prince Voorhees and her husband Harry built a pottery works in the shadow of Inwood hill.

In this pastoral setting, lacking any modern conveniences, Voorhees created a world-class pottery studio and inspired a future generation of artists, ceramicists and sculptors. Among the students who studied under Mrs. Voorhees as a child was Lorrie Goulet who went on to become one of the most prominent figures in American sculpture.

What follows is a 1926 portrait of Aimee Le Prince Voorhees captured in her studio located within the current Inwood Hill Park.

On a personal level, I find myself fascinated by the pottery and the surroundings that inspired not only the Voorhees, but also countless artists from Ernest Lawson to current Inwood artist Sky Pape.

To all artists currently practicing their craft in the creatively inspiring neighborhood of Inwood, I salute you.

For more information on the Inwood Pottery Works click on either of the below links:

The Inwood Pottery Studio

A Potter’s Lament

Brooklyn Daily Eagle
“Practices Ancient Art in Virgin Forest”

Studio of Mrs. Aimee Voorhees Hidden in Little Known Part of Manhattan Island

By Esther A. Coster

Inwood Pottery, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Voorhees.

Mrs. Aimee Le Prince Voorhees, creator of a new idea in pottery, is a living example of the truth of Emerson’s saying about the path being worn to the door of anybody who would make a fine article, even though it be a mousetrap. Mrs. Voorhees has hidden her studio in the virgin woods, and only a seeker for the place could ever find it except by accident. But there is a well-worn path up the steep hill to her studio.

Let me give you a picture of this most unusual retreat of two artists, Mrs. Voorhees and her husband, Harry, who work together in the studio and play together in their cruiser. The Thyra is moored at the foot of the dooryard in the little harbor made by the original channel of the old Ship Canal in upper New York City, no longer used by larger craft.

This studio is perched on the side of a hill, with the buildings rising one above the other, with the steepest of steps to connect them. To reach it you walk along West 207th Street, Manhattan, to the end of the street and still farther to the end of a cinder road. Then you take a steep wooded path up the hill until a sign, “Indian Life Reservation,” greets you. Just beyond this is a small rustic gate with the very modest shingle of the studio.

Mr. and Mrs. Harry Voorhees, Inwood Hill Pottery

The mistress of the domain, dressed in a blue smock and comfortable slippers, greeted her visitor with a cordial handshake and insisted on tea before we began our interview. We sat down to a round rustic table, the most primitive sort of stand, with rustic chairs, all set out in the woods in front of the studio.

Mrs. Voorhees is not a bit the stereotyped artist type that is supposed to be connected with kilns and pottery and crafts. A well-built woman, past thirty years, she was dressed in skirts longer than the style calls for now, and with long golden-brown hair piled high over her head in a big coil. She talked freely and simply about her work, used none of the patter by which less genuine artists try to camouflage their attempts at art expression, and was very proud of her home and its unique environment. How she might dress when visiting “the city” is probably another story.

Brooklyn New York Daily Eagle, Inwood Pottery Works

“As you see, we live the most primitive life,” she said, “but we do not lack a single comfort. We have no electricity up here, but we get fine light from gasoline lamps. We have no heat, but our coal stoves keep us warm on the coldest days. We have no city water piped to our home, but we the purest water, ice cold, from springs that are at least one hundred years old. We are surrounded by the inspiration of nature and the traditions of the Indians who made their homes here hundreds of years ago. What more can anybody ask?”

Mrs. Voorhees and her husband, for it is impossible to write of the hostess of the studio without including the host, have two deep-seated enthusiasms that have influenced their entire work. They love the sea and they love Indian lore. From the sea they have drawn many of their designs and on the bowls and vases the seahorse, shells and other nautical motifs occur constantly. When the Half Moon of Hendrik Hudson was in the “orick,” as they call the strip of water below their dooryard, Mrs. Voorhees made studies of the ship and has embodied them in a doorstop interpreted in pottery.

Inwood Pottery with Indian design

These people are also devoted to Indian traditions, and it is from Indian art that their chief inspiration has come from a unique type of Pottery. We will let Mrs. Voorhees explain for herself:

“We have been interested for years in Indian history and art,” she said, “and have studied deeply into the subject. The Indian Museum has worked with us. As you see, I draw inspiration for many of my shapes from the Indian pottery, adapting them to modern ideas without spoiling the purity of the primitive form. The designs, when we add decoration, are authentic Indian designs, with only such changes as are necessary to fit the shape decorated. In the finish of the pottery I use two methods. For table service I use glazes. For pieces that do not have to be used for table service I use the method of the Indians as closely as I have been able to follow it. I cannot make true Indian pottery, for I do not know what clays they use and I do not use the same sort of colors for the under glaze decorations. But after these decorations are fired I finish the surface with wax, rubbing it into the body until a smooth dull finish is obtained. The pieces will hold water, but I do not sell them for table service like plates or cups. I use as many Indian designs as I can. See this little Indian frog? I love to make frogs, they have such a humorous look.”

Inwood Pottery Fish plate from old Newark Museum catalogue

Right here Mrs. Voorhees unconsciously gave away one of the deep secrets of her success. She has a keen sense of humor and it shows in all her work. She models small animals for whistles that you can’t help smiling at, they are so full of happy thoughts. Her seahorses that climb up her lamps or serve as handles to her bowls are almost alive in their gaiety. Surely here is a woman who finds life happy and cannot help putting it into her work.

Of course, we wanted to know how our hostess came to take up pottery and how she happened to choose such an ideal spot for her work. The lady of the manor flashed her brilliant smile and settled down for a chat, meantime keeping her eye on her kiln, in which were precious pieces for an exhibition in the Woman’s Exposition of Arts and Industries.

Inwood Pottery, Harry Voorhees at the wheel.

“I inherited my love for art work,” she said. “My mother and father were both artists. They conducted the League School of China Painting in England, where I absorbed the art almost by instinct. On their coming to this country my mother founded the New York Society of Ceramic Arts and the National League of Mineral Painters. At the first exhibit of the New York Society at Carnegie Hall the crowd was so great the police and fireman were called. Can you imagine that now at an exhibition of porcelains or pottery? I studied porcelain decoration with my mother and at the National Academy of Design and Teachers College. I also for a time conducted a private school. When I married, fifteen years ago, my husband was also an artist, and we dreamed of establishing a colony for craftwork. But little by little this has been displaced in our interests by the pottery, so that now our chief work is right here with the wheel and the kiln.”

Inwood Hill Park Boat Basin in 1920's

Then she shifted to the story of how she came to settle on the Inwood hill. “We were cruising ten years ago,” she said, “and our engine went dead just in this little harbor. We moored her and started exploring and were fascinated by the primitive beauty of the hill. There was an old house, all tumble down, occupied by ‘Pop,’ an old boatman. Six years ago we found it vacant and bought it. We remodeled it, put in floors and added to it to suit our needs. The other buildings we have added as the work expanded. We do not own the land, as it is park property, but the buildings are all ours. We had painting parties, fencing parties and all sorts of parties till we got that house fixed. It was the best kind of fun.” And you should have seen her eyes twinkle as she told of those groups of city folks trying to paint floors and put up fences.

Mrs. Voorhees is original even in her tools. She uses the regulation potters wheel, but the motive power is certainly unique. She cannot draw on electric or steam power, so she has gone back to the ancient foot power. She has taken an old motorcar tire, filled it with cement and Inwood rocks and placed flat circular pieces of wood on each side for the lower wheel. It is placed on ball bearings and when touched lightly with her foot it whirls the wheel above as perfectly as the most approved electric plant. It is also much more in keeping with the studio.

Example of the whimsical and nautical nature of some of Voorhee's work.

Even the showroom of the studio is unique. It was originally the cabin of a canal-boat which was, somehow and sometime ago, hitched to the old house. By cutting an added window it makes an ideal showroom and fits the spirit of the house, which has a nautical atmosphere.

The tiny, compact kitchen is fitted up like a ship’s galley, with brass bands on the edges of the shelves and everything spick and span in the smallest possible space. The living room has as its chief decoration a ship model, given to the artists by a seafaring friend.

The love of nature that permeates every corner of Mrs. Voorhee’s soul crops out in her work at every hand. She took up a small glass jar and exultingly said:

“Just look at this. I found this in our woods. Did you ever see such wonderful design as those wings.”

Inwood Pottery stamp

And what do you think she had carefully kept in the jar? The largest mosquito I ever saw, larger than anybody’s imagination could picture. It is known as the “stork mosquito.” The artist will use that design on one of her bowls or pitchers, and everybody will wonder where she found it. Her talent has also been used for scientific purposes. A set of models, heroic size, of three varieties of mosquitoes, is now in the Sesquicentennial. These were made originally for the Board of Health.

Inwood Pottery, Replica of Iroquois vase

Near the studio are the famous Indian caves, in which hundreds of Indian relics have been discovered. Mrs. Voorhees, like all artists handling mineral glazes, feels the fascination of the art, because once a piece is in the kiln one is never sure what will come out. She showed two bowls of turquoise blue glaze mottled in a most unusual manner with brown. “That was pure accident,” she said. “I wish I knew what caused it, for I would like to use that effect again. The accidents are the most fascinating part of pottery, for one can never duplicate accidental color effects.”

Mrs. Voorhees has the distinction of having the only pottery in Greater New York except a studio in Greenwich House, which turns out a few pieces for pupils, and, so far as known, the only pottery in any large city. But to visit the studio one feels that one is in the far wilderness. Nothing could be harder to realize than that “this is New York,” when virgin trees are all about, there is no sound except the noises of the woods, and nowhere are there evidences of those adjuncts of city life that we have come to believe essential to happiness. “If I lived in a city apartment or house,” said Mrs. Voorhees, “I know I could not do the work I do now. It is the close contact with nature that gives me inspiration. When I look across the water and see that great tulip tree that is the tallest tree in New York State and is two hundred and forty years old, I realize the Indian art that flourished on this hill centuries ago and it makes me very humble. But I love this work and hope to some day realize more nearly my ideals.”

But, with a longing look at the river where the Thyra lay moored, she said, with a glance across at her husband: “Some day we hope to be able again to enjoy the long cruises we both love. At present we have been too busy to spare the time.”

A black kitty and a white doggie added the last touch of domesticity to an ideal combination of home and profession.

“There were other trees, many decrepit. In the middle was a kiln where an Indian princess taught ceramics under dubious auspices. She had a son who didn’t work. Both were on relief, and the relief checks were delivered to the princess at a mailbox fastened to a tree. The hullabaloo about disturbing the princess, the kiln, the old tulip tree, and other flora and fauna was terrific.”

-Robert Moses,” Public Works,” 1970

Below editorial from:
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
December 13, 1936

Inwood Pottery Article-Brooklyn Daily Eagle

“Perhaps the Park Department will take great care to preserve the Indian relics. Perhaps the Pottery will function more effectively in its new and modern quarters. But somehow Inwood Hill Park will never be the same with new, paved paths to replace the Indian trails along its sloping landscape, with the Pottery and the tulip tree gone, with the cove straightened out, and with a great steel bridge sprouting from its side to connect it with the Spuyten Duyvil.

Rising above an enchanting little cove in the Harlem River at the most northerly tip of Manhattan Island, Inwood Hill Park has, until recently, managed to escape the inroads of a brick and steel metropolis. Though virtually a stone’s throw from upper Broadway, it has remained miraculously unaffected by the changes that have taken place all around it.

One of the oldest homes of the aborigines, it is said to have been the very last bit of Manhattan relinquished by the Indians after they sold that famous Island to the Dutch. And now, centuries later, as if in deference to the wishes of its early red-skinned inhabitants, that sylvan abode still stands, the contours and paths of the ancient village of Shora-kap-kok unchanged.

On the side of the hill is a cave that is believed by anthropologists to have been the earliest human habitation on Manhattan Island. Near it have been found all sorts of utensils and tools that belonged to many different generations of Indians, from prehistoric hunters to seventeenth century warriors, who, according to legend, fought the crew of Henry Hudson’s Half Moon.

Near the cave stands and old and dying tulip tree, in the shade of which Henry Hudson is said to have held a powwow with the Indians that ended the hostilities. And not far from the tulip tree is the Spouting Spring, from which the ancient Indians drew their water.

Princess Naomie

Until last month, the cave was inhabited by Princess Naomie (Mrs. Naomie Kennedy), an educated Cherokee Indian, who was brought to New York some seven years ago from New Orleans by the Dyckman Institute to live in the cave in the style of her ancestral cousins and thus preserve the historic atmosphere of the place. Surrounded by her chickens and her rabbits, and dressed in authentic Indian costume, she did much evoke for visitors the spirit of the ancient Weckquaesgesk Iroquois.

On the side of Inwood Hill overlooking the Harlem River, an old whitewashed frame building nestles near the cove, partly hidden by the shrubbery and the hill. For many years this century-old cottage, equipped with neither gas nor electricity, has been the home of Mrs. Aimee LePrince Voorhees and her husband, the late Harry Voorhees. They discovered the cove and the cottage some 20-odd years ago—they were out cruising, and their engine broke down and then drifted into the Harlem River cove.

The daughter of two prominent ceramists, and herself a sculptor and a connoisseur of Indian arts, Mrs. Voorhees, and her late husband (whose interests were in harmony with hers) were so captivated by the beauty of the place, and the Indian ceramics all around it, that they leased the deserted cottage and remained there, devoting the greater part of their time and fortune to the study and advancement of Indian crafts, particularly the forms and decorations derived from ancient Iroquois pottery.

Inwood Pottery, Harry Voorhees at the wheel.

In 1923 they founded the Inwood Pottery, housed in a crudely constructed wooden building, beside an old Indian trail, just a few steps away from the cottage. Beginning with just a kiln, a bench, a bin and a wheel, the studio has grown bit by bit, as its work has expanded. Here, inspired by the lore of the Indians who inhabited the place, mixing their clays with water from the pouting Spring, just as the Iroquois had done centuries before them, sculptors and potters, hobbyists and professionals, grown-ups and children have come to make vases and book-ends, and other art objects, many of which have pound their way to some of the leading museums in the country.

Inwood Pottery, 1926, Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

In fact, so definite a niche has the Pottery carved for itself in the educational setup of New York that work done there is credited by the Board of Education, Hunter College and the Board of Regents. Branches have been established at various schools and Y.W.C.A.’s throughout the city, including the Central branch of the Y.W.C.A. at 30 3rd Avenue in Brooklyn.

Much of the educational work carried on by Mrs. Voorhees at Inwood Park has been done under the auspices of the Dyckman Institute, an historical society interested in the preserving of landmarks and folklore of upper Manhattan.

Brooklyn New York Daily Eagle, Inwood Pottery Works

During Mayor Hylan’s administration, the city bought for the park purposes all the land at Inwood Hill, including the plot on which stood the Voorhees cottage. The Dyckman Institute requested that it be assigned the care of the land along the shore of the cove, consisting of about 16 acres and covering interesting Indian remains, and asked that Mr. and Mrs. Voorhees be allowed to remain and take charge of the educational work of the institute.

The Hon. Francis Gallatin, commissioner of Parks, welcomed the proposal and issued a one-year permit to Mr. and Mrs. Voorhees to remain in their cottage and carry on their work, a permit which has been renewed from year to year by succeeding Park Commissioners.

Thus everything at Inwood Hill Park ran along smoothly and serenely, a world within a world, an oasis of bygone simplicity, undisturbed by the hustle and bustle of twentieth century complexity—ran along smoothly until the advent of the PWA, the NYA, and Robert Moses as Park Commissioner. Now that adventitious combination has succeeded in blasting the tranquility of even Inwood Hill. Now beauty is to yield to utility, tradition to expediency and sentiment to logic.

The War Department, with funds released by the PWA, got busy straightening out the bend in the Harlem Ship Canal. The Spuyten Duyvil side of the “U” curve is being dredged and the Inwood side, which formed the picturesque cove at the foot of Inwood Hill, is going to be filled in.

This improvement has been loudly lamented by sentimental boatmen as an unnecessary hardship on the already diminishing number of boat enthusiasts. But the members of the few boat clubs that still dot the Harlem River shoreline do not complain. Harry Edwards of the Nonpareil Boat Club, who has been rowing and yachting in that vicinity for 30-odd years, says that whatever is being sacrificed in scenic beauty and a cozy haven will be more than compensated for by the elimination of the whirlpool that used to hamper boatmen near the point that is being dredged.

Inwood Hill Park Boat Basin in 1920's

The Park Department, moreover, is planning to leave a portion of the old cove unfilled, so that it may eventually build a boat basin for small craft at that spot. But boat basin notwithstanding, Inwood Hill Park will never be as lovely without its cove and natural shoreline.

What seems an even greater heresy to those who dote on sentiment is the fact that the ground immortalized by Washington Irving is soon to become just another bridge approach with the completion of the largest hingeless bridge in the world, connecting Spuyten Duyvil with Inwood Hill Park.

As for the park itself, despite the criticism that has been heaped upon the Park Department (Mr. Moses has been accused of anything from converting a place of historical interest into a baseball field merely to indulge a whim, to filling up the Harlem River just so as to be able to change the map), little change in contemplated.

In spite of reports to the contrary, no new baseball or other athletic field is to be built. In Commissioner Moses’ own words: “This plan provides for the preservation of the natural features of the site…to make the park area available for those seeking quiet relaxation.” The plan, however, includes the laying of new paths and the paving of old ones—some of them old Indian trails; the planting of new trees and the cutting down of dead ones—not excepting the tulip of Henry Hudson fame.

Henry Hudson Bridge, Brooklyn New York Daily Eagle, 1936

In accordance with the belief of the present park administration that no private or semi-public institution, however worthy, has a right to be on park land (Robert Moses believes that even the Metropolitan Museum of Art should never have been built in Central Park), and, consistent in its policy of reversing the parks for purely recreational purposes of an outdoor nature, the Dyckman Institute, the Pottery and Princess Naomie have had to go. The Dyckman Institute hopes that eventually the Park Department will build a fine museum for it to replace the building recently demolished. But in view of the present policies of that department, the prospect seems unlikely, and the institute will more probably build its own new headquarters or share those of the Dyckman Cottage, the city museum at 204th Street and Broadway, originally preserved under the auspices of the Dyckman Institute.

Inwood Pottery, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Voorhees.

The Inwood Pottery, however, has fared much better than the institute. What at first seemed a calamity has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. When Mrs. Voorhees was given just 25 days notice early in October that she would have to get out by November 1st it seemed as though all she had accomplished in a lifetime of effort was being heartlessly wiped out. For moving the kilns hastily and carelessly and disrupting the classes—assuming she could find another site so quickly—would have proved disastrous.

But Commissioner Moses agreed to stay the eviction order until December 1st. And in the meantime a group of ceramists and art lovers formed the Inwood Pottery Association to help Mrs. Voorhees’ Pottery continue its work. The new society, which was formed on October 28th at an emergency meeting called at the American Women’s Association, has in the short period of its existence greatly added to the strength and prestige of the Pottery.

Due to the efforts of the new association, Mrs. Aimee LePrince Voorhees and her staff will be ready to begin work on January 1st in the new and spacious quarters at 503 West 168th Street. With more commodious classrooms, better equipment and greater accessibility that it ever enjoyed before, the Inwood Pottery will undoubtedly march on to new achievements and even greater renown.

But no matter what its fame and influence, it will lack the glamour of its setting in the glen at Inwood Park.

Nor will Inwood Park ever be as glamorous without the charming, little, romantically dilapidated barrack that housed the Pottery.”

Click here to read more about the old Inwood Pottery and to see examples of their work.