WEEKSVILLE PRE-CIVIL WAR AFRICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY

When I first moved to New York, I read every book I could get my hands on that was about the City, both current and historical.  That’s how I learned about the Hunterfly Houses in Weeksville – a small section of Brooklyn considered part of Crown Heights and bounded by Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville.  Weeksville was described as a Pre-Civil War African-American community.  The homes still standing are on the Register of Historic Places and Weeksville is officially called Hunterfly Road Historic District.    

I found the address for the Hunterfly Houses in a well-respected guidebook.  It was about 3 miles from where I was living and I decided to walk there through Brownsville – traveling north on Ocean Avenue, continuing on where it turned into Empire Avenue, until I reached Utica St. and turned north.  That took me to the address in the guidebook, but not to the houses – because, guess what, that guidebook was wrong.  I asked people I met on the street if they knew where the Weeksville houses were and no one in the neighborhood seemed to know.  So I walked around for about an hour until I found them at 1698 Bergen Street which was not the addressed listed in the book.  The houses were closed on the day I walked up there – a fact the guidebook also neglected to mention – and they were surrounded by an iron fence with a locked gate, so I couldn’t even get a close look at the exterior or peer in the windows.  (I wrote a letter to the guidebook publisher later when I got home).

1698 Bergen Street, Brooklyn, NY

Weeksville was founded in 1830 by freedman James Weeks, and the wood-frame homes that are still standing (and restored) date from that period up to 1880s.  By 1850s, Weeksville was a thriving community of 500 people with a school, newspaper, cemetery (you have to wonder what is now built on top of it), old-age home, and a female doctor. 

The buildings still standing most likely constituted “town square.”  Certainly, they represent a rural life in Brooklyn which is almost impossible to imagine with every square inch now covered in concrete and brick.  That was my interest.  To see and imagine historic New York.  My family owned a farm in Arkansas – without running water or electricity until 1959 – and the kids went to a one-room school house.  That area of Arkansas has satellite dishes and paved roads now, but it still feels very rural.  So it was interesting to imagine Brooklyn without electricity or indoor plumbing.

 

Hunterfly Road (anglicanization of  Dutch “Aander Vly”) was an Indian trail that led from Bedford to Jamaica Bay.  As the City of Brooklyn grew and the grid for expansion laid out, Hunterfly Road began to be enclosed by construction of homes and buildings.  That’s how Weeksville eventually seemed to disappear.  It was rediscovered by a professor at Pratt Institute who was in an airplane taking a view of New York from the air.  That discovery initiated a movement to restore and preserve the houses at a cost of $3 million.  That seems like a lot since there are only three houses. 

There is now a 19,000 square foot Weeksville Heritage Center.  You have to wonder what the original residents of Weeksville would have thought of that.

CROWN HEIGHTS HASIDIC LUBAVITCHER TOUR

I had seen men in the diamond district of Manhattan and on the subway with side locks, wearing long-sleeved white shirts, black pants, long black coats, and black hats.  In winter this clothing seemed warming; in summer I felt it would be unbearably hot.  This is the style of clothing of the Hasidic and there is significance to it.

There are several Hasidic communities in Brooklyn – Borough Park and Williamsburg are quite large.  The community nearest me was Crown Heights.  I wanted to learn the significance of the side

locks, and so one Sunday I took the Lubavitcher Tour - a walking tour of the Crown Heights Hasidic Community.

 

A group of use – four tourists and me – met the tour guide on Kingston Road, not far from the temple on Eastern Parkway.  When I reached out to shake the hand of the tour guide, he ignored it without a word of explanation.  I learned later on in the tour, that there is a prohibition about the different genders touching and strong segregation of men and women.  Perhaps he expected me to know this already.

First, the tour guide taught us about the different communities in Brooklyn, the importance of the rabbi and how he is chosen.  He explained one distinction between Hasidic Jews and other types of Judaism is that Hasidic men are not to shave the five corners of the head which includes the beard.  There are differing opinions on what the five points are (learned online), but one is very clear – the sideburns are not to be shaved.  They become ringlet side locks.  

We walked around the neighborhood a bit before we went inside the temple to the women’s section – upstairs and separate from the males.  There were windows in the room that overlooked the main temple.  The windows were covered except for a small opening at the bottom.  The tour guide explained that the women could “look down into the temple and pick out their husbands.” 

Marriages are arranged with strong guidance from the families for picking the right mate for life.  After a woman is married, she must cover her hair even at home.  In this community, women did not have to shave their heads, as I recall.  Although I have read that in other Jewish communities, the married women shave their heads and cover them with wigs.

The tour guide also explained the teffilin – black leather boxes attached to leather straps that get wrapped about a man’s head so that the box is on his forehead or wrapped about his arm.  The boxes hold parchment scrolls with verses from the Torah (to me, the first five books of the Old Testament) and are worn during prayer.

After visiting the temple, we went to a place where men make mezuzahs.  A mezuzah is a small piece of parchment with a verse from the Torah printed or written on it.  Usually the parchment is inside a decorative case that is about 3 or 4 inches long and about ½ inch wide.  The cases are made of different metals and woods, and the ones these men were working with, were elaborately engraved.  The mezuzahs are attached to door frames, outside and inside the home, in a very particular way – usually tipped.

There is so much I’m leaving out because the tour was at least two hours, but eventually we headed back to the starting point and parted.

Shortly after that tour, I met a group of five Hasidic children in Prospect Park on afternoon.  There is a holiday that the children celebrate by offering blessings and these children were running around doing that.  Their guardian was a young man in his late twenties. 

One angelic little boy ran up to me joyously and gave me a blessing.  The man hurried over and asked me, “Are you Jewish?”  And I said, “No.”  The little boy was only supposed to dispense his blessings to those declaring themselves Jewish, but it had already happened and the little boy was so happy.  The man could see that I was happy too, and he said, “That’s all right.”

And I kept that blessing. 

   

THE PARADISE OF BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN

There is a small gate at the corner of Flatbush and Ocean Avenues, and when you pass through it, you enter a paradise of peace and beauty.  The trash and asphalt of the street are no longer visible.  The constant din of the City may continue, but somehow you don’t hear it.  The moldy, diesel smell of the streets is replaced with the smell of green – 1000s of trees, shrubs, and plants providing oxygen, most of them labeled with their names and genus.  This is Brooklyn Botanic Garden, a 52-acre sanctuary in the heart of the borough.  The Garden was created in 1910, the very same year that the house where I lived was built.

It’s flanked on the north by the main Brooklyn Library and the Brooklyn Museum.  Ebbets Field baseball stadium – now replaced by a huge, nondescript, high-rise apartment building – used to be two blocks away to the east.  To the west, right across the street, is Prospect Park a world away.  The Botanic Garden is fenced, iron fenced, and so there’s no itinerants walking through to get somewhere else.  No cars driving through, taking a shortcut to somewhere else.  No speed bikers yelling at you to get out of their way.  When you’re in the Garden, you’re there in nature for nature.

And to the south about a quarter of a mile, another landmark, is the house where I lived.

In the spring, the 100-foot avenue of cherry trees is in bloom.  Brides get married here.  Some others probably get engaged.  And there is a cherry-blossom festival – Sakura Matsuri – that celebrates Japanese culture and gardening with performances and other programs.  Festival days, you will find people in kimonos walking among the cherry trees.  You could be in Japan.

But cherry trees aren’t the only trees that are blooming there in spring.  There are apricot and peach trees, apple and nectarine trees, and magnolias.  It’s really nice.

Photo by Jeffrey O. Gustafson

There’s a Bonsai Museum at the Botanic Garden with over 350 bonsai trees.  Imagine seeing a lilac tree or wisteria blooming in miniature.  Or a fully-grown redwood tree a few inches tall.  I found it so surprising, I tried imagining bonsai people leaning against the trunk.

Photo by BerndH

There’s more – the Aquatic House and Orchid Collection has pools that hold ferns and mosses and orchids.  There are over 2,000 orchids at the Garden.  All equally beautiful.  My landlord grew orchids in the house – about 8 of them, I think – and I tried to learn the technique (purchasing plants from Trader Joe’s).  I just couldn’t get the hang of repotting and when to water, and so I failed.  I suppose it’s similar to baking bread – there’s a certain patience required and something clicks one day and you can do it. Altho I have learned to bake all types of bread, I haven't mastered the art of growing orchids.  And anyway,  bread dough doesn’t die right in front of your eyes.

Photo by Bettycrocker

The most serene part of the Garden for me is Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden.  There’s a large pond with enormous koi swimming in it.  The pond is surrounded by a pathway that is shaded by trees and there’s a shady gazebo for sitting, or leaning, to watch the fish glide by.

There are a lot of festivals and lectures and learning opportunities at the Garden.  One of them is a tour of the Shakespeare Herb Garden which holds every type of plant mentioned in a Shakespeare play or sonnet – including the poisonous ones. 

And then there’s the music.  The Garden includes music in many of their programs.  One winter, I attended a performance by a soft-rock/jazz band.  There was a man sitting near the band who was drawing on a computer.  When the band announced their last song, this man projected his drawings on the wall, sped up the slide-show, and it appeared that the people in the drawings were dancing along to the music.  It was very impressive.

Okay, so the main entrance to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is actually up near the Brooklyn Museum, so there’s two ways to get inside.  But get there.  It’s fabulous.  And open year round.  Tuesdays and Saturday mornings are FREE.  

VOODOO IN THE PARK

One Sunday evening in spring, my landlord knocked on my door and said, “Come with me, I have something to show you in the park.” Although I had made it a point to not enter the park after dark, I was intrigued. I grabbed a jacket and followed him down the stairs and out the front door. We crossed Ocean Avenue and entered the park at Lincoln Avenue. From there we walked onto the grass and into a lightly wooded area.

From a distance I could hear a crowd of people, and as we got closer, I saw a long table laden with flowers, candles, and food. The people milling around it were dressed all in white. The ladies wore long white skirts with long blouses over them and white scarf turbans. The men were in white pants and shirts.

My landlord whispered, “It's a Voodoo meeting.” Voodoo is a Haitian religion, and I was thinking this group could be practicing Candomblé, a South American religion begun in Bahai, or Santaría a creole Caribbean religion. All three of these religions are based African religions – Fon, Yoruba, Bantu – brought to the Western Hemisphere by slaves.

As we got closer to the group, a very friendly woman approached us and said in a Caribbean accent, “Would you like something to eat? Please help yourself?”

I thanked her and declined, feeling nosy and out of place. The landlord had some food.  

“We are having a healing ceremony for a friend who is very sick,” this woman explained. “We just finished.”

I had only seen these kinds of ceremonies in the media – television and movies – and I was sorry I missed it here in the park, mainly because I know that the media exploits African religions, making them scary and silly – a holdover from slavery days. And I would like to have seen this healing ceremony. I never heard about or saw another one.

We only stayed that few minutes and then returned to the house. I doubted I would ever recognize these women if I saw them in the neighborhood. But certainly these people in the park were friendlier and more welcoming than the Christian church members near the house who glared at me, if they looked at me at all, if I happened to pass through the crowd while church was letting out. I never considered attending a service there.

Members of this church near the house were legally permitted to double-park on Sundays, blocking the neighborhood cars until noon. I don't know if this happened with other churches in Brooklyn, but it seemed to me that since public transportation ran on Sundays, they might have been “legally permitted” to ride the subway or busses. Not my call.

I only ever entered the park after dark once after that night. A tall, husky male friend and I walked from Park Slope to Lefferts Gardens at 10 o'clock one evening. We were on a narrow, hilly, dirt trail between a dense wall of bushes and trees on either side. It was really dark and I was really glad when we reached the flat area near Ocean Avenue. I'm pretty brave, but I would never take that walk alone.

Post by Alana Cash

S-P-R-I-N-G

Spring has sprung in New York, when the weather is above 50 degrees and the little portable vestibules outside the doors of restaurants, come down and get stored away for next year.  Until then, there are still bitter cold nights and lots griping about how long winter has lasted.  And then, expected, yet always surprising, the long, beautiful spring starts in March and travels thru July – week-by-week different flowers appearing in gardens and bursting out on the trees before the leaves unfold.  The little portable vestibules are replaced by outdoor tables and chairs on the sidewalks.  

During the winter, the front and back garden of the house where I lived were flat and brown with naked bushes and trees, but in March the shoots began rising green from the earth and there were buds on the trees.  And then for months the flowers came in waves – tulips, daffodils, irises, daisies, zinnias, gladiolas, daylilies, sweet potato flowers – the clematis vines and the passion flower vines flowered – the huge peony and hydrangea bushes flowered like fireworks and the Datona Trumpet tree grew drooping orange flowers.  A grape vine came back to live as well as a wisteria with that intoxicating scent.  The blank dirt back yard became overgrown with just a little winding path to the back where the mulch container was kept.  Every warm day, I set a chair in the middle of the path and worked there, invisible surrounded by nature.  Who would think that living in New York could be like that.

It’s grand weather until August, when there are two or three weeks of high temperatures – meaning somewhere about 95 degrees and heavy humidity that Texans live with eight months out of the year.  And then comes fall, another beautiful, shorter season.  This time, the colors of the leaves replace the beauty of the flowers in the spring.

THE QUAKER CONNECTION

The other day I started reading a biography about Walt Whitman, a Brooklynite of sorts (he was actually born on Long Island and died in New Jersey). I learned that Whitman was a Quaker, and on top of that he met Elias Hicks, the very man whose beliefs split the Quaker Church into Hicksite and Orthodox.  That got my attention because I happen to own the original two pamphlets published in 1824 that concern that split.

The Quaker split was on account of Hicks drift from the official Quaker dogma, and it interested me that religious questing was as discouraged in the early 19^th Century Brooklyn.  This is surprising because I was taught and I believed that our country was founded on religious freedom, and I would expect that less than 50 years after the Revolution, there would be a bit more tolerance of differing religious views.  To me that would mean allowing for personally seeking a greater understanding of the mysteries of existence.  But, no, I found out that when Elias Hicks views caused an uproar.

I did some research on the issue of colonial religion and found out that the Puritans – who brought us the Salem witch trials – were British Anglicans who wanted to reform that State church and were considered cranks because of it.  They left England for the purpose of expressing their religious beliefs more freely and made it against the law to skip Sunday services.  You would think they’d have developed a tolerance because of the way they were treated, but no.  In keeping with religious narrow-mindedness and bigotry, when the Puritans settled in colonial US, they made their religion the State religion and anyone veering from it was considered a heretic which included the Quakers.  One colonial governor went so far as to ask for help in sinking a ship in which Quakers were traveling. 

Having grown up in a home where I was taught that anyone not a Baptist was going to hell, I had a terrible aversion to other religions until I was out on my own and what I knew about Quakerism was limited to oats.  I was curious but afraid of exploring what was taught in those houses of worship that was so bad as to damn their members forever.  One of my great-grandfathers was a minister and he killed someone.  My grandfather was a minister and an adulterer.  I was hard pressed to understand what went on in a Lutheran church or a Quaker meeting that would lead me astray.

I’ve attended many different religious services as an adult, even venturing into a catholic mass or two, and on at least three occasions I attend a Quaker meeting.  All three of the Meetings I attended were Hicksite meetings where the people sat quietly together until someone felt compelled to speak, supposedly no preaching, and I don’t remember any singing either.

The first was in Austin where everyone sat quietly until someone spoke of the government’s policies in the Middle East.  When the meditation ended, I learned that the Meeting was sending a delegation to the Middle East to end or prevent (not sure) the violence there.  I said I thought that might be fruitless and someone explained to me that a delegation of Quakers went to Germany before WWII to speak to Hitler.  Thus making my point. 

The second Meeting I attended was in Santa Monica, California and a third at the Quaker Meeting House (circa 1857) at 110 Schemerhorn in Brooklyn.  During both meeting someone interrupting the meditative silence to speak passionately about politics and errors in political decision-making.  

All in all, the Meetings had a lot of what seemed like preaching to me, but nothing heretical. 

At any rate, I set forth here a quote from one of the pamphlets – this one published by Elias Hicks – The Misrepresentation of Anna Braithwait in Relation to the Doctrines Preached by Elias Hicks Together with the Refutation of the Same in a Letter from Elias Hicks.

Braithwait stated:

            “[Hicks] conceived the writings of Confucius and of many of the philosophers were equally of Divine Revelation with the scriptures; that the heathen nations of the Mahometans, Chinese, and Indian bore greater evidence of the influence of Divine Light than professing Christians.” (pg. 9 of above document)

It sounds so modern (except for the spelling).  And not a word about the government.  

At any rate, I’m glad to own the pamphlets which I found not in Brooklyn, but in Los Angeles.

WHICH CHEZ YOU AT? - FORT GREEN

Fort Greene is one of the tres cool gentrifying neighborhoods in Brooklyn. As trendy as the other neighborhoods around Brooklyn Heights, it’s gotten really expensive to live there.  But Fort Greene has something extra to offer for the money.  Pratt Institute, one of the best art schools in the country, is in Fort Greene and the students leave their mark.  If you want to see art in a park, on the walls of buildings, on the sidewalk, sticking out of trash cans, visit Fort Greene. 

Pratt Institute Sculpture Garden

The first time I was in Fort Greene it was on a walk from Prospect Park to Chinatown in Manhattan and I didn’t spend any time looking around because I was already feeling the cement against my feet.  I was in Fort Green the second time was because I was hired as an extra in a Spike Lee film.  I sat reading in an attic-like room in a row house all afternoon and never got called to the set.  The last time I was in Fort Greene I had a fabulous walk around, visiting a fabulous organic grocery on Myrtle Avenue, exploring the sculpture gardens of Pratt Institute, looking at the refurbished brownstones, the graffiti, the Christmas decorations.

Fort Greene's version of the guard dog

Of course there is history.  Pratt Institute was originally a vocational school that offered classes in sewing and stenography (https://www.pratt.edu/the-institute/history/) (the school website doesn’t make clear that it was originally intended as a technical institute for training industrial workers).  It’s now a major art and architectural college.

Charles Pratt, one of Rockerfeller's partners, funded the school.  Pratt was owner of Astral Oil Works, a refinery in Brooklyn mainly producing kerosene for lamps.  One of their ads claimed: “burns in any lamp without danger of exploding.”  That is certainly a plus, BUT in 1880 the whole plant exploded.  Astral Oil changed their ads to read: “The holy lamps of Tibet are primed with Astral oil.” Tibet being so far away and all, no one would hear about explosions over there.

Pratt was one of the oil men who opposed John D. Rockefeller’s Southern Improvement Company scheme when Rockefeller colluded with railroads to get a 33% rebate on ALL shipments of oil.  That allowed Rockefeller to cut his oil prices and put the competition out of business.  What a guy!  Eventually, Rockefeller convinced Pratt to partner with him.  No comment.

Pratt built a home on Clinton Avenue in Fort Greene which is just a few blocks from Pratt Institute.  His son built a house next door.  Both are still standing and are used by institutions.  The Pratts also built homes in Glen Cove on Long Island and so many of them lived out there that they have their own private Pratt cemetery behind gates.  Had I only known.

BAD NANNIES

Every day in Brooklyn, the nannies are out pushing strollers that hold the children in their care.  They are ubiquitous in the parks – even in winter – and on the subways.  Hiring a nanny is a way of keeping a child at home and away from the head lice and diseases that are found in day-cares and preschools.  But, while day-cares are licensed and generally have security cameras, the nanny is a free agent.

I read the bestseller The Nanny Diaries, and while I’m sure there are indifferent narcissistic mothers like the one in that story, I wonder how most of the mothers would feel if they knew what their nannies were up to.  For example, one spring afternoon I saw two nannies with strollers parked in front of the garage door of an expensive house.  The nannies were sharing a blunt that I could smell as I rode by on my bike.  I wouldn’t want the nanny of my child to smoke cigarettes on the job, let alone marijuana.

Once, a long time ago, I saw a very famous middle-aged actor walking in a park, holding a book near his face and reading.  A toddler about two years old was trailing behind trying to keep up with the actor that I could only assume was the little boy’s father.  I thought that was sad that the little boy was getting no attention.  But now the nannies can’t put their cell phones down for a minute, unless of course, they are in the company of other nannies.  Then they talk to each other.

I was once in a store in Atlantic Mall and a nanny was shopping for clothes and talking on the telephone while the little boy in the stroller just cried and cried.  Was he hungry?  Thirsty?  Wet diaper?  He needed something, something his parents were paying that nanny to provide and she was just ignoring him.  Finally, after 30 minutes (possibly longer) I approached her and said I’d call security if she didn’t take care of that little boy.  She got all humble and sheepish and spoke in a Spanish accent, “Yes, I take care right away” and then got in line to pay for her stuff. 

The worst nanny situation I witnessed was on a train headed for Coney Island.  Two boys about 4 and 6 years old were sitting across the aisle from me.  Their nanny – blond, Slavic accent – was laying on the seat in front of them.  Cursing at them softly.  Using the F-word at these kids.  She wore a baseball cap and had it pulled down low and evidently she had serious problems.  The smallest of the boys stood in his seat and she ignored that until he fell.  She helped him up, cursing softly all the while.  I determined to find a cop as soon as we got off the train.  The parents should know and the cop would get information to let them know.  But when the train stopped she got off quickly with the kids.  I tried to follow, but when I saw a cop and when I veered off to speak to him, I lost her. 

All I can say is – check your nanny.

VANDERBILT MAUSOLEUM, STATEN ISLAND

While I was in Newport, Rhode Island, I visited a bookstore and bought a book about the history of the Vanderbilt family.  I had heard of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt who had amassed the wealth, and the Vanderbilt name was linked with rich elite, but the name was not as commonly referred to as Rockerfeller or Roosevelt so I didn’t know much of anything about them.  Perhaps if Grand Central Station had been named Vanderbilt Center, they’d still be more in the forefront.

What I learned was that Cornelius Vanderbilt was born and raised on a farm on Staten Island.  When he was a teenager, he worked a ferry service shuttling people and produce from the farms on Staten Island to various docks in Manhattan.  While continuing his ferry service, he went to work managing the steamboat service of Thomas Gibbons who wanted to drive his competition to either sell out to him or go out of business.   

Cornelius to New Jersey with his wife Sophia, also his first cousin, and she opened a profitable inn there.  For the California Gold Rush, Vanderbilt turned to ocean shipping.   Then he bought the stock of the Harlem Railroad, made it profitable, and the rest is history..

The competitiveness was passed through the generations – his grandson Cornelius II bought the block on Fifth Avenue between 57^th and 58^th Streets to build the biggest house ever constructed in the US.  And why?  Because he wanted to outdo his friends and neighbors.  By contrast, the amasser of the

Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt House
10 Washington Place, NY

wealth, the Commodore moved from New Jersey to a relatively moderate home at 10 Washington Place (torn down to build a 6-story commercial building in 1900) which is now owned by NYU.  I was there while it was being renovated and took a walk inside. 

After his first wife (Sophia) died in 1868, Commodore Vanderbilt eloped in 1869 with another cousin, 43 years his junior.  Her name was Frank Armstrong.  A year later he financially sponsored Victoria Woodhull and her sister Tinny in become members of the New York Stock Exchange.  There were rumors that Vanderbilt had an affair with Tinny, also much younger than he.  The Woodhulls made a fortune on Wall Street and started their newspaper Woodull & Clafflin’s Weekly which published the first English version of Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx.  Did the Commodore read it, I wonder.

Commodore Vanderbilt donated land to the Moravian Church in Staten Island and that is where he and some other members of his family are buried.  I wanted to see it, so I took a trip over to Staten Island.  

I only visited Staten Island twice while I lived in Brooklyn.  I drove across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge (this is the bridge in Saturday Night Fever) just for fun and was surprised when I was charged a hefty toll to get back to Brooklyn.  The second visit, I took the ferry from Manhattan.  Staten Island doesn’t have a subway (underground), but it does have a train which I took to the New Dorp stop and walked up to the cemetery.  The feeling being there was like a fishing village.  The area isn't as densely populated or over-constructed as the other boroughs, and the feeling is lighter, newer.

I knew from the book that the Vanderbilt Mausoleum was at the rear of the cemetery and so that’s where I headed.  At the back, I passed a vaulted exit with locked iron gates and couldn’t find the Vanderbilts.  I asked some people in the cemetery and they directed me back to that vaulted exit.  That was the entrance to the Vanderbilt portion of the cemetery.  I found my way passed the gate and into a weird, silent, dead feeling.  I walked about a quarter of a mile up a narrow road, passing lots of fallen dead trees and not seeing or hearing a living creature – not a bird or squirrel – the whole way.

Vanderbilt Tomb Interior

At the top, the feeling was creepy.  The Vanderbilt Mausoleum resembles a small church with three sets of doors at the front and small vaulted windows above them.  At one time the doors were iron gates, but in the 1960s a woman pulled on the gates trying to get inside the tomb and the gates fell on her and killed her.  So, the gates have been replaced with gray steel industrial doors with padlocks.  The windows above the doors have been stopped up with concrete blocks. 

It is difficult to describe the feeling – sadness, loneliness, desolation.  But certainly the place felt empty.   I didn’t linger.  I would never want to go back there.

It was only when I was walking back down through the cemetery that I realized I was walking on the farmland where Cornelius Vanderbilt grew up.

NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND ROAD TRIP

One Christmas while I was living in Brooklyn, I rented a car and drove with my son to Newport, Rhode Island.  I’d wanted to see the summer “cottages” of the one-percenters of the Gilded Age that line Bellevue Avenue.  My interest had been captured years before when I watch a documentary produced by the Preservation Society of Newport County.

Newport is not a busy place in the winter – no regattas, no tourists to speak of – just a quiet island town with little pubs and restaurants.  It’s as quaint as an old-fashioned Christmas card, especially with snow on the ground.  We stayed on an island just off Newport and faced the town. 

Because it was Christmas, only a few of the “cottage” homes were open for tours and we chose The ^th Street.  Still standing at the southeast corner of 64^th Street and Fifth Avenue, it’s now a 9-unit coop.  The coops currently sell in the neighborhood of $25 million and rent in the neighborhood of $150,000.  Even though the front door is still on East 64^th Street, the building uses the address 828 Fifth Avenue as it is more posh.

Elms and The Breakers.  The Elms was the summer home of coal magnate Edward Julius Berwind, at one time the largest owner of coal properties in the world.  He built a 6-story house in Manhattan at 2 East 64

The Elms was built in 1899-1901 at 60,000 square feet and four stories – including the basement.  If you look at the photograph, two floors show, but there is a deceptive wall above the second story.  That wall is 8 feet high and it surrounds the servants’ quarters.  Berwind felt that servants should serve without ever being seen – except in the dining room or if specifically called into a room.  The servants could sit outside on the walkway surrounding their quarters, but should they ever be seen trying to look over that wall, they would be dismissed immediately.

The Elms had a servants’ staircase, and the chamber maids used it to get to work in the bedrooms on the second floor AFTER the rooms were vacated.  Guests might leave shoes in the hallway for buffing or clothing to be cleaned, but the servants were only allowed to pick them up at night after the guests had gone to bed. 

Deliveries to the house were made underground as well.  Coal was delivered at a door at the curb that lead to an underground tunnel from the street to the coal bins.  Food and other supplies were delivered to a covered lower driveway on the other side of the house.

Berwind’s psychology is a bit mystifying.  Perhaps seeing his servants’ lives contrasted with the splendor of the house and his life made him feel guilty.  At any rate, the tour made him very unlikable.

The Breakers, just down the street, is the same size at Highclere Castle (Downton Abbey) and was built by Alice and Cornelius Vanderbilt II, grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt.  Alice and Cornelius II had a large townhouse at 1 West 57^th Street, but feeling that their friends and neighbors might outdo them, they bought the entire block on Fifth Avenue from 57^th to 58^th and built the largest house EVER in the United States.  The house in Manhattan has been torn down and Bergdorf Goodman department store now stands on that property.  I do not know if Bergdorf’s is as large as the destroyed Vanderbilt house.

Alice and Cornelius II outdid their neighbors in Newport by building a house just over 120,000 square feet on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.  Only half of the square footage is actually usable because there is a large atrium in the center of the house with balconies on four sideson each floor.  The bathrooms are the size of a large bedroom and the kitchen is massive, and kindly, the servants were allowed to be seen.

Next door to The Breakers is Marble House, which we toured only externally.  It was built by Cornelius’s brother, William Kissam Vanderbilt who built the current Grand Central Station and his wife (at the time), Alva who was very independent and a suffragette.  She built a little tea house on the edge of the cliff and had a temporary railroad for the staff to bring all the tea and food.  The tracks were put away after tea time was over.  Well, if your husband works for the railroad…

She still owned the house when she divorced William and married Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont (Belmont Stakes is named for his father August Belmont).  Belmont was a playboy addicted to gambling and absinthe.  However, along with Marble House at Newport, Alva shared a home that Belmont built there when he received his inheritance – Belcourt.  It only merited a drive-by.  

Alva continued to host afternoon teas at her little tea house on the cliff and designed a tea service with “Votes for Women” inscribed on it.  Replicas are available for sale at the gift shops in the different houses.

Post by Alana Cash