Musings on "Exchange"

The word exchange finds its way into conversation often.  We exchange presents at holidays, and purchases at shops.  Your HVAC system uses a heat exchanger; my colleague works in an Art Deco building on Exchange Place in Lower Manhattan.

                                                  90 West Broadway, Manhattan

Mainers exchanged lumber from their forests for Caribbean sugar in the early 1800s, facilitating a spike in rum consumption in that state (and the rise of the temperance movement).  Banks began as places of exchange, where a product was brought and money taken away.  A "Corn Exchange" Bank was located on  125th Street in 1913.  Shown above, at 90 West Broadway, the name "NY National Exchange Bank" has been obscured, either by intention or time.  In 1877, the NY National Bank was robbed at 138 Chambers Street, this building's address around the corner.  City records show new buildings permitted at this site in 1868 and 1895, so it is doubtful that the thief escaped through this portal.

nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html

Ansonia (Upper West Side)

The Ansonia is a landmark Beaux-Arts building, dating to 1902 and finished in 1913. Located on Broadway and 73rd Street in New York City, it was built by W.E.D. Stokes, an eccentric heir to a copper fortune who insisted on fanciful turrets and decorative elements. The architect hired for the job, Emile Paul DuBoy, was fetched from Europe, and impresses visitors with  equally exciting interiors comprised of elliptical living rooms, apses and sculpture niches. The Ansonia was built with artists in mind with doorways wide enough to accommodate a piano,  thick soundproof walls and cooled pipes in the summer.

Historic photograph of original building with text that says, 

"THE ANSONIA, Broadway and 73rd Street, 

Most Superbly Equiped Home in the World. New York, NY"

Note Rutgers Church on the left, since rebuilt.

Historic photograph of Ansonia in context with new Rutgers Church and 

what is now Apple Bank on the right.

Modern day photograph of the entrance on 73rd Street.  

Image by http://www.museumplanet.com

Here is a video taken in the public triangle park near the Ansonia. 

A Moment for Small Signs

Those who appreciate architecture do so on many levels. We are able to consider a building as an entity with a purpose and context, and often judge its success on its usefulness and beauty.  Since we often focus on the macro of our built environment, we thought it might be interesting to take a moment to switch to signs-- those details that tell us where to go and what to do, announce our arrival and embellish our experience.

Elegant arrangement with planter in Spanish Harlem, NYC.

Hand-painted sign in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

Art Deco elevator call button on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

D&H Canal

Photo of D&H Canal by Lynne Funk, 2012.

A dry laid stone embankment along the D + H Canal and towpath, which runs next to Route 209, just south of Ellenville, NY. This is the southern part of the Delaware & Hudson (D & H) Canal.  

Above: a child leads miles on the D&H Canal during the late 1800s. Century House Historical Society, Rosendale, New York.

Above: Towpath for walking along side the boats.

It took three people to drive a canal boat, with one, often a child, leading the mules along the path. Boats lasted for only five years, and it took three for a boat to be paid off.  Families owned some, living in an approximately 12 x 12 foot space.

Coal was transported from PA to New York City and the Hudson River until railroads made the canal network archaic.

For more information, please visit: http://www.canalmuseum.org/