With Their Eye On History
By Robert Beck
Before launching into this wandering essay, I want to differentiate between gargoyles and grotesques. A gargoyle is a figure designed to be a gutter channeling rainwater from a roof. It usually comes out of their mouths, but they can fool you. The word has its roots in gargle and gurgle. The mythic or imaginary figures used for non-plumbing decorative purposes are grotesques. A subset called chimeras are conceived of different animal parts, sometimes human. Many older buildings have heads and faces on them, and I’m not sure what category that falls under, but I’m a big fan of it. The ones that are depicted emerging from foliage are called green men, but they can be women, too.
I can see the Lucerne Hotel from my studio. The building is a gorgeous use of terra cotta. It looks great from both a distance and up close. The Lucerne has a bunch of expressive heads across the front and a particularly commanding one over the side entrance. I’ve had some wonderful breakfasts at Nice Matin on the ground floor, so the passionate fenestration is effective.
The Lucerne was built in 1903 during a fantastic period in the country’s history. The five boroughs had been incorporated just a few years before, and New York City suddenly had three-and-a-half-million people. Boom. 1901 gave us wireless transmission, and the first president born in New York. Bergdorf-Goodman was a tailor shop.
1902 provided both the Flatiron and the Algonquin. Longacre Square was renamed for The New York Times when the newspaper moved its headquarters there. 1903 arrived with the Wright brothers in powered flight and the first World Series. The subway was created in 1904, as was Columbus Circle, the Institute of Musical Art (Julliard), and the Hispanic Society.
Lots happened in that decade. Queen Victoria died, Vesuvius erupted, San Francisco earthquaked, and relativity was theorized. We got the safety razor and the vacuum cleaner, and Edward Binney and Harold Smith began producing an 8-color set of wax crayons in a yellow and green box. It wouldn’t be long before Robert Perry and Matthew Henson found their way to the North Pole. Things were becoming understandable. They were doable.
Meanwhile, hotels like the Lucerne with sculptural heads on their facades were being built on the Upper West Side. The Ansonia had them. Hotel Belleclaire, designed by Emory Roth in the Nouveau and Secession style, did too. A new century was coming alive, and not afraid to show its face.
Note: Before Robert Beck wrote West Side Canvas, his essays and paintings were featured in WSR’s Weekend Column. Read Robert Beck’s earlier columns here and here.
See more of Robert Beck’s work and his UWS studio by visiting www.robertbeck.net And let Robert know if you have a connection to an archetypal UWS place or event that would make a good West Side Canvas subject. Thank you!
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FYI, Eugene O’Niell, playwright and winner of the Nobel Prize for LIterature and the Pulitzer prize, lived in the Lucerne as did his parents, James, an actor, and his mother, Ella! I believe the characters of James and Mary Tyrone in Long’s Day Journey into Night, are based on his mother and father. Very cool building with a colorful history! When we moved to the neighborhood, Nice Matin was a huge old time hardware store, complete with wooden floors!
Eugene O’Neill/
Informative and entertaining!
New Yorkers need to look up more. I know it’s hard when so many street level obstacles exist and, God knows, we are always in a hurry, but there is so much to see above our heads. ❤️
Thank you for the informative history lesson as well as the usual lovely painting of an iconic UWS scene.
1903 was also the year W.E.B. Dubois wrote his masterpiece, “The Souls of Black Folk”. I just read it and it is so beautifully written and sadly much of it still relevant…
Speaking of “looking up,” does anyone know what the “Leslie” carved into the Harry’s Shoes building on 83rd between Broadway and West End signified? I walked down that block thousands of times and just noticed it recently……
Fun info. Ramble away, Robert!
233 West 83rd Street (at Broadway) has a number of grotesques carved into the lintel. They were done by one of the residents of the building, Gerry Lynas.
Another fantastic painting.
Martin Van Buren was the first president born in New York.
First President born in NYC – TR – 1901
You are right. I should have written New York City.