143 Years Ago Today: Horace Greeley Comes to Nyack

It sure is political season, isn’t it? Seems you can’t turn around without bumping into some reference to this year’s local and state elections and – enough already! – NEXT year’s presidential election. Since everyone is talking about this week’s mayoral debate at the Nyack Center, while serendipitously Nyack Library chose the following as its local history picture of the month, I’ve decided to discuss a very famous man’s political speech not 100 feet from where the candidates debated on Wednesday.

photo: Nyack Library History Collection

The photo shows the Doersch Brothers Grocery, which was located just steps away from the current Nyack Center in the building that would come to be known as the Broadway Theater, then the Tappan Zee Playhouse.  Currently the closed Chef’s Market occupies the spot – a spot that began as a warehouse and closed, became a Grocery and closed, then a movie theater that closed for 27 years, then a live theater that closed, then rebuilt as a Grocery… that closed.  One of the topics in the mayor’s debate was the economy and the state of downtown businesses, and on September 1, 1868, Horace Greeley stopped by to make a political speech discussing very similar issues and 1500 people filled what would become the Tappan Zee Playhouse while another 300 had to be turned away. Greeley opposed monopolies and the vast accumulation of wealth by real estate developers who bamboozled the public with schemes that seemed to promise wonderful things for everyone but at heart were nothing more than ways to line the developers’ pockets. His own paper The New York Tribune, opened up the closed doors of congress and the railroad barons and openly opposed government subsidies for the already profitable railroad barons and real estate speculators, along with the vast wealth being acquired by a very few while jobs were lost all across the country. His speech would discuss his insistence that the federal and state governments should be instituting high protective tariffs and sponsoring internal improvements and infrastructure support for the benefit of the people as a whole rather than creating laws and regulations that benefited a tiny few.

Sound familiar?

Horace Greeley was a fascinating, quirky and sometimes self-contradicting figure – no wonder all of Nyack turned out to see him, he must have fit in perfectly! And by the way, he never said: “Go West Young Man”… that’s a never uttered paraphrase ranking right up there with “Play It Again Sam” and “Beam Me Up Scotty”.  Born in New Hampshire, he moved to New York City in 1831 and by 1834 was involved with the publishing of The New Yorker joining his name to political reforms along with such luminaries as William Seward (who’d become Lincoln’s Secretary of State and purchased Alaska for the USA).

He established his daily New York Tribune and its’ weekly national version The Tribune in 1841.  He was a great supporter of workers rights and his own business reflected that: excellent work conditions and hours, a profit-sharing plan, organization of his workers and cooperative groupings. His paper garnered great respect for its higher tone, lack of sensationalism, cultural additions like book reviews and straightforward reporting. It also gained him a large following to whom he could present his views and causes.  He espoused Women’s Rights and suffrage and opposed Slavery – though he bemoaned both the political machinations and the sometimes violent behavior of some Abolitionists.  He supported the Temperance movement to a point. He opposed the Mexican War feeling that it only benefited the slave owners of the south.  He was appointed to fill a Congressional vacancy in 1848 but only served 3 months as he continually reported on what REALLY went on behind closed doors in Washington and his editorials strongly condemning the Kansas-Nebraska Act (effectively opening the possibility of additional slave states in the northern prairie territories – resulting in rioting, death and political upheaval in “Bleeding Kansas”) would prove to put a gulf between Greeley and his former friend Seward. Greeley’s support of a gentleman named Abraham Lincoln over the Republican Party’s chosen frontrunner – William Seward – served to clinch Lincoln’s nomination and Seward’s everlasting hatred.

Though he supported Lincoln, Greeley was not one to let things rest when he perceived what he believed was injustice or political posturing. He was tough in Lincoln and initially argued that we were better off without the South and should let them secede. He did eventually come to Lincoln’s way of thinking regarding preserving the Union as a whole, but stridently criticized Lincoln for not freeing the slaves immediately. He was not one to wait for change to come, he demanded it now, and did everything he could to become part of the change himself. Perhaps that passion was what brought so many people (a very large crowd for Rockland County in the 1860s) out to listen to him speak.

Oddly, after the Civil War, Greeley supported amnesty for Confederate Officers and angered many Northern supporters by posting bail for Jefferson Davis!  He did continue his support for universal suffrage for all races and for women, and the rights of workers. He was not an avid expansionist, but rather recommended an orderly westward movement. What he really said was “The best business you can go into you will find on your father’s farm or in his workshop. If you have no family or friends to aid you, and no prospect open to you there, turn your face to the great West and there build up your home and fortune.”  He was frequently misquoted in his lifetime too, and once quipped, “I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers; what I said was that all saloonkeepers are Democrats.”

He was a man of diverse and sometimes odd interests that ranged from literacy to election reform to spiritualism to phrenology – and really, advocating Women’s Rights in the mid-1800s? He was never seen in public without his full-length duster coat and his bright shiny umbrella even on the hottest and sunniest of days.  And yet, even after his public gaffe with ol’ Jeff Davis, he remained immensely popular. In 1872 he would become the Presidential Candidate for BOTH the Democratic Party and the then existent Liberal-Republican Party. In his acceptance speech of the Liberal-Republican nomination, he said “The masses of our countrymen, North and South, are eager to clasp hands across the bloody chasm which has so long divided them.” But a Greeley Presidency was not to be – he lost steam and all interest in the subject when his wife tragically died, and he foundered without her, dying of a broken heart and loneliness just a few weeks after the election to which he paid such little attention. He had garnered 44% of the popular vote and his electoral college votes were posthumously assigned to three candidates of minority parties.

Horace Greeley was a real American Character, and one of the finest compliments I’ve ever received was from someone who called me ‘Horace Greeley, Jr.’ intending it as an insult.  For Horace Greeley firmly believed that the USA’s best times were ahead, and that only by joining together – North and South, Male and Female, Worker and Employer, Democrat and Republican, White, Black, Native or any other ethnicity – would we find our best destiny and fulfill the dreams of our Founding Fathers.   I’d like to think that those were precisely the reasons that on that day in September of 1868 so much of Nyack turned out to listen to a political speech.

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126 Years Ago Today: Upper Nyack Post Office & Nyack’s “Break-up”

Ever wonder why there’s a Nyack, Upper Nyack, South Nyack? Not to mention a Central Nyack and a West Nyack?

It can be confusing even to those of us who’ve lived here all of our lives. In a broad sense, we tend to think of “Nyack” as encompassing most of the above mentioned locations – along with Grandview-on-Hudson, Upper Grandview and parts of Valley Cottage and Blauvelt! To obfuscate matters further: the zip code “10960” encompasses the villages of Nyack, Upper Nyack, South Nyack and Grandview-on-Hudson along with the hamlets of Central Nyack and Upper Grandview and a tiny part of Blauvelt; Upper Nyack, Central Nyack and West Nyack are in Clarkstown Township while Nyack, South Nyack and the two Grandviews are in Orangetown Township – with the exception of a small corner of Nyack Village which somehow wound up in Clarkstown; and then Grandview-on-Hudson and Blauvelt are located in the South Orangetown School District, West Nyack and part of Central Nyack in the Clarkstown School District, while the rest of Central Nyack, Nyack, South Nyack and Upper Nyack and Valley Cottage are in the Nyack School District. Shall I get into which locations are served by Nyack Water and which by United Water? The number of cross-jurisdictions can be mind-boggling at times!  Many events led to the breaking up of what in the days of New Netherland were the Nyack Patent and the Vreisendael Patent into the villages and hamlets we currently know – and one of the defining moments of those divisions came in August of 1885 with the opening of the Upper Nyack Post Office.

Edward Hopper's Famous Painting

In 1870 the Legislature passed a general act for the incorporation of villages, and by 1872 local Nyack businessmen had devised a plan to incorporate the Nyack area into a large village that would include all of the present day villages of Nyack, South Nyack and Upper Nyack along with most of Upper Grandview and the Clausland Mountain section of Blauvelt.  By pulling in these outlying areas, the downtown could be improved and enhanced using the tax dollars of the property owners of the outlying areas (many of the residents of the downtown area were tenants and therefore did not pay property taxes).  Garrett Sarvent of Upper Nyack (whom I suspect is a descendent of Phillip Sarvent, the Revolutionary War hero buried in the old Palmer cemetery) got wind of these intentions, and upon gaining real proof that this was indeed the plan of the downtown business owners and planned a “counter-offensive”.  In what amounted to almost complete secrecy for a political manuever, the residents of Nyack north of the line between Clarkstown and Orangetown (near Sixth Avenue) plotted out their own village and incorporated as Upper Nyack in September of 1872, just 25 days before the original incorporation plans that included it in a future Nyack village came to fruition. So, when Nyack officially incorporated October 23, 1872, it was without its northern reaches.

To be fair, the residents of Upper Nyack had a point at the time. For instance, gas street lights and home gaslight service was available downtown starting in 1859 – but not in Upper Nyack (or anywhere else outside of downtown for that matter) and the taxes of the landowners in the outlying areas were paying for those amenities for non-property taxpayers while not getting those amenities themselves.  During the rest of the 1870s, the residents south of downtown were facing the problems the residents north of downtown had elected to flee prior to incorporation.  Finding all of their taxes going only to improve areas they did not live in, a movement to end incorporation was held, and on February 7, 1878 the original incorporated Village of Nyack ceased to exist.  On May 25 of that year, the Village of South Nyack came into existence followed by a newly restructured Village of Nyack on February 27, 1883 consisting of just the downtown area and its’ associated residential section on the hillside above.

The opening of the Upper Nyack Post Office in August of 1885 firmly established Upper Nyack’s presence as an entity in and of itself.  The streets of Upper Nyack had been “macadamized” (we’d say “paved”) and street lamps installed along Broadway. The lower taxes in Upper Nyack caught the attention of some businesses and first Post Master George C. Stevens could look out from the porch of the Post Office and see the offices of the Pacific Mail Company and the Main Offices of the Union Steamboat Company.  Just down Castle Heights Avenue was the Van Houten Boatyard (later Petersens) and Upper Nyack settled in for a period of quiet prosperity.

photo: J.P. Schutz

 

What started out as a good idea back then – when both Upper Nyack and South Nyack had business areas that helped pay for some of their individualized services may today by some be considered a liability. By the 20th Century, Upper Nyack had a thriving waterfront area that built, serviced, drydocked and docked boats, sloops, riverboats and ships along with a number of small business scattered mostly along the main north-south corridors of Broadway, Midland and Highland Avenues (Route 9W).  South Nyack had by mid-century its’ own downtown with shops, restaurants, taverns, churches, cemeteries and even a house or two of ill-repute!  The Nyack and Northern Railroad had a station in downtown South Nyack, along what is now the bike and jogging trail (a poor substitution, that).  Both villages had commercial tax payers as well as residential.  Unfortunately, the decline of the ice industry and the shipping industry would doom Upper Nyack’s shoreline businesses and a move toward “residential only” meant all of the old multiuse business/residential properties scattered around the Village were no more as soon as they sold to a new owner – even the original Post Office.

 

If Upper Nyack’s businesses succumbed to “old age”, South Nyack’s loss was more like losing a loved one to a sudden accident.  The New York State Thruway obliterated most of what was the business district of South Nyack when it and the Tappan Zee Bridge were constructed, severing the Village in two and leaving it without many opportunities for rateables and tax paying business.  What had been a tax benefit in the late nineteenth century may no longer be so in the early twenty-first.  With taxes rocketing up all over the country, but particularly here, the redundancy of village services that co-exist with or supersede township services add an additional burden on what are now primarily residential areas with no businesses to help share the tax burden.  Still, I have the feeling that sentiment (and an unbelievably labyrinthine incorporational dissolving process) will keep our villages unique and separate for the foreseeable future. 

 

So, that’s part of the story of how we got all of these crisscrossing jurisdictions – more to come in the future! 

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237 Years Ago Today: Nyack Patriots & the Orangetown Resolutions

On July 4th, 1774 – two years to the DAY when Thomas Jefferson’s “Declaration of Independence” would be signed by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia – the local residents of Nyack, Blauveltville, Snedens’ Landing, Tappan and Tappan Slote (Piermont) got together to sign a remarkable document that would come to be called “The Orangetown Resolutions”.

They met at Jost Mabie’s Tavern (now known to us as the Old ’76 House Restaurant, having served food since 1686 making it America’s Oldest Dining Room) a location that would later frequently feed Washington and his officers and be the prison for English Spy John Andre. In response to the positively reckless way in which the current monarch (George III) and his parliament were using and abusing their American Colonies, and particularly in regards to the closing of the port of Boston, they wrote:

“We cannot see the late Acts of Parliament imposing duties upon us, and the Act for shutting up the port of Boston, without declaring our abhorrence of measures so unconstitutional and big with destruction… That we are in duty bound to use every just and lawful measure, to obtain a repeal of Acts, not only destructive to us, but which of course must distress thousands in the mother country… That it is our unanimous opinion, that the stopping all exportation and importation to and from Great Britain and the West Indies, would be the most effectual method to obtain a speedy repeal.”

Not exactly a cry for out-and-out war, but the threat of a total embargo of goods from England was a serious one, branding the group with accusations of treason and sedition.  A similar closing of the port of New York would destroy any exportation of foodstuffs and iron goods from Orangetown and violate the terms of the English takeover of New Netherland from the Dutch which guaranteed that the port of New York would always be an open port and allowed to trade freely with all nationalities and countries. Our locals saw their own futures in the ruinous blocking of the port of Boston – the results of the Boston Tea Party, which in itself was only the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s reaction to the “Intolerable Acts” passed by Parliament and King George III which seemed determined to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

One of the signers of the Orangetown Resolutions – John Haring – would in turn be our local representative to the First Continental Congress.

photo from Old 76 House website

The Old 76 House Restaurant is located at 110 Main Street in Tappan, and is open year round for Lunch and Dinner with Brunch on Weekends with Candlelit and Fireside Dining in Autumn, Winter and Spring.

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86 Years Ago Today: Nyack’s Women Take Over

I asked a number of people in the last day or two to guess when the “Take Our Daughters To Work Day” and other “women in the workplace” programs began.  Most assumed sometime in the ’70s or ’80s, and many were completely unsure.  My buddy Kimmarie Mullin who happens to be President of the NYS Women’s Council of Realtors even pegged 1993 as the date Gloria Steinem founded the event.  However, the roots go back another 70 years, and not surprisingly the first incarnation of this type of program occurred right here in Nyack.

Historically, women have frequently had an easier time of it in Nyack than in many other places; able to achieve advances here earlier than in many other parts of the country.  I’ve written about some of Nyack’s important female figures like Suffragette Caroline Lexow, African-American Millionairess Cynthia Hesdra, Actress Helen Hayes, Author Carson McCullers, and Countess Alexandra Tolstoy – but the Nyacks were also home to a mid-1800’s female postmistress, one of the US’s first female physicians, and its first female Supreme Court clerk and of course the first female plastic surgeon – the beloved Dr. Martha MacGuffie who practiced for years at Nyack Hospital.  So perhaps it should come as no surprise that the first push for expanding the role of women in the workplace would arise here.

photo by H. Gibson, Nyack Library Collection

 The year was 1925, the “War to End All Wars” was seven years past, women gained the vote five years prior, and despite the mistaken idea that passing a constitutional amendment to outlaw alcohol sales would discourage alcoholism, the economy was soaring and the country’s mood was hopeful.  Having the formidable Ms. Lexow as a local resident may have helped spur them on, but whatever the reason, the female members of the Nyack High School class of 1925 decided the time was right.  There was a nationwide tradition called “Boys Week” where older High School boys were given a week where they would accompany adults around businesses, municipal offices and the like and then actually run them on the last day.  The young women of Nyack High’s senior class demanded equal time.  Their voices were loud enough to obtain national attention!

The New York Times of June 3, 1925 noted that the week began the day before, and blared the headline: “GIRLS RULE NYACK!”  The Times would go on to state: “… the first ‘girls week’ ever instituted in the United States began today with the students of Nyack High School taking over the management of several banks, trust companies, the Nyack Hospital, public library and other institutions. In addition, the large estate of  Mrs. B. Adriance was turned over to the girls, who superintended its’ management for one day.”

Though the headline was a bit overly dramatic, and frankly a bit dismissive, this still was a remarkable achievement for Nyack’s young women. One can only wonder what their male counterparts were thinking as their “Boys Week” that year certainly did not make the New York Times!  In a sign of the time period however, the Times does smugly reassure readers that unlike “Boys Week”, the “Girls” were limited to non-political jobs even though it was customary to “entrust the lads with the administration of cities” during their week.  I wonder if the journalist covering the event lived to see Terry Hekker elected first female Mayor of Nyack, followed by Nancy Blaker-Weber or  Upper Nyack’s Felicia Deyrup and South Nyack’s Patricia DuBow, for it seems that Nyackers are quite willing to entrust the “girls” with the administration of our villages!

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Remembering Nyack’s Civil War “Glory” – Brigadier General Daniel Ullman & First African-American Combat Unit

Many Nyackers are unaware that Oak Hill Cemetery contains an entire section dedicated to Nyackers who either died fighting the Civil War or were Civil War Veterans. Two Generals are actually buried there, but one was particularly special – he convinced Abraham Lincoln that the time had come for African Americans to be allowed to fight in combat in the Union Army for after all, who had more of a stake in the outcome…? Read on…

OAK HILL CEMETERY CIVIL WAR MONUMENT (photo by J.P. Schutz)

At a time when it seems that selfishness and partisanship often appear to be the rule of the day in all levels of government, I thought a Nyack story about a public figure devoted to fairness, justice and the spirit of “All Men  Are Created Equal” was in order. Many of us have seen the movie “GLORY” but may not realize that Nyack shares in that glory…

Daniel Ullman (sometimes spelled “Ullmann”) was born in April of 1810 in Delaware, and moved to New York City after graduating Yale University in 1829 (you’ll note, he was all of 19 years old!). He passed the bar in New York and began a law practice.  Also something of a minor politician, he ran for Governor of the State of New York in 1854, gaining 26% of the vote.  When the Civil War began, he volunteered and was made a Colonel in the 78th New York Infantry. In August of 1862 he was captured at Cedar Mountain and became a prisoner of war at Libby Prison.  He was paroled in October, and immediately went to Washington to speak to President Lincoln about an idea he thought would help save the Union, and represent just what our Nation was supposed to be all about.

The idea was the inclusion of Black Soldiers – free and those freed from bondage – as regular members of the Union Army. Not servants, not support or camp followers. Soldiers.  A somewhat radical idea for that time period (despite the numerous African-American soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War) President Lincoln was at first cool to the idea, concerned with how some of the top brass of his own troops might feel about the concept, AND the fact that his own coup – The Emancipation Proclamation – was due to become law on January 1, 1863. Too many “radical” ideas at once might break the remaining states of the Union apart.  After that stunning proclamation, Lincoln called Ullman back to D.C. further discuss the idea.

photo: public domain

In January of 1863, Ullman was promoted to Brigadier General and sent to Louisiana under the command of General Banks, where his orders were to raise five regiments of African-American troops, given the designation of Corps D’Afrique, though commonly nicknamed Ullman’s Brigade.  Despite this victory for Civil Rights, all was not smooth sailing for Daniel Ullman and his troops.  In a letter to General L. Thomas dated May 19th, Ullman would bemoan the lack of respect for his troops – the tendency of lower level officers to attempt to use his troops as nothing more than ditch diggers and drudges and those officers’ reluctance to believe African-American troops would be “capable” under fire – and the overall lack of competence of the white junior officers assigned to his command.

Vindication for Ullman and his recruits was just days away – the troops would see their first major action on May 27, 1863 when they advanced over open ground in the face of devastating artillery fire.  Ullman’s Brigade, made up almost entirely of men born into enslavement, desperate for the freedom our Constitution promised all men, stormed the Confederates at a place on the Louisiana shore of the Mississippi River ironically named PORT HUDSON!  They would not win this military battle.  Many of the soldiers desperate for their freedom found their freedom that day only through the boundaries of death. The battle they won, however, was mental and moral. General Banks would write in his official report of the Battle of Port Hudson that: “Whatever doubt may have existed heretofore as to the efficiency of organizations of this character, the history of this day proves…in this class of troops effective supporters and defenders.”  Another “cherished” myth – that African-Americans could not effectively fight as a unit – was laid to rest.  For really, who had more of a stake in the outcome of this conflict than men for whom victory meant liberty and defeat continued bondage?  Amazingly, the display of courage shown by the Corps D’Afrique in the Battle of Port Hudson actually spurred more enslaved men to escape their masters and join the Union Army.  Please note that the more famous assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina – chronicled in the movie “GLORY” – and fought by the African-American freemen of the 54th Massachusetts occurred several months AFTER Ullman’s troops made their history at Port Hudson. And recall, while Colonel Shaw of “Glory” fame commanded African-American freemen – tradesmen, scholars, artisans and professionals from New England – Ullman commanded former slaves fighting for their very existence.

Ullman’s Brigade was officially renamed “The United States Colored Troops” and served with distinction through the seige of Mobile in early 1865.  However, in February of 1865, Ullman was detached from his command and sent to New Orleans for “rest”. For at heart, Ullman was a thinker and advocate, not a warrior.  The stress of a command constantly plagued with prejudicial suspicion and distrust, and the constant uphill battle for equal treatment had worn him down.  By the spring of 1865 he had developed a serious alcohol problem and was mercifully taken off the front lines, and out of the command structure he’d had to constantly buck for two bloody years.  He was mustered out in August of 1865 and given the rank of Major General.

After the war, where else would he retire to but Nyack-on-Hudson?  He spent the Reconstruction years with literary and scientific studies – and speaking on tolerance and his assertion that “equality of education and universal suffrage” was the right of all citizens of this country, and would be the only means towards healing in the South. Unfortunately, his dreams of equality and suffrage would not bear fruit in the South for almost a century.  Daniel Ullman – Lawyer, Statesman, Scholar, General and Civil Rights Pioneer – died peacefully at his home in Nyack on  September 20, 1892 at the age of 82.  He is buried on the slopes of Oak Hill Cemetery in view of his beloved Hudson. An adopted son of Nyack, perhaps, but so welcome in the diverse tapestry that is our history. Heroes, real heroes, are in short supply in any century, and I’m proud to claim this hero as one of “ours”.

Oak Hill Cemetary on US 9W, across from Nyack Hospital.  Take a walk through the magnificent burial grounds and offer your respects to General Ullman’s grave, along with the other celebrities, authors, artists and politicians making up Nyack’s “permanent” population.  

photo: J.P. Schutz

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39 Years Ago Today – Nyack High School’s Darkest Day

I debated posting about this tragic anniversary due to the number of people who are still emotionally traumatized by these events even 39 years on.  But recent events – two tragically fatal tour bus accidents in our area, and the connected loss of Dr. Martha MacGuffie this month, added additional timeliness… and frankly, in any venue that recounts the story of the Nyacks, leaving this event out would be insulting to the memory of those who were lost and to the struggle of those who survived… So…

There was a detour the morning of March 24, 1972 – a Nyack school bus heading to the old High School from Valley Cottage had to backtrack all the way to Congers to clear the construction.  The bus, loaded with 49 Nyack High School students with a moonlighting NYC firefighter behind the wheel would never make it to school that day. Fate awaited in the form of the Gilchrest Road Erie and Penn Central Railroad Crossing – a crossing without gates or even warning lights. Students feared they’d be late for first period when they saw a train further down the tracks… inexplicably, the bus continued forward into the crossing. The bus simply did not stop – the 83-car train COULD not stop. 

Did the driver not hear or see the train? Was he trying to out race it? No one can say for sure what went on in his head that fateful morning. Though sentenced to five years probation for criminally negligent homicide, Joseph Larkin maintained to his death 10 years ago that he did not see the train.  It was obvious that he was tormented for the rest of his life by the events of March 12, 1972, but that would be no consolation for the victims and their families.

The freight train sliced through the middle of the bus, dragging part of it for almost a quarter of a mile.  Three teenaged boys were killed instantly: Jimmy McGuiness 17, Richard Macaylo 18, and Bobby Mauterer 14.  Thomas Grosse 14 died several days later, Stephen Ward 16 would lose his battle for life on April 14.  The other 44 students and the driver were hospitalized. Some of the injuries were severe – including loss of limbs – and a number of teens would remain in the hospital for months.  The Rockland Journal News would print daily updates on the recovery of the Nyack students throughout the Spring and into the Summer.

Dr. Martha McGuffie was on her way to work at Nyack Hospital that tragic morning when she came across the accident. The USA’s first female plastic and reconstructive surgeon would eventually operate on many of the survivors.

From this tragedy came many new safety regulations for school buses, including stopping at every railroad crossing before proceeding through. The next time you are at a railroad crossing grumbling about the stopped school bus in front of you, take a moment to remember WHY.  The scars for Nyack High School would take a long time to heal – several cast members in the Spring Musical appeared with crutches or in casts… Graduation was an intensely emotional affair (even more than the average graduation!) remembering those lost and honoring those struggling to rebuild their lives… and for anyone you speak to who went to Nyack High School during those years, there is always that look – that haunted look behind their eyes whenever someone brings up the topic.

To you Nyack High School alumni who lived that horrific day, and especially to any who may have been aboard that fateful bus, my sincerest regret for bringing another reminder, but I felt your lost classmates and your long struggle deserved to be remembered…

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66 Years Ago Today – Nyack’s Japanese Soldiers

The combined Earthquake/Tsunami/Nuclear tragedies the nation of Japan is dealing with this week led me on one of my searches only to find a tie-in to our wartime history here in Nyack, and fortunately, a memory we can all truly be proud of and cherish – Nyack’s WWII U.S.O. and their commitment to our Japanese-American soldiers. 

 

Photo by Toge Fujihira; Bancroft Library collection U.C. at Berkeley

 

It was not easy being a Japanese Immigrant living in the United States during World War II, and in a way it was worse being “Nisei” – that is, a United States citizen whose parents immigrated from Japan but was born here (if it was your grandparents who immigrated you are “Sansei”).  Naturally, those folks of Japanese heritage born here as citizens thought of themselves as just that – Americans – when suddenly their neighbors began to think of them as being enemies and foreigners – when they were already somewhat alienated from their parents’ generation having grown up in American schools with an American mindset. Though their parents, the “Issei” had to have been astonished, frightened and saddened by the seizing of their property and their imprisonment in internment camps during WWII, for the Nisei those emotions had to be joined by one even stronger – anger. Their own country had imprisoned them, seized their homes and their assets, and established laws that barred their presence on the West Coast and denied them the right to join their own country’s armed forces.  110,000 Japanese-Americans spent the war in these camps (along with about 10,000 German-Americans and about 500 Italian-Americans).

And yet, in 1943 – when the ban on serving in the military was lifted on Japanese-American men – those men signed up in droves.  The 442nd Infantry Regiment, made up entirely of Nisei soldiers, was sent to the European front and remains the most decorated regiment in the history of the United States Armed Forces including 21 Medals of Honor.  And all this while their wives, mothers, fathers, sisters and younger brothers were still held in camps back in the USA. So much for the supposedly “questionable loyalty” of Americans of Japanese heritage.  Ironically, the 552 Field Artillery Battalion of the 442nd Infantry would free the surviving prisoners of Dachau while some of their own relatives lingered in interment back home.

How does Nyack fit in?  By 1943, the largest of the military embarkation points on the east coast was built right over Clausland Mountain from Nyack in Orangeburg, named Camp Shanks, but nicknamed “Last Stop, USA”.  Over 1.5 million G.I.s would depart from Camp Shanks for Europe – and each night as many as 1600 young men from the Camp would find themselves walking the streets of Nyack (and we think the bar situation is somewhat out–of-control NOW? Though to be fair, as mentioned in a prior post the Broadway Theater in Nyack held more than that number).  Some of the soon-to-be-decorated Nisei units would pass through Camp Shanks and those soldiers would head to the streets of Nyack looking for entertainment like any other American G.I.s.

The Nyack U.S.O. was located across the street from the Theater in what is now The Runcible Spoon (my favorite hangout attracted hoards of uniformed visitors back then too, only now the uniforms are those of bike teams…) and was extremely popular with the service men.  Many locals volunteered their time to feed and entertain the young men about to risk their lives  – and found it a very rewarding experience. Nyack U.S.O. hostesses in the pictures  include Mrs. J. Knapp,  Mrs. T. Rudden and Mrs. J. Maisseo. In March, with the first large group of new Japanese American soldiers due in Camp, A.L. Esplin and Helen Zolkis directors of the Nyack U.S.O. and Peter Aoki of the Japanese American Citizens League met and decided to make a special evening for them.  Through the Citizens League, Nisei young women living in New York City (WE didn’t inter thankfully!) were invited to join the U.S.O. in Nyack for a special dance evening for the departing Nisei soldiers – 125 responded and came up for the event.  The three organizers are seen below with Miss Kunimatsu of NYC and Private Kudo formerly of Los Angeles and whose family resided at the time in the Heart Mountain interment camp. Yuriko Amemiya, a Nisei modern dancer and member of the famed Martha Graham Dance Company and teacher at the NYC New Dance Group Studio was on hand that evening as well to perform for the 200 troops and 125 young ladies who attended the event.  Known as just “Yuriko” professionally, she too had originally been from the West Coast, sent to an interment camp but relocated to New York and Martha Graham’s company in 1943.

photo: Toge Fujihira, Bancroft Library UC Berkeley

For other towns and cities with U.S.O.s the event may have been radical, but… this is and WAS Nyack. It’s not that prejudice or discrimination does not or did not exist here – it is simply that it is seldom allowed to take too much of a hold, or to overwhelm the hearts and minds of this special community – especially in times of great need.  If you’d like to show the people of Japan that in this time of need that Nyack still cares about the Japanese people, contact the Nyack Branch of the Red Cross at 143 North Broadway (845-358-0833) or www.redcross.org and donate to Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami. People can also text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation to help those affected by the earthquake in Japan and tsunami throughout the Pacific. 

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Nyack’s Cynthia Hesdra – Out of Slavery to Success

In February of 1879 a remarkable woman passed away here in Nyack.  She was born right here in Rockland in 1808 to John and Jane Moore of Tappan – her father was well-known all over Rockland and he owned the Mill on the Sparkill Creek. He was one of the wealthiest men in the area at the time, and invented an improvement on the Mill Wheel that was utilized all over the Hudson Valley. He was proud to have his Mill producing blankets for the Union Soldiers fighting the Civil War.  It is frighteningly unclear how this freeborn young lady wound up enslaved but kidnappings of free african-americans were not unknown at the time and despite her father’s notoriety and community support it appears her family was unable to liberate her from her bondage in the American South.

photo: Nyack Historical Society

She would meet her husband during her period of slavery – Edward Hesdra was the “mulatto” son of  a white Jewish Virginia planter and a free black woman from Haiti.  They would purchase her freedom and flee north, settling first in Greenwich Village where she began a laundry and a money lending business.  Through hard work and smart investment, she soon owned (in her own name, it appears her hubby was not so industrious) her own home, and a dozen other properties on MacDougall, Sullivan and Bleecker Streets.  Having established the beginnings of her personal fortune, she moved herself and her husband to Nyack for its’ healthier environment.

Here she would again establish another laundry business and another money-lending business while continuing to operate her businesses and manage her properties in Greenwich Village.  Soon she would own additional properties in Nyack and nearby Bergen County along with her local and city businesses and properties. By the standards of the time, she was quite a wealthy self-made woman – by today’s standards a multi-millionaire.  She and her husband were also quietly helping others still in bondage in the unrepentant South – by opening their home as a station on the “Freedom Trail” – the mysterious and legendary Underground Railroad.  With the night sky’s constellations as their guide and the threat of torture or death behind, intrepid men and women slipped away from plantations and farms seeking the north and freedom meeting helpful “station keepers” – both white and black – on their dangerous journey to freedom.  (A new sculpture in the center of Frederick Douglass Circle at Central Park West and W.110th Street shows the constellation “map” used by the fleeing slaves – drop by and check it out!)  Though many chose to run the tracks all the way to Canada and away from the United States, some of the fugitives would choose to stay in Nyack – led there by the constellation map and the Nyack Brook – or in New York City where they could lose themselves in the large free-black community.

At the time of her death in February 1879, Cynthia Hesdra had acquired quite a fortune, and her death sparked a precedent setting and much publicized court battle by her heirs, including her husband.  Previously unknown Wills, additional falsified wills, unknown relatives and fraudulent heirs all marked a battle that played itself out in the Courtroom and in the Papers, until 1890 when it was finally all settled.  The New York Times of June of 1890 would sum up the contentious probate battle in a series of stories called “For An Ex-Slave’s Fortune”.  The case would mark the first application of a new law in New York State that allowed for comparisons between known and disputed signatures.

The historically significant Hesdra House stood at the corner of Main Street and 9W but was torn down to build the utterly charming and well-utilized tan and brown building on the corner that formerly held a pet supply center and a rug store.  You may sense my sarcasm here, and though even though as a Real Estate agent I am in favor of development, I consider the loss of a historic structure without a significant reason and well-researched development plan to be nothing short of sinful.  We have so little left in the area that is significant historically, let alone significant to our long-term African-American community, and I wish that there had been some responsible thought in maintaining a home that played a pivotal past role to so many people alive today.  Granted, there is a historical marker in place on the corner – but in a final insult to a woman who went from freedom to enslavement to self-made real estate tycoon, the home is listed in her HUSBAND’s name on the marker, despite the house and the fortune coming from HER industrious nature.  If you cross 9W from the marker and walk down the hill to the Provident Savings Bank, you can see one of the few places where the Nyack Brook is not culverted, but still open to the sky – the same sky that led fleeing slaves to the Brook, where they would follow its’ banks to a safe haven in Cynthia Hesdra’s corner home.  A local resident recently proposed that the brook property be acquired and a Village Park established with historical markers to explain the significance of the site, and benches to allow one to sit and appreciate an untouched part of Nyack’s original environment. I would like to heartily second that wonderful suggestion!

photo by Michael Herrick

If you want to find out more about Cynthia Hesdra, Dr. Lori L. Martin, a Dean at John Jay College in NYC and a Nyack native has written a book that like the New York Times series of the late 1800s is called “The Ex-Slave’s Fortune”.  Local and significant history at its finest.  Look for it on Lulu.com.  http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-ex-slaves-fortune/3889603

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101 Years Ago Today: KABOOM! Nyack’s Industrial Disaster

Updating this post to reflect that just this past week, regulations regarding safety at chemical plants has been struck down and returned to previous more dangerous levels. Politics and greed continue to gamble with our health and safety…

Like many others, I have been heartened by promises both in Washington and Albany to reduce the number of superfluous or redundant government agencies that are bleeding our national and state budgets.  However, among the most foolhardy suggestions of our newly elected “slash-and-burn” politicians are the elimination of government run product safety and consumer protection agencies. Really, haven’t we learned our lesson that industries allowed to operate without any public oversight tend to start sacrificing public safety in pursuit of more profit?  There are countless examples some of these “reformers” should bear in mind: the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the R.M.S. Titanic, the Union Carbide Plant Explosion in Bhopal, the Chernobyl nuclear accident, and this past year’s BP Gulf oil rig explosion are some of the worst disasters that resulted from the drive for profit superceding safety concerns and common sense.  Closer to home, the brick industry in Haverstraw became so greedy that in 1906 they undermined the village itself, causing a landslide that took 5 streets, 2 avenues and 21 buildings with it, killing 19 residents.

photo: Hudson River Valley Heritage Archives

The American Aniline Products plant was located on Cedar Hill Avenue – the picture above shows what it was like prior to the morning of January 30, 1919.  It was just after 9:00 and the 400 plus students of the Liberty Street School across the street from the factory had already begun class.  (It’s hard to imagine the response of today’s parents if there was a factory manufacturing toxic chemicals literally across the street from their kids’ school!)  Overheating chemicals in the drying room of the factory’s first floor ignited and exploded the walls of the ground floor outward, another blast would rip a hole that tore through the upper floors and roof.  The hundred employees on-site fled for their lives as the explosion rocked all of Orangetown and plate glass windows shattered all over Nyack.  All of the windows of the school facing the factory were blown into the school, covering the students with broken glass.  Amazingly, the force of the blast was so strong that the size of the glass shards were minute and only one student was seriously injured by the glass.  The 400 students evacuated to Hudson and School Street and joined what appeared to be the rest of the population of Nyack in watching the conflagration.

photo: Nyack Library Parkhurst Collection

This was perhaps the greatest day for the Nyack Volunteer Fire Department.  Due to their heroic efforts, the ensuing conflagration was confined to the factory, one home and one garage.  Three of the factory’s employees lost their lives that day, with 15 others seriously injured.  What is not known is how many of the residents and workers (not to mention the firemen) would have their health affected by breathing the extremely toxic fumes of the burning aniline dye. See, in 1919, either no one knew – or possibly no one cared – that breathing aniline fumes was toxic and likely to cause cancers, particularly bladder cancers later in life.  (Having a father who suffered from asbestosis, contracted well AFTER the construction industry was well aware of the dangers, suggests that the second scenario though horrifying is indeed possible).  The factory owners would eventually be fined the sum of $2500 for their negligence, after the President of the company and the Superintendent of the factory pled guilty of  violating state labor laws and village ordinances in the storing of explosive chemicals – yet they violated those laws and regulations KNOWING there was a school across the street.

photo: Hudson River Valley Heritage Archives

Though the families of those who perished or were injured might disagree, Nyack learned its lesson with a miraculously low loss of life.  Had the vector of the explosion been slightly different, the outcome could have been far, far worse.  So while our rhetoric-spouting politicians yammer and bleat about cutting government spending they might want to concentrate on the real waste, and not checks and balances put into place to keep our industries’ need to satisfy their shareholders from slipping into disregard for public safety and human lives. I wish more of our elected officials of all persuasions spent a little more time studying history and a little less time studying the polls, remembering that they were elected to do public service, not elected to get re-elected.

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Nyack Serendipity – Russians, Yoga, Baseball, Artists, Oh My!

I just love serendipity.  A few posts ago, I was excited over finding a correlation between Nyack and Ocean Liners, they being my favorite historical subjects. This one today is great fun – take a look at the painting below, followed with a bit of history and ties-ins to several of my posts:

"Baseball at Night" by Morris Kantor, this image from the Smithsonian Collection

The painting is of a Night Baseball Game in Nyack in 1934 by artist Morris Kantor.  Months back I posted about our former minor league team here in Nyack, and the fact that Night Baseball games were standard here long before they became standard in the Majors, see: https://athomeinnyack.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/and-the-home-of-the-brave-play-ball/.  This game however, took place even earlier at a different Nyack ball park – that maintained at the Clarkstown Country Club owned by Pierre Bernard, the Father of the American Yoga Movement, otherwise known as Oom the Omniscient, see: https://athomeinnyack.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/a-true-nyack-character-pierre-bernard/.  This painting was done by Morris Kantor, a member of the recently discussed Russian Community in Nyack, who passed away at his home in West Nyack in 1974, see: https://athomeinnyack.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/nyacks-russian-royalty-princess-vera-constantinova/.  And for one last little weird coincidence, while I was the editor of “Provincetown Magazine” for several years in the 1990s, I did a featured article on an exhibition of Morris Kantor’s paintings from his time working at his painting studio on Cape Cod – I have a number of my black and white photos from my time at Provincetown Magazine framed in my front hall – one of them is a picture of one of Morris Kantor’s paintings – and at the time I did not know of his connection with Nyack, nor had I seen this particular work. I just love serendipity!

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