Holiday Birds

This has been the Vredenburgh family's week of poultry. The luminous Mrs. V's mother was going to come to dinner this past week for her birthday. With all the holiday cheer already permeating the air, visions of Alastair Sim floating in on the breeze from an opened door I decided to cook a goose. "Joy of Cooking" didn't make it seem too hard.

Unfortunately the geese didn't come into the butcher's (Mezzogiorno on the corner of Davis and Castleton and I can't recommend it enough) on time and I couldn't pick it up myself. Mrs. V took on the role of goose acquirer and would have to prep its poor, pink carcass. Later she told me this involved the task of severing its elegant, muscular neck without the proper tools (a great big cleaver). By the time I got home it was becoming clear to her that goose that night was not going to happen.

Properly prepared, the goose needs to be scalded in boiling water and then left to sit uncovered in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. I'm a novice in the kitchen and I want to do things right. So no goose that night.

But I'd already made the apple/sausage stuffing and my mother-in-law was still coming over. So I ran out and got a chicken, stuffed it and threw it in the oven. It was great but she settled for some leftover turkey barley soup. She had to leave before the chicken was cooked. Mrs. V and I ate it ourselves and managed several other meals off it.

Thursday, of course, was Thanksgiving and we had turkey prepared by Mrs. V's sister, Mrs. C. It was good, the sides were great and I made pies.

Finally, on Friday past, I cooked the goose. The scalding and sitting had leached much of the fat out and the three hours of cooking got rid of much of the rest. The result was more than satisfactory. There's already been several good meals off the goose with several more to come. It's a rich, dark meat with crispy skin. I don't see myself going through the process again soon (and it's pricier than I anticipated) but it was sure worth it.

ARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So yesterday morning I woke up late after a fairly decent night's sleep. At the request of the always luminous Mrs. V I got dressed with the intention of going off and buying her coffee (we've run out) and getting the day's papers. I was unable to because I was greeted in the chill late morning sunlight by this sight -





Some person or persons unknown had put my car on rocks and removed and stolen all four tires and rims from our new Honda Fit Sport. I'm almost impressed by the stealthiness with which they conducted themselves.

I called the cops and when they arrived one of the officers exclaimed "Another?" They'd just come from the other end of our street where another Honda had been similarly denuded. It's insane.

GEICO's going to be taking care of everything (save the $500 deductible) tomorrow and I'll be slightly happier but still.....AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Greatest Country Ever

THIS is why we're the greatest country in the world.

Happy Thanksgiving

Proclamation of Thanksgiving
Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863

This is the proclamation which set the precedent for America's national day of Thanksgiving. During his administration, President Lincoln issued many orders like this. For example, on November 28, 1861, he ordered government departments closed for a local day of thanksgiving.

Sarah Josepha Hale, a prominent magazine editor, wrote a letter to Lincoln on 28, 1863, urging him to have the "day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival." She wrote, "You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritive fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution." The document below sets apart the last Thursday of November "as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise."

According to an April 1, 1864, letter from John Nicolay, one of President Lincoln's secretaries, this document was written by Secretary of State William Seward, and the original was in his handwriting. On October 3, 1863, fellow Cabinet member Gideon Welles recorded in his diary that he complimented Seward on his work. A year later the manuscript was sold to benefit Union troops.

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State

The Churches of Port Richmond Park

View Larger Map St. Mary of the Assumption's Chapel

Port Richmond was once one of the two shining commercial areas on the North Shore. Up through the mid-seventies it remained an important shopping and residential district with beautiful stores and homes. Of course all this changed with the advent of Forest Avenue Shoppers Town and later the SI Mall. Eventually the better stores moved out or failed and slowly the neighborhood slipped into an economic downturn that it's never recovered from. As old timers moved out the neighborhood's poverty and crime levels increased. At some point things got even stranger when Port Richmond became the home for all the Mexican immigrants coming to work the lawns and kitchens of the borough.


View Larger Map

Still, much of Port Richmond maintains at least a gloss of architectural beauty. Central to the old Port Richmond was the park between Heberton Avenue (part of which was nicknamed 'Doctors' Row') and the churches that surrounded it. Here are some now and then pictures.




View Larger Map

Bait and Switch

So I went to the Q&A with Staten Island historians at the New Dorp Moravian Church this past Saturday expecting to have a blast. I drew up a list of questions that I edited down to about half a dozen and was all set to go. All would have helped me clarify things I've put up or am planning to put up on the site. It should have been great.

The first thing when I got there was I saw it was going to be packed. Every parking spot was filled and I was half expecting my fellow late arrivals to start pulling up along the headstones. Cars of old people just circled around aimlessly and blocked other cars from their own terminal orbits of the lots. Finally I just slipped my little Honda Fit in alongside a building at the back of the church property, met my friend Steve McD. and went inside.

Going in I knew the audience would be skewed older. It was; it was skewed right past old into elderly. If there were more than a dozen people under sixty five in attendance I would say Staten Islanders must age terribly.

It's a shame because younger Staten Islanders are the people who are going to need to remember the borough's past. The problem, I guess, is that too many belong to families with no connection to the borough's distant past let alone the pre-bridge past or even the seventies and early eighties. Too many really have a past in Brooklyn and don't hold a nostalgic conception of Staten Island.

I don't know how you develop a love for history because no one ever had to do it for me. I was always obsessed with understanding what used to be somewhere and how whatever happened did. When teachers or my grandparents started telling stories I just sat there, listened and thought up questions to ask. I also can't understand how people aren't as fascinated as I am. I mean I can, it's just that it makes me a little sad.

Surrounding the folding chairs set up in the church auditorium (a beautiful building marred by dirty acoustic tile ceiling.) were tables from all the Staten Island historical groups; the Staten Island Museum, the Alice Austen House, the Tottenville Historical Society, the Staten Island Historical Society, the Conference House and the Jacques Marchais Tibetan Museum. Cool, I thought, I could get some information from them at the end and find out how to get access to their archives. We signed in and grabbed two of the last remaining seats. This was gonna be great.

So the organizer, got up, and in an unfortunate monotone, explained how the event would proceed. Instead of getting to the questions from the audience, representatives of the cultural organizations would get up and make presentations. Yes, a crowd of Staten Island history aficionados would get to hear people talk about Richmondtown, Alice Austen and the Conference House yet again. If the guy from the Conference House in his colonial get-up talked in an old-timey voice I thought I might scream.

He didn't but it was almost as bad. The woman representing the Alice Austen House, in the least interesting sort of community theater acting style, pretended to BE Alice Austen. I had questions to ask and there was bad acting going on about stuff everybody already knew.
When Conference House representative spoke he didn't use an old-timey voice, just a Staten Island one. I wish he had gone for the former. It mightn't have been as disconcerting.

What should have been a great event with all sorts of beautifully inane and pointless questions that should compose the best trivia sessions we got a set of ads for the pretty much the same old boring organizations. Nobody on Staten Island needs to hear anything else about the Voorlezer House. Ever.
Sure it's cool they've saved colonial buildings and moved them to Richmondtown, but I don't care anymore. Tell me about Port Richmond or Mariners' Harbor in the twenties or the old theaters in Stapleton. Tell me about the founding of the New Brighton neighborhood around Franklin Avenue. Just don't tell me about the same old junk I've been hearing since I was five.

To step off for a moment, I will say the Tottenville representative was pretty interesting. Her group's new and recently did a great thing. Through a series of events she didn't elaborate on they discovered the neglected gravesite of the Rev. John Lenhard (spell). He was a naval chaplain and was killed in the sinking of the USS Cumberland by the CSA Virginia at Hampton Roads in 1862. With music and representatives from the navy, they rededicated his grave. Very cool and the exact sort of stuff historical societies should be doing.

Finally we got to the questions. This was what I was waiting for and it was pretty cool. The first question concerned the name of the old movie theater on Victory Blvd. (The Victory!) and the second was about a Chilean racehorse buried at Fort Wadsworth.

One man asked the name of the Indian tribe on Staten Island at the time of the Dutch arrival and I could sense everyone else in the audience saying "Leni Lenape" sotto voco. The panelists did, then, enter into a informative and un-boring discussion about the tribes, known burial sites and the fact that they were part of a trade network that extended from Florida to Canada.

Finally I was called on but the man in front of me took the emcee's pointing hand as his cue to jump up and make more of a statement than ask a question. He wanted there to be more of an emphasis on Staten Island's abolitionist and underground railroad history. The panelists all agreed with him, but, and particularly the borough historian, took the opportunity to make clear that too much of accepted Staten Island history is hearsay. While it's true that many notable abolitionists lived the Island (George William Curtis, Robert Gould Shaw, the Goodhues, the Jewetts, and numerous others), there's little concrete evidence of underground railroad activity. He stressed that doesn't mean it didn't happen but there needs to a be careful search for any possible proof and it's examination.

Then I asked my question. With the large crowd and long delay I had been paring my page of questions down to a single one. I settled on the most obscure one, the one I felt unlikely to find an answer to anywhere else. The picture of the ex-German church on York Avenue indicates it was converted to something called "The Bill Smith Club." I asked and was greeted by silence. The panelists looked dumbfounded and didn't even seem to know exactly where I was talking about. Then the oldest member spoke up.

"The Smiths were a family who lived on Prospect Avenue across from the old PS 17. They had about sixteen kids. It was a political club." His answer was clear without hesitation.

Instead of asking what party it was (though I assume Democratic), I did manage to ask if he knew when the building came down. He didn't, just that it had.

And then it was over. It was getting late and I had to visit my aunt in the hospital. My friend's legs were bugging him and he decided it was time to go too. So we left and while I got some decent information and got a cool question answered I was disappointed. Too much time had been wasted with promos for groups that didn't need any with the nature of the assembled crowd. People had come out in their white haired droves to ask burning questions about borough trivia. They didn't need another round of commercials.

Coolest View Ever (maybe not)

Amazing Aerial View of St. George from the Early Thirties


What amazes me are the huge rail yard at the bottom left and the vast docks at the upper left. Today little remains of either of these vast chunks of infrastructure.

Detail - Borough Hall


Detail - Municipal Lot

Bottom: left - St. George Theater right - Brighton Heights Reformed Church
Center: The site of the present Municipal Parking Lot - You can see the large homes I pictured in an earlier post.