East Coast Memorial in Battery Park

The East Coast Memorial is one of three memorials in the United States administered by the American Battle Monuments Commission,  which include the West Coast World War II Memorial in San Francisco overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, and the National Memorial of the Pacific in the Punchbowl  (“Hill of Sacrifice” ) in  Honolulu, Hawaii. All these three memorials  are dedicated to servicemen who were lost or buried at sea in World War II.


In Honolulu the engraved names of almost 29,000 heroes from World War II, Vietnam, and Korean wars who were designated Missing In Action, Lost, or Buried at Sea are honored in the ten ‘Courts of the Missing’.
 West Coast World War II Memorial  in San Francisco ,  overlooking the Pacific Ocean,  bears the names of 413 members of the armed forces  who were   buried at sea in U.S. Pacific waters between 1941 and 1945.


The East Coast Memorial in New York is dedicated to the servicemen  who  lost their lives in the Atlantic Ocean. The names  are inscribed on  eight large gray granite slabs located with the 25-acre Battery Park in Downtown  New York. Looking between the slabs, you can see the ocean and  the Statue of Liberty.
The centerpiece of the East Coast Memorial is a massive bronze eagle set on a black granite pedestal. The eagle was designed  by Italian sculptor Albino Manca.

Manca studied on scholarship at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome and took several prizes there in 1926 and 1927. Manca executed a number of portrait busts of the Italian royal family and one of Mussolini.  Mussolini  was so impressed with Manca's work that he  helped fund his permanent move to America in 1938.


The granite slabs were set up in October 1959, while the sculpture was installed on February 4, 1963. The memorial was dedicated by President John F. Kennedy on May 23, 1963 at a ceremony. During his address   President Kennedy reflected that, even though World Wars 1 and 2 offered the promise of lasting peace when they ended – the conflicts, the burden of burying the dead as the result of ongoing war, was still going on.
There is an inscription on the pedestal of eagle , back:
In addition to the 4,597  American servicemen honored here who lost their lives in her service and who sleep in the American coastal waters of the Atlantic ocean,  the United States of America  honors   the  6,185  seamen of the United States merchant marine and 529 seamen of the United States transport service who lost their lives during World War Two.

Whitehall building

Whitehall Building at #17 Battery Place was built in  1902-1904 by  architect  Henry Hardenburgh, who  also built  the famous    Plaza Hotel at Grand Army Plaza, Manhattan.  
Far long ago in the middle of the seventeen century   Peter Stuyvesant’s mansion was on this place.    Dutch colonial governor Peter Stuyvesant was a major figure in the early history of New York City. The fourth and last Director-General of New Netherland was a former soldier.  He had served as governor of the Dutch Caribbean Island of Curacao, where he lost his right leg. Stuyvesant tried to defend New Netherland from takeover by England.

Peter Stuyvesant 17th century mansion.
When the British took over in 1664 and renamed the colony New York City, they promised Stuyvesant land if he would surrender to the King. He did, and that same year he signed the deed to a house on  a 62-acre tract of land covering today’s East Village and Stuyvesant Town.
Stuyvesant had also built   a stone governor’s mansion near the water.  



White Hall in London as it was in 1749
British  named the building and the street Whitehall, after The Palace of Whitehall (or Palace of White Hall) , the main residence of the English monarchs in London from 1530 until 1698.    

At the end of 17th century the palace was  the largest and most complex in Europe. The palace gives its name, Whitehall, to the road on which many of the current administrative buildings of the UK government are located.  I
A mosaic in subway

n 1698 the palace was burned except the Banqueting House.
Peter Stuyvesant’s mansion was demolished, but the name lives on in the current Whitehall Street (not the same street as the original) and in the building at Battery Place.  
A mosaic representation of Stuyvesant’s house can be seen on the walls of the Whitehall Street subway station serving the R train.

Whitehall Building in New York   is among the oldest structural steel framed buildings of its size.  Building had a great succeeds after several years of using  the annex, also known as Greater Whitehall was built. At the time of its completion, Whitehall with the  annex  was the largest office building in New York City. The  two buildings were designed in neo-Renaissance style with unique nautical themed ornamentation
One office tenant in the mid 20th century was the Moran Towing Company, operator of a fleet of tugboats. In the days before radio dispatching, a man high in the building would watch with a telescope for incoming ships, and then use a six-foot megaphone to shout instructions to the Moran tugboats docked at the Batter. (...)

In 1999, the Whitehall Building was turned into an apartment complex for upscale tenants. In 2000, the building was declared a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Committee

Because of the harsh environment at its waterfront location at the tip of Manhattan the building suffered severe structural steel decay. Large areas of the primary structural skeleton required replacement and monumental stone and terra cotta ornamentation required removal and replication. This $10m restoration was phased over four years. All of this work was been done while the building was occupied.

New York’s Most Exciting Stairwell

John Adams ,   a Founding Father, the first vice president of the United States and the second president and the father  of  John Quincy Adams,   the nation's sixth president said about New York: 
New Yorkers talk  very loud, very fast and all together. If they ask you a question, before you can utter three words of your answer, they will break out upon you again  – and talk away.”



Leon Trotsky  (   Lev Davidovich Bronshtein  ),  one of the  leaders in Russia’s October Revolution in 1917, and later commissar of foreign affairs and of war in the Soviet Union wrote about New York: "..city of prose and fantasy, of capitalist automatism, its streets a triumph of cubism, its moral philosophy that of the dollar. New York impressed me tremendously because, more than any other city in the world, it is the fullest expression of our modern age."


Cole   Porter, famous   American composer and songwriter, who created songs like "Night and Day," and the music for Broadway shows such as Anything Goes and Kiss Me, Kate wrote in his song:
I happen to like New York,
I happen to love this town, 
I like the city air, I like to drink of it. 
The more I see New York, the more I think of it. 
I like the sight and the sound
and even the stink of it.
I happen to like New York.

Do you  like these quotes? I found them not in the  books and not  on the Internet-  I found them on the on the walls.  I found the quotes on the walls of the stairwell in the New York city Museum , that is located on Fifth Avenue ,  at the end of the Museum Mile.
This is ‘New York’s Most Exciting Stairwell.’ That’s what reads on the door of stairwell .   

 Graphically created in stark black and white, with bold typographic quotes juxtaposed with historical images, there’s something to discover within the stairwell in every nook and cranny.
The Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave. at East 104th Street, has unveiled a stairway installation featuring famous "heavenly quotes" and images about the Big Apple's history in 2013.

This "City Steps" installation, located in the MCNY's southern stairwell, includes quotes from cultural luminaries such as poet Edgar Allen Poe and artist Georgia O'Keefe, according to the museum.
I call this our stairwell showroom,” Susan Henshaw Jones, MCNY director, said. “Mayor Bloomberg recently encouraged New Yorkers to take the stairs to improve their health. Well, we want our visitors to strengthen their minds while they strengthen their bodies.”
Jones said that the quotes reflect the city's spirit — especially making the most out of things.
  “Just like New York City, our museum finds ways to find opportunity around every corner,” she said. "When you visit, you can experience even more of what has made our city so remarkable and fantastic.”






Library underfoot

Art can be found anywhere  -     at home, in museums and galleries. We walk through New York City   looking at the buildings and monuments. We rarely look down. But in New York almost always a new discovery is waiting around a corner if  you only take the time to notice it.

 In New York, the wittiest, wisest ideas lie underfoot -- literally. All you have to do is look down. Twelve  years ago  in 2004,  96 plaques were installed in the pavement  of the  promenade along East 41st between Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue leading to the Central Library.


These plaques quote 45 writers  from 11 countries spanning 20 centuries. And each  quote is  illustrated with images inspired by the text.
When the Library Way project was first initiated, 41st Street from Fifth Avenue to the Park Avenue was a shadowy street that served as a delivery-entrance “backstage” to nearby 42nd Street. In the mid-1980s Midtown Manhattan property owners  created the Grand Central Partnership (GCP) . The organization works to ensure that the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood remains the world's most desirable business address and a vibrant destination for shopping, dining, nightlife and tourism.



In 1996, GCP, along with the New York Public Library and The New Yorker, convened a distinguished panel of literary experts and librarians to select quotations regarding the importance and impact of literature from some of literature’s most prominent works.
These quotes have been brought to life by urban sculptural artist Gregg LeFevre in beautiful bronze plaques.     Gregg LeFevre graduated cum laude from Boston University in 1969 with a B.A. in Philosophy.  He  completed his first public work in 1974.  



 He   creates sculpture in both New York and Massachusetts.  LeFevre with Jennifer Andrews   owns the New York-based Andrews/LeFevre Studios.
Similar Literary Walk that features a series of 49 bronze pieces  done by  Gregg LeFevre was set into the  sidewalk in Iowa in 2001.  The  works of  Jennifer Andrews and Gregg LeFevre can be found throughout the NYC including installations at Union Square, Foley Square, Herald and Greeley Squares, Brooklyn Bridge Park and Flushing Bay.















Patchin Place in Greenwich Village and John Reed

Greenwich Village stretches from the Hudson River Park east as far as Broadway, and from West Houston Street in the south up to West 14th Street.  Between No. 113 and 109 West 10th  in Greenwich Village near Washington Square is Patchin Place, an iron-gated side street that has just ten small homes.     This small alley populated with three story row houses dates to the late 1840s.   Today it is a popular location for psychotherapists' offices.
But by the early 20th century it attracted writers who could  have peace and quiet to work in the middle of bohemia.  Many artists have lived here, including John Cowper Powys, Theodore Dreiser, and even Marlon Brando. 


American poet, painter, essayist, author Edward Estlin Cummings after traveling in Europe    settled here and lived at 4 Patchin Place  until 1962. His apartment was on the top floor, back.

This is where, in 1950, EE Cummings and Dylan Thomas happily spent a few hours together in mutual admiration, after the younger poet had expressed a desire to meet this famous Greenwich Village poet.

John  Reed   occupied  1 Patchin Place in the 1910s.    Reed began writing "Ten Days That Shook the World" here, his firsthand account of the Russian Revolution.  


 John   was born   in Portland, Oregon.    In 1904 he enrolled in Morristown,   a college preparatory school in New Jersey. There, through his pranks and charm, he became a popular rebel, writing short stories, poems, and essays for the school literary magazine.
Entering Harvard in 1906, Reed   began submitting articles and poems first to the Harvard Lampoon, then to the Harvard Monthly. Already a prolific writer when he graduated in 1910, Reed aimed to become a journalist but knew he needed to experience more of life.


After a trip to Europe  he moved to New York City's Greenwich Village, a magnet to writers, freethinkers, and radicals of the day.   To supplement his income, Reed sold satires, factual reporting, and essays to magazines. 
In 1913 Reed set out to cover the raging Mexican Revolution for Metropolitan Magazine and the New York World.  


 In August 1914 the Metropolitan sent Reed, a pacifist, to report from the western front. In  March 1915   he toured Greece and Serbia and traveled through Russia in attempts to reach the front lines. In Petrograd Reed saw pervasive corruption but was impressed by the friendliness and dignity of the Russian people. 


During a visit to Portland, Reed had met Louise Bryant,   the great love of his life. In the spring of 1917   Reed  was hired by the New York Mail and   sailed to Russia in August with his wife. Reed interviewed   Alexander Kerensky and  found in him "no real fixity of purpose--as the leader of the Russian Revolution should have". He also interviewed Leon Trotsky, the president of the Petrograd Soviet. Reed himself joined the Bureau of International Revolutionary Propaganda, for which he compiled prorevolutionary publications for delivery to German troops.  In January 1918 he met Lenin and addressed the Third Congress of Soviets as an example of an American sympathetic to the Bolshevik cause.


John Reed arrived back in New York City on 28th April, 1918. He was immediately arrested and charged
for violating the Espionage Act by publishing anti-war articles and cartoons. Reed’s famous  book  "Ten Days That Shook the World"  was published in 1919.    It contained a foreword from Lenin himself, who commended it to “the workers of the world”:


With the greatest interest and with never slackening attention I read John Reed's book, Ten Days that Shook the World. Unreservedly do I recommend it to the workers of the world. Here is a book which I should like to see published in millions of copies and translated into all languages. It gives a truthful and most vivid exposition of the events so significant to the comprehension of what really is the Proletarian Revolution and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.


These problems are widely discussed, but before one can accept or reject these ideas, he must understand the full significance of his decision. John Reed's book will undoubtedly help to clear this question, which is the fundamental problem of the international labor movement.

In 1928 Sergei Eisenstein filmed the book as October: Ten Days That Shook the World.

John Reed's own exploits and parts of the book itself were the basis of the 1981 Warren Beatty film Reds.
In 1982 the Soviet film maker Sergei Bondarchuk used the book as the basis of his film Red Bells (its alternative title is Ten Days that Shook the World). (...)



 Stalin later banned Reed’s text, probably because it only mentioned him once yet heaped praise on Trotsky. 

In 1919 Reed  organized the Communist Labor Party and was founder and first editor of the Voice of Labor. In 1918 Reed was named Russian consul general at New York, a status never recognized by the United States.
 After charges of treason he fled to Finland where the authorities kept him in prison before exchanging him for Russian-held Finnish prisoners of war. In prison Reed wrote more poetry and outlined a pair of novels, which he never completed.




In September 1919, at Reed's request,  his wife Louise Bryant traveled to Moscow to join him.   Weak from prison and suffering from a long battle with kidney disease, Reed succumbed to typhus. He died on October 17, 1920  in a Moscow hospital with his Bryant by his side . It was a Sunday, just days before his 33rd birthday .

For seven days the body lay in state in the Trades Union Hall, guarded by fourteen soldiers of the Red Army…On October 24, thousands of Moscow’s proletariat marched behind John Reed’s body as it was carried to the Kremlin. Snow and sleet fell. A military band played the funeral march of the revolution. At the wall, beside the Kremlin wall, comrades spoke. (Hicks, Granville, One of Us: The Story of John Reed. NY: Equinox Cooperative Press, 1935, page 30).
Reed became the first American to be buried at the Kremlin wall.


In 1994, Reed’s nephew, John Reed II, asked President Boris Yeltsin to help move the remains of his uncle to his hometown of Portland, Ore. but got no response.
Reed is not the only one American  who  been buried in the Kremlin Wall. Not far from Reed are the ashes of his political opponent, Charles Emil Ruthenberg. A native of Ohio, Ruthenberg was a popular leader of the left wing of the American Socialist party.    He died in 1927 in Chicago, but his remains were brought to Moscow and buried in the Kremlin wall by his comrades.  Another American is  William Dudley Haywood .   He  was a leader of Industrial Workers of the World. In 1918, he was accused of spying against the United States and was put on trial. While on bail, he escaped to Soviet Russia.   Later  he began to drink heavily and died in 1928. According to his wishes,   Haywood’s ashes were divided. Half were buried in the Kremlin wall and half at the site of the Haymarket Martyr’s Monument in Chicago, where   a bombing  took place during a labor movement demonstration in 1886. 

After Reed's death, his wife  Louise Bryant obtained Lenin's approval for a trip to the southern Russian border. She went by train over the Kazakh Steppe, through areas hard hit by famine, to Tashkent and Bukhara and to the borders of Iran and Afghanistan, interviewing and taking notes.   William C. Bullitt, Bryant's third husband, was the  first U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1933.  Upton Sinclair , an American author who wrote nearly 100 books   and   won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943,  called Reed  the playboy of the social revolution.
 Greenwich village now  is   one of the most expensive (and exclusive) neighborhoods in New York.  A  small (500 square foot ) studio  with access to the building's private garden  in one of the Patchin Place townhome   will cost you $2500!