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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by gp38/r42 chris on Sun Aug 20 21:13:30 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Nilet on Sun Aug 20 12:16:33 2017.

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If you say so, after all, you would know

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Olog-hai on Sun Aug 20 21:40:49 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by ChicagoMotorman on Sun Aug 20 19:49:06 2017.

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It's already there, dum dum. And it belongs here too.

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Olog-hai on Sun Aug 20 21:41:51 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by ChicagoMotorman on Sun Aug 20 19:23:04 2017.

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Controversial subjects belong on ot subchat.

Thanks for agreeing. This is about a subway station. It belongs here indeed.

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(1447178)

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Olog-hai on Sun Aug 20 21:43:32 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Michael549 on Sun Aug 20 18:55:19 2017.

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So why would a man who supported the Union during the Civil War influence a "Confederate" subway station tile design at the age of 59?

Ask the NYT, who called it a tribute to his heritage.

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(1447179)

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Chicagomotorman on Sun Aug 20 21:46:16 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Olog-hai on Sun Aug 20 21:40:49 2017.

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Hey you're preaching to the choir.

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(1447182)

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Michael549 on Sun Aug 20 21:58:16 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Olog-hai on Sun Aug 20 21:43:32 2017.

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From a previous message:

"Ask the NYT, who called it a tribute to his heritage."

When and where did the Nwe York Times say that?

Mike


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(1447188)

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Olog-hai on Sun Aug 20 23:17:28 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Michael549 on Sun Aug 20 21:58:16 2017.

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Sorry; it was the Fox 5 story. Squire J. Vickers was the designer.



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(1447190)

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Re: Board of Education To Ban The Letter ''X''

Posted by Wallyhorse on Sun Aug 20 23:28:28 2017, in response to Board of Education To Ban The Letter "X", posted by R2ChinaTown on Sun Aug 20 18:28:40 2017.

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Showing how ridiculous things can become.

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(1447191)

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Wallyhorse on Sun Aug 20 23:32:27 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by gp38/r42 chris on Fri Aug 18 19:23:53 2017.

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More like the MTA is being proactive before some nut job notices it and uses it as an excuse to cause problems.

Given the litigious society we live in, sadly its the right move.

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(1447194)

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Nilet on Mon Aug 21 00:00:15 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by gp38/r42 chris on Sun Aug 20 21:13:30 2017.

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Well, I have owned you rather often.

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(1447195)

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Edwards! on Mon Aug 21 00:16:37 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Olog-hai on Sun Aug 20 21:43:32 2017.

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Nah...asking You,who attributed the paper to Confederate support.

What happened?
Not 3nough guppies to swallow your bullshit,making it far less believable and more ridiculous?

As a matter of fact,why are you even here?

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(1447196)

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Edwards! on Mon Aug 21 00:25:09 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by LuchAAA on Sun Aug 20 19:38:42 2017.

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A symphony of shit from the pitiful pissan troll.
You should write for one or more NAZI websites(if you already are,Im not surprised).You fit right in, asshole.

And since you must know, I dont follow.any particular party guidelines.
Both are full of shit,and self serving.
My beef with the Right is DIRECTLY DUE TO THE BIGOTS,LIKE YOU and the others who have polluted the water with social and economic bullshit.
You all need to die a slow painfully agonizing death to feel just a taste of what you have done to this country.

Fuck off,scum.

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Nilet on Mon Aug 21 01:12:31 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Edwards! on Mon Aug 21 00:16:37 2017.

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As a matter of fact,why are you even here?

His sense of self-worth is entirely dependent on the negative attention he gets when he acts like a tool.

You should have seen the exchange where he learned that necroposting my "robbed by a cop" thread actually makes me feel vaguely nostalgic rather than the annoyance he was hoping for. He was about to start crying!

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Nilet on Mon Aug 21 01:12:49 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Edwards! on Mon Aug 21 00:25:09 2017.

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I'm pretty sure LuchAAA is a parody.

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Spider-Pig on Mon Aug 21 01:16:45 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Wallyhorse on Sun Aug 20 23:32:27 2017.

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LOL!

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(1447203)

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Spider-Pig on Mon Aug 21 01:17:16 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Nilet on Mon Aug 21 00:00:15 2017.

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How very Confederate of you.

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Nilet on Mon Aug 21 01:36:05 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Spider-Pig on Mon Aug 21 01:17:16 2017.

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What does that even mean?

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(1447205)

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Nilet on Mon Aug 21 01:37:42 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Spider-Pig on Mon Aug 21 01:17:16 2017.

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PS— I have tomatoes ready and waiting, so I recommend you take advantage of my offer to disavow the terrible pun you were trying to make.

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Olog-hai on Mon Aug 21 01:39:51 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Wallyhorse on Sun Aug 20 23:32:27 2017.

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No it isn't. Nobody's litigating.

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 01:51:03 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Olog-hai on Sun Aug 20 23:17:28 2017.

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In order to keep this straight, I refer to Dyre Dan's message:

"As for the tile design at the 40th St. IRT fare-control area, the MTA denies it was meant to look like the Confederate flag, but others say it was, in honor of the Southern heritage of New York Times owner Sulzberger. (How's that for irony, a Confederate flag for the New York Times?) Proving it one way or the other at this date would be difficult."

In sum, Dyre Dan is associating "Southern Heritage" with New York Times owner Sulzberger.

I questioned that because Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. the current owner was born on September 22, 1951 in Mount Kisco, New York. His dad, Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger Sr. (February 5, 1926 – September 29, 2012 - was born on February 5, 1926 - New York City, New York.

In both cases WELL after the building of the Times Square local/express subway station in 1917.

So now let's look at the New York Post article.

Mike




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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 01:58:15 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 01:51:03 2017.

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So now let's look at the New York Post article.

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Olog-hai said, "Sorry; it was the Fox 5 story. Squire J. Vickers was the designer."

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http://nypost.com/2017/08/17/mta-will-remake-tiles-that-look-like-confederate-flags-in-station/

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MTA will remake tiles that look like Confederate flags in station

By Danielle Furfaro

August 17, 2017 | 7:03pm | Updated
Modal Trigger

MTA will remake tiles that look like Confederate flags in station
Subway tile with a Confederate flag-like design at the 40th Street entrance for the 1, 2 and 3 trains. David McGlynn

In the wake of last weekend’s white-power unrest in Virginia over a Confederate monument, the MTA has decided to remake a series of tile mosaics in the Times Square subway station that look eerily like Confederate flags.

The Post found in 2015 that the designs of rectangular squares with blue crosses on a red background have been a part of the Times Square station décor for more than than 90 years.

Civil War historian Dr. David Jackowe claims the tiles honor the late New York Times head Adolph S. Ochs, a Southerner. He also believes Ochs was buried with a Confederate flag.

The MTA — which refused to say if their action to finally remove the tiles is linked to the events in Charlottesville — has consistently disputed that the mosaics are actually Confederate flags or that they honor Ochs.

MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said they are meant to honor Times Square’s nickname.

“These are not Confederate flags, it is a design based on geometric forms that represent the ‘Crossroads of the World’ and to avoid absolutely any confusion, we will modify them to make that absolutely crystal clear,” Ortiz said.

Ortiz declined to say exactly how the MTA plans to modify the tiles or when the changes will happen.

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The bottom line - it is Civil War historian Dr. David Jackowe who claims the tiles honor the late New York Times head Adolph S. Ochs, a Southerner. He also believes Ochs was buried with a Confederate flag.

The bottom line - it is NOT "New York Times owner Sulzberger" as claimed but Adolph S. Ochs.

It gets more interesting.

Mike


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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 02:03:30 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 01:58:15 2017.

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According to the NY Post - it is Civil War historian Dr. David Jackowe who claims the tiles honor the late New York Times head Adolph S. Ochs, a Southerner. He also believes Ochs was buried with a Confederate flag.

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Below is a NY Times article from 2015:

https://www.nytimes.com/times-insider/2015/06/29/1917-stars-and-bars-on-subway-walls/?mcubz=0


Looking Back
1917 | A Rebel Flag on Subway Walls?
David W. Dunlap June 29, 2015 2:18 pm June 29, 2015 2:18 pm
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David W. Dunlap is a Metro reporter and writes the Building Blocks column. He has worked at The Times for 40 years.

The hunt for Confederate symbolism led last week to the doorstep of The New York Times.

“Tiny Confederate flags are right under the noses of millions of straphangers passing through the Times Square station every day,” The New York Post declared on Friday. “The tile mosaics honor the late New York Times head Adolph S. Ochs, a Southerner with ‘strong ties to the Confederacy,’ said Civil War historian Dr. David Jackowe.”

Subway riders were quoted by The Post as calling for the immediate eradication of the X-shaped decorative tilework, installed in and around the 40th Street mezzanine in 1917.

There are numerous facts in The Post account.

Mr. Ochs, who was the publisher of The Chattanooga Times before coming to New York in 1896, was proud of his ties to the South. His mother, Bertha Levy, had immigrated to Natchez, Miss., from Bavaria. Later, in Nashville, she married Julius Ochs, who was also from Bavaria.

The Post noted, accurately, that Bertha was a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy, though it failed to add that Julius served the Union cause as soldier and provisioner. (And misspelled her maiden name as Levi.)

“She had embraced a contemptuous antebellum view of blacks, and for the rest of her life was dogmatically conservative, even reactionary,” Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones wrote in “The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times” (1999). “Julius, on the other hand, recoiled at the sight of slave auctions in Mississippi and Louisiana.”

“Declaring slavery a ‘villainous relic of barbarism,’ he became as determined to abolish the South’s ‘peculiar institution’ as Bertha was to preserve it,” Ms. Tifft and Mr. Jones wrote.

After Mr. Ochs died in 1935, the Daughters of the Confederacy sent a tribute described by The Times as “a pillow the top of which bore a flowered likeness of the Stars and Bars of the Southern Confederacy.” Perhaps that is what The Post meant when it said Mr. Ochs was “buried with a Confederate flag.”

So can we conclude that a band of predominantly blue X’s — edged in white against a field of red — was meant by the subway’s chief architect, Squire J. Vickers, as a symbolic tribute to the Ochs family? After all, the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, which built the first subway, had accommodated The Times 13 years earlier by naming its 42nd Street station “Times Square.”

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is not convinced.

“The banding design was based on geometric forms with multicolored palettes, and the various designs are seen in stations that opened at this time,” said Sandra Bloodworth, the director of the authority’s Arts and Design unit. “While pictorial images that referenced what was above were often used in the designs, there is no evidence that the geometric patterns, and colors used, indicated anything beyond ornamentation.”

Nearly 200 commuters were seen passing through the mezzanine in a five-minute period on Friday evening. They looked untroubled by the decorative environment. No one among them recoiled at the sight of The Post’s “tiny Confederate flags.” In fact, no one seemed to notice.



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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by LuchAAA on Mon Aug 21 02:08:57 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 02:03:30 2017.

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Michael, good work finding this.

Did you know that in the South, you'll meet a lot of guys named Joshua and Benjamin. A lot of girls named Rebecca and Sarah.

Why? Because Southern Baptists love non New Testament names.

I'm surprised Southerners aren't boycotting WaWa over all this statue stuff.

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 02:15:34 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 02:03:30 2017.

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What's interesting is reading the comments posted with the article - that detailed some interesting facts. Here are just a few of those comments.

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https://www.nytimes.com/times-insider/2015/06/29/1917-stars-and-bars-on-subway-walls/?mcubz=0

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Chris Gibbs Fanwood, NJ June 29, 2015

It is possible there is some confusion over the exact meaning of "stars and bars." The flag of the Confederate States of America consisted in two red stripes with a white stripe between, and a blue field with 13 white stars, in conscious emulation of one of the flags of the early Republic (to which the CSA's founders paid homage). The broad blue/white X with 13 white stars against a red field was the CSA battle flag. The term "stars and bars" has been ascribed to both these flags. So, yeah, the tiled ornament pictured with the story looks vaguely like the battle flag. But hardly enough like to resurrect the South.

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Boston June 29, 2015

The confederate battle flag apparently imagined in these mosaics is not the flag that was known as the Stars and Bars. That flag, a Confederate national flag, had three horizontal red and white stripes, and a circle of white stars on a blue field, reminiscent, obviously, of the American Flag.

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Alexander W Bumgardner Charlotte NC June 29, 2015

The "Stars and Bars" is not the Battle flag, the familiar flag which has caused discord lately. Rather, the "Stars and Bars" is the first flag of the Confederacy. It has three horizontal, red and white bars with a circle of stars in the upper left corner.

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Lester Arditty New York July 1, 2015

Consider the original source of the article in the New York Times. It is today's New York Post. At one time, a well respected New York tabloid style news paper. Today it is the gutter trash, bottom feeding, sensationalist opinion rag & the Flagship paper of the Rupert Murdoch empire. Occasionally, they actually get some real news between the covers! The only purpose of the article to try to give The New York Times a black eye. It is totally disingenuous & hypocritical!
In this case. The New York Times is writing as news story inspired by the semi-factual article from the disreputable New York Post!
At a glance & from a distance, one can make a leap into nonsense to believe this symbol is a representation of the Confederate Battle Flag.

As far as the real Confederate Battle Flag; it is a symbol of a treasonous group of states, fighting against the legally elected government of the United States of America.

The more recent meaning of that flag has been used to intimidate & persecute African American citizens of the United States (& those who stand against hatred), who happen to live in those former Confederate states.

The Confederate Battle Flag is not about Southern Pride or a way to honor those who fought against the Union. It's about white power & the subjugation of black people. It is a symbol used by racists like the KKK & other such affronts to American ideals.

The tiles in the subway should stay. It's part of New York City's history. The Confederate Battle Must Go!

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David Flushing July 1, 2015

A common aspect of conspiracy theories is that "if it looks a little like something, it must be that." We see this all the time on shows about supposed ancient space aliens where a headdress has to be space helmet.

There are also simple geometric designs that show up in many places, the swastika being the prime example. There is a large one on a ceiling ventilator in the Radio City Music Hall, but this is not a nod to Adolf.

The subway mosaics in question were designed by Squire Vickers, who worked on subway stations from 1906 to 1942. Unlike his predecessor, he prefered flat ornaments instead of those in high relief as found south of Grand Central along the #6 train route. It was felt the older ornaments were dust catchers.

If one looks at the ornaments of other Seventh Ave. stations, one will find variations of the design in question at Times Square. To relieve monotony, an upper and lower band cross periodically. Let us not get carried away with a little similarity.

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Steve New York July 1, 2015

Considering Adolph Ochs was all of 7 years old when the Civil War ended, I don't think he had formal ties to the Confederate army.
I wonder if they'll find something similar in the Herald Square station as the Straus family who built up Macy's were also in the south during the Civil War.

And the mother of Theodore Roosevelt, the only president born in NYC, was also from Georgia and she was very pro-Confederate during the Civil War (her brother was a Confederate agent in Britain). I'm waiting to read about TR's "ties to the rebel cause."

It seems the Post simply is looking to tweak The Times and also probably to inflame tensions between Jews and African-Americans. Way to go Rupert!

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There's more from the HistoryNet.com



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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 02:26:16 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 02:15:34 2017.

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I decided to look up the Civil War historian Dr. David Jackowe, and found some interesting information at the HistoryNet.Com website.

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http://www.historynet.com/confederate-flags-in-times-square.htm

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Confederate Flags in Times Square?

5/22/2012 • Civil War Times Magazine

In New York City, on the walls of the sprawling subway station beneath Times Square, small mosaics bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Confederate battle flag form part of a decorative border. Can it be that the Southern Cross, an icon that still stirs controversy 150 years after the war, is prominently displayed at one of the world’s busiest intersections? According to the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority, the emblem—a blue X edged in white and set against a red background—stands for nothing more than the convergence of subway lines. But my research suggests a more interesting ancestry. Distinctive symbols are featured in stations throughout the system. For example, the Astor Place station is decorated with beavers, a reference to fur trader John Jacob Astor; the Grand Central Station has locomotives on its walls. So what can be inferred from the Times Square decor? ° Designed by architect Squire J. Vickers, the mosaic was installed in the station below the former New York Times building in 1917. In a 1919 Architectural Record article Vickers, a somewhat eccentric figure, explained how designing with tile placed him in a position “conceived in strength and power, standing forth like a prophet of old, proclaiming calmly from a lofty height great and universal truths.” He recognized the power of symbols, and his mosaics were loaded with them, many speaking to New York’s history. ° Several notable Confederates are part of that past. Four Rebel generals are buried in the Bronx’s Wood­lawn Cemetery, including Archibald Gracie III, whose home, Gracie Mansion, now serves as the official mayoral resi­dence. Both Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson lived in Brooklyn as young U.S. Army officers, and Stonewall was baptized in the city and spent his honeymoon there. Varina Howell Davis lived on Central Park West for the last 16 years of her life, working for the New York World.

Yet outside of calling New York home at some point in life—or death—those famous Rebels have no particular connection to Times Square. In fact, Times Square did not even exist prior to 1904; the neighborhood was then called Long Acre. For much of the 19th century, Long Acre Square was relatively undeveloped, known for its livery stables, grazing pastures and brothels. But in the early 20th century, the area between 7th Avenue and Broad­way underwent a transformation, evolving into the “Crossroads of the World.” Rather than Lee or Jackson, a more likely candidate for the Times Square Confederate is perhaps the man who cata­lyzed that transformation. If the mosaic represents a convergence of subway lines, Vickers also unmistakably references the symbol of the South to highlight the station’s proximity to a publisher with strong ties to the South: New York Times owner Adolph S. Ochs.

In 1904 Ochs finished building his new headquarters at Long Acre Square, a skyscraper that would have its own subway station in its basement. To commemorate the new structure, the Board of Aldermen renamed the neighborhood Times Square. The Times building quickly became the cultural and artistic nucleus of Manhattan. Upscale hotels were built. New res­taurants opened. And of course, there were the theaters. Times Square became the city’s meeting place, where New Yorkers came to grab a late edition, and where the world unofficially entered the New Year. By the time Vickers began building the subway station in 1917, Times Square was on the cusp of its legendary heyday in the Roaring ’20s. The Great White Way was born courtesy of Ochs and his “Old Gray Lady.”

The Confederacy was a significant part of Adolph Ochs’ family history, thanks to his mother. As a teenager in Ba­varia, Bertha Levi Ochs was so outspoken in her sympathy for revolutionaries involved in the upheaval in 1848 that her family sent her to relatives in Mississippi. In America Ber­tha married Ju­lius Ochs, also a German immigrant, and the couple soon moved to Ohio, where Adolph was born in 1858. When the Civil War broke out, Bertha decided that she couldn’t bear the Union’s despotism, and after her brother was commissioned a Rebel officer, she decided to go to Memphis. But her husband Julius re­mained loyal to the Union, and fought with an Ohio regiment.

This “house divided” stood just fine. Bertha helped the Confederates by smuggling spies and quinine across the lines. When she was caught, it was Julius, by that time a well-respected Union officer, who saved her from prison. In a 1930 speech at the Tomb of the Unknown Confederate Soldier at Mount Hope Cemetery, George Ochs, Adolph’s younger brother and the historian of the New York Chapter of the Sons of Confed­erate Veterans, spoke of his parents, saying the “beautiful bonds of affection and devotion to each other had happily withstood the crucial strain of civil strife, [and they] returned to their home in Tennessee, yet to the day of their death, the convictions of each remained unaltered, and both gave unflattering devotion to the respective causes, which each had so firmly upheld.” For Bertha this meant serving as a charter member of the United Daugh­ters of the Confederacy. When she died, UDC members shrouded her coffin with the Con­federate battle flag. In 1924 Adolph donated $1,000 to have his mother’s name engraved on the founders’ roll of the Stone Mountain Con­fed­erate Memorial. Enclosed with his check was a letter in which he sum­med up his mother’s views: “Robert E. Lee was her idol.”

Although he spent the second half of his life in New York City, Adolph Ochs never forgot his Southern roots. Raised in Knoxville, Tenn., he had cut his teeth as a publisher of the Chattanooga Times, which he acquired when he was only 20 years old. It was not until 1896, following his purchase of the foundering New York Times, that he moved to New York. Years later, he would be honored by the New York Southern Society for a lifetime of “unu­sual achievements in the perpetuation of the history and traditions of the South” and for having “striven on the side of the angels for supporting with unique zeal and power the highest ideals and traditions of the Southern States.” He donated to establish Confederate cem­eteries in Tennessee; to fund the United Con­federate Veterans’ reunions; and to establish the Chickamauga & Chat­ta­nooga Na­tional Mili­tary Park. He ran editorials and com­memorative and pictorial editions dedicated to Confed­erate veterans’ activities. But Ochs’ reverence for the South is best captured in his response to a 1927 controversy. Falsely accused by a Georgia newspaper of trying to thwart Stone Mountain from acquiring adjacent parkland, Ochs pro­tested in an editorial citing his longstand­ing dedication to Dixie: “I concede to no newspaper pub­lisher in the South a more loyal, sincere, enthusiastic and industrious ad­vo­cacy of the best interests, welfare and prosperity of the South than I have shown in the Chat­tanooga Times and The New York Times. I am confident that all to whom I am known will attest that the South, its interests and its welfare have been and are part of my religion and profession and hobby.” When Ochs died in 1935, the UDC sent a pillow em­broidered with the Con­federate flag to be placed in his coffin.

In 1998, the Times Square subway station underwent a substantial renovation and expansion that included re­-creations of Vickers’ mosaic tribute to Adolph Ochs. Even today, throughout the station’s cavernous, rumbling corridors, the Southern heritage of one of the city’s most influential figures is hiding in plain sight.

New Yorker Dr. David J. Jackowe, a lifelong student of the Civil War, writes about history, art and medicine. This article was originally published in the August 2012 issue of Civil War Times magazine.




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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by LuchAAA on Mon Aug 21 02:29:41 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 02:15:34 2017.

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What's interesting is reading the comments posted with the article - that detailed some interesting facts. Here are just a few of those comments.

Interesting?

it's almost word-for-word the arguments and talking points posted by people here for years.

It's like reading Spider-Pig, FBKLYN, AlM, SMAZZA, Italianstallion, WMATAARGH, Edweirds!, JayZeeBMT, ftGreeneG, SUBWAYMAN, salaam, Dand124, Tony G, RPanse, Fred G, bingbong, Joe V, or Jimmy.

Seriously. Those comments are so similar to posts made by those I just listed.

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Olog-hai on Mon Aug 21 02:44:19 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by LuchAAA on Mon Aug 21 02:08:57 2017.

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Because Southern Baptists love non New Testament names

Huh?? Most of the New Testament names (especially "Jesus") are Greek renditions of Hebrew names. Some translations render them in Hebrew-transliteration format. All the same names.

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 02:45:59 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 02:26:16 2017.

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I decided to look up Squire Vickers, to understand his influence upon the subways. Here's an article from the New York Times from 2007.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/arts/design/03subw.html?mcubz=0

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Art & Design
Underground Renaissance Man: Watch the Aesthetic Walls, Please

By RANDY KENNEDYAUG. 3, 2007

IF you’re looking for ways to wax poetic about the New York City subway and the vast planning that went into building it, Ibsen and Shakespeare may not be the first authors who leap to mind, especially as August settles its annual swelter on the tourist-packed platforms. Kafka maybe? Beckett? Dante? De Sade?

But in 1916, in unlikely literary territory — The Public Service Record, a dry periodical about municipal works — a man named Squire J. Vickers, the subway’s chief architect, enlisted Ibsen to defend the new simplicity he was introducing into the designs of the Victorian-era system. “In his ability to omit, he is a past master,” Vickers wrote admiringly of that playwright. Then, in quick succession in the brief article, he made reference to Michelangelo, Millet, the Pharisees, Falstaff, Othello and Horatio and quoted from “Richard II” (“this royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle”).

It was, in short, another era, when the city’s builders still saw themselves as Renaissance men and moral torchbearers. But even in the context of his time Vickers was a dynamo, a grandiloquent eccentric whose other life as a painter often bled over into the subway; his taste in colors and geometric design can be still be seen throughout the system.

For both aesthetic and budgetary reasons Vickers pushed the subway onto a much more pared-down, modern path than that of his Beaux-Arts predecessors. And maybe partly because of this his reputation has always seemed to be stuck somewhere in the tunnel behind them.

But an exhibition that opened this week at the New York Transit Museum’s gallery in Grand Central Terminal may help to remedy that neglect and place Vickers more firmly among the forces that shaped the look of the city — or at least enormous swaths beneath it — in the 20th century.
Continue reading the main story

The show is the second part of an examination of subway architecture and design; the first part, which closed July 8, focused on the subway’s original designers, George L. Heins and C. Grant LaFarge, whose elaborately ornate subway stations from 1904 continue to be the system’s most recognizable emblems. Organized by Carissa Amash, a Transit Museum curator, the new show, “Squire Vickers and the Subway’s Modern Age,” tells the story of the man who, in almost 30 years as the system’s lead designer, was responsible for building more of today’s subway than any other architect: over 300 stations, many more than any other architect.

The exhibition dusts off samples of the many lushly colored Arts and Crafts influenced mosaics that Vickers and his staff designed in the late teens and 1920s along new lines in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. Their quiltlike geometric abstractions, evoking Piet Mondrian and Sophie Taeuber-Arp, began to put a straight edge to the subway’s swoops and curlicues, its terra-cotta cornucopias and floral medallions.

“There seemed to be really no curves and almost no circles anymore — they just vanished,” Ms. Amash said one recent morning, carrying a pair of white gloves as she walked through the small exhibition space with drawings, pictures and excavated chunks of subway history around her on the walls and floor. (The steam-pipe explosion that burst through the pavement near Grand Central on July 18 happened on the very day the museum was awaiting delivery of many of its exhibits for the show. “It’s been crazy,” Ms. Amash said. “It’s New York.”)

Much of Vickers’s straightening and flattening had to do with the prevailing aesthetics of his day, as Arts and Crafts restraint gave way to the austerity of the Machine Age, reflected in the just-the-facts decoration, sans-serif type and solid colors of the Independent subway, the last major expansion, in the 1930s (stations that are now along the A, C, E and F lines, among others).

“How grateful to the eye is the wall surface unbroken by paneling, noxious ornament or the misplaced string course, decorated, if you like, inlaid with color, but unbroken,” he wrote.

In a wall text for viewers of the exhibition, Ms. Amash added that “instead of disguising the steel and concrete structure of the subway, Arts and Crafts design allowed Vickers to celebrate the subway’s underlying industrial character, exposing concrete vaulted ceilings and leaving steel girders unadorned.”

But he was also imminently practical and, as subway projects lurched through the Depression — at one point, Ms. Amash said, all but nine subway architects were laid off, including, briefly, Vickers himself — many of his aesthetic decisions were driven by the bottom line.

Mosaic elements were made flat, for example, in part “to avoid dust ledges,” he wrote, so they would be cheaper to clean. They could also be set by hand in the factory instead of piece by piece on the wall, making them less expensive to install. “With Heins and LaFarge,” Ms. Amash said, “there was a point at which it was like, ‘Hey guys, you’re going to have to rein in the costs,’ but with Vickers it was pretty much a tight budget from the get-go.”

One of the mosaics designed by Squire J. Vickers, the subway’s chief architect, can be seen at the Bushwick station in Brooklyn on the L line. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times

In one essay Vickers explained frankly why elevated stations, as any frequent subway rider can now see, ended up badly short-changed in the design department: “Our attempts to beautify have been of little avail, except in certain cases, on account of the cost.”

And yet, in many places, in design elements like a flat mosaic picture plaque at the Canal Street station on Broadway — a representation of a stone bridge crossing the canal that was later to become Canal Street — Vickers was still able pull off beautiful low-cost effects.

With its deep blues, yellows and reds, that plaque (one like it is on display in the exhibition) was designed by Jay Van Everen, one of Vickers’s best friends and a fellow painter, who attended Cornell University with Vickers. He served under Vickers, along with another painter friend of theirs, Herbert Dole, in what might be thought of as the short-lived mosaic picture-making studio for the subway, examples of which can also be seen at the Borough Hall station on the 2 and 3 line and at the Cortlandt Street station on the 1 line (now temporarily closed).

“It was not the made-to-order special stuff that the first subway contracts had called for, but for delight in color I personally would choose Vickers,” said Philip Ashforth Coppola, who has been at work for the last 30 years on a series of self-published books about the subway’s design and who, in the mid-1980s, interviewed Ruth Vickers, then elderly, about her father.

The exhibition also displays numerous sketches and architectural drawings, brass lamps and wall sconces, Art-Deco-style metal grilles and the occasional wild design indulgence, usually produced for prominent subway entrances, like an elaborate lighted sign flanked by brass seahorses that was installed near the Graybar Building.

Quoting from Vickers’s copious writings and displaying several of his colorful, Fauve-ish paintings, the show communicates a strong sense of him as part of a certain turn-of-the-century breed of urban optimist, those who believed that practical know-how, yoked together with art and culture, could solve most of cities’ problems.

Few things seemed to be too detailed or petty to draw his attention; he cautioned his builders against using fish glue behind subway tiles because “in warm weather it sometimes oozes out between the tile in black streaks.”

And almost nothing passed through his typewriter without picking up a literary allusion or three, from Anatole France to Uncle Tom to the Old Testament. Writing about the noxious waters of the Gowanus Canal, over which an elevated subway line had just been built, he had the prophet Elisha commanding the leper Naaman to “dip thyself seven times in the Gowanus and be clean.” And then he commiserated with leper for not wanting to do so.

As the architect of perhaps three quarters of the subway system, Vickers also lived what he preached, taking three forms of public transportation every day from his home in Grand View-on-Hudson in Rockland County to his office in Manhattan: a train to a ferry to a subway. His house and painting studio overlooking the Hudson, an Arts and Crafts cottage that he designed, was one of his life’s other great passions. He called the estate Over Joy, and he painted there prodigiously, often producing canvases of fantastical, almost science-fiction-like city scenes with geometric motifs that echoed the subway’s designs.

“My question,” Ms. Amash said, “is when did he have time to paint?”

He also wrote Romantic poetry that tended toward the overwrought. (A sample, called “The Sin of Michael Hanlon,” is in the exhibition: “Good Father Burke came through the storm at night to shrive the dying man.”)

He decorated the house laboriously over the years with tile work reminiscent of the subway and installed carved and painted masks and designs on walls and fences. Mr. Copolla, who visited Ruth Vickers at the cottage in Grand View-on-Hudson several times before her death in 1990, recalled flourishes like handmade stained-glass lamps and curiosities like a bright blue elephant-head sculpture over a drain spout, so that the water came out through the trunk.

“She’d kept it just the way he made it,” Mr. Copolla said of Vickers’s daughter, his only child, a teacher who never married. “It was like a museum to him.”

Vickers probably would have liked it that way, if only to serve as an example to others of a life pretty well lived.

“If we seek to discriminate,” he wrote once, “if we start out to find that which is best in art, it will permeate the entire life and rule of action. We shall take on larger views and become tolerant, charitable, sympathetic, for we shall have learned that ‘there are more things, Horatio, between heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.’ ”



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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 02:52:59 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 02:45:59 2017.

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Art Underground - A Look At The Tile Work Of Squire J. Vickers, as the chief architect.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/08/02/arts/20070803SUBWAY_index.html

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Beyond the Turnstile - AUG. 3, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/arts/03bsubway.html

“Architects of the New York City Subway, Part II: Squire Vickers and the Subway’s Modern Age,” featuring artwork by Squire J. Vickers, will run through Oct. 28 at the New York Transit Museum, Gallery Annex and Store, adjacent to station master’s office, Grand Central Terminal, (212) 878-0106; mta.info\museum. Open Mondays through Fridays, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is free.

Subway stations that can be visited to view the artwork of Vickers and his staff include, in Manhattan, 86th Street and Grand Central (on the 4, 5 and 6 lines); 14th Street-Union Square (R line); and Canal Street (N and R). In Brooklyn, Bushwick and Wilson Avenues (both on the L line); Borough Hall (2 and 3); and on Fourth Avenue at Ninth Street, an Art-Deco inspired lighted subway sign at the entrance to the F train. In the Bronx, Mosholu Parkway (4 line). In Queens, Vernon Boulevard-Jackson Avenue (7). For more subway esoterica: nycsubway.org.





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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Olog-hai on Mon Aug 21 02:58:37 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 02:52:59 2017.

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You've cemented it now. Nobody can say that this subject is off-topic anymore. ☺️

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 03:01:52 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 02:52:59 2017.

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NYC Subway Tiles from Wikipedia:

Many New York City Subway stations are decorated with colorful ceramic plaques and tile mosaics. Of these, many take the form of signs, identifying the station's location. Much of this ceramic work was in place when the subway system originally opened on October 27, 1904. Newer work continues to be installed each year, much of it cheerful and fanciful.[1][2]

Original IRT and BMT tiles
Heins & LaFarge (1901–1907)

Faience plaque with beaver at Astor Place

The earliest ceramic work was done by Heins & LaFarge (artists George C. Heins and Christopher Grant LaFarge), starting in 1901 and continuing up to 1907. Heins and LaFarge were both relatives of John LaFarge (brother-in-law and son, respectively), a leading stained-glass artisan of the day. They were part of the Arts and Crafts movement and worked in the Beaux-Arts architecture style, both of which were very much in vogue at the turn of the 20th century. At the time of their hiring they had completed large projects at New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Bronx Zoo. In addition to designing the artistic motifs, Heins and LaFarge also did much of the architectural work that determined the overall appearance of entire subway stations.

They designed name tablets that were made up of tiles with the station name in serif and sans serif roman lettering, with all of the letters capitalized. Some of the tiles by Heins and LaFarge are for station directional information such as directions to exits, platforms of different lines and systems, and platforms of different directions. The name tablets in each station contained elaborate border tilework surrounding the tablet.[3]

Heins and LaFarge knew what materials would stand up well to heavy-duty cleaning and scrubbing; they worked with the ceramic-producing firms Grueby Faience Company of Boston and Rookwood Pottery of Cincinnati.

Their ceramic artwork includes colorful pictorial motifs relevant to a station's location, for example:

The South Ferry loop station is decorated by 15 bas-relief representations of a sailing ship on the water.
The Astor Place station is decorated with large ceramic beaver emblems, representing the beaver pelts that helped make John Jacob Astor wealthy.
The 116th Street – Columbia University station includes a bas-relief emblem representing nearby Columbia University.

Their bas-reliefs in the subway have been likened to the work of the Italian Renaissance artist Andrea Della Robbia. Much of their tile work was station-identifying signs to guide passengers. Besides serving an aesthetic function, the images are helpful to New York City's large population of non-English speakers and those who can't read. A traveler can be told to "get off at the stop with the picture of a beaver." As well as pictorial plaques and ceramic signs, Heins and LaFarge designed the running decorative motifs, such as egg-and-dart patterns, along station ceilings.[3]

In addition to their wall-side tilework, Heins and LaFarge “hung large, illuminated porcelain-enamel signs over the express platforms, using black type [actually hand-lettering] on a white background and painted station names on the round cast-iron columns.”[3]
Squire Vickers (1906–1942)

In 1906, Squire J. Vickers, then a young architect, was hired. Vickers showed much respect for Heins and LaFarge, but his work consists much more of mosaics; he did not use bas-relief, citing the need for easy cleaning. Vickers also preserved the fonts that Heins and LaFarge used in their name tablets; however, in Vickers's new name tablets, the tilework on the borders of the tablets was more simplified.[3]

In his pictorial work, Vickers emphasizes actual buildings as landmarks, such as his colorful depiction of Brooklyn Borough Hall (1919) at the station of that name, rather than Heins and LaFarge's beavers and sailing ships. He describes his technique:

"...the mosaic was of the cut variety, that is, the body is burned in strips, glazed, and then broken into irregular shapes. The designs are set by hand and shipped in sections with paper pasted on the front. These sections are set against the wall flush with the tile. In certain stations the color bands and name tablets are a combination of mosaic and hand-made tile"

— (Stookey, 1994).
Enamel station-identification signs

Through the 1930s, Vickers ordered some enamel signs for the IRT and BMT from both Nelke Signs and the Baltimore Enamel Company. These signs were located on girder and cast-iron columns, and made them easier to identify stations. Shortened station names on the porcelain-enamel signs had a condensed sans serif capital-letter font.[3]

Vickers continued to work on subway projects for 36 years, until 1942.

2007 exhibition

Bilingual Canal Street (BMT Broadway Line) station ID

Two exhibitions, one celebrating the work of Heins & LaFarge and one for Vickers, were mounted at the New York Transit Museum's Gallery Annex[4] at Grand Central Terminal during 2007.


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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 03:22:53 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 03:01:52 2017.

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Here's an article from the NY Daily News about Squire J. Vickers. It mentions the 42nd Street station with any mention of the Confederacy, or any of the family members of the New York Times!

There are several pictures with the article, also.

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http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/story-mysterious-man-behind-nyc-subway-article-1.2693468

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The story of Squire Vickers, the man behind the distinctive look of the New York City subway

BY Keri Blakinger
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Thursday, June 30, 2016, 8:15 AM

Squire Joseph Vickers (seen in his Class of 1900 Cornell yearbook) oversaw subway design for more than three decades. (Cornell University)

You’ve probably never heard of him, but an eccentric man from Rockland County is one of the people most responsible for the look and feel of the New York City subway system.

Squire Vickers, the system’s chief architect for more than three decades, oversaw the design of more stations than any other individual — and he left his stamp on the system, with signature tile station plaques and a distinct Arts and Crafts design that permeates the system to this day.

To understand Vickers' style, though, first it’s necessary to understand what came before him.

When the first subway opened in 1904, it had been designed by ecclesiastical architects — church designers. Today, the subway might seem like the most unholy of places, but the system’s first architects — MIT grads George L. Heins and C. Grant LaFarge — were best known for winning the competition to design the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.

New York Transit Museum celebrates 40 years

In 1901, according to the New York Times, they snagged the job as chief architects for the first subway line, which would run from City Hall up to 145th St. The City Hall station was the crown jewel of the Interborough Rapid Transit subway line, featuring elegant Tiffany skylights and ornate Gruby faience tiles.
The elegant former City Hall subway station was the crown jewel of the original 1904 subway system.
The elegant former City Hall subway station was the crown jewel of the original 1904 subway system. (Roca, John DAILY NEWS)

Like the other 1904 stations, City Hall was influenced by the Beaux Arts movement, a Parisian neoclassical style of architecture.

“That was an aesthetic that architects at the time were embracing,” MTA Arts & Design Director Sandra Bloodworth told the News.

“They were also evoking the City Beautiful movement showcased at the Chicago World’s Fair, with the hope that if you created these great public spaces it would bring out the higher civic nature of the people.”

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A workman caulks joints with lead to make them waterproof during the construction of the 6th Avenue subway tunnel.
19 photos view gallery
New York City Subway Construction

Their style favored ornate terra cotta bas relief plaques, like the beaver at the East Village’s Astor Place — intended to represent the Astor family, who lived above and made their money in fur trading.

Another typical Heins and LaFarge station is to the north at Columbus Circle. There, the plaques feature the Santa Maria — one of the ships in Christopher Columbus’ fleet — at sea, surrounded by miniature seagulls.
The beaver at Astor Place was a Heins and LaFarge design.
The beaver at Astor Place was a Heins and LaFarge design. (McLane, David)

Heins and LaFarge stations are often identifiable by those plaques. If the plaques feature the depth of ornate bas relief, you’re probably in a 1904 station. Those early Heins and LaFarge stations are filled with swoops and swirls and architectural flourishes. Also, they’re only on the numbered lines — the lettered lines were built later.

Squire Vickers — who undoubtedly has the coolest name in New York transit history — was an eccentric painter who graduated from Cornell University, according to the New York Times. He lived north of the city— in a Rockland County town called Grand View-on-Hudson — in an Arts and Crafts-style home he designed.

Nathan's century of Coney Island hot dog history as a N.Y. icon

The interior of his artist’s retreat was decorated with tiles, much like an upstate subway outpost. When he wasn’t masterminding the look of the then-biggest underground transit system in the world, Vickers passed the hours painting and writing Romantic poetry.

Though he was not a New Yorker, he was a regular subway rider; his daily commute to Manhattan included jaunts on the train, ferry and subway. When he took over as the system’s chief architect, he brought his own sensibilities to the system.
When Vickers took over subway design, he went for an easier-to-maintain Arts and Crafts style that relied heavily on colorful tiled mosaics.
When Vickers took over subway design, he went for an easier-to-maintain Arts and Crafts style that relied heavily on colorful tiled mosaics. (DanTD/Wikimedia Commons)

“He was an architect and then he became the primary architect for station design beginning in 1908 till the 1940s,” transit historian and "From a Nickel to a Token" author Andy Sparberg explained. “His stations encompass two types.”

First, he oversaw the stations influenced by the Arts and Crafts style. They are less ornate — and easier to maintain — than their Beaux Arts predecessors. Gone were the three-dimensional bas reliefs and swirling flourishes, as curves gave way to straight lines and faiences to vividly colored mosaic tiles and geometric designs.

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The Rector St. subway stop features Vickers' work, as do many of the other stops south of Times Square.
The Rector St. subway stop features Vickers' work, as do many of the other stops south of Times Square. (Gryffindor/Wikimedia Commons)

Although some of Vickers’ affection for the simplicity of Arts and Crafts style was undoubtedly about aesthetics and ethos, some of it was probably about dollars and cents.

“With Heins and LaFarge,” Transit Museum curator Carissa Amash told the Times in 2007, “there was a point at which it was like, ‘Hey guys, you’re going to have to rein in the costs,’ but with Vickers it was pretty much a tight budget from the get-go.”

Some of the most striking examples of his work can be found on many of the local stops south of Times Square — Rector St., Franklin St., Houston St. The geometric mosaic bands along the walls of the Times Square complex, the City Hall mosaics at the R train’s City Hall stop and the train mosaics at Grand Central are all vivid examples of Vickers’ work.
Vickers oversaw the design of the 14 St.-Union Square subway station, which features this tile design.
Vickers oversaw the design of the 14 St.-Union Square subway station, which features this tile design. (Keri Blakinger/New York Daily News)

Over time, though, his style shifted. When the city decided to erect the Independent Subway System — better known as the IND — Vickers imbued the new stations with a noticeably different aesthetic.

“When the city began building IND stations opening in 1932, they adapted Machine Age design, a variant of Art Deco,” Sparberg explained.

Machine Age sensibilities were more streamlined and bolder, evoking a feeling of modernity and precision. As that influence took over, the station name tiles shifted to sans-serif fonts and solid colors.

The old IND stations — which correspond to lettered lines after H — feature austere mosaic name tiles with sharp edges and bold colors. They’re vibrant and lively — but straight-to-the-point and all business.
The IND stations have a distinctly different tiling theme from the stations that came before them.
The IND stations have a distinctly different tiling theme from the stations that came before them. (Youngking11/Wikimedia Commons)

Although Vickers would have overseen the IND station design, Bloodworth cautioned that it’s not certain how hands-on he was in the bold tiling that defines the look of the IND platforms today.

“I’ve always wondered who really did that because it’s so different from his sensibilities,” she said.

Above all, his sensibilities focused on a fundamental belief that better art made for better people.

“If we start out to find that which is best in art, it will permeate the entire life and rule of action,” he once wrote.
PIC BY DARKCYANIDE / CATERS NEWS - (Pictured: Unnamed subway track in New York City.) - A daring urban explorer has risked his life in order to snap a stunning series of images on New Yorks subway tracks. At the dead of night, the photographer - known to h
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“We shall take on larger views and become tolerant, charitable, sympathetic, for we shall have learned that ‘there are more things, Horatio, between heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.’ ”

Vickers dreamt of his subway art philosophy until he retired in 1942, five years before his death. During this career, he oversaw the design of literally hundreds of New York City subway stations, leaving his indelible mark on the Big Apple’s underground.

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 03:31:31 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 03:22:53 2017.

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I found a wonderful article at:

ARCHITECTURAL TILES, GLASS AND ORNAMENTATION IN NEW YORK

Subway Tiles--Part III, the Squire Vickers Era

https://tilesinnewyork.blogspot.com/2012/09/subway-tiles-part-iii-squire-vickers-era.html

This article which contains some very beautiful photos and artwork of the tiles of the subway system, is just too beautiful to excerpt just the text.

I strongly suggest that folks look at this article and website, it contains a good deal of information about the building of the subways.



I

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 03:43:14 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 03:31:31 2017.

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In addition there is:

A History of New York City Mosaic Tile Signage 1901-1925

http://www.nysubwaymosaics.com/history.html

http://www.nysubwaymosaics.com/design.html


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The bottom line - I'm not finding any direct connection between Squire Vickers and the NY Times family of folks, or any mention of a direct "influence" as suggested by the Civil War historian referenced in the previous e-mails.

Mike




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Re: Board of Education To Ban The Letter ''X''

Posted by sloth on Mon Aug 21 09:16:03 2017, in response to Board of Education To Ban The Letter "X", posted by R2ChinaTown on Sun Aug 20 18:28:40 2017.

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OT chat with this isht already

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Mon Aug 21 10:43:41 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 01:51:03 2017.

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It's a classic looking for an issue where there is none. The tiles have nothing to do with what people are attempting to make them out to be.

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Mon Aug 21 10:51:53 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Olog-hai on Sun Aug 20 23:17:28 2017.

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As long as people are imagining controversy where there isn't any....lets not forget the tiles at Atlantic Avenue....



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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by BMRR on Mon Aug 21 11:50:13 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Mon Aug 21 10:51:53 2017.

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Perfect. What is the first word that comes to mind ? For this topic.

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 11:52:07 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Mon Aug 21 10:43:41 2017.

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I agree with you.

"They accuse" the current but both the current & his dad were not born in the South, then they look at the grand-father - no dice, so its on to the great-grand-father, but its really the great-grand-father's wife with the clearest links!

Plus "they" can not even SHOW where the architect and the newspaper owners link up to provide any "influence."

Still a good look back.

Mike


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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Olog-hai on Mon Aug 21 12:12:42 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Mon Aug 21 10:51:53 2017.

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Everyone knows that "A" stands for "Adolf", right??

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Olog-hai on Mon Aug 21 12:13:07 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Mon Aug 21 10:51:53 2017.

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Everyone knows that "A" stands for "Adolf", right?? (I mean "Reich".)

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Re: Board of Education To Ban The Letter ''X''

Posted by FormerVanWyckBlvdUser on Mon Aug 21 13:43:51 2017, in response to Board of Education To Ban The Letter "X", posted by R2ChinaTown on Sun Aug 20 18:28:40 2017.

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Geez. What will happen to X-rays? Or Xylophones?

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Mon Aug 21 13:57:45 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Nilet on Mon Aug 21 00:00:15 2017.

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In your narrow little mind's dreams of course.

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Olog-hai on Mon Aug 21 14:17:00 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Mon Aug 21 13:57:45 2017.

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He's late for his date with Luch.

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Dyre Dan on Mon Aug 21 16:25:47 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Michael549 on Mon Aug 21 01:51:03 2017.

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OK, I should have said Adolph Ochs, not Sulzberger. Did Vickers know what Och's political opinions were? He may have assumed that since he was from the south, he sympathized with the Southern cause (as his mother in fact did).

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Dyre Dan on Mon Aug 21 17:14:31 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Spider-Pig on Sun Aug 20 17:14:16 2017.

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There is no provision for that, and anyway Cuomo acted unilaterally, there was no election. I know that NYU remained involved somehow in the governance of the Hall for several years after the sale (there was an election as late as 1976), but I don't think they are anymore, and the trust or board that managed it may have been eliminated at the same time. If so, then I guess the State, in the person of the Governor, is within its rights to remove busts. I hope there will not be pressure to remove anyone else.

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Nilet on Mon Aug 21 18:16:47 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Mon Aug 21 10:43:41 2017.

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It's a classic looking for an issue where there is none.

Exactly. There's no issue, but you started this thread anyway.

The irony here is incredibly potent. It's too bad you lack the self-awareness to see it.

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Nilet on Mon Aug 21 18:17:24 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Mon Aug 21 13:57:45 2017.

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In this very thread. And many others.

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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by Dyre Dan on Mon Aug 21 20:20:03 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Catfish 44 on Fri Aug 18 23:51:52 2017.

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They are very comparable. A day on which a major thoroughfare is closed so that a parade can be held celebrating people of a particular ethnic group. The parades feature a very similar mix of marching bands, floats, and politicians, too.



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Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed

Posted by gp38/r42 chris on Mon Aug 21 20:28:33 2017, in response to Re: Historic Subway Tiles With Nothing To Do With Racism Or Even Confederacy to be Removed, posted by Nilet on Mon Aug 21 18:16:47 2017.

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Correct, I started the thread with a link to a channel 11 story. It had no commentary except that it was ridiculous.

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