[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.T.Barnum s Great RomanHippodrome, the original Madison Square Garden, andStanford White  s second Madison Square Garden.One of White  s greatest achievements, the secondMadison Square Garden (1891) was a $3 million Moorish-style building capped by an ornately decorated 249-foottower.It housed an eight thousand-seat auditorium, a the-ater, a concert hall, a roof garden, and the city s largestrestaurant.The most talked-about architectural feature ofthe building, however, was Augustus Saint-Gaudens sgilded Diana, perched atop the large tower.Diana s brazennudity scandalized members of New York s genteel soci-ety, who felt it improper for a female nude to be displayedin such a public location.Soon after its unveiling, one pop-ular magazine observed that Madison Square Park had sud-denly become  thronged with club men armed with fieldglasses.148 FOUR SQUARES | Madison Square ParkIronically, it was here, at one of his most notable mas-terpieces, that Stanford White met his tragic demise.A fre-quenter of the Madison Square Garden s Roof Garden the-ater, White also kept an apartment for himself within themain tower (which was convenient for his legendary li-aisons with showgirls who performed there).On the nightof June 25, 1906, White attended a performance of Mam-zelle Champagne at the Roof Garden theater, as did HarryK.Thaw and his wife, former showgirl Evelyn Nesbit.Thaw had become obsessed with his wife  s sexual past and,in particular, her previous relationship with the notoriousplayboy White.During the performance of the musical,the New York Times reported, Thaw suddenly  passed be-tween a number of tables, and, in full view of the playersand of scores of persons, shot White through the head.after firing three shots and looking at White to make surethat he was stone dead, Thaw uttered a curse and added: You ll never go out with that woman again. The story, revealed after Thaw s arrest, captured thepublic s attention.Details of White and Nesbit s kinky re-lationship came to light in the sensational murder trial thatfollowed.At the verdict, Thaw was found innocent for rea-sons of insanity.Aspects of this sordid affair have been de-picted in the films Ragtime and The Girl in the Red VelvetSwing.For many years after his death, White  s architec-tural achievements were denigrated and his name regardedwith embarrassment by New Yorkers, which may haveaided in the destruction of many of his greatest buildings.Madison Square Garden met the wrecking ball in 1925.Samuel Ruggles once predicted:  Our spaces will remainforever imperishable.Buildings, towers, palaces maymolder and crumble beneath the touch of time, but space.glorious, open space will remain to bless the city for-ever. Time so far has proven him correct.Though theMadison Square Park | FOUR SQUARES 149buildings around them have changed remarkably, thesefour city squares, carefully laid out in the 1840s, have sur-vived as valued spaces that continue to enrich New York surban landscape.These public spaces, through the genera-tions, have remained imperishable.THE BROOKLYN5BRIDGEA Walk from Brooklyn Heights to City HallStart: Begin at Brooklyn Borough Hall, which sits on a¢'plaza between Court Street and Adams.To get there, takethe A, C, or F train to the Jay Street Borough Hall stop; orthe 2, 3, 4, or 5 to the Borough Hall stop; or the N or Rtrain to Court Street (and walk a block to Borough Hall).this walk takes you through New York s firsthistoric district, a neighborhood with more homes built be-fore the Civil War than any other, and then across the mostbeautiful suspension bridge in the world.We begin at what was the city hall of the City of Brook-lyn until 1898 and finish at what has been the City Hall ofNew York City since 1812.Confused? Brooklyn and NewYork were separate cities until 1898, when they were con-solidated into Greater New York the current five bor-oughs.In that year, Brooklyn s 1849 City Hall was re-named Borough Hall, and a cupola was added to make itappear more like New York s City Hall.Borough Hall wasoriginally designed in the spirit of  common-man Jeffer-sonian democracy by Brooklyn carpenter and grocerGamaliel King [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]