Spanning Queens For Its History

The story of how the Queensboro Bridge was built drew historyminded residents to the Middle Village Library, where the talk was given by Bob Singleton (center) of the Greater Astoria Historical Society. He is pictured with Steven Nobel, community library manager of the Middle Village Library, and Christina Wilkinson of the Newtown Historical Society (NHS). The Oct. 26 program, presented by the Queens Library, was sponsored by the NHS. (photo: Bill Mitchell) Every time someone talks about a building that no longer exists or a business that operates only in memory, the subject is history.

But for those venerable institutions and structures that have continued to stand strong over time—like the 100-year-old Queensboro Bridge—the history is cause for celebration.

Such was the case recently at the Middle Village Library, where Bob Singleton of the Greater Astoria Historical Society gave a lively slide-illustrated talk that focused on the building and history of the Queensboro Bridge and its role in the development of Queens.

Bob Singleton points out an interesting aspect of the door that belonged to the Blackwell House on Blackwell’s Island (now known as Roosevelt Island). The farmhouse, built between 1796 and 1804, exists today as a community center. The door is now on permanent exhibit at the Greater Astoria Historical Society, located on Broadway at 35th Street. (photo: Bill Mitchell) Capping the program was an experience without words—a carefully selected succession of historic images of the Queensboro Bridge projected and accompanied by music. Almost breathtaking to view in the darkened room, the presentation’s dramatic climax had been crafted by Singleton over a two-week period.

An inaugural event

The Oct. 26 event, presented by the Queens Library, was sponsored by the Newtown Historical Society (NHS).

In speaking with Christina Wilkinson, president of the NHS, a visitor learned that the lecture represented an inaugural event to help boost community awareness about the significance of local history.

Wilkinson is known for her contributions to Kevin Walsh’s historical website “Forgotten New York” over the last five years and her activism in saving St. Saviour’s Church in Maspeth. The NHS, she said, was founded in 2007 and is a non-profit organization, incorporated with taxexempt status.

It was established with a purpose. “I just felt that we certainly could use more programs and teaching of history,” she said. “We lose a lot of historic buildings every year and I think part of that has to do with people not being educated as to what [the buildings] were and how important they were.”

She suggested that by raising awareness about local history, it might generate greater appreciation— along with a desire to protect those structures that are worthy of preservation and possibly landmark status.

Reached out to Queens Library

As Wilkinson explained, the Queens Library had been contacted to gauge its interest in holding lectures about some topics involving local history. Since this year marks the centennial of the Queensboro Bridge’s opening and Singleton volunteered to make the presentation, the story of the span seemed an ideal choice for the inaugural event.

“Everybody knows the Queensboro Bridge,” Wilkinson said. “But they don’t know the whole history of it as the gateway to Queens and the impact it had on the development of housing.”

Clearly, it was a subject for which Singleton has no shortage of passion.

“I think even more than the Unisphere, [the Queensboro Bridge] should be the symbol for the borough of Queens,” he maintained. “This bridge made us what we are today.”

Bridge to a book

If evidence is needed, it can be readily found in The Queensboro Bridge, a 127-page book written by the Greater Astoria Historical Society (GAHS) and the Roosevelt Island Historical Society (RIHS), which was published by Arcadia Publishing as part of its Images of America series.

As noted in the softcover, Singleton and Judith Berdy of the RHIS did most of the research and writing.

Additional writing and research is credited to the RIHS’s Ursula Beau- Seigneur and the GAHS’s Richard Melnick, Walter Kehoe, Matt LaRose and Debbie Van Cura.

Plenty of photos The history of the bridge, if told strictly in narrative form, would be interesting enough. But the wealth of pictures—over 185 vintage photos and illustrations—provides a visual context of time and place for the story of its creation.

The book acknowledges GAHS’s Matt LaRose, who scanned the images, and Stephen Leone, Vincent Seyfried and Bob Stonehill, “whose marvelous collections underpinned much of the book.”

Additional credit is given to the New York City Municipal Archives for photos used.

Readers with an interest in Queens will enjoy seeing the historical photos with early views of Queens Plaza, taken when the traffic was due to trolleys and a sailboat’s mast—donated by British grocer and tea merchant Sir Thomas Lipton— stood as a flagpole (removed when the elevated train arrived a few years later).

For trolley afficionados, the book figures to be a source of delight, with its many images of such transportation in operation on and off the Queensboro Bridge.

For would-be trolley dodgers

Just as the trolleys are gone, so, too, are some of the once-prominent structures pictured in the book. Among them is a photo of the Queensboro Arena at 40th Avenue and Northern Boulevard, an outdoor facility.that seated 4,000. Nearby was the Madison Square Garden Bowl with a 72,000-seat capacity, where, as noted in the book, boxing’s world heavyweight title changed hands four times in four years.

But besides the photos of things that are no more, there are the pictures of things that never were— artists’ renderings, plans and models showing visions that never materialized.

One such example can be found in an image for City Center Cinematique— a 1973 plan for a project involving three auditoriums for screening motion pictures with seating for 150 to 500 persons in each. Plans also called for a 25,000-squarefoot exhibition area, conference area and research and restaurant areas.

The book also points out that despite the granting of a lease for it, the project was never begun.

In addition to the variety of pictures that track the stages of the Queensboro Bridge’s construction, there are photos of the people who made it happen—in particular, Dr. Thomas C. Rainey, called “the Father of the Bridge,” and Gustav Lindenthal, New York’s first commissioner of bridges, who designed the final version of the East River bridge.

Photos of those responsible

Neither man was a native New Yorker. Lindenthal was an Austrian who had worked on railroads in Austria and Switzerland. Upon his arrival in the U.S., toiled as a construction engineer for the Centennial exposition in Philadelphia, Pa. and designed railroad bridges for the Pennsylvania Railroad. In New York, besides his work on the Queensboro Bridge, he later designed the Hell Gate Bridge.

Rainey, for whom Long Island City’s Rainey Park is named, was born in North Carolina and became a teacher at the age of 18. He eventually settled in the Ravenswood section of Long Island City, before moving to Manhattan.

When he died at the age of 85, the New York Times noted that Rainey had spent 25 years of his life “and $600,000, his entire fortune, in an endeavor to promote the building of a bridge across the East River, between Manhattan and Long Island City.”

He died in 1910 and as Singleton noted, had lived long enough to see his dream built.

Applauding the visionaries

“That’s what has made our country great, people like that—visionaries,” Singleton observed, as his presentation drew to a close. “Not even a native New Yorker, but someone who had this wonderful dream to make a bridge linking two great islands— Long Island and Manhattan.”

The audience applauded, sounding its appreciation and, a visitor guessed, its agreement.

Other books and exhibits

In addition to The Queensboro Bridge (2008), the GAHS has authored The East River (2005), by Erik Baard, Thomas Jackson and Richard Melnick; and Long Island City, by Matt LaRose, Stephen Leone and Richard Melnick, also published by Arcadia Publishing.

The GAHS is located at 35-20 Broadway, on the fourth floor of the Quinn’s Gallery building.

There are items on permanent exhibit, such as the door to the Blackwell House, built between 1796 and 1804, on Roosevelt Island (originally known as Blackwell’s Island). As noted by the RIHS, it is one of the few farmhouses in New York dating from the years immediately after the Revolutionary War.

A visitor will also find an exhibit consisting of a large number of various items, such as a manually operated meat grinder. Once commonly found in households, such things— like the glass Pepsi soda bottle that sits on display—have become part of the past.

Some other exhibits are temporary. A visitor stopped to look at the photographs taken by Kevin Walsh, whose gift for seeing the traces of the past’s places and things, gave birth to his website, “Forgotten New York.”

Last month, the GAHS opened its temporary exhibit, “New York in the 1930s—the Photography of Max Drucker.

Drucker (1909-2003) had a Manhattan studio, where he did advertising photography and portraits. His most famous client was actress Helen Hayes and a photograph of her is part of the exhibit. But he also was a founding member of New York Film and Photo League, an organization that existed to document the social issues— including labor rallies, marches, demonstrations and breadlines— during the Depression.

In the part of the GAHS’s home that serves as its seating area for lectures, stands another exhibit that opened last month, “The Ethnic & Social Clubs of Astoria—Their History and Role in Community Life.”

The images on display show such organizations as The Optimists; Bohemian Citizens’ Benevolent Socity of Astoria, who constructed Bohemian Hall; the Stathakion Center; St. Pats for All; and the Federation of Italian American Organizations.

The Greater Astoria Historical Society is open to the public on Wednesdays, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturdays from noon until 5 p.m.; and other times by appointment.

For more information about the GAHS, call 1-718-278-0700; or visit www.astorialic.org