Jefferson Market Courthouse in New York

Sherlock Gets Locked Up

2009-07-20T23:01:00.000-07:00

MAE WEST was arrested on 9 February 1927 along with the cast of "Sex," the cast of "The Virgin Man," and the cast of "The Captive."
• • Snooty Basil Rathbone, who died during the month of July — — on 21 July 1967 in New York, NY — — was cuffed and brought downtown to Jefferson Market Police Court along with Helen Menken and their co-stars.
• • Born in South Africa on 13 June 1892, Basil Rathbone was one year older than Mae West — — but in his mind, he was worlds apart even though they were both starring on Broadway in 1927.
• • During the 1920s, most of Basil Rathbone's work was in the legitimate theater. For many of his Broadway roles he portrayed a suave, sophisticated seducer of women — — quite a change from the legendary ascetic Baker Street detective he would play later in his career.
• • Making a sensation at the Empire Theatre was a drama that had been highly regarded in Paris: "The Captive." Basil Rathbone was cast in the role of Jacques Virieu, a young man engaged to be married, only to discover that his fiancée [played by Helen Menken] is in love with someone else — — a woman. Since homosexuality was such a controversial topic during the Roaring Twenties, the entire cast was charged with offending public morals, and the play was closed right after the police raid.
• • Basil Rathbone was very angry about the censorship of his work, but even more aggrieved that show people would start whispering that he was arrested and booked — — with Mae West.
• • For years, Basil Rathbone and his wife made their home at 135 Central Park West. Mae lived in several westside locations, occasionally not far from Rathbone. But there is no record of their taking tea together to reminisce over their arrest on indecency charges in 1927.
• • The Empire Theatre • •
• • Built in 1893, the Empire Theatre had been situated at 1430 Broadway (between West 40th and West 41st) in Manhattan. An impressive playhouse, it seated about 1100. J.B. McElfatrick was the architect. Producer Charles Frohman had it built "uptown" at the suggestion of Al Hayman — — "Everything theatrical is moving uptown," he advised. Al Hayman took ownership after Frohman died on the Lusitania in 1915. In 1948, the Astor estate purchased the Empire Theatre and announced, in 1953, that it would be torn down to make way for an office tower. Waves of nostalgia spread through the theatre community, and performers gathered to celebrate the venue in a restrospective farewell performance. The bulldozers arrived in 1953 and an edifice was wrecked.
• • Brush up those zippy Mae West lines right on Broadway — — Sunday afternoon August 16th — — and forge a-Mae-zing memories.
• • Walking Tour: "Gaudy Girls on The Gay White Way: Mae West & Texas Guinan in the Theatre District"
• • When: 4:00 PM on Sunday — — 16 August 2008 — — rain or shine
• • Meet: Shubert Alley, 44th Street, West of Broadway, New York, NY 10036
• • Price: $10 [this walking tour lasts about 90 minutes]
• • Subway: N or R [BMT] train to West 42nd Street; 1 [IRT] train to Times Square
• • Attire: why not wear a Mae West-inspired hat?
• • Info: T. 212-614-9683 — — or post your RSVP or tour question here
• • Online: MaeWest.blogspot.com — — TexasGuinan.blogspot.com
• • Who: Playwright LindaAnn Loschiavo makes the tour educational and entertaining.
• • LindaAnn Loschiavo's history play "Courting Mae West" was onstage in July 2008 at the Fresh Fruit Festival. She is working on a biographical travel guide "Mae West's New York, 1899—1959" and will show some of her unusual theatre memorabilia and vintage photos during the tour and reveal secret addresses tied to Mae West that have not been disclosed before. These rare pictures show the area as it looked during the 1920s when Mae West and Texas Guinan had their name on several marquees.
• • Surprises: Prizes and other nice things are part of the fun
• • Members of the press may attend on August 16th as our guest. RSVP required.
• • • • Mae West Walking Tours You Might Have Enjoyed • • • •
• • 2006 TOUR: Our regular Mae-mavens will recall seeing the historical exhibition "Onstage Outlaws: Mae West and Texas Guinan in a Lawless Era,” which opened to the public after a Gala Roaring-20s theme Press Preview on Mae’s birthday 17 August 2006. And on Sunday afternoon 20 August 2006, more than two dozen beautiful people gathered on West Ninth Street to enjoy a special treat — — "Washington Square Women: Mae West and Texas Guinan in Greenwich Village" — — followed by a Jazz Era brunch served with champagne and the Cos-MAE-Politan cocktail, garnished with two strategically placed plump raspberries.
• • 2007 TOUR: On Friday evening 17 August 2007, a fascinating guided adventure — — "The Mae West Side Story" — — escorted numerous intrepid walk-abouts to three of Mae's former residences along with other sites linked to the Brooklyn bombshell.
• • 2008 TOUR: On Sunday afternoon 17 August 2008, the captivating Diamond Divas led a group of over two dozen Mae-mavens to several locations in Greenwich Village linked to her stage career, gay themes, courtroom woes, and the work of individuals she admired such as Lillian Russell, Tony Pastor, Texas Guinan, Eugene O'Neill, and Rae Bourbon. The 2008 walking tour — — "Mae West's Walk on the Wild Side" — — celebrated the 115th birthday of the Empress of Sex with an extravagant musical program, performed live by Met Opera soprano Marlena de la Mora and Sharon Weinman, which included these numbers: "Everything's Coming up Mae West"; "Mon Coeur S' Ouvre a Ta Voix"; "The Prisoner's Song"; "Frankie and Johnny"; "Come Down Ma Evening Star"; "I Could Have Danced All Night"; "Gentleman Jimmy"; and a grand finale taken from the score of "Diamond Lil."
• • Tour photos can be seen on the Mae West Blog.
• • For more details, do read the Mae West Blog and/ or post your email. [Your info will not be posted nor available so that miscreants and rascals can access it.]
__ ___
• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Basil Rathbone with Helen Menken • • February 1927 • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Censorship & Mae West

2009-01-12T23:46:00.001-08:00

Publishers Weekly offered a capsule review of a new title devoted to Mae West — — which also includes revealing first-person statements about her imprisonment.
• • Speaking about the author Charlotte Chandler's latest release, the critic wrote this: Chandler (Not the Girl Next Door: Joan Crawford) draws on her interviews with the 86-year-old Mae West, known for her “risqué brand of humor,” in this chatty memoir. West carefully constructed and guarded the image of her personality as a woman who enjoyed sex at a time when “skirts had to cover ankles.” She contended she was “never vulgar. The word for me was suggestive.”
• • West (1893–1980) craved the spotlight from a young age and had been a success in vaudeville, where she began to write her own material. Her screen legend perfected her sexually playful alter ego in such films as She Done Him Wrong, which contained her most quoted line: “Come up and see me sometime” [sic].
• • Chandler also includes Mae West's first-person account of her 10 days in jail — — when she was found guilty of producing an immoral Broadway show, her first full-length play, Sex. West remained a box-office draw into her 70s, appearing in the 1970 film Myra Breckinridge. Whether discussing her love life or advising on playwriting or beauty tips, Mae West was always entertaining. Photos. (Feb.)
• • Title reviewed: She Always Knew How: Mae West, a Personal Biography Charlotte Chandler. [NY: Simon & Schuster (336p) ISBN 978-1-4165-7909-0]
— — Source: — —
• • Article: PW's Nonfiction Reviews
• • Printed in: Publishers Weekly — — www.publishersweekly.com
• • Printed on: 12 January 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • "Courting Mae West" features intriguing scenes dramatizing Mae's arrest and trials.
• • Offered onstage July 19th—22nd in New York City during the Annual Fresh Fruit Festival, "Courting Mae West" has been nominated for several awards. The black-tie awards gala will take place during April 2009 in Manhattan.
__ ___
• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Mae West • • February 1927 • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Mae's back at court Aug. 17

2008-08-13T11:56:00.000-07:00

MAE WEST and Fiorello LaGuardia have a curious connection.
• • In his column "A New Yorker at Large," Mark Barron shared insights about the Brooklyn bombshell and the ambitious politician Fiorello LaGuardia [11 December 1882 — 20 September 1947]. This installment of Barron's column was published on 28 January 1934.
• • Mark Barron wrote: New York — Mayor LaGuardia turned on the producers of risque shows, charging them with deliberately inviting police interference for the publicity it would bring.
• • Mark Barron noted: What is interesting in an ironic sort of way is the fact that it was an off-color show which led to the movement that — by increase and addition — eventually elected LaGuardia to his office. And, for that, some might say he owes thanks to Mae West.
• • Back in 1927, Miss West produced a play that brought a squadron of police censors tumbling about her with the turmoil of a Union Square red riot. As a result, Miss West was invited to spend a short vacation in the Welfare Island calaboose. [Mae's 1927 arrest and trial in Jefferson Market Court are dramatized in the play "Courting Mae West," which is based on true events during the Prohibition Era.]
• • Despite the avalanche of publicity, Mae was shocked, thinking that her attorney — a Tammany district leader — would be able to keep her this side of the steel bars.
• • A girl reporter was sent to interview Mae. In jail [i.e., Jefferson Jail — then located on Sixth Avenue], the reporter had a conversation with a girl prisoner who charged she'd been "framed" because she would not pay a bribe to a detective on the vice squad.
• • The resultant story started the inquiry into the women's courts, and it was this inquiry that brought Judge Samuel Seabury into such high esteem in the public mind. And it was Seabury whose master minding helped put LaGuardia in the mayor's office.
• • On Sunday 17 August 2008, during the "Mae West's Walk on the Wild Side" walking tour, the group will visit the little flower and a number from "Fiorello!" will be sung live by a vivacious actress, a native New Yorker who has performed in many musicals.
__ ___
• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Mae West's raid • • February 1927 • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Courting the media in 1913

2008-08-04T14:03:00.000-07:00

It was a hot summer attraction — — on 4 August 1913 — — and the crowds may (or may not) have recalled that in 1912 and 1913 Hammerstein had booked the vivacious teenager MAE WEST for eleven week-long engagements at his vaudeville playhouse situated in Longacre [later Times] Square. The location was popularly known by New Yorkers as "the corner."
• • On 4 August 1913, however, Mae West was there to open for a world-famous star: Evelyn Nesbit [1884 — 1967]. Despite a low-cut gown and provocative songs, Mae failed to fire up the audience.
• • The critic from The New York Tribune [whose coverage ran on 5 August 1912] commented that even Mae's low neckline and raunchy bumps and grinds were not enough to sway the hoi polloi.
• • Though most of the reporters ignored the 19-year-old's attempts to woo the crowd and did not even mention her name in their reviews, at least Variety's columnist Joshua Lowe [whose critique was published on 8 August 1913] noticed how hard she was working. "Mae West sang loud enough to be distinctly heard in the rear," wrote Lowe.
• • Clearly, Hammerstein's ticket-holders had come to worship Evelyn, the showgirl who had shied away from the spotlight for several years after the infamous Sanford White trial. "Anything's a good act that will make 'em talk," insisted Willie Hammerstein, who was a magician when it came to commandeering media interest and a big box office.
• • Evelyn's appearance was quite the ticket. Willie Hammerstein was so pleased at his box office bonanza that he had his sign painters create this come-on in four-foot-high letters — —

"Modern Ballroom Dancing," screamed the marquee,
"Performed by EVELYN NESBIT THAW!"

• • Readers of The New York Times saw these headlines Tuesday morning on 5 August 1913:
• • Evelyn Thaw Appears; Then Thanks Audience that Applauds Dancing at Hammerstein's.
• • According to the Times: Although it was reported at the time that Evelyn Nesbit arrived on the Olympic that she had said she would not dance unless the name of Thaw was eliminated from the signboard in front of Hammerstein's, she did appear yesterday afternoon, and the sign remained unchanged until after the performance, when "Thaw" was thinly covered with white paint.
• • A packed house tested her and applauded so persistently that she was forced forward finally by her dancing, . . . and expressed her thanks briefly for the reception. The sight of her face peeping through the mauve curtains masking the back of the stage started the applause. Then she and Mr. Clifford did three "trotting" turns, with evolutions that have been made familiar in the cabarets and public dancing places. She wore an ecru gown of light fluffy material bound in at the waistline with a broad black sash, and, with her hair loose about her neck and shoulders and a smile lighting her features, created an agreeable impression. Her dancing was of an average qualIty — — neither remarkably good nor the reverse. . . .
• • In 1899, Oscar Hammerstein built his fifth showplace — — the Victoria Theatre — — at the corner of West 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue. Stars like MAE WEST, Will Rogers, W.C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, Ethel Barrymore, Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Buster Keaton, Harry Houdini, Evelyn Nesbit, and Eva Tanguay were among the thousands of performers who made Hammerstein's Victoria the vaudeville "nut house" of Times Square.
• • Mainly, it was Oscar's son Willie Hammerstein who deserves credit for the playhouse's 17-year successful run. Willie had the knack for booking crowd-pleasing stagebills along with a peacock's genius for public relations.
• • In 1906, Evelyn's millionaire husband Harry Thaw shot architect Sanford White. The "trial of the century" was held at Jefferson Market Court — — the same celebrated Sixth Avenue courthouse where Mae West would wind up in 1927. Mae's censorship trial is dramatized in the play "Courting Mae West."
• • The 19th century Greenwich Village landmark designed by Withers and Vaux is one stop on the annual Mae West walking tour that will take place this year on her birthday, specifically, beginning at 1:00 PM on Sunday 17 August 2008: "Mae West's Walk on the Wild Side." Info: MaeWest.blogspot.com
__ ___
• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Hammerstein's Victoria • • circa 1901 • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Village Raid — 5 February 1923

2008-07-26T13:05:00.000-07:00

The play "Courting Mae West" opens in one of the drag cabarets in the Village that MAE WEST used to visit. In Act I, Scene 1, Mae waves to a cigarette girl in drag known as Rosebud. Mae explains to her date, "I just cast Rosebud over there in 'The Drag'. . . ."
• • In 1923, Arthur C. Budd was 21 years old and residing at 25 West 52nd Street. Known as “Rosebud,” Arthur C. Budd worked as a female impersonator in “The Lady in Ermine” at The Century Theater.
• • A New York Times article published on 5 February 1923 — — “Village Raid Nets 4 Women and 9 Men: Detectives Thought They Had Five Females, but Misjudged One Person by Clothing” — — paints a picture of the Greenwich Village circles Rosebud traveled in.
• • The police continue to pay special attention to Greenwich Village, according to The N.Y. Times. Every tearoom and cabaret in the village was visited yesterday morning by Deputy Inspector Joseph A. Howard and Captain Edward J. Dempsey of the Charles Street Station, and a party of ten detectives.
• • Detectives Joseph Massie and Dewey Hughes of the Special Service Squad were at the Black Parrot Tea Shoppe Hobo-Hemia, 46 Charles Street, to witness what they had been informed would be a “circus.” They arrested what they thought were five women and eight men. It developed later, however, that one of the “women” was a man, Harry Bernhammer, 21 years old, living at 36 Hackensack Avenue, West Hoboken, N.J. He is familiarly known in the Village as “Ruby,” according to the police. The charge against him is disorderly conduct for giving what the police termed an indecent dance.
• • The other prisoners, all of whom were bailed out at the station house, were Lucy Smith, 22 years old, of 46 Charles Street, and Patricia Rogers, 24 years old, of 16 Charles Street, alleged proprietors of the establishment, charged with violating the Mullan-Gage law; . . . Arthur C. Budd, 21 years old, of 25 West Fifty-second Street; . . . Paul Warring, 21 years old, of 75 West Seventy-second Street; . . . . The real name of the Smith woman, according to the police, is Vera Black, and the real name of the Rogers woman is Nan Paddock.
• • Arthur C. Budd, according to the police, is known as “Rosebud,” and claimed when arrested that he is a female impersonator in “The Lady in Ermine” at The Century Theater.
• • Paul Warring, the police say, is pianist at the Black Parrot and was formerly employed at a Broadway cabaret. . . . Reilly is accused of doing “a suggestive dance.”
• • The detectives allege that before the raid early yesterday morning they bought eight drinks of whiskey at $1 a drink.
• • The “circus” did not actually take place, the detectives said, for just before the time for it to begin Patricia Rogers stepped out on the floor and announced: “There are two policemen here and I am afraid to put on the circus."
• • The joyful soiree at the Black Parrot Tea Shoppe Hobo-Hemia [46 Charles Street, New York, NY 10014] ended rather abruptly with a paddy wagon conveying the arrested individuals to Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue on 5 February 1923.
__ ___
• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Jefferson Market Court • • circa 1917 • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

April is the coolest month

2008-04-17T12:51:00.000-07:00

A West Coast feature "This Week in History" — — which mentions MAE WEST — — is glued together by the Santa Barbara Independent's news staff who, obviously, is a wee bit thick. Though this paper has had eighty-one years to get their facts straight, here is their inaccurate backwards glance on the date 19 April 1927.
• • To wit: Actress/ playwright Mae West is sentenced to 10 days in jail for writing Sex, a Broadway show about a gigolo, deemed “scandalous” by the courts. [Source for the incorrect info: Santa Barbara Independent: 122 West Figueroa St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101; T. (805) 965-5205. Their excuse for getting details wrong is rich, however. They admit to doing a quick cut-and-paste from The History Channel — — even if that means passing errors along. So if you want a job as a fact-checker, you know where NOT to go. Salaries must be low at the Santa Barbara Independent, where the corn is as high as a pink elephant's eye. Sigh. A more suitable title would be "This Week in Mystery" — — with trinkets given to the first canny readers who can spot the mistakes. This would be an inexpensive way to get the copy proofread as well, eh?]
• • Since when was Mae West's play "Sex" referred to by the wishy-washy, inaccurate, tea-party word "scandalous"? In Jefferson Market Court and in the courtroom transcript, this was called "an obscenity trial." The actors were fined and charged with giving an offensive and indecent performance.
• • Since when was "Sex" about a gigolo? Wrong plot and wrong-headed altogether.
• • Why? Well, since when would Mae West choose to star in a vehicle unless the narrative centered on the leading lady's role? She wouldn't and she didn't.
• • Too bad the Santa Barbara Independent staff did not bring their ink-stained selves off to the Aurora Theatre Company's revival of "Sex" (starring Delia MacDougall in the role of Margy LaMont) onstage in Berkeley, California in November and December of 2007. Nor did they read the reviews.
• • Synopsis of the 1926 play Mae West wrote in order to give herself a starring role: "Sex" is the tale of Margy LaMont, an ambitious young prostitute in Montreal, who is determined to get out of the skin trade and marry well. Margy takes the advice of a British naval officer [played in 1926 by handsome Barry O'Neill] to ''follow the fleet.'' That takes her to Trinidad, where she meets Jimmy Stanton, a naive rich boy from a blue-blooded Connecticut family. Jimmy proposes to Margy and whisks her home to his parents' well-furnished mansion.
• • Well, there's no gigolo in that synopsis! Anyway this blog posting is set forth for all news media outlets who would like to have correct information.
• • On 5 April 1927 at Jefferson Market Court [on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village], the jury returned with a guilty verdict. As she left the courtroom, followed by reporters, photographers, and a mob of well-wishers, Mae told them, "You've got to fight in this world!" She added, "You've got to fight to get there — — and fight to stay there."
• • On 19 April 1927, actress MAE WEST was sentenced for her performance in "Sex," the Broadway play she wrote, cast, and starred in. She was given ten days in prison and the jail time seems to have done her good — — from a publicity standpoint. As she left the courtroom, followed by reporters, friends, fans, and gawkers, Mae predicted, "I expect this will be the making of me!"
• • Though Mae West was sentenced to 10 days, she actually only served 8 days. The actress received "time off for good behavior."
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" — — based on true events when Mae West was tried at the Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue — — will be onstage at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, New York, NY 10010] July 19th — 22nd, 2008.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in mid-July 2008.
__ ___
• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Mae West at her Jefferson Market trial • • 27 March 1927 • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

A Lock on Mae West

2008-03-29T05:05:00.000-07:00

MAE WEST gets her day in court — — when she returns to the Times Square area on Saturday 29 March 2008.
• • COURTING MAE WEST will be featured at The Producer's Club [358 West 44th Street, NYC] on March 29th under the direction of Louis Lopardi, who has selected a number of actors to do a table reading.
• • COURTING MAE WEST opens at 7:00 PM at the Algonquin Theatre (NYC) on 19 July 2008.

• • SYNOPSIS [100 words] • •

• • Based on true events during the Prohibition Era, this 95-minute play follows a vaudeville veteran whose frustrations with the rules of male-dominated Broadway have led her to write her own material and cast her own shows. Is the Gay White Way ready for love stories that feature New York City drag queens instead of card-carrying members of the union? Is the legitimate theatre ripe for racially integrated melodramas set in Harlem? Is the Rialto raring to reward a working-class heroine determined to sin and win?
• • Come up and see Mae West as she challenges bigotry, fights City Hall, and climbs the ladder of success wrong by wrong.

• • How about a date?
• • Plan ahead. Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in New York City when the Annual Fresh Fruit Festival presents "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship and Secrets" (based on true events 1926 — 1932 when Mae West was arrested and jailed) under the direction of Louis Lopardi at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, NYC 10010] July 19th — 22nd, 2008.
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" opens at 7 o'clock on Saturday night July 19, 2008 at the Algonquin Theatre [East 24th Street and Park Avenue South].
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" — — showtimes
• • July 19th, 2008 — — 7:00 PM
• • July 20th, 2008 — — 1:00 PM matinee
• • July 21st, 2008 — — 6:00 PM
• • July 22nd, 2008 — — 9:00 PM
• • Tickets to COURTING MAE WEST will be about $20 - $25 each.
• • The theatre has 99 seats.
• • SPECIAL: $100 - $150 donation — — donor gets name in the Program — — and 1 free ticket to the play.
• • $151 - $500 donation — — donor gets name in Program and TWO free tickets to the play and invited to all parties.
• • Fresh Fruit Festival: a non-profit group organizes this ambitious annual festival [now in its 7th year]. The colorful two-week arts festival is a money-losing venture sustained by funds from The New York City Council, a culture grant from New York State, a stipend from Senator Tom Duane, and donations from good people.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in mid-July 2008.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
__ ___
• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Jefferson Market Police Court • • 2 February 1927 • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

William Zorach's Jeff Encounter

2008-03-26T01:06:00.000-07:00

The late great sculptor and painter William Zorach [28 February 1887 — 15 November 1966] often sketched Jefferson Market since, for years, he lived on West Tenth Street and Greenwich (next to the Cushman bakery and directly opposite the formidable jail doors). Zorach reveals an interesting Prohibition Era secret in his colorful memoir Art Is My Life.
• • William Zorach writes: There was Frank Harris [14 February 1856 — 27 August 1931] living on Washington Square, whom I enjoyed visiting. I always found him in bed dictating to his secretary, a handsome redhead. He gave me a set of his Life of Oscar Wilde. I never got a chance to read it, it was lifted from our bookcase so quickly. I remember Frank Harris going into Jefferson Market Court and exposing detectives who enticed young girls, often innocent ones, and then arrested them for prostitution.
• • We faced the Jefferson Market Jail door where the wagons brought in the night's haul, and below us would be the bail-bond lawyers waiting to bail them out.
• • We used to see a manhole cover just outside the jail lift up. A man would stick his head out and whistle and a boy would rush a bucket of beer over from the corner saloon. This went on for years — — and then one day a prisoner escaped through the manhole and that stopped the flow of beer.
• • William Zorach's reminiscence inspired an interlude in "Courting Mae West" [Act I, Scene 4] when Mae West is being held in Night Court and her newsman-boyfriend wants to gain access and get a scoop. Suddenly, he observes a manhole cover just outside the jail lift up. . . .
• • Bringing "Courting Mae West" to an audience requires funding. To support A Company Of Players, a non-profit theatre group established in 1979 to present meaningful theatre, please click on this link — — http://www.companyofplayers.com/support.htm
• • A Company Of Players is recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)3 type organization, and donations to the group are considered a charitable, tax-deductible contribution.
• • Contribute through "Pay Pal" or you can mail a check to: A Company Of Players, 545 Eighth Avenue, #401, New York NY 10018-4307.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" — — based on true events when Mae West was tried at the Jefferson Market Police Court — — will be onstage at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, New York, NY 10010] on July 19th — 22nd, 2008.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in mid-July 2008.
__ ___
• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Jefferson Market and elevated train • • early 1930s • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Mae West's Jail Tale

2008-03-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

The past is another country — — and MAE WEST was most comfortable there.
• • However, in her Broadway blockbuster "Diamond Lil" [1928] Mae's aim was not to resurrect the naughty nineties — — but to present that bygone decade's sins in shifty soft focus. The world of Diamond Lil, restrained by Victorian morality despite a certain cheeky daring, was a backwards glance to a time of innocence, picturesque entertainment, well-behaved wildness, corset-clad temptresses, The Police Gazette's seductions, and 5-cent beer.
• • Drama critic Stark Young [1881—1963] analyzed Mae's clever maneuvers in his article for The New Republic:
• • "Diamond Lil" is as daring in the end [as 1926's "Sex"], the same sexy morsels, embraces, interventions of the law with rank suspenses, frank speeches, underworld, and so on. But it is more covered, continuous, and studied than the other production, and the crowd of characters, the costuming and vaudevillistic intervals, pull the whole of this later play into a more familiar style, less crudely, and sheerly singular than "Sex" appeared to be [excerpt from The New Republic — 27 June 1928].
• • Louis Lopardi, who will direct "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship and Secrets" in July at the Algonquin Theatre, also feels enriched by the past. His own production — — The Purgatory Project, Part 2 — — reimagined the lives led by four famous historical figures: Sigmund Freud, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Lee Harvey Oswald.
• • A history buff as well as a thespian, Lopardi especially enjoys plays with a classical echo, texts rooted to a mythic past. For instance, he found "Metamorphoses," a play based on the Greek poem Metamorphoses by Ovid, fascinating and he relished the modernized adaptation written by Mary Zimmerman a few years ago. Ovid works onstage because those depictions of yearning and confused desires are timeless, feels Lopardi.
• • Since he has frequently decanted Ovid's ancient songs, he noticed right away the mythic skin underneath "Courting Mae West" — — the Brooklyn bombshell's story reimagined as the metamorphosis of King Midas. How you get the golden touch is one of the subtle sub-plots here. As Mae's career goals recalibrate her box office appeal, she will earn her hard cold slice of success — — but at a cost.
• • "I like a multi-layered comedy," admits Lopardi. "The best shows make you laugh for an hour and a half — — and then, untethered from your Playbill, you mull it over at home."
• • Bringing "Courting Mae West" to an audience requires funding. To support A Company Of Players, a non-profit theatre group established in 1979 to present meaningful theatre, please click on this link — — http://www.companyofplayers.com/support.htm
• • A Company Of Players is recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)3 type organization, and donations to the group are considered a charitable, tax-deductible contribution.
• • Contribute through "Pay Pal" or you can mail a check to: A Company Of Players, 545 Eighth Avenue, #401, New York NY 10018-4307.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" — — based on true events when Mae West was tried at the Jefferson Market Police Court — — will be onstage at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, New York, NY 10010] soon after the Independence Day holidays.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in mid-July 2008.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
__ ___
• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Mae West • • February 1927 • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Mae West, Inmate

2008-03-13T10:27:00.000-07:00

"COURTING MAE WEST" — — which features the arrest and trial of Mae West at the Jefferson Market Court House — — will have a table reading in the month of March [2008], under the direction of Louis Lopardi, at The Producers Club.
• • A Company of Players will read the script aloud in preparation for a short Workshop Production in Manhattan.
• • Seeking the next Mae West!
• • Meanwhile, the search continues for the right actress to portray Mae West [1893—1980] — — in this serious-minded comedy that offers a star-making role. During the Prohibition Era, the Brooklyn bombshell was in her thirties. The ideal audition candidate is 25—30 with serious stage training and industrial strength charisma.
• • Rehearsals begin in May 2008 in Manhattan.
________________________
• • Resumes and photo to:
• • A Company of Players
• • Attention: Louis Lopardi, Artistic Director
• • 545 Eighth Avenue [Box # 401]
• • New York, NY 10018 - 4307
• • Send Email via the web site — — www.CompanyofPlayers.com
_________________________
• • The Producers Club is located at 358 West 44th Street [between 8th-9th Avenue], New York, NY 10036.
• • Meanwhile, a fundraising effort is in progress. Matching funds have been promised for every dollar raised.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" will be onstage at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, New York, NY 10010] soon after the Independence Day holidays.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in mid-July 2008.
__ ___
• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Mae West • • February 1927 • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Starr Faithfull: On January 26

2008-01-26T09:54:00.000-08:00

Jefferson Market's Starr

2008-01-24T10:15:00.000-08:00

How many have been faithful to the memory of Starr Faithfull, whose name was once a tabloid staple?
• • STARR FAITHFULL — — born on 26 January 1906 in Evanston, Illinois, Starr died in early June 1931 after a Long Island boat party.
• • The intersection by Jefferson Market Court, under the Sixth Avenue Elevated, is one of the last things she saw in Greenwich Village. A few steps away, she bought a paper from Mr. Isidore, a news vendor. When the police questioned him, his detailed description of her stylish clothing and jewelry helped investigators identify her corpse.
• • TIME Magazine wrote: Most news readers remember Starr Faithfull, if they bother to remember her at all, as a pretty young girl whose bruised body, with veronal in the liver, was washed ashore at Long Beach, N. Y. one day in June four years ago [TIME, 29 June 1931]. Partly because of her incredible name, partly because of her spectacular sex life, the Press quickly picked up all that was left of Starr Faithfull and gave it to the nation as a hot weather sensation. With the mystery of the girl's death still unsolved, the story eventually collapsed. But newspaper publishers had not heard the last of Starr Faithfull. Her stepfather, Stanley Faithfull. lean, gimlet-eyed, red-whiskered and eccentric, started libel actions against every newspaper in Manhattan.
• • Father Faithfull began with criminal actions alleging libel against himself and against the memory of his dead daughter, tried to have Publisher Joseph Medill Patterson of the New York Daily News arrested, but a magistrate refused to issue a warrant. Last month the first of these went to trial against the News. Father Faithfull asked $350,000 damages because, he claimed: 1) the News had intimated that he murdered his daughter; 2) the News had said he concealed evidence in the case, hampering the authorities; 3) the News had said he and his wife lived on his late daughter's earnings as a prostitute; 4) the News had called him a blackmailer; 5) the News had said that Father and Mother Faithfull married, each with the expectation that the other was wealthy. On some points the News denied it had said anything of the sort.
• • The trial went on for more than three weeks. Last week a Staten Island jury found the New York Daily News innocent of libel.
• • Source: TIME Magazine Monday, 11 March 1935
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • In May 1933, TIME Magazine interviewed Dr. Gettler, who did her autopsy. The question that made the inquest linger so long at Jefferson Market Court was this: was it a murder, an accident, or a suicide that ended the life of the 25-year-old Greenwich Villager?
• • Dr. Gettler insisted Starr Faithfull — — cruelly labeled "a sexually distraught, neurotic young woman" — — had been murdered.

• • According to TIME's reporter: One of the few cities with an official toxicologist is New York, which has Dr. Alexander Oscar Gettler, a hard-bitten professor who teaches chemistry at New York University when he is not sleuthing for the city with his test-tubes. Last week Dr. Gettler. taking with him a grim array of bones, knives, vials and photographs, went before the American Institute in Manhattan to deliver a public lecture on his specialty. He has shared in some 30,000 autopsies, "which gave me a training and experience unobtainable at the present time in any other city in the world." He told about some of the better known autopsies.
• • Starr Faithfull, a sexually distraught, neurotic young woman whose death excited the nation (TIME. June 29. 1931, et seq.). died by drowning after she had been drugged with luminal and thrown from a boat, declared Dr. Gettler. A difference of saltiness between the bloods in the right and left cavities of her heart, ''the only positive test of death by submersion." showed that the young woman had actually died in that manner.
• • As for Starr Faithfull being drugged, analysis of her organs showed that she had had about twelve grains of luminal in her body. Two grains make a person sleep, twelve grains may kill but will certainly keep one unconscious for a long period. Someone must have heaved Starr Faithfull over a ship's rail. That someone has not yet been arrested.
• • Source: TIME Magazine Monday, 15 May 1933
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage during July 2008.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" is based on true events during 1926-1932 when Mae West was arrested and jailed for trying to stage two gay plays on Broadway. The character Sara Starr is based on Starr Faithfull.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
• • See also:http://starrfaithfull.blogspot.com/
__ ___
• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Artist: Rudolph Haybrook • • Starr Faithfull • • 1931 • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Under the spider web, evil lurks

2008-01-12T02:15:00.000-08:00

• • "COURTING MAE WEST" — — the comic book • •
• • • • A new play often starts with a STAGED READING.
• • • • At a STAGED READING, the actors read the script to the audience. During NYC staged readings, the actors are usually dressed simply, in all black, and there are no props nor scenery.
• • • • Since my play is set during the Prohibition Era [the action runs from December 1926 - December 1932], and I wanted to give the audience the "feel" of the costumes and the thrill of the 1920s atmosphere, I created a colorful comic book that was used as a "playbill" for each Staged Reading.
• • • • The "Courting Mae West" comic book has a different narrative arc than the stage play along with its own "cartoon-like" version of the dialogue — — along with supernatural creatures such as a talking blackbird and a mild-mannered, bespectacled reporter who tears off his business suit to become the super-hero FIRST AMENDMENT.
• • • • The comic book rewards theatre-goers by setting the stage when there IS no stage, just black-clad actors, 7 scripts, and 7 chairs.
• • • • The MAE WEST Blog — — MaeWest.blogspot.com — — will post more comic book panels this week.
• • After the 9 February 1927 performance of "SEX," Mae was hauled off to Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue and Greenwich Avenue, where she spent the night locked up with streetwalkers and drug addicts.
• • In this panel, Censorship, Bigotry, and Hidden Agenda plot against Mae West under the wrought iron spider web at Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue [New York, NY].
• • From the "Courting Mae West" comic book version.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
__ ___
• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Artist: Michael DiMotta • • Mae West • • February 1927 • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Mae Returns to Jeff Market Jail

2008-01-11T01:24:00.000-08:00

• • The event's board of directors met and approved my director's pitch — — and my play "COURTING MAE WEST" has cleared the first hurdle to be onstage during their annual early July festival in a theatre in Manhattan.
• • The festival offers over 30 live acts. Mine is one of the two plays they will produce. My 95-minute serious-minded comedy will be shown FOUR times onstage [in a theatre with fewer than 99 seats].
• • Details and ticket prices will be posted when available.
• • After the 9 February 1927 performance of "SEX," Mae was hauled off to Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue, where she spent the night locked up with streetwalkers and drug addicts.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
__ ___
• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Artist: Michael DiMotta • • Mae West • • February 1927 • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jeff Market: External Affair

2007-08-25T18:48:00.000-07:00

In 1927 Mae West was prosecuted here at Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue [between West Ninth Street and Greenwich Avenue] for obscenity — — particularly because of the homosexual content of her shows. But more recently the nineteenth century landmark was about to be raped by the pencil-pushers who rule The New York Public Library. Fortunately, Greenwich Village residents rallied in the name of justice and won.
• • The Villager recently published this news about the beloved Jefferson Market Courthouse turned library.
• • In his front page feature "Long-overdue library facade repairs finally fully funded," staffwriter Albert Amateau explained the cause for jubilation. He wrote: "Villagers who have long been demanding the renovation of the Jefferson Market Library’s exterior celebrated the announcement on Tuesday [21 August 2007] that new city funding has assured the project.
• • Council Speaker Christine Quinn joined State Senator Tom Duane, New York Public Library President Paul LeClerc and Village leaders in the community room of the landmarked library to announce that the new funding brings the total allocation to more than $7 million for renovating the facade, windows, roof, and tower of the landmarked building erected in 1877 as a courthouse.
• • The beginning of construction is planned for June 2009 and is expected to be completed in two years. A two-month design phase includes review by the Landmarks Preservation Commission because the building is a designated New York City landmark. A final design and development of construction documents will follow and be submitted to contractors for bidding.
• • Several Greenwich Village Block Associations ... renewed the call for preserving the deteriorating exterior of the library. Since 2003, the Sixth Avenue and West 10th Street sides of the library have been obscured by a sidewalk shed erected to protect people from fragments of limestone and brick falling from the facade.
• • “We all know that the Jefferson Market Library is one of the great library buildings in the city,” Quinn said. “In 1880, it was cited as one of the 10 most beautiful buildings in the country. But in the past few years you had to squint to see it because of the scaffold.”
• • Quinn recalled that when Duane was city councilmember for the Village in 1992 — — and she was then on his staff — — he was able to get more than $700,000 allocated for restoring the building. Added to that, Quinn this year allocated $2.7 million in addition to $1.39 million she earmarked in previous years. Also this year, Mayor Bloomberg provided matching funds of $2.2 million for the library restoration.
• • It was uncertain last year whether previous funds appropriated for a redesign of the library’s interior could be reallocated for facade and structural work. But in February 2007, LI/ Salzman Architects completed a report funded by Quinn and Duane that concluded that because of significant deterioration of the sandstone and brickwork, plus open mortar joints and cracked stone, water had penetrated the facade causing the stonework to shift and settle and allowing the building’s iron structure to rust.
• • In addition, it was found that the Sixth Avenue portico has detached slightly from the facade and leans slightly toward the street.
• • All but $184,000 — — spent for interior design work [a design that would have reconfigured the library's reference room into a music lounge for teens] — — of more than $2 million previously funded will be transferred to the exterior project. The work includes shoring up deficiencies that contributed to the deterioration and returning the building to its original splendor.
• • Community Board 2 called the library "the most iconic building in the Village.”
• • Designed by Frederick Clark Withers and Calvert Vaux in 1875 and completed two years later, the courthouse was where Harry K. Thaw was found guilty of murdering the architect Stanford White and where Mae West was prosecuted for the sexual content of her shows.
• • The courthouse was erected on the site of the Jefferson Market, where a 100-foot-tall wooden fire tower kept watch over the Village. The courthouse tower is also 100 feet tall and holds the original fire bell from its wooden precursor.
• • By 1945 the building was no longer used as a courthouse and other agencies had occupied it. A 1958 decision to demolish the building was fought by Village advocates . . .
— — excerpt — —
• • Source: The Villager — — www.TheVillager.com
• • Byline: Albert Amateau
• • Published on: 23 August 2007
• • Unfortunately, this landmark has not preserved the building's cultural history via a plaque nor a permanent exhibition inside, where there's lots of space for it — — and now the funding. MAE WEST and a heap of women's history-makers tramped through these corridors. Maybe. . . .
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
__ ___
• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Mae West • • Barry O'Neill • • March 1927 • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Basil Rathbone: Indecency

2007-07-30T01:25:00.000-07:00

MAE WEST was arrested on 9 February 1927 along with the cast of "Sex" and the cast of "The Captive." Snooty Basil Rathbone, who died in July [on 21 July 1967 in New York, NY], was cuffed and brought downtown to Jefferson Market Police Court along with Helen Menken and their co-stars.
• • Born in South Africa on 13 June 1892, Basil Rathbone was one year older than Mae West — — but in his mind, he was worlds apart even though they were both starring on Broadway in 1927.
• • During the 1920s, most of Basil Rathbone's work was in the legitimate theater. For many of his Broadway roles he portrayed a suave, sophisticated seducer of women — — quite a change from the legendary ascetic Baker Street detective he would play later in his career.
• • Making a sensation at the Empire Theatre [on Broadway and West 40th Street] was a drama that had been highly regarded in Paris: "The Captive." Basil Rathbone was cast in the role of Jacques Virieu, a young man engaged to be married, only to discover that his fiancée [played by Helen Menken] is in love with someone else — — a woman. Since homosexuality was such a controversial topic during the Roaring Twenties, the entire cast was charged with offending public morals, and the play was closed.
• • Rathbone was very angry about the censorship of his work, but even more aggrieved that show people would start whispering that he was arrested and booked — — with Mae West.
• • For years, Basil Rathbone and his wife made their home at 135 Central Park West. Mae lived in several westside locations, occasionally not far from Rathbone. But there is no record of their taking tea together to reminisce over their arrest on indecency charges in 1927.
• • Brush up on your Mae West lines right on Broadway on Friday evening 17 August 2007, when a guided tour will explore Manhattan's WEST-side during the "Mae West Side Story" walking tour. The event — — open to the public — — is timed to salute Brooklyn's own sexpot on her birthdate. [See the Annual Mae West Gala posting online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/.]
• • Only 18 more days until Mae West's birthday!
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Basil Rathbone • • Helen Menken • • February 1927 • • "The Captive" • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Enter the Dragon-Slayer

2006-11-07T02:43:00.000-08:00

In February 1927, the first police raid of Mae West's play "Sex" led to an expensive trial, box office losses, and jail time for the actress and others. After the second police raid in October 1928, Mae West knew she was really in trouble. A top-notch dragon-slayer was required.

• • Attorney Nathan Burkan was hired for the "Pleasure Man" court case.
• • Politically well-connected, Nathan Burkan was born in New York City on 6 November 1878 and educated at the City University of New York and New York University's Law School. He became known as a specialist in theatrical matters. Many of his clients were composers and lyricists, members of ASCAP - - like the light opera composer Victor Herbert - - who relied on his expertise regarding copyright disputes.
• • Nathan Burkan was a savvy cross-examiner. Celebrities who counted on his legal muscle included Charlie Chaplin, Al Jolson, Mrs. Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, etc. He represented the United Artists (then a new motion picture outfit), The New York Morning Telegraph, and other companies.
• • A frequent presence in Jefferson Market Court House on Sixth Avenue, where he did his best for the Mayor of New York Jimmy Walker as well as the embattled estate of gangster Arnold Rothstein, Nathan Burkan was 51 years old when the "Pleasure Man" case was brought to trial. He won acquittal for his client Mae West.
• • His legal fees bankrupted Mae West, already devastated after a $200,000 loss of advance ticket sales for her play.
• • He died rather suddenly, after a few days of illness, on 7 June 1936. He was 57.
• • Nathan Burkan is being remembered on his birthday: November 8th.
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: attorney Nathan Burkan • • Mae West • • March 1930 • • at Jefferson Market Court • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jefferson Market: Judge Not

2006-10-15T02:44:00.000-07:00

On 17 October 1929, AMEDEO BERTINI - - one of Greenwich Village's native sons, an Ivy League graduate, and a prominent lawyer - - was nominated by Governor Roosevelt for Judge of General Sessions, Jefferson Market Court. Born in 1882, he resided with his family at 154 Bleecker Street and 184 Thompson Street; after his father died, he moved his family to a building he purchased on Washington Square West.
• • On 22 October 1929, he was sworn in as a jurist by Judge Max S. Levine.
• • Justice Bertini served here for 16 months; he died in March 1931 at age 49 after a brief illness while on vacation in Florida.
• • To commemorate his being sworn in during October 1929 [right before the Stock Market's tumble on Black Friday!], old Jeff highlights the Italian-American jurist who presided over an infamous obscenity trial at Jefferson Market Court (General Sessions)- - involving the actress-playwright MAE WEST.

• • • • Here's what The Herald Tribune reported on 4 April 1930:
• • • MAE WEST ACQUITTED! • • •

• • NEW YORK: The Jury drawn from a special panel to pass on Mae West's guilt for presenting "Pleasure Man," a play described by the state as "indecent, improper, immoral, and obscene," was dismissed by Judge Amedeo Bertini in General Sessions court today [4 April 1930]. The jury failed to agree on a verdict after 10 hours of deliberation. "Pleasure Man" was raided and closed on 1 October 1928, after one performance at the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway, and the case - - involving Mae West and eleven co-defendants of the cast - - has been pending since then. . . .

• • Who was Amedeo A. Bertini? And why did such a raucous raid in OCTOBER 1928 not go to trial until MARCH 1930?

• • Nathan Burkan, the high-profile lawyer hired to defend MAE WEST - - and keep the repeat offender out of Jefferson Market Jail - - did his best legal foot-dragging to stall the case from coming to trial. Meanwhile, the witnesses' memories were not as sharp after a year-long hiatus, and much of the cast had joined the Navy to avoid going to court.
• • Mae West, in mourning for her mother (who had died in January 1930) was often accompanied by Jim Timony, her brother Jack, and her sister Beverly.
• • Another supporter, the speakeasy queen Texas Guinan [1884-1933] was in court to cover the proceedings for the newspaper New York American. Texas was disappointed that Mae West did not take the stand. Nathan Burkan kept Mae out of the hot seat, arguing that she only penned the play - - but did not perform in it, obviously, since Mae was starring in her other play "Diamond Lil."
• • Meanwhile, Amedeo A. Bertini [1882-1931] was having his own headaches, dogged by accusations that he bought his way into the Supreme Court.
• • After a 1928 financial scandal had bumped Judge Francis X. Mancuso off the bench, in October 1929 a friend of Jimmy Walker (and also a pal of F.X. Mancuso) was nominated to take his place: Governor Roosevelt appointed Tammany-team-player Amedeo Bertini to the post.
• • Born in 1882 in Greenwich Village, Amedeo A. Bertini was the American son of two Italian immigrants who had left Northern Italy in 1873 and settled on the south side of Washington Square. His affable father Bartolomeo Bertini, the proprietor of the Campidiglio Hotel [135 Bleecker Street, near Thompson St.], became well-known in Italian-American circles; Mayor Hugh J. Grant appointed Bart Bertini to serve on the committee when New York City celebrated the 400th anniversary of Columbus in 1892.
• • His son Amedeo, a boyhood buddy of Jimmy Walker, attended P.S. 35 on 13th Street, DeWitt Clinton High School, and Cornell University. He transferred to Columbia University, where he received his bachelor's and his law degree. The lawfirm of Bertini and Hirshon was headquartered downtown in the Woolworth Building [233 Broadway, near City Hall]. Politically well-tooled, Bertini was a member of the Iroquois Club, Tiro a Segno, and the National Democratic Club. He had raised $75,000 for the Italian Hospital in N.Y.
• • In 1929, the position of a Supreme Court Justice paid $22,500. Before accepting the judgeship, however, Bertini had become wealthy. He and his family resided in a two-story penthouse on the roof of an apartment building he owned at 37 Washington Square West. Bertini's tenants included Charles L. Kohler, Tammany leader of the Tenth Assembly District.
• • Mae West's trial began 16 March 1930. It had its share of entertainment value. Cast member Chuck Connors II sang the controversial "She's the Queen of the Beaches" for Judge Bertini and the jury. Though somber and bereaved, Mae West had to stuff a black handkerchief in her mouth to keep from laughing at this performance.
• • Actor Alan Brooks [1888-1936] - - who played the title role in "Pleasure Man" - - swore on the witness stand that he was astonished to discover that his character had died from being castrated. The debonair 42-year-old leading man testified in smart-looking spats and a gorgeous suit.
• • Judge Amedeo Bertini dismissed the Wales Padlock Law as ineffective, saying that it was impossible to accurately stage a play with ambiguous meanings in front of the jurors. [No kidding. . . .] He warned Broadway producers to police themselves better, however.
• • Variety exulted with a banner headline: Mae West Beats It!
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: attorney J. Rosenthal • • Mae West • • Alan Brooks [wearing spats] • • Texas Guinan • • 1 April 1930 • •
• • Photo: Judge Amedeo A. Bertini [1882-1931]• • Jefferson Market Court • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Trials & Tribulations

2006-10-03T02:57:00.000-07:00

It was October 1964 when he died.

• • As Mae West was quietly convalescing at home in California, after a hospitalization, she received a shock. Her beloved brother John Edwin West, 64, had a massive heart attack.
• • As he matured, her kid brother's career had stalled. More than once, he had turned to his movie-queen sister for assistance. But Mae also remembered how much she had counted on John's unfailing loyalty during her court trials on Sixth Avenue and Ninth Street. In 1930, for instance, when the Pleasure Man obscenity trial at Jefferson Market Court had bankrupted her, and she was too upset to seek work, John supported his two unemployed sisters and set up a nice household for the three of them in an apartment building on West 57th Street (across the street from Carnegie Hall).
• • Born on 11 February 1900, John Edwin West died during October 1964. Mae made arrangements for his body to be sent back to Brooklyn to the family crypt.
• • Two weeks later, Mae West - - who hated to think about death - - made a Will.
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Mae West • • with her brother and sister (all wearing mourning for their mother) • • during the Pleasure Man trial at Jefferson Market Court House in March 1930 • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Mayhem on Sixth Avenue!

2006-09-29T00:43:00.000-07:00

Out of the night at the intersection of 9th Street and Sixth Avenue there dashed a frantic, frazzled man shouting that he was a drama critic and that the police had just invaded a theater up on 14th Street and carted the star away — — a certain Miss Mae West (several decades before Off-Off-Broadway) — — to the Jefferson Market Jailhouse, right where we were now standing.

Once there had also been a women's prison that provided bed and board from time to time to such grandes dames of Off-Off-Broadway as Judith Malina and Ellen Stewart, according to Jerry Tallmer, drama critic, writing about these events in The Villager.
• • Only now it was no longer the jail nor the long-gone Women’s House of Detention. It was an anonymous overgrown swath of greenery, and the principal witnesses to all this were a dozen journalists who had been invited to accompany and observe a preview of “OFF Stage: the West Village Fragments,” an on-foot, two-hour revisit of some of the sites and sounds of the Off-Off-Broadway classics of the 1960s. Déjà OOB all over again, reports Jerry Taller.
• • “Look, she’s out!” somebody yelled. And there she was, Miss Mae West herself (more or less) to inform the world, or this tiny corner of it, how deeply women disliked having to “spread ourselves across the public table like platters at a banquet.” [This, too, from Jerry Tallmer's coverage.]
• • Just then a half-dozen agitated persons burst on the scene waving signs and yelling things like: “Art before taxes! Let freedom ring!”
As the police (well, one pseudo-policeman) closed in, the journalists were sent trotting down Christopher Street . . . . [Continue reading Jerry Tallmer's reportage of this site-specific theatrical offering: www.TheVillager.com/]
• • • • Off Stage: The West Village Fragments • • • •
• • An intriguing site-specific multi-venue performance, Off Stage: The West Village Fragments will travel along historic West Village streets. Along the way, short scenes from over a dozen landmark Off-Off Broadway plays will reawaken the actual sites where they premiered. There will also be original performances between stops. A special treat for lovers of theater and the history of Greenwich Village. Equally recommended for New Yorkers and tourists alike. The journey begins at Sixth Avenue & West 9th Street.
• • Meet @ the Traffic Circle: 6th Avenue & West Ninth Street, NY
• • Three shows nightly until 7 October 2006
• • Peculiar Works Project: 212-529-3626
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Mae West • • on trial at Jefferson Market Court • • March 1927 • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Inez Milholland [1886-1916]

2006-09-25T01:13:00.000-07:00

This never-to-be-forgotten leader comes to mind for many reasons. If you never met INEZ MILHOLLAND [1886 — 1916], war resister, suffragette, civil rights organizer, and human dynamo, then make her acquaintance here.
• • Though it seems like yesterday that she was arguing the merits of her case in Jefferson Market Court, it took place almost 100 years ago on 18 January 1910.
• • This is what the newspapers said about the trial in January 1910:
• • • MISS MILHOLLAND WILL APPEAL IF CONVICTED • • •
The cases of Miss Inez MILHOLLAND, daughter of John E. MILHOLLAND, and Lieut. Henry W. TOURNEY, of the Coast Artillery Corps — — who were arrested last night as the result of a demonstration by striking shirtwaist workers which Miss MILHOLLAND was leading — — were called in Jefferson Market Court, Manhattan, to-day, and after much testimony had been taken were continued until to-morrow afternoon.
• • Miss MILHOLLAND, accompanied by the lieutenant and 500 strikers and their sympathizers, were marching in Waverly Place in front of a factory when Police Captain HENRY demanded that they disperse. They refused, declaring that Magistrate BARLOW had declared so long as they kept moving they could not be disturbed. HENRY disputed this. He told the court to-day that the strikers and their followers blocked the streets and obstructed traffic. His uniform was badly torn in the melee which followed the refusal of Miss MILHOLLAND to order her followers to disperse and the [ . . . ] were badly ruffled because young women, in ignorance of the divinity that hedges the person of a New York police captain, demanded his number.
• • It is rumored that as the result of his coming into conflict with the civil authorities and being locked up — — both he and Miss MILHOLLAND were placed in a cell until John MILHOLLAND arrived to bail them out — — Lieut. TOURNEY may have to face a court-martial. In all, fifteen strikers and sympathizers were arrested last night.
• • Should the police prove their charge of disorderly conduct and obstructing an officer in the discharge of his duty against Miss MILHOLLAND the case will be appealed to the highest courts in order to get a decision on this question as well as to have determined how far a person may go on "peacefully picketing" a plant where there is a strike. Miss MILHOLLAND is a graduate of Vassar and an ardent advocate of women's suffrage. . . .
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Inez Milholland was born in Brooklyn, New York on 6 August 1886. She attended Vassar and was suspended after organizing a women's suffrage meeting in a cemetery.
• • She matured into a record-setting collegiate athlete, an attorney, a forceful and charismatic public speaker. Friends remembered Inez as a tall, beautiful woman in flowing robes, riding a white horse at the head of a great movement [March 1913]. She fought for labor, was a writer and magazine editor, served as a correspondent in the First World War, was jailed as a suffragette in England, and died at 30 while on a speaking tour as a suffragist in this country.
• • Her last public words were, "Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?"
• • In 1913 Milholland led the women's suffrage demonstration in Washington on a white horse. Wearing white robes, the photograph of Milholland during the parade became one of the most memorable images of the struggle for women's rights in America.
• • Milholland lived in Greenwich Village [New York] and was associated with a group of socialists involved in the production of The Masses journal. [This group included Max Eastman, John Reed, Crystal Eastman, Inez Milholland, Louis Untermeyer, Randolf Bourne, Dorothy Day, Mabel Dodge, Floyd Dell, and Louise Bryant.]
• • Like most of the people involved with The Masses, Milholland was opposed to America's involvement in the First World War. In December 1915, Milholland and other pacifists travelled on Henry Ford's Peace Ship to Europe.
• • On her return to the USA she became one of the leaders of the Congressional Union for Women Suffrage. The movement's most popular orator, Milholland was in demand as a speaker at public meetings from coast to coast.
• • Inez Milholland, who suffered from pernicious anemia, was warned by her doctor of the dangers of vigorous campaigning. However, she refused to heed his advice and she collapsed in the middle of a speech in Los Angeles on 22 October 1916.
• • She was rushed to a hospital. Despite repeated blood transfusions — — blood donated by her sister Vida — — 30-year-old Inez died on 25 November 1916.
• • Jefferson Market Court commemorates this peace activist and suffrage martyr, and rejoices in her bright spirit as this troubled city prepares to go to the polls in November 2008, the sixth year of the wasteful war in the Middle East — — the US-led take-over in Iraq that has resulted in thousands killed.
• • Every New York City historian remembers our hometown firebrand Inez Milholland. In Greenwich Village, many daughters have been named in your honor.
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Inez Milholland • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Election Hex 1904

2006-09-13T01:29:00.000-07:00

WOMAN REPUBLICAN UP FOR COLONIZING;
Runs Several Lodging Houses in Van Cott's District.
ALWAYS ACTIVE AT ELECTION.
White Widow of Negro Held for Getting Man to Register Wrongly from Her House.

• • Mrs. Katie Hicks, thirty-eight years old, of 125 West Third Street, was arraigned yesterday in the Jefferson Market Court on the charge of aiding and abetting in fraudulent registration. Deputy State Superintendent of Elections P. Hooker was the complainant in the case, and Deputy Attorney General Byrne appeared to prosecute. . . .
Date: 25 October 1904, Tuesday
Source:The New York Times
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Jefferson Market Court • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Mae Crossing

2006-08-30T19:15:00.000-07:00

In 1927 this was the view that MAE WEST [or anyone else] would have seen upon entering Jefferson Market Court House. Note the cigar store on the West Eighth Street corner (where Papaya King sells frankfurters currently).

__________________________________________
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • 9 January 1927 Jefferson Market Court • • underneath the Sixth Avenue El
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

A Pretty Girl Is Like a Felony

2006-08-27T02:43:00.000-07:00

Shall I take this opportunity to remind everyone that Evelyn Nesbitt gave the performance of her life when she testified at Jefferson Market in 1906 during the "Trial of the Century"? Shall I point out that Mae West was a marginally-known vaudevillian who got lousy reviews for 27 years before she strayed into my Police Court on February 9th, 1927 - - whereupon she became front-page fodder and famous coast to coast?
• • Old Jeff, ever the diplomat, will only say that a felony can be so becoming. Put her in handcuffs and a pretty girl is like a malady. The court room can shellac a lackluster career overnight and spread a lady's name faster than you can say influenza. And that's what Mae became, after Jeff's gentle embrace: an INFLUENCE.
_________

New York, NY: "These historical images depict an impressive narrative of America's political life during the Prohibition Era," said ARTURO GARCIA-COSTAS, Manhattan Community Representative to Congressman JERROLD L. NADLER, who toured the installation ONSTAGE OUTLAWS: Mae West and Texas Guinan in a Lawless Era at Village Restaurant with chef-owner Stephen Lyle and curator LindaAnn Loschiavo. "I suggest you contact The New-York Historical Society," continued Garcia-Costas, "because that would be the perfect venue for this fascinating backward glance at New York City history and censorship."
• • Source: Village Restaurant • •
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Jefferson Market • •
• • Photo: Arturo Garcia-Costas poses in front of a picture of Mae West and Texas Guinan at Jefferson Market Court.
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jeff Notes a Month of MAE

2006-07-29T02:43:00.000-07:00

MAE WEST, an actress whose obscenity trials were held at Jefferson Market Courthouse during the 1920s, was convicted and jailed after the first trial and acquitted the second time around. Seeing Mae back on Sixth Avenue, I'm willing to let icons do try-ons. [You figure it out.]

-----For_Immediate_Release-----
French Accents Gild an Annual Tribute to an American Screen Queen
Gauloise Glamour at Mae West Gala Salutes the Actress’s Alsatian Heritage

New York, NY — She got it from her granny. MAE WEST [1893-1980] insisted that her passion for fashion and finery was instilled by her maternal grandmother Christiana Brimier, a native of the Alsace province of France, who also influenced her own daughter Matilda West [1870-1930]. Matilda taught Mae to speak French, which came in handy onstage. In 1919, for instance, Variety praised the 26-year-old’s vaudeville routine that included a French dialect number. In the Broadway show “The Mimic World of 1921,” Mae was cast as La-Belle, a Parisian damsel who aroused many ooo-la-las at the Century Roof, and a Proust-worthy coquette named Madelon. In 1922, Mae introduced her new act at the Riverside Theatre, portraying a French prima donna of temperament.
• • New Yorkers can feast on these rare archival images at Village Restaurant [62 West Ninth Street, NYC] during a free exhibition in August. “Onstage Outlaws: Mae West and Texas Guinan in a Lawless Era” opens to the public after a Gala Roaring-20s theme Press Preview on Mae’s birthday August 17, 2006. There is NO charge to view this historic installation.
• • Chef Stephen Lyle, born in Paris and trained at L’ Ecole Hoteliere in Nice, is sure to give the Annual Mae West Gala a French twist. In 2000, when he opened Village (after his long success at hipster-haven Odeon), Lyle began restoring the dining room to its original 1917 elegance when it had been Paul and Joe’s French-Italian Restaurant. During the Jazz Age, Mae West dined here many times. And while there are no written records of what she ordered at Paul and Joe’s, her old friends do remember her fondness for good champagne.
• • “Mae loved a good glass of bubbly,” said Van Panopoulos, owner of the former speakeasy Frankie and Johnny’s, who used to rub shoulders with Mae at Billy Reed’s Little Club during the 1950s. “I can close my eyes and picture her, savoring her lasagna, her champagne bottle ready in an ice bucket,” recalled Aldo Leone, manager of Bill’s Gay Nineties, who waited on Mae whenever she dined at his grandmother’s midtown eatery, Mamma Leone.
• • To commemorate Mae’s French roots and fine taste, Perrier Jouët Grand Brut will be served at the Press Gala. Imported to the United States since 1837, this brand unites the lightness of traditional Brut with the elegance and brightness of the finest Champagnes. Mae might very well have enjoyed its bouquet during her Broadway years. And chef Stephen Lyle chose Perrier Jouët Grand Brut to be served at his own wedding reception.
• • In honor of Mae’s love of exquisite fabrics and stylish fellows, a French blue silk twill bowtie will be inside the giftbags given to the news reporters, VIPs, and celebrities on August 17, courtesy of Beau Ties Ltd. of Vermont. A special limited edition of their pattern NEWSEUM, with its witty landscape of vintage typewriters, microphones, and radios, will enlist the heart of anyone who longs to put the “ME” in media. These bowties, enthusiastic exhibitionism at their most engaging, will be featured in photographs taken at this event and posted on the website, thanks to Beau Ties Ltd. of Vermont.
• • Many of Mae West’s secret loves will be revealed on Sunday August 20th during a walking tour followed by brunch at Village Restaurant. Fee [tour + brunch] will be $25. Brunch guests can enjoy the FREE exhibition with or without the tour. Information: 212-505-3355.
• • • • Media inquiries welcome. • • • •
• • Images: maewest.blogspot.com — texasguinan.blogspot.com
• • The Annual Mae West Gala always takes place in a venue that the actress had frequented.
• • • • COURTING MAE WEST, LLC, based in Manhattan, is an off-Broadway producing outfit whose mission is to increase opportunities for women and female-driven plays.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Source: Village Restaurant [62 West Ninth Street, NYC] • •
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Jefferson Market • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jeff Spies a “Cos-MAE-politan”

2006-07-19T01:55:00.000-07:00

Celebrity Chef Fits Class in a Glass
The “Cos-MAE-politan” Debuts on Mae West’s Birthday in New York

New York, NY — Celebrity chef Stephen Lyle passes Barbra Streisand en route to his kitchen at Village Restaurant, across the street from Jefferson Market Library [a former courthouse]. A photo of the songbird during her Broadway boom graces the entry to the dining salon because the teenager was discovered in this location (June 1960) — then known as The Lion. Joan Rivers launched her career at The Lion as well. History hits the spot on the menu. During the 1920s this storied location had housed Paul and Joe’s, a French-Italian restaurant that was frequented by Jack Dempsey, Mae West, and other jazz age notables. In fact, because Mae West watched famous drag queens perform here, she based her play "The Drag" on the colorful scene. "The Drag" led to Mae West being arrested and incarcerated at Jefferson Market Court and Jefferson Market Jail in 1927.
• • On Thursday August 17th, 2006 — Mae West's birthday — Lyle invites the news media to toast the blonde bombshell from Brooklyn with a new cocktail he created: the “Cos-MAE-politan.” Here’s his recipe:
1 ½ oz Boru Crazzberry Vodka
1 oz cranberry juice
½ oz Cointreau [or Triple Sec]
½ oz fresh lime juice
fresh raspberry garnish

• • The news media and a roomful of celebrity guests will raise their glasses at a Roaring 20s-theme gala that evening during a sneak preview of "Onstage Outlaws: Mae West and Texas Guinan in a Lawless Decade." This exhibition of rare photographs, theatre memorabilia, and colorful illustrations will be open to the public from August 18th - 31st at Village Restaurant [62 West 9th Street]. There is NO admission charge to view it.
• • Vintage views [1909 - 1930] of the two friends showcase the theatrical side of these two actresses who performed on the same stages. Though TEXAS GUINAN [1884-1933] is remembered as a speakeasy hostess, in fact, she starred in more than 30 films and had leading roles in Broadway musicals. And though MAE WEST [1893-1980] is an icon of the silver screen, she performed live in vaudeville and on Broadway.
• • On Sunday August 20th there will be a Mae West and Texas Guinan brunch at Village preceded by a guided tour. The fee [tour and brunch] is $25. Brunch guests can enjoy a FREE exhibition whether or not they take the tour. Info: 212-505-3355.
• • Media inquiries are welcome.
Images: * maewest.blogspot.com and * texasguinan.blogspot.com
• • COURTING MAE WEST, LLC, based in Manhattan, is an off-Broadway producing outfit whose mission is to increase visibility and opportunity for women and women-driven stories in the theatre.
• • Source: Village Restaurant [62 West Ninth Street, NYC] • •
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • The "Cos-MAE-politan" • served across the street from Jefferson Market • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Nightingale on Sixth Avenue

2006-05-26T00:12:00.000-07:00

Listen my children, and you shall hear a midnight tale of those we revere.
• • Once upon a time, there was a noble judicial complex clustered around the knees of Jefferson Market Court in Greenwich Village. Over time, some of the buildings were demolished until there was only one standing: the (former) courthouse.

____________________________________
• • Gradually, the courthouse fell into disuse and decrepitude. The New York Public Library wanted to raze this 19th-century marvel and erect a perfectly soulless book-garage in its place on Sixth Avenue and West Ninth Street.
• • Led by preservationist Margot Gayle, the neighborhood rallied to protect its heritage. After several years of blather, the courthouse rose from the heap like a phoenix, reborn as a branch library. All was calm for quite a spell.
• • Over the last few years, however, when this aged landmark began showing alarming signs of disrepair, the vultures returned. These unspeakable beasts closed their eyes to the damage that all could see on the facade. Instead they skulked around, raising money for an INTERIOR jazzing up that would magic the reference room - - poof! - - into a Teen Lounge complete with murals and music videos. A female vulture had just returned to Manhattan from Los Angeles, locust-land-of-no-readers, where she had been spreading the Black-Mass-of-the-Teen-Lounge throughout the West Coast. [Well, no need to reveal names - - but hers rhymes with OOZIN'.]
• • Money that the schemer raised - - without doing a "Needs Assessment" in the community - - amounted to $2.1 million. And that ain't birdseed.
• • Inside Vulture Headquarters, a nasty beak [whose surname rhymes with JERK] cheered her on. His baton waved the Black-Mass-of-the-Teen-Lounge in the direction of lower Sixth Avenue. But the contagion did not catch.
• • Again the Villagers marshalled their forces. Well-respected adults got petitions signed, posted flyers, penned articles, called the community to speak-outs. A vaccine for the vultures' Black-Death-to-the-Readership was being concocted. Yes, these things take time.
• • Today a carrier pigeon brings news. Two revered landmark-look-outs reported on their good efforts. State Senator Tom Duane and New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced: "We found that we can transfer the funds, although some money has already been invested in the preliminary design for INTERIOR work. We will be able to use these designs later when the EXTERIOR modifications have been completed. . . . We felt the decision of how to use taxpayer dollars allocated to Jefferson Market Library - - whether to modernize the INTERIOR or preserve the EXTERIOR - - should be a decision the community participates in [emphasis added]. . . ."
• • Good government is at work in Greenwich Village, thanks to Mr. Duane and Ms. Quinn, who are mindful of the needs of an outspoken landmark-loving neighborhood.
• • From sullen earth, the lark sings hymns at heaven's gate.
• • And in the clocktower, a nightingale prepares for morning.
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Jefferson Market • Keith Gunderson • 2001 •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

1930 Mae-Be, Mae-Be-Not

2006-05-21T16:39:00.000-07:00

HOLLYWOOD | COURTHOUSE CONFIDENTIAL
Arrested development
Now as then, celebrity scandals make for splashy news.
PHOTO GALLERY: Hollywood in the courtroom
- - excerpt - -

Nothing feeds our schadenfreude more than a good celebrity scandal. To watch the mighty, glamorous and rich stumble is a reality soap opera unparalleled by anything that the studios can dream up. Since Hollywood's birth, the peril of potential pitfalls has added an effervescent thrill to celebrity. After all, early Hollywood megastar Fatty Arbuckle was destroyed by the allegation that he raped a woman at a debauched party. And he was acquitted! Today, the public has shown increasing fickleness about what scandal might actually succeed in alienating its affections.
• • SHE'S NO ANGEL • •
Jailed in New York for her play "Sex" and up against censors again with the play "The Drag," Mae West defends herself in 1930 in one of many cases brought against her for obscenity.
Source: http://www.calendarlive.com/
• • Published: L.A. TIMES 21 May 2006
[Verdict in Mae's 1930 trial: NOT guilty. Mae West did not go to Hollywood until 3 years later. The Jefferson Market courtroom headlines made her famous - - not Paramount, thank you very much.]
________________________________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Jefferson Market Court • Mae West trial• 1930 [L.A. Times photo] •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

"Commit the crime on 8th Street"

2006-05-18T17:29:00.000-07:00

In 1917, a talented 37-year-old author was finishing her manuscript Greenwich Village. Recently widowed, Mrs. Robert Peyton Carter had relocated from West 112th Street (the northern precinct where her actor-husband had preferred to live) far downtown to 241 West 13th Street — — and she had fallen in love with her bohemian neighborhood. With several screenplays and even a Broadway play to her credit, the writer had no trouble attracting an illustrator to work on her project. Shortly after celebrating her 40th birthday, however, she sickened and died. OLD JEFF can picture this beauty in 1917, 90 years ago. Enjoy an excerpt from her book — — and her forever-young photograph. Anna Alice, gifted one, you live on in every New Yorker's history-loving heart!
• • • • Greenwich Village • • • •
By: Anna Alice Chapin [1880 — 1920]
Illustrator: Alan Gilbert Cram
[NY: DODD, MEAD & COMPANY, 1925; COPYRIGHT, 1917]
• • Illustration: JEFFERSON MARKET. The old clock that has told the hours of justice for Greenwich Village during many years.
— — excerpt — —
• • It is an odd coincidence that the present Jefferson Market Police Court stands now at Tenth Street — — though a good bit further inland than the ancient State’s Prison. The old Jefferson Market clock has looked down upon a deal of crime and trouble, but a fair share of goodness and comfort too. It is hopeful to think that the present regime of Justice is a kindlier and a cleaner one than that which prevailed when the treadmill and the dark cell were Virtue’s methods of persuading Vice. Someone, I know not who, wrote this apropos of prisons in Greenwich:
• • "In these days fair Greenwich Village
• • Slept by Hudson’s rural shores,
• • Then the stage from Greenwich Prison
• • Drove to Wall Street thrice a day — — —
• • Now the sombre ‘Black Maria’
• • Oftener drives the other way."
• • • • OLD JEFF: But I like to think that the old clock, if it could speak, would have some cheering tales to tell. I like to believe that ugly things are slipping farther and farther from Our Village, that honest romance and clean gaiety are rather the rule there than the exception, and that, perhaps, the day will sometime dawn when there will be no more need of the shame of prisons in Greenwich Village. ...
• • . . . the Village is a small place, and a true Village in its neighborliness and its readiness to pass a message along.
• • Really, there is nothing quainter about it than this intimate and casual quality, such as is known in genuine, small country towns. Fancy a part of New York City — — Gotham, the cold, the selfish, the unneighborly, the indifferent — — in which everyone knows everyone else and takes a personal interest in them too; where distances are slight and pleasant, where young men in loose shirts with rolled-up sleeves, or girls hat-less and in working smocks stroll across Sixth Avenue from one square to another with as little self-consciousness as though they were meandering down Main Street to a game of tennis or the village store! Sixth Avenue, indeed, has come to mean nothing more to them than a rustic bridge or a barbed-wire fence — — something to be gotten over speedily and forgotten. They even, by some alchemy of viewpoint, seem to give it a rural air from Jefferson Market down to Fourth Street — — these cool-looking, hat-less young people who make their leisurely way down Washington Place or along Fourth Street. People pass them — — people in hats, coats and carrying bundles; but the Villagers do not notice them. They do not even look at them pityingly; they do not look at them at all. Your true Green-Village denizen does not like to look at unattractive objects if he can possibly avoid it.
• • Of course, they do make use of Sixth Avenue occasionally, on their rare trips uptown. But it is in the same spirit that a country dweller would take the railway in order to get into the city on necessary business. As a matter of fact there is no corner of New York more conveniently situated for transportation than this particular section of Greenwich. I came across a picturesque real estate advertisement the other day:
• • • • “If you ever decide to kill your barber and fly the country, commit the crime at the corner of Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue. There is probably no other place in the world that offers as many avenues of flight.”
• • But nothing short of dire necessity ever takes a Villager uptown. He, or she, may go downtown but not up. Uptown nearly always means something distasteful and boring to the Village; they see to it that they have as few occasions for going there as possible. . . .
— — — — — — — —
• • Native New Yorker Anna Alice Hoppin, whose penname was Anna Alice Chapin [1880 — 26 February 1920], was an author who had received a private education and studied music under Harry Rowe Shelley. She wrote and published her first book A Story of Rhinegold [1897] when she was 17 years old. Other books were: Wonder Tales from Wagner (1898); Wotan, Siegfried, and Brunhilde (1898); Masters of Music (1901); Discords (1905); The Heart of Music (1906); Königskinder (1911); The Nowadays Fairy Book (1911); The Topsy Turvy Fairy (1913); The Eagle's Mate (1914); and Greenwich Village (1917), illustrated by Alan Gilbert Cram and published posthumously in 1925. Anna Alice Chapin also wrote several screenplays, short stories for magazines, and with Robert Peyton Carter, a British actor (16 years her senior) whom she married in 1906, a melodrama The Deserters, produced on Broadway in 1910. They had no children and Robert Peyton Carter predeceased her. After a short illness, 39-year-old Anna died at home: 241 West 13th Street. Her sister Mrs. Austen G. Fox, her literary executor, arranged for several manuscripts to be published and made into films during the 1920s.
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Jefferson Market • Alan Gilbert Cram • 1917 •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jefferson Market Justice [1911]

2006-05-17T14:05:00.000-07:00

Poor women in Jefferson Market's Night Court were treated shamefully. During the early 1900s, several journalists, reformers, and authors tried to bring this unjust situation to the public's attention. "Prodigal daughters!" wrote Rheta Childe Dorr. "Between December, 1908, and December, 1909, no less than 5,000 of them passed through the guarded door, under the blaze of the electric lights. There is never an hour, from nine at night until three in the morning, when the prisoners’ bench in Jefferson Market Court is without its full quota of women. Old — prematurely old, and young — pitifully young; white and brown; fair and faded; sad and cynical; starved and prosperous; rag-draped and satin-bedecked; together they wait their turn at judgment. ..."
• • Jefferson Market justice was at the center of this novel published in 1911: The Nine-Tenths by James Oppenheim. Here's an excerpt:

• • "What's your name?"
• • Rhona could not answer for a moment. Then, faintly:
• • "Rhona Hemlitz."
• • "Age?"
• • "Seventeen."
• • "Address?"
• • "---- Hester Street."
• • "Occupation?"
• • "Shirtwaist-maker."
• • "Oh!" he whistled slightly. "Striker?"
• • "Yes."
• • "Picketing?"
• • "Yes."
• • "Held for Night Court trial. Lock her up, Officer."
• • Blackness closed over the girl's brain. She thought she was going into hysterics. Her one thought was that she must get help, that she must reach some one who knew her. She burst out:
• • "I want to telephone."
• • "To who?"
• • "Mr. Blaine - - Mr. Blaine!"
• • "West Tenth Street feller [i.e., a bail bondsman]?"
• • "Yes."
• • The sergeant winked to the policeman.
• • "Oh, the matron'll see to that! Hey, Officer?"
• • Rhona felt her arm seized, and then had a sense of being dragged, a feeling of cool, fetid air, a flood of darkness, voices, and then she knew no more. The matron who was stripping her and searching her had to get cold water and wash her face....
• • Later Rhona found herself in a narrow cell, sitting in darkness at the edge of a cot. Through the door came a torrent of high-pitched speech.
• • "Yer little tough, reform! reform! What yer mean by such carryings-on? I know yer record. Beware of God, little devil...."
• • On and on it went, and Rhona, dazed, wondered what new terror it foreboded. But then without warning the talk switched.
• • "Yer know who I am?"
• • "Who?" quavered Rhona.
• • "The matron."
• • "Yes?"
• • "I divorced him, I did."
• • "Yes."
• • "My husband, I'm telling yer. Are yer deef?"
• • Suddenly Rhona rose and rushed to the door. "I want to send a message."
• • "By-and-by," said the matron, and her rum-reeking breath came full in the girl's face. The matron was drunk.
• • For an hour she confided to Rhona the history of her married life, and each time that Rhona dared cry, "I want to send a message!" she replied, "By-and-by."
• • But after an hour was ended, she remembered.
• • "Message? Sure! Fifty cents!"
• • Rhona clutched the edge of the door.
• • "Telephone - - I want to telephone!"
• • "Telephone!" shrieked the matron. "Do yer think we keep a telephone for the likes of ye?"
• • "But I haven't fifty cents - - besides, a message doesn't cost fifty cents - - "
• • "Are yer telling me?" the matron snorted. "Fifty cents! Come now, hurry," she wheedled. "Yer know as yer has it! Oh, it's in good time you come!"
• • Her last words were addressed to some one behind her. The cell door was quickly opened; Rhona's arm was seized by John, the policeman, and without words she was marched to the curb and pushed into the patrol wagon with half a dozen others. The wagon clanged through the cold, dark streets, darting through the icy edge of the wind, and the women huddled together. Rhona never forgot how that miserable wagonful chattered - - that noise of clicking teeth, the pulse of indrawn sighs, and the shivering of arms and chests. Closer and closer they drew, as if using one another as shields against the arctic onslaught, a couple of poor women, and four unsightly prostitutes, the scum of the lower Tenderloin. One woman kept moaning jerkily:
• • "Wisht I was dead -- down in my grave. It's bitter cold -- "
• • The horses struck sparks against the pave, the wheels grided, and the wagon-load went west, up the shadowy depths of Sixth Avenue, under the elevated structure, and stopped before Jefferson Market Court. The women were hustled out and went shuddering through long corridors, until at last they were shoved into a large cell.

* * * * *

• • At about the same moment, Myra and Joe emerged from the West Tenth Street house and started for the court-house. They started, bowing their heads in the wind, holding on to their hats.
• • "Whew!" muttered Joe. "This is a night!"
• • Myra did not dare take his arm, and he spoke a little gruffly.
• • "Better hang on to me."
• • She slipped her arm through his then, gratefully, and tried to bravely fight eastward with him.
• • Joe was silent. He walked with difficulty. Myra almost felt as if she were leading him. If she only could have sent him home, nursed him and comforted him! He was so weary that she felt more like sending him to bed than dragging him out in this bitter weather.
• • More and more painfully he shuffled, and Myra brooded over him as if he were hers, and there was a sad joy in doing this, a sad glory in leading him and sharing the cruel night with him.
• • In this way they gained the corner of Sixth Avenue. Across the way loomed the illuminated tower-topped brick court-house.
• • "Here it is," said Joe.
• • Myra led him over, up the steps, and through the dingy entrance. Then they stepped into the court-room and sat down on one of the benches, which were set out as in a school-room.
• • The place was large and blue, and dimly lighted. The judge's end of it was screened off by wire netting. Up on a raised platform sat the magistrate at his desk, his eyes hidden by a green shade, his bald head radiant with the electric light above him. Clerks hovered about him, and an anaemic indoor policeman, standing before him, grasped with one hand a brass rail and with the other was continually handing up prisoners to be judged. All in the inclosed space stood and moved a mass of careless men, the lawyers, hangers-on, and all who fatten upon crime - - careless, laughing, nudging, talking openly to the women of the street. A crass scene, a scene of bitter cynicism, of flashy froth, degrading and cheap. Not here to-night the majesty of the law; here only a well-oiled machine grinding out injustice.
• • Joe and Myra were seated among a crowd of witnesses and tired lawyers. The law's delay seemed to steep the big room with drowsiness; the air was warm and breathed in and out a thousand times by a hundred lungs. Myra looked about her at the weary, listless audience. Then she looked . . .
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Woodcut of Jefferson Market's infamous Women's Court • Bernard P. Schardt • •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jefferson Market: a-MAE-zing

2006-04-20T11:33:00.000-07:00

In 1928-1930, MAE WEST spent a lot of time on trial at Jefferson Market Court facing obscenity charges, and being threatened with another jail term. [Mae had been imprisoned twice in 1927 for obscenity.]
• • In honor of MAE WEST’s August 17th birthday, an historic installation of archival images will have its official PRESS OPENING at a gala cocktail party for the media on that Thursday evening.

• • "Onstage Outlaws" focuses on the careers of two transgressive actresses - - MAE WEST and her friend TEXAS GUINAN - - during Prohibition in New York City.

• • The FREE installation will be on view to the public from Friday 18 August 2006 until the end of that month at Village Restaurant [62 West 9th Street], a popular eatery in Greenwich Village owned by celebrity chef Stephen Lyle.
• • Sunday 20 August 2006 there will be a MAE WEST BRUNCH and tour in Greenwich Village. Make reservations via Village Restaurant.
• • • Sponsorship & media inquiries welcome. • • •
• • COURTING MAE WEST, LLC, based in Manhattan, is an off-Broadway producing outfit whose mission is to increase visibility and opportunity for women and women-driven stories in the theatre.
• • COURTING MAE WEST, LLC
• • Sponsorship Coordinator:
• • Conrad Bradford
• • 917-403-0890
________________________________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo • Mae West's "Pleasure Man" trial • 1928 •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Dr. Sanger's arrest: April 1929

2006-03-31T04:06:00.000-08:00

• • 15 April 1929
• • New York City
From MARGARET SANGER's DIARY: Early in the morning of April 15, 1929, the telephone in my apartment rang, startling me. I was pretty nervous, having been up all night with Stuart, who had mastoiditis. His temperature was running high, and he was suffering with terrible, indescribable pain.
• • I took off the receiver. "Hello. This is Anna. The police are here at the clinic." Briefly she related how they had descended without warning, stamped into the basement, and were at the moment tearing things to pieces. . . . With this meager information pounding through my brain I hastened to the street, hailed a taxi, and urged the driver to go as fast as he could to West Fifteenth Street. The shade to the glass door was pulled down; the door itself was locked. I knocked and a plain-clothes man of the Vice Squad opened it.
• • "Well, who are you??"
• • "I am Mrs. Sanger and I want to come in. . . ."
• • Only a few moments ago a visiting physician from the Middle West asked one of the nurses whether we ever had any police interference. "Oh, no," the nurse cheerfully replied. Those days are over now.
• • Stocky Mrs. Sullivan, head of the City Policewomen's Bureau, was superintending the raid in person. Her round, thickset face might have been genial when smiling, but was terrifying when flushed with anger. She was giving orders to her minions in such rapid succession that it seemed impossible to keep pace with them. I tried to talk to her, asking why she had come and what it was all about.
• • "You will see," said Mrs. Sullivan, and went on directing the patrolmen who were removing books from shelves, pictures and diagrams from walls, and sweeping out the contents of medical cabinets. In their zeal, I noticed they were seizing articles from the sterilizers, such as clothes and medicine droppers, having no sinister significance whatsoever. They were also gathering up the various strange, weird devices patients had brought us to inquire as to their efficacy, and which we exhibited as curios. . . .
• • It ran through my mind that dire misfortune could follow in the way of being blackmailed by anyone obtaining the records.
• • I requested Mrs. Sullivan to show me her search warrant, and saw it had been signed by Chief Magistrate McAdoo. . . .
• • One of the policemen scooped up all the name cards and stuffed them into a waste basket to be carried off as evidence.
• • This was a prime violation of medical ethics; nothing was more sacred to a doctor than the confidences of his patients. Immediately Anna telephoned Dr. Robert L. Dickinson at the Academy of Medicine that the police were confiscating the case histories of patients and asked him to recommend a lawyer. He suggested Morris L. Ernst, whom Anna then called.
• • Doctors, nurses, and evidence were being hustled into the street. The patrol wagon had arrived, but I summoned taxicabs in which we rode to West Twentieth Street station. On the way I heard part of a the story, which accounted to my non-arrest. . . .
• • Dr. Stone, Dr Pissoort, and the three nurses were booked for violation of section 1142, though I attempted to explain the clinic had been active for six years quite legally under the exception, Section 1145.
• • At Jefferson Market Court, to which we next traveled, Magistrate Rosenbluth looked over the warrant and ordered a three-hundred-dollar bond for each. . . .
• • Justice McAdoo, aghast and horrified to find that, without reading it, he had signed his warrant, just one of many laid on his desk, had called up the police station without delay, saying that all 24 medical histories must be put in his safe and kept there until he arrived in the morning. He had perceived instantly that those doctors' records were going to be a serious embarrassment. . . .
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo • Margaret Sanger • 1929 •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jefferson Market: March 1927

2006-03-28T13:17:00.000-08:00

It was March 1927 and the trial at Jefferson Market Court House on Sixth Avenue was attracting bigger crowds than Broadway shows.

Each day the dailies reported on the dramatic trial in Greenwich Village. By late March it was getting to be obvious that the outlook would be dark for actress MAE WEST and her co-star BARRY O'NEILL, who were being tried for presenting an obscene play "Sex" at Daly's 63rd Street Theatre. [This play had been seen by the public for the past 10 1/2 months before the raid on 9 February 1927.]

• • Though this play had been approved by TWO play juries and had a license from the police department, it was coming up to be an election year and Mayor Jimmy Walker was being pressured by The Society for the Suppression of Vice to "clean up" the stage.
• • What were the dirtiest words on the Rialto? Looks like they were MAE WEST.
________________________________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo • Mae West • March 1927 on trial • Jefferson Market Court
• • Illustration • Mae West • by Michael DiMotta
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

6th Avenue Inspiration Onstage

2006-03-27T13:46:00.000-08:00

What switches on inspiration's ignition? For Greenwich Village dramatist John Guare, who was walking on Sixth Avenue and 9th Street, a glimpse of a convicted murderess being led into the Women's House of Detention in 1968 spun a synopsis into being. Remember Alice Crimmins from Kew Gardens? When the two children of Alice Burke Crimmins (born 1938) were nabbed and killed, police fingered her as their suspect. After the guilty verdict in 1968, she was taken to the Women’s House of Detention when she was hospitalized. From 1965-1977, the case grabbed headlines and fueled a flood of titles.
• • “Landscape of the Body,” John Guare’s Crimmins-inspired play with music and a Greenwich Village setting, opened at the Public Theater in 1977. His play is back onstage in Manhattan now [details below].
• • During the same year, Neal Bell’s dark two-character Crimmins-fantasy “Two Small Bodies” was staged; in 1994 Beth B made it into a film.
• • Two true-crime bestsellers appeared: George Capozi Jr.’s “Ordeal By Trial” (1972) and Kenneth Gross’s “The Alice Crimmins Case” (1975).
• • Two novelists weighed in. “The Investigation” by Dorothy Uhnak appeared. Another thinly veiled fictionalization of the case, “Where Are the Children?” by Mary Higgins Clark, her first published mystery, launched her prolific career in that genre; in 1986, a movie of the same title starred Jill Clayburgh.
• • In 1978, Tuesday Weld starred in a made-for-TV movie, “A Question of Guilt,” based on the Crimmins affair.
• • • Landscape of the Body • • •
• • Michael Greif directs John Guare's Landscape of the Body, starring Lili Taylor and Sherie Rene Scott.
• • What are we after we lose everything? 1970s Greenwich Village hosts a slew of mysterious and seemingly isolated events that connect a group of people on a nightmarish quest for the American Dream. Through twists in time and with some help from a singing narrator back from the dead, John Guare weaves an amazingly entertaining tale of their tragic and comic collisions that force them to discover what it is like to be left with - - or blessed with - - nothing but themselves.
• • Landscape of the Body contains strong language and adult themes.
• • Signature Theatre: Peter Norton Space - 555 West 42nd Street
• • Tickets: 212-352-3101 * Info: 212-244-7529
• • Opening Date: 16 April 2006
• • Previews Start: 28 March 2006
• • Closing Date: 21 May 2006
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Alice + Edmund Crimmins during trial • Queens County •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Police Inspector George W. Dilks 1893

2006-03-26T09:51:00.000-08:00

In July 1893, when retirees George W. Dilks and his wife Mary celebrated their golden wedding anniversary at their home on 34 West 9th Street, well-wishers included the Consul General of New York's Chinese Consulate [26 West 9th] and his ministers as well as distinguished officials of the Fifteenth Ward.
• • When married on West 13th Street in 1843, George W. Dilks had been a printer. But soon afterwards Dilks joined the police force, becoming Captain in 1853 due to his commendable dealing with many of the most vicious gangs of New York such as the fearless Dead Rabbits. In 1860, following his management of the Draft Riots, Dilks was promoted to Inspector.
• • Well-regarded by the Fifteenth Ward and a constant figure at Jefferson Market Court, the fascinating Dilks deserves more mention than he has received in these pages.
• • In those days when the Fifteenth Ward Hotel commandeered the corner of Sixth Avenue and West 9th Street, the neighbors spoke proudly of Mary and George Dilks. More anon.
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Jefferson Market Court's Police Chief • in 1893 •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jefferson Market: 1939 No EL

2006-03-20T11:42:00.000-08:00

In 1939 during the height of the Depression, this is the way that Jefferson Market Court looked - - with a clear expanse of Sixth Avenue fronting it, and a black and white West 9th Street signpost perched to the side.
• • The Sixth Avenue El saw its finale in 1936.
• • Moving northward along the avenue, a pedestrian could see advertisements for Globe Electric Sign Corp. and Premier Artificial Flowers, Inc. in the near distance.
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Jefferson Market Court • in 1939 •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Time and What It Does

2006-03-10T01:39:00.000-08:00

Has it been a decade since he had a fatal heart attack at his New York home? Yes, it has.
• • Former NYU professor and Greenwich Village resident, Joseph Brodsky [24 May 24 1940 – 28 January 1996] won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987) and was chosen Poet Laureate of the USA (1991-1992). For years the poet and essayist lived on Morton Street.
Brodsky Quote: “There is only one subject that matters to me: TIME and what it does to a man.”

________________________
• • Polish-born poet Adam Lizakowski mentions Jefferson Market Court in this tribute to the Nobelist.
•Joseph Brodsky returns to Russia•

In the span of one day
I sold two books of Brodski's poems
which had been on my store's shelf for many months,
yet I never realized
that the poet's death had helped me sell the books.
The Russian poet and immigrant, who for many years had lived
in that hub of freedom, Greenwich Village,
among artists and homosexuals, has passed away - -
the old rabbit who once fled the ubiquitous
hunting dogs of the worker's union
from the statue of Peter I in Leningrad
to the Jefferson Market Courthouse in New York.
As a boy of seven, he already knew many of life's truths - -
that deceit is more useful than algebra,
that even three brilliant communists really aren't so smart,
that poetic talent is a gift from God.
Since the old days, his life at stake, he'd played chess against Death
yet Death caught him off-guard,
sent an icy telegram to Russia
where, in short, the after-life is beautiful;
the homeland is the homeland (even when not beloved)
and now, with obituaries written in Roman type,
America bids him farewell
while Russia greets the poet in Cyrillic:
Joseph Brodski returns to Russia, his true home...
words uttered by the lips of young poets -
in the midst of political upheaval
the black notices appearing in the most popular newspapers;
the immigrant's journey has come full circle,
and in Saint Petersburg someone with a beautiful name
goes out for a walk, wanting to reminisce a little
to consider the future:
now it's certain, Joseph will stay here forever,
never again able to leave.
• • BY: Adam Lizakowski [born in Poland in 1956] • •
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: • Joseph Brodsky in Greenwich Village •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jefferson Market: Busiest Court in Town

2006-03-05T04:30:00.000-08:00

When Jefferson Market was the busiest court in town, reporters frequently congregated there to sketch the magistrates, the trials, the criminals, and the local color.
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Sketch: • Jefferson Market • 1897
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

The Pleasant Fiction of Presumed Innocence

2006-02-27T08:45:00.000-08:00

Spotlight is on this title:
• • Arthur Train's book COURTS AND CRIMINALS
[NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1922]

• • This 305-page hardcover features b/w photographs of court scenes. There is a wonderful b/w photo used us a Frontispiece: a scene inside the Jefferson Market Police Court, New York. Other pictures show Harry K. Thaw at "The Trial of the Century," etc. Arthur Train's nonfiction account begins with "The Pleasant Fiction of the Presumption of Innocence," and proceeds through such topics as Detectives who Detect, Women in the Courts, Tricks of the Trade, The Mala Vita in America, and more.
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: • Jefferson Market • current photo
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jeff Close Up: 8 March 1878

2006-02-23T21:37:00.000-08:00

"I May Be Wrong - But I Think You're Wonderful" went the old song. Though this tune was not written for Old Jeff, it suits.
• • Nominate your favorite song that seems to fit Jefferson Market - - and the best title will be posted.
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Illustration: • Jefferson Market Court 1878 • from Railroad Magazine
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Playing the "Prisoner's Song"

2006-02-21T04:35:00.000-08:00

No wonder the "Prisoner's Song" was a huge hit during the 1920s for Texas vocalist Vernon Dalhart. Doesn't it seem as though everyone was in Jefferson Market Court House or behind bars during the Jazz Age?

• • In February 1927, Mae West came up to see Old Jeff for many weeks. Despite not being your typical felon, after this trial in Jefferson Market Court, Mae was sentenced to hard time in the workhouse.
• • Come up and see Mae: http://maewest.blogspot.com/
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: • Mae West in Jefferson Market Court 1927 •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Mae West: Jailbird, Feb. 1927

2006-02-15T03:26:00.000-08:00

Former felon Dewitt Gilmore, 41, served time in the Groveland Correctional Facility [Sonyea, NY] as well as in a federal prison in New Jersey for check-cashing fraud. Using his "street cred" to break into publishing, Gilmore penned several novels about life behind bars and recently inked a four-book-deal with St. Martin's Press for a sum "in the low six figures," he said. Large publishing house are rubbing their hands together anticipating the profits from a "surging interest in street lit" in February 2006.
• • Once again it must be said: Mae West was ahead of her time.

In 1927 she spent the night of February 9th incarcerated in Jefferson Market Prison, held in a cell with prostitutes, addicts, and pickpockets. After a trial at Jefferson Market Court, she was found guilty and sentenced to the Women's Workhouse for ten days in April 1927. [The Warden shaved off two days for good behavior.]
• • Mae was paid $1,000 to write about her experiences for a women's magazine. Some of her essay appears here. [Mae donated the $1,000 to the workhouse to establish a library for female inmates.]
• • Released from the lock-up, Mae told reporters she had enough material for several plays. In April 1928, the actress opened on Broadway at the Royale Theatre playing a "kept woman" with an unsavoury past and a jailbird lover named Chick. Set in a saloon on the Bowery, her play "Diamond Lil" became a novel and a Hollywood film [retitled "She Done Him Wrong"]. Mae West, a star with "street cred"!
• • Come up and see Mae: http://maewest.blogspot.com/
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: • Mae West in 1927 •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

PG Wodehouse & Jefferson Market

2006-02-10T23:08:00.000-08:00

Dying on Valentine's Day is a distinctly UNfunny final act for a laugh-master. Thus we come to praise P.G. Wodehouse in mid-February - - not to bury him. British born Pelham Grenville Wodehouse [15 October 1881 – 14 February 1975] was a prolific humorist best known for his Bertie Wooster novels. Wodehouse relocated to New York and was living in Remsenburg, Long Island when he was knighted, shortly before he died.
• • Of his 1915 novel Psmith, Journalist, whose plot points constellate around Jefferson Market Court, Wodehouse noted: The "gangs" of New York exist in fact. I have not invented them. Most of the incidents in this story are based on actual happenings."
• • Psmith, Journalist by P. G. Wodehouse
• • • • Chapter XXIII. Reductions in the Staff • • • •

- - excerpt - -
• • He pointed to the door. A small boy was standing there, holding a note.
• • "Mr. Smith?"
• • "Sir to you," said Psmith.
• • "P. Smith?"
• • "The same. This is your lucky day."
• • "Cop at Jefferson Market give me dis to take to youse."
• • "A cop in Jefferson Market?" repeated Psmith. "I did not know I had friends among the constabulary there. Why, it's from Comrade Windsor." He opened the envelope and read the letter. "Thanks," he said, giving the boy a quarter-dollar.
• • It was apparent the Kid was politely endeavouring to veil his curiosity. Master Maloney had no such scruples.
• • "What's in de letter, boss?" he inquired.
• • "The letter, Comrade Maloney, is from our Mr. Windsor, and relates in terse language the following facts, that our editor last night hit a policeman in the eye, and that he was sentenced this morning to thirty days on Blackwell's Island."
• • "He's de guy!" admitted Master Maloney approvingly.
• • "What's that?" said the Kid. "Mr. Windsor bin punchin' cops! What's he bin doin' that for?"
• • "He gives no clue. I must go and find out. Could you help Comrade Maloney mind the shop for a few moments while I push round to Jefferson Market and make inquiries?"
• • "Sure. But say, fancy Mr. Windsor cuttin' loose that way!" said the Kid admiringly.
• • The Jefferson Market Police Court is a little way down town, near Washington Square. It did not take Psmith long to reach it, and by the judicious expenditure of a few dollars he was enabled to obtain an interview with Billy in a back room.
• • The chief editor of Cosy Moments was seated on a bench, looking upon the world through a pair of much blackened eyes. His general appearance was dishevelled. He had the air of a man who has been caught in the machinery.
• • "Hullo, Smith," he said. "You got my note all right then?"
• • Psmith looked at him, concerned.
• • "Comrade Windsor," he said, "what on earth has been happening to you?"
• • "Oh, that's all right," said Billy. "That's nothing."
• • "Nothing! You look as if you had been run over by a motor-car."
• • "The cops did that," said Billy, without any apparent resentment. "They always turn nasty if you put up a fight. I was a fool to do it, I suppose, but I got so mad. They knew perfectly well that I had nothing to do with any pool-room downstairs."
• • Psmith's eye-glass dropped from his eye.
• • "Pool-room, Comrade Windsor?"
• • "Yes. The house where I live was raided late last night. It seems that some gamblers have been running a pool-room on the ground floor. Why the cops should have thought I had anything to do with it, when I was sleeping peacefully upstairs, is more than I can understand. Anyway, at about three in the morning there was the dickens of a banging at my door. I got up to see what was doing, and found a couple of Policemen there. They told me to come along with them to the station. I asked what on earth for. I might have known it was no use arguing with a New York cop. They said they had been tipped off that there was a pool-room being run in the house, and that they were cleaning up the house, and if I wanted to say anything I'd better say it to the magistrate. . . .
Source: • • Psmith, Journalist by P. G. Wodehouse
- - excerpt - -
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Illustration: • Jefferson Market in 1895 •
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Women of the Night Court, 1908-9

2006-02-08T00:25:00.000-08:00

Prodigal daughters! Jefferson Market is filled with mostly undocumented memories of the women of the Night Court. Muck-raker Rheta Childe Dorr wrote about them often. Here's an excerpt from her book.
• • What Eight Million Women Want • •
by Rheta Childe Dorr [1866 - 1948]
Dorr's articles [for Hampton's Broadway Magazine] were published as a book in 1910.

• • The women of the Night Court. Prodigal daughters! Between December, 1908, and December, 1909, no less than 5,000 of them passed through the guarded door, under the blaze of the electric lights. There is never an hour, from nine at night until three in the morning, when the prisoners’ bench in Jefferson Market Court is without its full quota of women. Old — prematurely old, and young — pitifully young; white and brown; fair and faded; sad and cynical; starved and prosperous; rag-draped and satin-bedecked; together they wait their turn at judgment. Quietly moving back and forth before the prisoners’ bench you see a woman, tall, graceful, black-gowned. She is the salaried probation officer, modern substitute for the old-time volunteer mission worker. The probation officer’s serious blue eyes burn with no missionary zeal. There is no spark of sentimental pity in the keen gaze she turns on each new arrival.
• • When the bench is full of women, the judge turns to her to inquire: “Anybody there you want, Miss Miner?”

__________________________________
• • Miss Maude E. Miner usually shakes her head. She diagnoses her cases like a physician, and she wastes no time on incurables. Once in a while, perhaps several times in the course of a night, Miss Miner touches a girl on the arm. At once the girl rises and follows the probation officer into an adjoining room. If she is what she appears, young in evil, if she has a story which rings true, a story of poverty and misfortune, rather than of depravity, she goes not back to the prisoners’ bench. When her turn at judgment comes, Miss Miner stands beside her, and in a low voice meant only for the judge, she tells the facts. The girl weeps as she listens. To hear one’s troubles told is sometimes more terrible than to endure them. Court adjourns at three in the morning, and this girl, with the others — if others have been claimed by the probation officer — goes out into the empty street, under the light of the tall tower, whose clock has begun all over again its monotonous race toward midnight. No policeman accompanies the group. The girls are under no manner of duress. They have promised to go home with Miss Miner, and they go. The night’s adventure, entered into with dread, with callous indifference, or with thoughtless mirth, ends in a quiet bedroom and a pillow wet with tears.
• • Waverley House, as Miss Miner’s home is known, has sheltered, during the past year, over 300 girls. Out of that number 119 have returned to their homes, or are earning a living at useful work.
• • One hundred and nineteen saved out of 5,000 prodigals! In point of numbers this is a melancholy showing, but in comparison with other efforts at rescue work it is decidedly encouraging.
• • Nothing quite like Waverley House has appeared in other American cities, but it is a type of detention home for girls which is developing logically out of the probation system. Delinquent girls under 16 are now considered, in all enlightened communities, subjects for the Juvenile Court. They are hardly ever associated with older delinquents. But a girl over sixteen is likely to be committed to prison, and may be locked in cells with criminal and abandoned women of the lowest order.
• • Waverley House is the first practical protest against this stupid and evil-encouraging policy.
• • The house, which stands a few blocks distant from the Night Court, was established and is maintained by the Probation Association of New York, consisting of the probation officers in many of the city courts, and of men and women interested in philanthropy and social reform. The District Attorney of New York County, Charles S. Whitman, is president of the Association, Maude E. Miner is its secretary, Mrs. Russell Sage, Miss Anne Morgan, Miss Mary Dreier, president of the New York Women’s Trade Union League, Mrs. Richard Aldrich, formerly president of the Women’s Municipal League, Andrew Carnegie, Edward T. Devine, head of New York’s organized charities, Homer Folks, and Fulton Cutting are among the supporters of Waverley House. Miss Stella Miner is the capable and sympathetic superintendent of the house.
• • The place is in no sense a reformatory. It is an experiment station, a laboratory where the gravest and most baffling of all the diseases which beset society is being studied. Girls arrested for moral delinquency and paroled to probation officers are taken to Waverley House, where they remain, under closest study and searching inquiry, until the best means of disposing of them is devised. Some are sent to their homes, some to hospitals, some to institutions, some placed on long probation.
• • Maude E. Miner, who declined a chair of mathematics in a woman’s college to work in the Night Court, is one of an increasing number of women who are attempting a great task. They are trying to solve a problem which has baffled the minds of the wisest since civilization dawned. They have set themselves to combat an evil fate which every year overtakes countless thousands of young girls, dragging them down to misery, disease, and death. At the magnitude of the effort these women have undertaken one stands appalled. Will they ever reach the heart of the problem? Can they ever hope to do more than reclaim a few individuals? This much did the missionaries before them.
• • “We could reclaim fully 75%,” declares Miss Miner, “if only we could find a way to begin nearer the beginning.”
• • To begin the reform of any evil at the beginning, or near the beginning, instead of near the end is now regarded as an economy of effort. That is what educators are trying to do with juvenile delinquency; what physicians are doing with disease; what philanthropists are beginning to do with poverty. . . .
- - excerpt - -
Reformer Rheta Childe Dorr [1866 - 1948] was committed to bettering the lives of the poorest and the weakest members of society, namely women and children. Rheta Childe Dorr was a war correspondent, an author, and an advocate of women's equal rights. These chapters began as articles published by Hampton's Broadway Magazine, which provided a middle ground between investigative magazines [like McClure's] and popular literary periodicals.
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Illustration: • Women's Court Jefferson Market [wood engraving]• Bernard P. Schardt [1904-1979]
• • Photo: MAUDE E. MINER, Probation Officer [undated]
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Tertium Quid

2006-02-07T01:37:00.000-08:00

Brains alive!
One reader of The Villager wrote in about a better spot for teen lounge:

• • • • To The Editor: • • • •
• • The Jefferson Market library is small and intensely used by its existing constituency, primarily adults and children. In my opinion, there is a more appropriate site for a teen center, located only a few blocks from Jefferson Market: the Hudson Park Library branch. Hudson Park, which is located in the complex of buildings that includes the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, already houses many activities for teens, including gyms, a pool, and a weight room.
• • • Putting a teen center in the Hudson branch would consolidate teen services in one location. In fact, the Hudson branch is so small, it might be advisable to relocate its adult and children’s services to Jefferson Market, so that the entire space at the Hudson branch could be devoted to serving teens. Special, teen-friendly staff could be assigned to this location.
• • Let’s use available Jefferson Market funds to make necessary repairs to the exterior of the building. Other sources of funding may be available for teen services at the Hudson branch.

Carol Chave
Source:The Villager | Vol. 75, No. 37 | Feb. 1 - 7, 2006 | Letters to the editor | http://www.TheVillager.com
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Illustration: • Richard Haas, electroplate, 1974
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Go Ask! [Malice?]

2006-02-05T23:09:00.000-08:00

During the 1960s, an acid-rock group Jefferson Airplane was accelerating towards commercial success. Their album Surrealistic Pillow (1967) yielded a few Top Ten hits including "White Rabbit," written by their singer Grace Slick.
Old Jeff has revised her lyrics and hopes you're in the mood for a duet.

• • SLY GRAB-IT • •
[sung to the tune of "WHITE RABBIT" by Grace Slick]

One brick makes you larger
But pollution makes you small
And the lies that Sue Kent feeds you
Don't do anything at all.
Go ask Withers,
When Jeff needs an overhaul.
•
And if you go chasing funding
And the neighbors hit the wall
Tell 'em a sympathetic senator
Has assented with his scrawl.
No malice,
But repairs will be stalled.
•
When socialites on the Board
Get up and tell you where to go
And the truth has been uncovered
And your mind is moving slow
It's not malice --
Just politics, you know.
•
When illogic and masonry
Crumble down on Villagers' heads
And a planned teen lounge's going under
And Sue Kent is "off her head"
Remember what the landmark said:
"Fix my facade instead!
Fix my facade instead!
Fix my facade instead!"
__ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Illustration: • to come
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Mae West at Jefferson Market Feb. 4th

2006-02-03T22:52:00.000-08:00

Watch the Saturday 4 February 2006 re-broadcast of the MAE WEST episode on "DEAD FAMOUS: Ghostly Encounters" [A&E's Biography Channel] for a scene or two set at Jefferson Market, a landmarked library building now - - but a working courthouse back in February 1927 when the actress was arrested and jailed for obscenity.
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Illustration: • to come
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Mission Implausible

2006-02-03T02:16:00.000-08:00

Is it true what we've heard on Sixth Avenue?
• • Yesterday a groundhog residing in Jefferson Market Garden emerged from a dugout. The groundhog predicted that we'd have six more weeks of Withers before a Greenwich Villager would lop off Susan C.Y.A. Kent's head and use it for soup. [Caveat: avoid Chinese restaurants until our source investigates further.]
• • To make sure she can predict what Villagers want for the Jefferson Market Library restoration, City Councilmember Christine Quinn sent a mailing to 1,200 of her constituents seeking their input. Question: Why didn't she do it BEFORE she recently rounded up more than $1.3 million of taxpayers' money, enabling the library to squander at least $184,000? [About $184,000 was spent in preliminary design work on the interior project. Bye-bye, benjamins!]
• • The letter that Quinn sent to Villagers invites replies to this question: “Is it more important to maintain funding for the planned interior renovations, or to switch the funding to the exterior renovations?” The letter asks for responses to be sent to Quinn’s district office at 224 W. 30th St., #1206, 10001 by 12 February 2006. Email questions to kate.seely-kirk@council.nyc.ny.us - - and do make sure to get this squared away before you do your Valentine's Day shopping, eh?
• • It's the "Year of the Dog" - - so does that increase or decrease your craving for Hunan cuisine in the West Village? Or would you rather go vegetarian for awhile?
• • Wasn't that Mario Batali on the Food Network giving his recipe for chick-lit Susan a la Kent? Remember what the groundhog said. Feed your head, said Jefferson Airplane, feed your head. . . .
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Illustration: severed head • to come
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

A Little Bit Murdered

2006-01-24T22:37:00.000-08:00

New York's Sherlock Explores a Mystery at 425 Sixth Avenue
Crimes & Whispers Make Greenwich Village Residents Anxious

• • At 425 Sixth Avenue unexplained wounds and heart-stopping damage are now a real-life version of "CSI." Coroners are using science, creative thinking - - and even a Beta version of Pro-Quest - - to try to answer the question many are asking: Who or what killed Jefferson M. Landmark? With evidence that's been misfiled or hidden away, witnesses who fled the state, and an overworked police department, at least one official says the mystery may never be solved.
• • "We don't know if it is a case of intentional murder, wanton destruction, criminal neglect, or an accident," said New York preservationist Cynthia Mulry-Angle. "Though we have our suspicions and educated guesses, in fact, we may never know."

• • • • Where Sixth Meets Suspicion • • • •

• • Several officials close to this case reported that a cover-up is afoot.

_______________________
• • According to Carol Greitzer, a former City Councilmember, years ago, local community board members who were close to Jefferson M. Landmark had been serving on what was a very effective branch library council, which met monthly under the aegis of NYPL Branch Libraries Director Ed Holmgren. This group dealt with budget issues, building repairs, and other matters, bringing up concerns of the individual branches, and reporting back to the communities. This activist group has been disbanded, to be replaced by the Borough Advocacy Committee, which meets only twice a year. When Greitzer asked for a list of the committee members, she was told that, “on advice of counsel,” no names could be released.
• • Forensic experts admitted that a cover-up always indicated guilt and deeper problems. They added that those who are examining bodies and structures recovered in and around New York do occasionally find something suspicious - - a bullet lodged in a bone, a wound that could match a knife blade, and more subtle clues. When that happens, they set the bodies or the buildings aside for a closer look, and notify the police and district attorney, said an assistant to New York State's leading architectural preservation detective. Often an architect or a family's lawyer has advised relatives not to speak to reporters.
• • The 425 Sixth Avenue mystery case is in limbo until Jessica Schmidt, a Landmarks Preservation Commission violation officer, or L.P.C.'s small forensic staff can re-examine the structure for clues. When the investigation does begin, the forensic team will face challenges: rainfall and recent snowstorms not only washed away evidence from the crime scene but also forced both perpetrators and potential witnesses to flee. [To report new info, contact Landmarks Commission Violation Officers: Tel 212-669-7948.]
• • Still, Dr. Fred Seidenbaum, a prominent forensic pathologist and his staff predicted that no one will get away with a landmark crime because there's one piece of evidence that time and natural elements did not wash away: the corpse. "Don't forget that the building itself is a crime scene. Always," this source emphasized. Dr. Seidenbaum added, "There is evidence we hope to find: masonry scratches maybe or limestone nicks that don't belong there."
• • And not all human-inflicted wounds lead to murder. Architect Callie Withers said he examined the structure of a builder who died during a fire who police believe had been slain. The condition of a building can make the immediate determination of the cause of death difficult, according to Withers. Often, buildings can become so badly deteriorated that there are no fingerprints on them of people who are still alive, or sometimes injuries were sustained by encounters with debris during natural disasters.
• • Preservation violation officers try to rule out foul play by looking for - - and not finding - - obvious signs: bullets, hatchet marks, arson, suspicious stains, and structural fractures.
• • But Margot Gayle, a prominent preservationist, indicated that she has never seen such a beloved building in such bad condition and said that forensics can only determine so much. "I think in many incidents, it's going to be impossible," she said. To her, the best service Greenwich Village residents can offer in this situation would be witness statements, letters, and other testimony.
• • Still, Marilyn Bank-Streeter, spokesperson of the Greenwich Village Block Associations [and also a part-time crime stopper], said her group is counting on the politicians, preservation organizations, and law enforcement to do everything they can to solve the mysterious death. "There will be justice. It just may take a while," she said. "Nothing is being forgotten." Bank-Streeter added, "Most crimes, despite what you see on 'CSI,' are not solved by forensics. Most crimes against landmarks are solved by people talking. Especially in Greenwich Village, people talk." (The Greenwich Village Block Associations is a non-profit organization representing 35 local block associations.)
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Illustration: "Sixth Avenue Elevated at Third Street, 1928" • John Sloan
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Why? Here's Y !

2006-01-20T00:45:00.000-08:00

Greenwich Village's respected weekly newspaper, The Villager, published an EDITORIAL that posed a question. First, here's a reprint of their inquiry - - and Old Jeff's response is directly below.
The Villager [Vol. 75, No. 35 | January 18 - 24, 2006

• • • • Editorial: • • • •
Why must we choose outside vs. inside at Jefferson Library?

• • One of Greenwich Village’s most distinctive and beautiful buildings, the Jefferson Market Library on Sixth Avenue has stood with its exterior shrouded in scaffolding for nearly three years.

Last year the community got wind of a New York Public Library proposal to do an extensive interior renovation and also add a new teen lounge to the library — this even as the exterior is sorely needing of repairs.

• • The overwhelming sentiment of local residents at public meetings on the library is that they don’t want a separate teen lounge to bump the research room out of the library’s basement floor or shrink the research area’s space. Many Villagers and others value this downstairs space as a quiet spot to do research, look at microfilm or just read undisturbed in peace. The library’s research facilities are valuable to writers and other researchers and the quiet is appreciated by those who are searching for some tranquility in a cacophonous, always-bustling city. This basement with its Gothic archways has its aesthetic charm too.
• • Since The Villager first reported the teen lounge plans 8 months ago, the plans have evolved somewhat. Initially, library officials said the lounge might have more comfortable furniture, times when music is played, and a TV set that plays music videos. Teen lounges are a national trend to attract youth to libraries, they said. They are popular in Los Angeles and there is already one in the Donnell Library on W. 53rd St.
• • However, at a Village Independent Democrats meeting last week, a library official described the prospective Jefferson Market Library teen lounge as a space with books and computers that, while designated for young adults, will be open to all users.
• • At times, the debate has resembled an intergenerational conflict, with some residents saying the youth don’t need a segregated area but should integrate with “the population” and that a separate youth space will create a racket.
• • While discussion of the teen lounge continues, the fact remains that the library’s exterior, its limestone trim and gargoyles, desperately needs repair and that pieces of it are at risk of falling — hence the scaffolding.
• • Council Speaker Christine Quinn is looking into whether the $2.1 million the Council allocated for the interior renovations — about two-thirds of the total cost — can be switched to the exterior renovation.
• • It seems absurd, though, that we must choose between interior or exterior. Why can’t we do both? Clearly, this landmarked 1877 building’s exterior must be renovated and that unsightly shed removed as quickly as possible. As for the teen lounge, we’d like to hear more about it, in terms of programming and staffing, for example. Will this prospective lounge be a hangout or a place teenagers can fill their minds with knowledge and sharpen literacy skills?
• • Villagers rallied to save this historic building and convert it to a library in 1967. Let’s not let it crumble now. The funding has to be there somewhere.
___ ___
• • • • Old Jeff Responds • • • •

When people have demonstrated an ongoing lack of integrity and a lack of respect, who would trust these folks to do the right thing? By their approach, Susan C.Y.A. Kent and her ilk have offended and alienated this community. At this point, a discussion of INTERIOR renovations [- - which might include a 36-inch-TV in a new Teen Lounge, and ear-splitting music videos, two prominent features in the Donnell Library's Teen Central on West 53rd St. - - ] would not even be possible until the NYPL shows good faith by restoring the EXTERIOR and removing that wooden sarcophagus.
• • • • YES, one of Greenwich Village’s most distinctive and beautiful landmarks, the Jefferson Market Library on Sixth Avenue, has stood with its exterior shrouded in a sidewalk bridge (paid for by NYC taxpayers) for nearly three years. WHY? Because the exterior is crying for repairs.
• • • • YES, the 19th century Venetian Gothic facade is so badly damaged because the NYPL neglected it for decades. [In the 1960s, the NYPL only wanted the site -- so that they could erect a new building.]
• • Lack of respect: their initial rejection of our 19th century building.
• • Lack of integrity: their profound neglect of the facade has caused interior leaks. If you're truly a book-lover, how do you feel about water damage?
• • Reaction: "Damage to the exterior of the building is noticeable indoors," says Cynthia Crane Story, a preservationist, "with a detectable odor of urine and mold. Imagine a mold infestation taking hold, the unimaginable costs to a library - - a building full of paper."
• • • • YES, the overwhelming sentiment of local residents at public meetings on the library is that fixing the FACADE comes first - - and this repair is way overdue.
• • Lack of respect: During an autumn meeting attended by over 100 local residents, NYPL representatives coolly informed attendees that it intended to forge ahead and may close the library for extended periods - - despite the community's nearly unanimous disapproval of their plans.
• • Lack of integrity: Scrutiny suggests that the trustees and fat-cat executives of the New York Public Library [trading on their "public" name and the goodwill that comes when citizens believe an institution really cares about the city's underprivileged], in fact, preside over a well-oiled system designed to ensure that the proceeds of their glamourous fundraisers and the gifts of generous donors will NOT trickle down to the branch libraries.
• • Lack of integrity: Even as the NYPL applies for more funding from the City for this new "teen lounge" trend, the NYPL is decreasing their number of young-adult librarians! There are only 48 young-adult librarians in the system, down from 81 in 1995, said Debbie Bujosa, a library spokeswoman [in a recent N.Y. Times interview]. Think about it. . . .
• • Lack of integrity: Greenwich Villagers, proud of the area's literary history, view their library as a book zone, a place for reading. When Kent pushes for a library lounge aimed at teenagers that has little to do with reading, and more to do with music-video viewing or TV watching, there's no BOOK on her hook. Sounds like an attempt to turn a library into a Starbucks.
• • Reaction: GVBA spokesperson Marilyn Dorato complained in a letter to NYPL President Paul LeClerc that, at an October 18th community meeting at Jefferson Market Library, "both NYPL representatives and CB2 members treated residents’ concerns with disdain and derision." Instead of replying, however, LeClerc passed Dorato's letter to Susan C.Y.A. Kent, who sent her standard see-no-evil missive. Retch!
• • • • YES, the funding has to be there somewhere. . . but Jefferson Market will not see any of it.
• • Lack of respect: In 2004, the NYPL's total revenue reported to the IRS was a healthy number: $219,605,726. To comprehend why neighborhood libraries struggle for survival while their parent institution sits on a gilded stockpile of tax-free donations, you need to understand a basic truth. The NYPL is, in fact, two systems with two budgets: The 80 branches, which circulate materials, receive only 7 percent of their funds from private sources, with the rest coming from city, state, and federal agencies. NYPL's five non-lending research libraries receive the lion's share of private gifts. Consequently, whenever the city reduces its funding to the NYPL, only the neighborhood branches will feel the pinch.
• • Lack of integrity: Though the librarians' union has repeatedly asked NYPL to protect jobs and branch services by tapping into the corporation's endowment, each president has stated that he [it's always a HE!] will not do it. Consistently, the NYPL's board of trustees has refused to use the endowment to compensate for New York City cuts, pointing to a 1901 agreement by which Andrew Carnegie agreed to build 65 branch libraries for New York City on the condition that the city would maintain and operate the branches in perpetuity. YES, that is correct. As New York City has grown and new branch libraries have been added, the Carnegie principle is a convenient fall-back position. "We are afraid that if we start replacing public money with private money, the city will relinquish its responsibility for operating the branch library system," explained one NYPL spokesperson. So did you understand that? The NYPL is willing to deprive New York's neighborhood branch libraries if that's what it takes to make NYC honor its side of the 1901 agreement. If the NYPL can screw their own librarians, can a Greenwich Village library expect much better?
• • Lack of integrity: What happens when, for instance, an unrestricted $10.5 million donation arrives in the mail? Instead of reversing the deterioration of a branch library's facade, the $$$ swan-dives into NYPL's well-feathered nest. An issue of CFO magazine, which profiled an NYPL Vice President for Finance, applauded the library's finance expert for the foxy bookkeeping he employed when an anonymous lamb sent the no-strings-attached check. Here's the dirty secret: The NYPL would enter the $$$ on a separate line as a bequest and stash it immediately into the endowment from which the library will draw investment earnings.
• • Reaction: "That's almost an outrage, isn't it?" asked the editor-in-chief of Library Journal, a Manhattan-based trade magazine. "It's bizarre thinking, and I'm not sure how they justify it, but they have repeatedly received gifts from donors who say, 'The library saved my life,' and it turns out it is a library in downtown Manhattan - - yet the money goes to the 42nd Street research library ONLY."
• • Whose fault is this? The fault, dear neighbors, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings - - and they are fat cats.
• • How FAT are the NYPL fat cats? In 2004, the annual compensation for Paul LeClerc, NYPL President, was $487,819. [The compensation for LeClerc is equal to 0.20% of the NYPL's total functional expenses.] In 1989, IRS documents reveal that NYPL President Vartan Gregorian, working only 10 months, earned $247,469 in salary and bonuses, i.e., nearly twice what New York's governor made in 1989. In 1988, Vartan Gregorian's $37,570 benefit package alone was more than the starting salary of a supervising branch librarian [in 1988]. YES, yes, $300,000 was about the same as the cost of running the Jefferson Market branch for 12 months during the 1980s.
• • A sarcophagus "eats flesh" - - which is why Greenwich Villagers must pressure elected officials to help remove that wooden sarcophagus which is damaging Jefferson Market. Write the letters, make the phonecalls, make noise, and do whatever it takes to rescue our beloved landmark imprisoned since 2003 by the neglectful top brass at NYPL.
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: • to come
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

January with the Pot-Poet

2006-01-19T03:20:00.000-08:00

As a famous American poet, Allen Ginsberg [1926 - 1997] was able to rally supporters and attract an audience. During the 1960s, Ginsberg took advantage of this repeatedly, annoying America's right wing to no end. He was a familiar bushy-bearded figure at protest demonstrations against the draft and against the Vietnam War.
• • In January 1964, Ginsberg led this controversial protest to legalize marijuana. The group marched around Jefferson Market and the Women's House of Detention, where many female addicts were incarcerated.
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: January 1964 • Allen Ginsberg
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Clara Lemlich's Arresting Drama

2006-01-18T04:00:00.000-08:00

Clara Lemlich Shavelson [1 January 1886 - 12 July 1982] spent her long life fighting for trade unions, women's suffrage, peace, and fair housing and food practices.

• • Born in the Ukraine, Clara became a committed communist in her teens. After immigrating to the Lower East Side, Clara began working in a garment factory whose poor conditions led her to begin organizing women into the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.
• • On 8 March 1908, a demonstration was held at Rutgers Square in Manhattan's Lower East Side.
• • In 1909, 400 Triangle Factory employees walked out of their jobs.
• • Employers had many of these needleworkers arrested and jailed at Jefferson Market in an attempt to break their spirit.
• • In November 1909, at a meeting at Cooper Union, Clara Lemlich talked about the intolerable conditions in the shops and asked for a vote on a general strike. The response was overwhelmingly affirmative. She helped to catalyze the 1909 "Uprising of the 20,000," a massive strike by women workers.
• • After this walk-out, garment shop owners refused to hire Clara Lemlich. She turned her considerable energies to the suffrage movement, founding a working-class suffrage group. Marriage and three children transformed Clara's activism; she began organizing wives and mothers around issues like housing, food, and education.
• • Clara, my own sleep awakens me, stitching needles into the cushion of night. Your energy, courage, and clarity are celebrated this January by your admirers at Jefferson Market, where your heroic footsteps echo still.
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: 1910 Clara Lemlich
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Janitor, Jefferson Market

2006-01-16T02:19:00.000-08:00

On Martin Luther King's birthday, Jefferson Market commemorates the death of a noted military veteran, a Colonel, and a "Colored Man" [as he was called in the newspapers c. 1870-1903].
• • • January 1903 [from news accounts] • • •
• • William Johnson, the youngest brother of Jacob Johnson of Fishkill, New York, died in New York city, at his residence, No. 173 Waverly Place, aged about 56 years. Mr. Johnson his daughter, and some other colored people attended the funeral which was a large one, deceased being a noted military man.
• • The morning service of Zion A. M. E. Church was was dispensed with Jan. 18, and at 11:30 a. m. the mortal remains of Col. William Johnson, commander of Thaddeus Stevens Post, No. 255 were borne into the church. Following the mourners came the church officers, church societies, his class, the board of stewards and stewardesses, John Brown Circle No. 24 Ladies of the G. A. R... . marshall Thaddeus Stevens Post No. 255, G. A. R.. Samuel W. Smith, S. V. commander commanding. ...
• • Past Commander Alex Powell and Adjutant C. W. McKie eulogized his military life and service.
• • William Johnson was well known throughout New York city as a stalwart Republican.
• • He was appointed janitor of the Jefferson Market Court House under Mayor Strong, and served until the VanWyck administration came into power. He was considered an authority on Grand Army matters.
• • Nearly 500 persons took part in the procession that was led by Major Charles Pierson's Manhattan Fife and Drum Corps, leaving the funeral at 10th Street and Fourth Avenue, which proceeded to Cypress Hills Cemetery. Internment was in Zion's Ground. Service was held at the grave by Mr. E. V. C. Eato, secretary of the citizens auxilliary committee. Col. Johnson leaves a wife, two sons, a daughter, 4 brothers and a large number of relatives residing upstate.
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo -
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jeff Genesis: January 1832

2006-01-14T02:34:00.000-08:00

• • • 1832 January • • •
• • IN this year the following streets and places were widened, viz.: Ann, between Nassau and William; Cedar, between William and Pearl; Exchange Place at William; Spruce, between Nassau and Gold; William, on east side, from Wall to Pine; Hanover at Exchange Place; and Cross, Anthony, and Little Water Streets.
• • Sixth Street was changed to Waverly Place.
• • • Jefferson Market, at intersection of Sixth Avenue and Greenwich Lane, was opened. There was annexed to it a fire alarm bell tower and a steam pump, which drew and forced water through a main to the elevated cistern or reservoir, as it was termed, in East Thirteenth Street near Broadway.

• • Union Square was enlarged, and as the required area invaded the property of the owners abutting in Broadway and Seventeenth Streetand the Bowery (now Fourth Avenue), many of them protested against the measure with the usual vehemence and short-sightedness of people regardin gtheir view of their own interests in similar cases. . . .
• • Some prices for real estate, obtained at sales by public auction during this winter, are here noted: The corner of Wall and Broad Streets, 30 feet on Wall Street by 16 feet 8 inches on Broad, $17,750; southwest corner of Broadway and Park Place, about 25 by 122, $37,000.
• • February 23, 1832 - - ground was broken for construction of the New York and Harlem Railroad, and in the course of the year this company ran its first car from Prince to Fourteenth Street. These cars were like stagecoaches, hung on leather, with several compartments and side-doors, the driver sitting above like a coachman, and putting on the brake with his feet. My readers should remember that at this time railways on important lines, as from Schenectady to Saratoga and the short-cut across the Delaware Maryland peninsula, on the route to Washington, were operated by horsepower. . . .
• • April 1832 - - Lexington Avenue was opened and John Street, from Broadway to Pearl Street, widened, and the New York and Harlem Railroad in operation from Prince Street to Murray Hill. . . .
• • Shinbone Alley was opened from Wooster Street (University Place) to Fifth Avenue, and between Washington Square and Eighth Street (Washington Place). . . .
• • Currently, the Mayor of New York is Walter Bowne [1832 - 1833].
• • Source: Reminiscences of New York by an Octogenarian (1816 - 1860), by Charles H. Haswell, CHAPTER XIV [published 1896]. This title is in the public domain.
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo - 1860 Jefferson Market
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Naked of Stars

2006-01-13T02:49:00.000-08:00

Alarming news today of an emergency at a building [55 West 8th Street] across from Jefferson Market - - residents evacuated because mercury was leaking from a ceiling - - can put New Yorkers in mind of perils in the past.
Naturally, January 1871 springs to mind, a date when the Fire-Alarm Telegraph brought changes to Jefferson Market.
• • • •From the Central Office of the Fire-Alarm Telegraph• • • •

• • The telegraph in connection with the fire service has become an indispensable adjunct, and in as much a necessity in communicating the existence and locality of a fire as the steam and other improved apparatus for extinguishing. Indeed, successful management of fires depends so much upon early and instantaneous information that the telegraphic system is now considered as important as any branch of the department.
• • The old-time method of detecting fires by the aid of look-outs upon high towers situated in different parts of the city, and communicating their existence to the public, and approximating to the locality by striking the tower bells, was kept up until the Fire Alarm Telegraph System was put in operation.
• • At this time a system of telegraph was in use connecting the various bell towers with each other, which was continued, and the look-outs were maintained at Union Market, Essex Market, Marion Street, Spring Street, Jefferson Market, Twenty-sixth Street, Thirty-third Street, Yorkville, and Mount Morris for sometime, but they have gradually been abandoned, and the old towers removed, with the exception of the one at Mount Morris, and at Morrisania.
• • • January 1871 • • •
• • The Fire Alarm telegraph was constructed under the old Gamewell patent, and was put in operation in January 1871 by the contractors, Messrs. Charles T. and J. N. Chester, and Mr. Charles T. Chapin was appointed Superintendent. The Central Office was located on the second floor of Firemen's Hall, in the room lately occupied by the President of the Board. This system embraced the territory of Manhattan island, including that of the East River islands, and consisted on its equipment of 2780 poles, 612 miles of wire, divided into 56 circuits, viz, 41 box signal circuits, 3 key and bell circuits, 2 tower circuits, 2 dial circuits, and I police circuit, 548 alarm boxes, with 54 alarm gongs and 42 key and bell magnets in the houses of the fire companies, and 16 dial instruments in the quarters of the district engineers or battalion commanders, and the necessary receiving and transmitting apparatus in the Central office, the alarms from the street boxes and bell towers on receipt at the Central office being repeated and transmitted to the several companies over the gong circuits, which was the only one source upon which companies depended for receiving alarms. Each company was provided with a key and bell instrument, connected with a talking circuit, for the purpose of informing the Central Office by signal when about to leave quarters, and on their return to quarters after an absence. . . .
• • Mr. Chapin was succeeded as Superintendent in March, 1871, by Mr. C. K. Smith.
• • • January 1874 • • •
• • The annexation of the Westchester District to the city on January 1st, 1874, made necessary the extension of the lines beyond the Harlem river, and in the early part of that year this was accomplished by cabling the river at Third Avenue and at Macomb's Dam. . . .
Source: Our Firemen, The History of the NY Fire Departments Chapter 51, Part I
URL:http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ny/state/fire/51-58/ch51pt1.html
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Artwork by Sonia Brewin
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Days before the Music Died

2006-01-12T00:48:00.000-08:00

Before leaving from Greenwich Village for the ill-fated "Winter Dance Party" (a quickie Midwest concert tour) on 20 January 1959, Buddy Holly had been busy creating new songs and soaking up the rhythms around Jefferson Market. Let's back up a bit.

• • In 1958, on a visit to Peer-Southern Music [810 Seventh Avenue] and Murray Deutch, the executive V.P. who had persuaded Coral-Brunswick Records to take a chance on a new group called Buddy Holly and the Crickets, the young Texans were greeted by a comely 25-year-old Puerto Rican receptionist. Maria Elena Santiago was the niece of Provi Garcia, who ran Peer's Latin division.
• • It was love at first sight for 21-year-old Charles Hardin "Buddy" Holly [born 7 September 1936 in Lubbock, Texas].
• • Buddy and Maria Elena wed on 15 August 1958 in Texas.
• • Financial disputes with manager Norman Petty led Buddy Holly to break away and do things differently.
• • Provi Garcia, Maria Elena's aunt and guardian, lived at 33 Fifth Avenue [near 10th Street]. After the girl's parents died in Puerto Rico, she came to the Village and stayed with her only living relative.
• • By September 1958 the newlyweds had settled in - - a block from Provi and down the street from Jefferson Market.

Home was 4-H, a corner apartment at the Brevoort, 11 Fifth Avenue [at 9th Street].

The 2-bedroom unit with a wrap-around terrace rented for $1,000/ mo.
• • Married life with María Elena and Greenwich Village set Buddy Holly aflame. According to his widow, he loved listening to jazz at the Village Vanguard and poetry at local coffeehouses. He wanted to write movie scores. He wanted to record with Ray Charles and adored gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. He wanted to produce young artists and had a protégé, Lou Giordano. Ritchie Valens had asked Buddy to record him. Dining at Cafe Madrid with María Elena and his friend Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers, he was so taken with the flamenco guitar that between sets he asked the guitarist to teach him how to play. He told Provi García he wanted to translate and cover Spanish classics.
______________________________

• • All these songs were recorded at The Brevoort in his living room on an Ampex reel-to-reel recorder purchased from Norman Petty, the same machine used to tape most of his early hits.
• • 3 December 1958 • THAT'S WHAT THEY SAY (1:12) • Composer: Buddy Holly
• • 3 December 1958 • WHAT TO DO (1:54) • Composer: Buddy Holly • • Buddy Holly – vocal and acoustic guitar
• • 5 December 1958 • PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED (1:47) • Composer: Buddy Holly • • Buddy Holly – vocal and acoustic guitar
• • 8 December 1958 • THAT MAKES IT TOUGH (2:14) • Composer: Buddy Holly • • Buddy Holly – vocal and acoustic guitar
• • 14 December 1958 • CRYING, WAITING, HOPING (1:48) • Composer: Buddy Holly • • Buddy Holly – vocal and acoustic guitar
• • 17 December 1958 • LEARNING THE GAME (1:31) • Composer: Buddy Holly • • Buddy Holly – vocal and acoustic guitar
• • Since Norman Petty refused to release money, Holly agreed to play the "Winter Dance Party," a fast-paced rock 'n' roll tour after Christmas. Since his bride was pregnant, he didn't want her to travel.
• • Mid-evening on 2 February 1959, he phoned Maria Elena on Fifth Avenue to say that the promoter's cheap buses had lost their heat and broken down once too often. He and a couple of other guys were going to Moorhead, South Dakota on their own. He never mentioned they would be flying.
• • On 3 February 1959 Buddy Holly, age 22, was killed along with Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper when their small airplane crashed into an Iowa cornfield shortly after 2:00 AM. A few weeks later, Maria Elena had a miscarriage.
• • Perhaps Jefferson Market Library has these titles:
• • The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens by Larry Lehmer [NY: Schirmer Books, 1997]
• • Rave on: The Biography of Buddy Holly by Philip Norman [1996]
• • Or rent The Buddy Holly Story [1978 film] starring Gary Busey. It's available at TLA, 52 West 8th Street.
• • • • Self-Guided Tour • • • •
• • Buddy Holly's home: Brevoort, 11 Fifth Avenue
• • Provi Garcia's home: 33 Fifth Avenue
• • Village Vanguard [est. 1935]: 178 Seventh Avenue So.
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photos: 11 Fifth Avenue - Buddy's "apartment tape"
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Edwin Torres: An Old Jeff Story

2006-01-11T01:40:00.000-08:00

January-born Edwin Torres [birthdate: 7 January 1931] can be trusted to judge the quality of a story. A justice for the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Torres wrote Carlito's Way, which was made into a film starring Al Pacino.
• • Standing on Sixth Avenue, as Old Jeff chimed the late hour, Judge Torres reminisced about his shoe-leather-days as a sure-footed NYC attorney, defending many of the Latino female inmates of the (former) House of Detention. Glancing at a group of men who were discussing the arraignment of two retired city detectives - - Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, who were accused of betraying their badges to become paid Mafia killers, a story now in the news - - Torres pointed at Jefferson Market.
• • "Not since 1912 have there been such explosive criminal charges involving the New York Police Department," said Judge Torres. "It was right there, in that very courthouse, that a police lieutenant named Charles Becker was tried for the murder of a two-bit gambler and informant named Herman "Beansie" Rosenthal.
• • Charles Becker gained fame when he became the first - and to date only - New York City police officer to be found guilty of murder and, subsequently, executed by the State of New York in the electric chair.
• • The child of German immigrant parents, Charles Becker joined the police force at the age of 23 and quickly established a reputation for aggressiveness and daring. Ambitious for the good life, Becker was cagey and fine-tuned his ability to manipulate the Police Department's insular bureaucracy.
• • In September 1896, on a Manhattan streetcorner, he arrested and sought to railroad Dora Clark, an innocent woman, on prostitution charges. Charles Becker might have gotten away with it had his actions not been witnessed by none other than Stephen Crane, the 24-year-old author [1 November 1871 – 5 June 1900] who was then enjoying acclaim for his Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage.
• • Against the advice of his fellow reporters and of commissioner Theodore Roosevelt (an acquaintance of Crane's and an admirer of The Red Badge Of Courage), Crane testified on the morning of 16 September on behalf of Dora Clark, before Magistrate Robert C. Cornell at Jefferson Market Courthouse.
• • "Whatever the woman's character," Stephen Crane told reporters in 1896, "the arrest was an outrage. The policeman flatly lied."
• • Patrolman Becker defended himself at a departmental hearing, thanks in part to his lawyer, who portrayed Crane as a pimp and an opium addict. A disciplinary board found that Becker had made an "honest mistake."
• • On the 16th of January 1907, Commissioner Theodore Bingham promoted Charles Becker to sergeant, a reward for assisting the commissioner in an earlier investigation. Becker welcomed the opportunity. It led shortly to his becoming the bagman for the precinct captain. Becker’s cut was 10 percent of the take. In the first year he made $8,000.
• • Greedy and power-mad, by 1912 Becker's nefariousness got him in serious trouble. He was arrested and charged with ordering the murder of a small-time gambler, Herman Rosenthal, and tried at the Jefferson Market Courthouse. In the opinion of the District Attorney Charles Seymour Whitman, Becker had ordered the rub-out because Rosenthal had told "The World" (a daily newspaper) and the D.A. that Becker was his "partner" in a 45th Street gambling house.
• • The 1912 trial at Jefferson Market Court was so intensely covered by the media that at least three books have been written about Charles Becker and the gang of thugs he hired to assassinate "Beansie" Rosenthal, according to Judge Torres, who admits he's still mesmerized by Jefferson Market's history.
• • Lieutenant Charles Becker was convicted and died at Sing Sing in the electric chair 30 July 1915.
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo - none
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Q as in . . .

2006-01-09T18:16:00.000-08:00

Janus the Roman god of doorways - - taking the place (temporarily) of Old Jeff, who is away visiting the Jeffersons - - will use this opp to congratulate Christine Quinn, who represents Greenwich Village on the City Council, and who was elected Speaker by a landslide vote on Janury 4, 2006.
• • Christine Quinn is the first woman, openly gay, or Irish Speaker of the Council.
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo - see earlier entry "The Mighty Quinn"
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

3 Kings

2006-01-06T00:26:00.000-08:00

Janus the Roman god of doorways - - taking the place (temporarily) of Old Jeff, who is away visiting the Jeffersons - - will use this opp to reminisce in January on the Feast of the Epiphany about an epiphanic moment in Greenwich Village. Christopher Street's printer Frank Shay sold a poetry chapbook "in the shadow of old Jefferson Market" during 1922. The following year, this poet won the Pulitzer Prize.

___________

THE BALLAD OF THE HARP-WEAVER
BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

NEW YORK: Printed for FRANK SHAY and sold by him at FOUR CHRISTOPHER ST., in the shadow of old JEFFERSON MARKET, 1922

. . . She sang as she worked,
And the harp-strings spoke;
Her voice never faltered,
And the thread never broke.
And when I awoke,
There sat my mother
With the harp against her shoulder
Looking nineteen
And not a day older,
A smile about her lips,
And a light about her head,
And her hands in the harp-strings
Frozen dead.
And piled up beside her
And toppling to the skies,
Were the clothes of a king's son,
Just my size.
______________
The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver by Edna St. Vincent Millay [1892-1950] was published in 1922. Therefore, the text fell out of copyright and entered the public domain in the USA as of 1998. For The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver and several other works published in the early twenties, Millay won the the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923.
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Woodcut: Ballad of the Harp-Weaver, frontispiece
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Red Velvet Swingtime

2006-01-05T14:41:00.000-08:00

Janus the Roman god of doorways - - taking the place (temporarily) of Old Jeff, who is away visiting the Jeffersons - - will use this opp to reminisce in January about an actress who gave the performance of her life on Sixth Avenue at the "Trial of the Century" in Jefferson Market Court.

• • Evelyn Nesbit [25 December 1884 - 17 January 1967] was a model noted for her entanglement in the murder of her ex-lover, architect Stanford White, by her husband, Harry K. Thaw. Stanford White, though married, was enchanted by Evelyn, who was a Florodora Girl on Broadway. In a lavish apartment at Madison Square Garden, which he had designed, he installed a red velvet swing. He was aroused by watching Evelyn or other young women swinging. (Nesbit would be sensationalized as "The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing" by the media).
• • Harry Kendall Thaw (1871-1947) was the wealthy son of a coal and railroad baron. Evelyn married Thaw on April 4, 1905.
• • On June 25, 1906 Evelyn and Harry saw White at a restaurant (the Cafè Martin) and then ran into him again at Madison Square Garden's roof theatre at a performance of Mamzelle Champagne. During the song, "I Could Love A Million Girls", Thaw fired three shots at close range into White's face, killing him.
• • From Police Headquarters, Thaw was hustled, still handcuffed, to the Jefferson Market Court and from the Jefferson Market Court to the Coroner's office. When the Coroner finished with him, Thaw crossed the Bridge of Sighs to Cell 220, Murderers' Row, of the Tombs Prison.
• • There were two trials at Jefferson Market Court. At the first, the jury was deadlocked; at the second, Thaw pled insanity, and Evelyn testified. (Thaw's mother told Evelyn that if she would testify that Stanford White abused her and that Harry only tried to protect her, she'd receive a divorce from Harry Thaw and one million dollars in compensation. She did just that, and performed in court wonderfully: Thaw was found not guilty. Evelyn got the divorce, in 1915, but not the money.)
• • Evelyn Nesbit died at age 82 in a nursing home in Santa Monica, California. In her later years, she taught ceramics and served as a technical consultant to a 1955 movie about the White shooting, The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, in which she was portrayed by Joan Collins. She was also portrayed by Elizabeth McGovern in the movie Ragtime.
• • To commemorate her January 17th passing, read one of the titles she inspired.
• • The Architect of Desire - Suzannah Lessard (White's great-granddaughter)
• • Glamorous Sinners - Frederick L. Collins
• • Evelyn Nesbit & Stanford White: Love and Death in the Gilded Age - Michael Mooney
• • The Murder of Stanford White - Gerald Langford
• • The Traitor - Harry K. Thaw
• • The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing - Charles Samuels
• • The Story of my Life - Evelyn Nesbit Thaw - 1914
• • Prodigal Days - Evelyn Nesbit Thaw - 1934
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Evelyn Nesbit, age 15, in 1900
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Toast Texas

2006-01-04T02:42:00.000-08:00

Janus the Roman god of doorways - - taking the place (temporarily) of Old Jeff, who is away visiting the Jeffersons - - will use this opp to reminisce in January about a fearless female who knew Jefferson Market Court, the Federal Court House, judges, and Dry Agents intimately during the Roaring 20s.

______________________________
• • Greenwich Village resident Texas Guinan always insisted that she didn't have to sell the hard stuff because she got as much for sparkling water as people paid for Scotch before Prohibition. She said her clients brought their own hooch on their very own hips, and what could she do except provide set-ups? Of course, you could buy a "booster" in her gin-joints if you knew the headwaiter, or if you looked as if you knew him, or if you knew somebody who was pretty sure he knew him, or maybe if you were good and thirsty and didn't have the seedy look of the Dry Agent.
• • Often in a tight spot due to her night spots, Texas had more than her share of arrests and padlocks and paddy wagons.
• • Returning to her speak after winning an acquittal at court once, Texas sang this ditty:
Judge Thomas said, "Tex, do you sell booze?"
I said, "Please, don't be silly.
I swear to you my cellar's filled
With chocolate and vanilly!"
• • A woman of courage and charm if not convictions, her birthday is 12 January 1884.
• • Let's give the little lady a nice big hand!
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: 1929 Texas Guinan in a nightspot
• • Photo: 17 West 8th Street [near Jefferson Market Court] is where Texas made her home. Unfortunately, West 8th Street is the most hideous looking thoroughfare in Greenwich Village nowadays.
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Go ask Alice....

2006-01-03T01:37:00.000-08:00

Janus the Roman god of doorways takes the place (temporarily) of Old Jeff, who is away visiting the Jeffersons, and uses this opp to reminisce in January about famous dates in the Women's House of Detention on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village.
• • Go ask Alice Crimmins how freedom felt in January.

• • Thirty years ago, in January 1976, inmate Alice Crimmins became eligible for a work-release program and was permitted to leave prison on weekdays to work as a secretary; this meant that she got every other weekend off. By August 1977, The New York Post was reporting that Alice had spent the previous Sunday "as she has spent many balmy summer Sundays of her prison term -- on a luxury cruiser at City Island." • • In July 1977, redhead Alice married the proprietor of this deluxe vessel, her contractor beau, Anthony Grace. In September 1977, Alice Crimmins was granted parole, after thirty months in prison and nine months in the work-release program. A new petition for retrial was denied, and she vanished into obscurity.
[• • Condensed from: The Collected Essays of Albert Borowitz 1966-2005 • • "The MEDEA of Kew Gardens Hills"]
• • The Alice Crimmins case broke in July 1965 and grabbed headlines for the next twelve years, a veritable tabloid sensation.
• • This real-life mystery has been dealt with in several works. Here in Greenwich Village, dramatist John Guare [author of the theatrical hits "Six Degrees of Separation" and "The House of Blue Leaves"] spotted Crimmins being transferred to the Women's House of Detention after the verdict. He penned a Crimmins-inspired play "Landscape of the Body," which opened at the Public Theatre on Astor Place in 1977.
• • Alice and Anthony: Happy Headline-Free New Year!
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: 1965 Alice Crimmins & husband Edmund arrive in court
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jeff Makes Room for Janus

2006-01-01T00:38:00.000-08:00

Janus the Roman god of doorways here! While Old Jeff is away visiting the Jeffersons, I'm here to look both ways and spill a few secrets.
• • On January 31, 1905 John O'Hara was born in Pottsville, PA.
• • And born on January 26, 1906 in Evanston, Illinois was the beauty who inspired O'Hara to write his 1935 bestseller: Butterfield 8.

• • Though O'Hara may have called it a roman a clef, the truth really took a beating.
• • • Butterfield 8 • • •
"ON THIS SUNDAY morning in May, this girl who later was to be the cause of a sensation in New York, awoke much too early for her night before. One minute she was asleep, the next she was completely awake and dumped into despair. . . ."
• • On June 8, 1931, the dead body of a 25-year-old woman named Starr Faithfull was found on a Long Island beach, clad in expensive clothes, her nails manicured, her neck bruised and broken. Was it an accident, a murder, a suicide? Though the circumstances of her death were never resolved, the official inquest kept Jefferson Market Court buzzing for almost six months. Widespread coverage in the daily newspapers mesmerized Americans as well as the British. When the reporters finally tired of the sensational headlines, the novelists jumped aboard. O’Hara [1905 - 1970] was the first author to spin Starr's fatality into self-advancement; others followed the Benjamins.
• • Let's celebrate the 100th anniversity of Starr's birth [26 January 2006] by revealing the truth. BUtterfield 8 would never have been her telephone exchange. Starr was a Greenwich Village girl.
• • She lived with her mother, sister, and step-father at 35 West 9th Street, then at 12 St. Luke's Place.
• • Starr liked to drink and party, which is how O'Hara met her: at a literary affair.
• • When young, she was sexually molested by the Mayor of Boston [a trusted family friend], but Starr was NEVER a callgirl, a thief, nor attached to a brothel.
• • O'Hara took as many liberties with Starr in death as the Mayor had in her youth, ruining her reputation perhaps to stoke his.
• • Jefferson Market Court, where her autopsy photos were passed around to the media like potato chips, was the hottest place in town during the summer of 1931 - - a spectacle for gawkers and rumor-runners.
• • It will take more than this, Starr Faithfull, to clear your name. But you are not forgotten.
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: 1931 - - door of 12 St. Luke's Place, where Starr had lived with her family - - and reporters hoping for a scoop
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jefferson Market: January 1901

2005-12-30T04:29:00.000-08:00

Newsboys around Jefferson Market had a hallelujah-for-hot-headlines bonus day when the demise of Murray Hall [a cigar-smoking bail bondsman who served that courthouse] revealed a secret: "he" had been a female. Here's the article that appeared in The New York Times, January 19, 1901:

MURRAY HALL FOOLED MANY SHREWD MEN
How for Years She Masqueraded in Male Attire.
HAD MARRIED TWO WOMEN
WAS A PROMINENT TAMMANY POLITICIAN AND ALWAYS VOTED — SENATOR MARTIN ASTONISHED.

Murray H. Hall, the woman who masqueraded as a man for more than a quarter of a century, and the secret of whose sex came out only after her death last Wednesday night at 145 Sixth Avenue [located then between West 10th - 11th Streets], was known to hundreds of people in the Thirteenth Senatorial District, where she figured quite prominently as a politician. In a limited circle she even had a reputation as a “man about town,” a bon vivant, and all-around “good fellow.”
• • She was a member of the General Committee of Tammany Hall, a member of the Iroquois Club, a personal friend of State Senator “Barney” Martin and other officials, and one of the most active Tammany workers in the district.
• • She registered and voted at primaries and general elections for many years, and exercised considerable political influence with Tammany Hall, often securing appointments for friends who have proved their fealty to the organization—never exciting the remotest suspicion as to her real sex.
• • She played poker at the clubs with city and State officials and politicians who flatter themselves on their cleverness and perspicacity, drank whisky and wine and smoked the regulation “big black cigar” with the apparent relish and gusto of the real man-about-town.
• • Furthermore, Murray Hall is known to have been married twice, but the woman to whom she stood before the world in the attitude of a husband kept her secret as guardedly as she did.
• • The discovery of “Murray Hall’s” true sex was not made until she was cold in death and beyond the chance of suffering humiliation from exposure. She had been suffering from a cancer in the left breast for several years, as Dr. William C. Gallagher of 302 West Twelfth Street, who attended her in her final illness, discovered; but she abjured medical advice for fear of disclosing her sex, and treated herself. When she felt that life was at a low ebb she sent for Dr. Gallagher, the awful fear of exposure being supplanted by the dread of death. He made an examination and found that the cancer had eaten its way almost to the heart, and that it was a matter of only a few days, when death must ensue.
• • He kept this information from the patient, fearing the shock might hasten death. He deceived himself, for “Murray Hall” knew as well as Dr. Gallagher that the end was near. In years gone by, from time to time, "Murray Hall' had purchased volume after volume of works on surgery and medicine until she possessed a good medical library. Those books were studied, and the knowledge gleaned, no doubt, served to a good purpose in avoiding detection.
• • Three months ago most of this library was sold to C. S. Pratt, a book seller at 161 Sixth Avenue [near West 11th Street then]. The books found a ready sale among Mr. Pratt’s customers, and there was only one left in his shop when a reporter called there yesterday. This was a volume on “The Science and Art of Surgery,” by John Eric Erichsen, and was published in 1881. The flyleaf of the book contained this inscription written a feminine hand in a lead pencil. “Cella Lin Hall, 128 Second Avenue, N.Y.” Cella was the name of Murray Hall’s second “wife,” who died July 7, 1898. Her name was in all the books in Murray Hall’s collection, but, according to all the book sellers along Sixth Avenue who knew her. It was the “husband” who made the purchases.

• • • A LOVER OF BOOKS • • •

• • “There were many books in the collection,” said Mr. Pratt, “that were published in Ireland and England. Most of the authors, however, bore Irish names. ”I knew Hall well, having had many dealings with him; and believed him to be either a native of Ireland or a person of Irish extraction. He was well read and had no use for light literature. What he wanted and what I always sold him was some work on science. He would always ask to examine the book at home, and if it struck his fancy he would pay any price I fixed without quibble. He seemed to me to be a modest little man, but occasionally he showed an irascible temper. He would never talk about himself and shunned garrulous and inquisitive companions. In fact, when I met him on the street he was either accompanied by his black and tan dog or some woman or women, strangers to me, who I supposed were clients.“
• • ”During the seven years I knew him I never once suspected that he was anything else than what he appeared to be. While he was somewhat effeminate in appearance and talked in a falsetto voice, still his conduct and actions were distinctively masculine. This revelation is a stunner to me and, I guess, to everybody else who knew him.“
• • ”I wouldn’t believe it if Dr. Gallagher, whom I know to be a man of undoubted veracity, hadn’t said so,“ said Senator Bernard F. Martin. ”Well, truly, it’s most wonderful. Why, I knew him well. He was a member of the Tammany district organization, a hard worker for his party, and always had a good argument to put up for any candidate he favored. He used to come to the Iroquois Club to see me and pay his dues, and occasionally he would crack a joke with some of the boys. He was a modest little fellow, but had a peppery temper and could say some cutting things when anyone displeased him. Suspect he was a woman? Never. He dressed like a man and talked like a very sensible one. The only thing I ever thought eccentric about him was his clothing. Now that they say he’s a woman, I can see through that. You see, he also wore a coat a size or two too large, but of good material. That was to conceal his form. He had a bushy head of black hair, which he wore -long and parted on the left side. His face was always smooth, just as if he had just come from the barber’s.“
• • ”He never sought political preferment for himself, but often said a good word that helped along a deserving friend. And he could say nice things and some bad things about a man, too. Just as cleverly any one of the big politicians.
• • “Why,” continued the Senator, "when the County Democracy was in the heyday of its glory, Murray Hall was one of the bright stars in that constellation. He was the Captain of his election district when he lived and kept an intelligence office between Seventeenth and Eighteenth Street, on Sixth Avenue. That was some years ago, when the district was cut down, making Fourteenth Street the northern boundary. Hall moved so as to be in with his political pals. He used to hobnob with the big guns of the County Democracy, and I knew he cut quite some figure as a politician.

• • • A "GOOD FELLOW“ • • •

• • ”He finally tired of his political associations, and came to me. He asked to be taken back into the fold. He was a ‘good fellow,’ and kept a good line on the voters of the district. He knew most everybody and most everybody knew him, and I thought he would be a very acceptable acquisition. He had formerly been a member of Tamany Hall, and had many friends in the organization. He was at the polls every election day, voted once any way, as they say, and helped get out the vote. We made him a member of the General Committee, and he was always present and participated in the proceedings until the last two years. His health had been bad as a result of being knocked down on Fifth Avenue by a bicycle, and he had not been very active in politics of late."
• • Joseph Young, one of Senator Martin’s most trusted lieutenants and an officer of the Iroquois Club, was the Tamany Captain of the district when Murray Hall served in the same capacity for the County Democracy.
• • “I knew him well,” said Young, “and I remember that we both worked tooth and nail to get the larger vote. If he’s a woman, he’s the wonder of all the ages, sure’s you live, for no man could ever suspect it from his habits and actions.”
• • “Why he had several run-ins when he and I were opposing Captains. He’d try to influence my friends to vote against the regular organization ticket and he’d spend money and do all sorts of things to get votes. A woman? Why, he’d line up to the bar and take his whisky like any veteran, and didn’t make faces over it, either. If he was a woman he ought to have been born a man, for he lived and looked like one.”
• • The late Patrick McCabe, who was Chief Clerk of the Jefferson Market Police Court, was an intimate friend of Hall. They had been associated in politics for years, attended chowders together, drank, smoked, and had many good times, but McCabe died without the knowledge of the fact that his chum and colleague was a woman.
• • While McCabe was located in the Jefferson Market Court, Hall began the career of a professional bondsman. The singular character often befriended unfortunates for a consideration, and was doing a profitable business until, on one occasion, he qualified in a sum that aroused the Court’s suspicion.
• • On investigating the bondsman’s alleged wealth it was discovered that Hall had only about $5,000 in real estate, which consisted of five lots in West Chester willed to him by his “wife,” "and a few thousand dollars in bank."
• • Hall was arrested after attending a meeting at the Iroquois Club one night and locked up in the Macdougal Street Station, but didn’t stay long.
• • On the way to the station the policeman who had the prisoner in charge accepted an invitation to step into Skelly’s saloon, at Tenth Street and Greenwich Avenue. They had several drinks, for which Hall paid. In the meantime Skelly had sent out for several politicians, who accompanied the officer and his prisoner to the station house. Skelly furnished a bond and Hall was released.
• • The party returned to Skelly’s and had more drinks. Then Hall and several friends went to the Grapevine, Eleventh Street and Sixth Avenue, then to Teddy Ackerman’s, across from Jefferson Market, drinking wine in both places until they reached a high state of enthusiasm.

• • • ASSAULTED A POLICEMAN • • •

• • Hall was coaxed outside, refused to go home, and started in to whip Policeman O’Connor, who tried to arrest him, and succeeded in putting a storm cloud draping under the officer’s eye before he was handcuffed. Hall was finally returned to the station house two hours from the time of the first arrest, locked up, and kept over night. Next day his political friends “squared it,” and he was released.
• • Hall’s acquaintances, including Senator Martin, say that he appeared to be about fifty years of age. The death certificate places the age at seventy years.
• • John Bremer, proprietor of the Fifteenth Ward Hotel, Ninth Street and Sixth Avenue, knew Hall well, and had some business dealings with him. “He was a shrewd, bright man, in my estimation,” said Mr. Bremer, “and I wouldn’t believe he was a woman if it wasn’t for Dr. Gallagher’s statement.”
• • “He used to send people from his intelligence office to room here for a day or two, and often came himself to see somebody stopping here. He’d drink anything from beer up, but I never saw him smoke, though they say he did, and chew, too.”
• • “Yes, 'n play poker or pinochle and was sweet on women,” broke in a lawyer who lives at the hotel. "I’ve known him for a number of years. He could drink his weight in beer and stand up under it.
• • "Why, I saw him play poker with a party of the Jefferson Market clique one night, and he played the game like a veteran. And for nerve, well, I can’t believe that he was a woman, that’s all. He stood two raises, when a jackpot had been opened, on two nines. I stood directly back of him and saw the play.
• • "The opener drew a card. The next man drew two cards, the third man drew three cards. When Hall called for two, I thought he was crazy, for there was about $75 in the pot, and he didn’t have an ace or a face card to hold up with his pair.
• • It was a tray he held out for a ‘kicker’ and blame me if he didn’t pull another tray and a nine spot. He made all but the opener lay down, and would have been betting yet if he hadn’t got a call. He beat out three aces and got about $125 all told. He had a cigar in his mouth that night, but I don’t believe he lit it.
• • “So he’s a woman, eh? Well, I’ve read of such characters in fiction, but, if it’s true, Hall’s case beats anything in fact or fiction I can recall.”

• • • MRS. MEYER’S STORY • • •

• • Mrs. Johanna Meyers, who keeps a newsstand - cigar store at 109 West Tenth Street, knew Hall for many years.
• • “He used to come in here and buy papers and books, but never tobacco,” she said yesterday. "His wife used to come in, too. She was a large, good-looking woman, almost twice her husband’s weight. She did most of the business in the intelligence office up to the time of her death. She never intimated to me that her husband was a woman, neither did Hall himself nor their adopted daughter, Minnie.
• • "Last week Wednesday Mr. Hall sent a servant around here with a message that he was very sick and for me to call without fail between 2 and 3 o’clock next afternoon. My husband was very bad from the grip at the time, and I didn’t get a chance to go. He didn’t send for me again. He thought a great deal of me and used to come in and sit down and read for hours.
• • "On my last birthday he gave me a large cake for a present. Not once did I ever suspect from word or action that he was masquerading and was really a woman. I believe that he meant to confide in me and tell me his secret when he sent for me. If I had only suspected I certainly would have gone to see him. His adopted daughter, Minnie, was here this morning.
• • "The poor girl is terribly shocked over the disclosure. She said she had always believed her foster father was a man, and never heard her foster mother say anything that would lead her to suspect otherwise."
• • Minnie Hall, the adopted child, is the sole heir. She is twenty-two years old, and Lawyer Thomas Moran, who drew the will, says she is the only beneficiary named. The estate, he said, will not exceed $10,000 or $12,000.
• • Where Murray Hall came from, or who she really was, no one seems to know, not even the adopted daughter. It was about twenty-five years ago that “he” first came to public notice in New York. About that time he opened an employment bureau in Sixth Avenue, near Twenty-third Street. He had with him a woman known as his wife.
• • After about three years the wife made complaints to neighbors that her husband was making her life miserable: that he flirted with clients and paid altogether too much attention to other women. This woman suddenly disappeared. Whither she went, when or how, no one knows. The husband never spoke of her after her disappearance, and no one cared enough to make inquiries.
• • About fifteen years ago Hall moved to a building between Seventeenth and Eighteenth Streets, where he soon after introduced the woman who was known as Mrs. Hall, as his second wife. The couple seemed to get along peaceably until seven years ago, when they moved to 145 Sixth Avenue. Then, neighbors say, they quarrelled, Mrs. Hall declaring her husband was too attentive to other women. That was the first known of Minnie Hall, the adopted daughter.
• • Who the child was or where she came from is as much a mystery as the early history of Murray Hall. How a man could for so many years impersonate a man without detection, deceiving even her physician and some of the cleverest men and women in New York with whom she frequently came in contact, though the secret must have been known to at least two others — the wives — is a mystery quite as inexplicable as the character that accomplished the feat. [Source: New York Times, 19 January 1901.]
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Sketch: tk
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Watch the NYPL Waste $184,000 +

2005-12-27T05:16:00.000-08:00

When the New York Public Library sent their usual soft-touch gimme letters out this year, they added a new item.

They asked WHY NOT? of past donors who were about to check "NO, I cannot contribute to the NYPL this year."
• • Several Greenwich Villagers reported that they gave this answer: "You wasted $184,000 + of taxpayers' money by commissioning an interior renovation plan for Jefferson Market Library without consulting the community first nor doing a Needs Assessment, therefore, you don't need more $$$ to throw at Susan C.Y.A. Kent. Fire this loser, then we'll talk."
• • Keep those cards and letters coming.
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Sketch: Jefferson Market by Yee
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Up the Pressure? Yes, sir!

2005-12-26T01:07:00.000-08:00

Worth reposting here is a recent letter to the editor of The Villager that comments on how the New York Public Library has failed to maintain the facade on Jefferson Market, a beloved landmark.
• Keep up pressure for Ol’ Jeff •
To The Editor:
• • Heartfelt thanks to you all for the wonderful article by Albert Amateau regarding the library. I am thrilled that you have brought the building’s most immediate crisis to the light of day with your front-page headline: “Facade fix is overdue, say Ol’ Jeff advocates” (news article, Dec. 7). Time is the building’s enemy and speedy attention is crucial. Don’t let them drop the ball. Three cheers for The Villager!
Cynthia Crane Story
from: The Villager * Vol. 75, No. 31 | December 21 - 27, 2005
Read more: http://www.thevillager.com/
___
• • City Councilmember Christine Quinn approved $1.7 million [in 2004 and 2005] for re-doing the interior of Jefferson Market Library.
• • • • Request info or comment • • • •
Carin Mirowitz - carin.mirowitz@council.nyc.ny.us and/ or
Christine Quinn via fax: 212-564-7347;
via postal mail: 224 West 30th Street [Suite 1206], New York, NY 10001.
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Sketch: Jefferson Market
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

NYPL: Why the $ecrecy?

2005-12-24T02:06:00.000-08:00

Worth reprinting here is a recent letter to the editor of The Villager asking the New York Public Library Why the secrecy about the public funding that you received?

• • • Won’t be quiet on library • • •
To The Editor:
• • The Jefferson Market Library is a landmarked building and nothing has been done to repair its exterior. There appears to be no money for repair. In the meantime, scaffolding remains.
• • At the same time there are sufficient funds for construction and renovation of the interior of the library. This makes no sense at all. Who allocated the funding? Why the secrecy?
• • Jefferson Market Library is one of the most utilized branches in Manhattan and many people from all walks of life use it extensively. Villagers are dependent upon its books, inter-library loans, DVDs/ videotapes, access to research and computer facilities. It will be devastating if it closes for any length of time. The preponderance of users are adults, moms and their children, not teenagers. The proposal to relocate half the reference section to the second floor that is currently crowded to make way for teenagers’ needs is outrageous.
• • I hope the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, of which I am a member, gets out in front of this important issue.
Edith Penty
from: The Villager * Vol. 75, No. 31 | December 21 - 27, 2005
Read more: http://www.thevillager.com/
___
• • City Councilmember Christine Quinn approved $1.7 million [in 2004 and 2005] for re-doing the interior of Jefferson Market Library.
• • • • Request info or comment • • • •
Carin Mirowitz - carin.mirowitz@council.nyc.ny.us and/ or
Christine Quinn via fax: 212-564-7347;
via postal mail: 224 West 30th Street [Suite 1206], New York, NY 10001.
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Sketch: Jefferson Market postmark
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jeff: The Aggregate of Many Small Things

2005-12-23T02:00:00.000-08:00

Relieved that the NYC Transit Strike is over, Jeff recalls the Gilbert Elevated Railway's construction on Sixth Avenue in front of the Jefferson Market Courthouse at Ninth Street. [This illustration was printed in Railroad Gazette, 8 March 1878.]

• • At the turn of the century, the triangular parcel between Sixth Avenue, Greenwich Avenue, and 10th Street was thus entirely occupied, and connected to the rest of the city by the Gilbert Elevated Railway’s Sixth Avenue line, inaugurated in 1878. . . .
• • The opening of the Metropolitan Elevated was the greatest single advance in rapid transit that the city had ever seen. But after years of delay, things were now happening so fast that the the Sixth Avenue El was to be surpassed within the same year. ...
• • 33,700 TWU workers returned to work 23 December 2005
• • 7 million New Yorkers renew their appreciation for subways and buses
• • " Nihil est aliud magnum, quam multa minute."
[There is not anything so powerful as the aggregate of many small things.]
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Sketch: Jefferson Market in March 1878
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jeff: Every Breeze Whispers Louise

2005-12-22T02:04:00.000-08:00

On DAY 3 of the NYC Transit Strike, Jeff recalls a feisty freethinker who lived across from Jefferson Market Jail on Patchin Place. Louise Bryant [December 5, 1885 - January 6, 1936], a journalist, writer, and feminist, was known for her Marxist writings and bohemian lifestyle. She figured as one of Eugene O'Neill's important loves. He based Nina in his play "Strange Interludes" on her. She wed reporter John Reed, and they spent time in Russia together (1917 - 1918) writing articles about the pending revolution.

__________________
• • The film Reds was based on her life with John Reed.
• • Louise Bryant and John Reed maintained a residence at Patchin Place for several years until Reed's death at age 33 in 1920. It was in Greenwich Village that he wrote his eyewitness account of the Russian Revolution, Ten Days That Shook the World.
• • During their stormy relationship, Louise Bryant focused on her writing career, becoming a front-line war correspondent in World War I. She and Reed worked together in Russia during the Revolution, and her book, Six Red Months in Russia, made her an authority on Russian politics and socialism.
• • For readers acquainted with Louise Bryant only through Diane Keaton's portrayal of her in Warren Beatty's film Reds, a few biographies offer a welcome reassessment. Though one contemporary complained that she "had no right to have brains and be so pretty," Bryant was also unabashedly independent - - a professed suffragist since college.
• • Look for these titles at Jefferson Market Library:
• • QUEEN OF BOHEMIA: THE LIFE OF LOUISE BRYANT by Mary V. Dearborn [Houghton Mifflin, January 1996]
• • SO SHORT A TIME: A BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN REED & LOUISE BRYANT by Barbara Gelb [W.W. Norton, 1973]
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Jefferson Market from Patchin Place
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Superficially, all was quiet

2005-12-21T00:11:00.000-08:00

On DAY 2 of the NYC Transit Strike, Jeff remembers an energetic author who lived across from Jefferson Market Jail on Patchin Place.

• • John "Jack" Silas Reed [October 22, 1887 – October 19, 1920], journalist and activist, became famous for his first-hand account of the Bolshevik Revolution called Ten Days that Shook the World. He was the husband of the writer and feminist Louise Bryant and he also was the subject of a movie Reds [1981].
• • Will the TWU hold the subways and buses hostage for TEN days? Jeff hopes not. Meanwhile, do sample an evocative line or two from Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed
Day broke on a city in the wildest excitement and confusion, a whole nation heaving up in long hissing swells of storm. Superficially, all was quiet; hundreds of thousands of people retired at a prudent hour, got up early, and went to work. . . .
With brakes released the Military Revolutionary Committee whirled, throwing off orders, appeals, decrees, like sparks. . . .
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Jefferson Market captured by Trevor Little
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jeff Market: El Finale

2005-12-20T02:12:00.000-08:00

While Gotham is in the grip of a worrisome transit strike, Old Jeff recalls the last week of railway service on the 6th Avenue Elevated Train in 1938: El Finale. Meanwhile, a New York reporter who had covered the courts in 1936 describes Greenwich Village during the Depression.

New York City Below Forty-Second Street, 1936

Now, what shall I say of Greenwich Village?

• • 'What,' asks Will Irwin, 'would you say now if I, who have frequented Greenwich Village for twenty-two years, pronounced this Greenwich Village a myth? At least, it was a myth in the beginning. Afterward a little commercial exploitation made it for a time almost a reality. And then - it faded back into the ghostly world of fancy.... The true story centers around a real-estate scheme which had a success wholly unexpected - both in volume and in character.'
• • Greenwich Village (of course, you know it's called Grenidge) is, next to the Battery, the oldest settlement of white men on Manhattan. . . .
• • . . . At the junction of Sixth Avenue and Greenwich Avenue and 10th Street, is the famous old Jefferson Market Police Court, with a tall new Women's House of Detention in the rear. Many an evening I spent there when the Women's Night Court was held here and I was writing about the girl problem.
• • Those were the days of `willow plumes,' which cost quite prodigiously. Not to flaunt a willow plume was to be unendurably `low-caste.' And the way of the willow plume, for many low-paid girls, led to the Night Court. . . .
• • [author unknown - a New Yorker's remembrance from 1936]
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: 6th Avenue El passes Jefferson Market during its final week of service 1938
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jefferson Market: Homeward, Angel

2005-12-19T01:42:00.000-08:00

What a world it would be if every convicted felon could turn her courtroom conviction and incarceration into a million-dollar script. And what sweet victory it would be to recreate a real trial [in 1927 at Jefferson Market Court in New York] as a humorous Hollywood replay during which the accused turns victrix.

___________________________________________
• • Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we present Mae West, re-doing the 1927 Jeff effort as a 1933 box office triumph in "I'm No Angel" [premiered 14 October 1933, Paramount Theatre].
• • Actor Gregory Ratoff plays the Prosecutor; Walter Walker plays the Judge; Cary Grant plays Jack Clayton.
• • Mae West, adorable avenging angel, is Tira the lion tamer.
• • Because at Jefferson Market today we need a little Christmas angel. . . .
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: Mae West on trial in 1927 and on screen in 1933
NYC
New York Public Library
Mae West.

Jefferson Market: The Darkest Evening

2005-12-17T04:45:00.000-08:00

______________________________
. . . The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
______________________________
• • excerpt: "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
• • Robert Frost [March 26, 1874 - January 29, 1963]
• • poem published in 1923
_______________________________
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: female inmates, all of them drug addicts, try to stay warm in the Women's House of Detention, formerly located on Sixth Avenue & Greenwich, December 1954
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jeffersoniana

2005-12-16T03:34:00.000-08:00

"A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable."
• • Thomas Jefferson [letter to John Adams, 8 September 1817]

__________________
The walls of Jefferson Market have been "witnesses of suffering" and at the mercy of the NYPL's Susan C.Y.A. Kent and appalling Paul [Fat Cat] LeClerc. Have these two read any books by John Ruskin?
. . . [T]he greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, or in its gold. Its glory is in its Age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval or condemnation, which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity.... It is in that golden stain of time that we are to look for the real light, and color, and preciousness of architecture; and it is not until a building has assumed this character, till it has been entrusted with the fame, and hallowed by the deeds of men, till its walls have been witnesses of suffering, and its pillars rise out of the shadows of death, that its existence, more lasting as it is than that of the natural objects of the world around it, can be gifted with even so much as these possess of language and of life.
• • John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1880
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Sketch: whimsical Jefferson Market
NYC
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Jefferson Market: Gay

2005-12-15T03:39:00.000-08:00

Awaiting word about a transit strike, threatening to paralyze the good people of Gotham, Old Jeff hears the distant echo of conversations between two sisters [late residents of 14 Gay Street] who had to endure heart-stopping blasts of dynamite shaking their apartment as the Seventh Avenue subway was being built during the 1930s. Ruth McKenney's stories about her sister Eileen were often printed in The New Yorker, and mentioned incidents at Jefferson Market Court; these were collected in the 1938 bestseller My Sister Eileen.
• • Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov adapted the short fiction into a play, My Sister Eileen, which ran on Broadway 1940-1943. December 26th, 1940 was opening night at the Biltmore Theatre.
• • Four days before, author Nathanael West [October 17, 1903 - December 22, 1940] was in California with his bride, Eileen McKenney. Racing to catch their train to New York, they ran a stop sign and died in a car accident.
• • Distraught and bereaved, Ruth McKenney never saw the play.
• • Et in Arcadia ego.
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Sketch: Gay Street 1890s
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

In December We Remember . . .

2005-12-14T01:11:00.000-08:00

Since the New York Public Library had planned to commission an extravagant mural for a new teen lounge at Jefferson Market Library, it's fitting to commemorate a fresco, highly praised in its day, designed to have a good psychological effect on 420 female inmates by a Swiss-born artist who resided in Greenwich Village from 1931-39. [And, yes, we know WHY the NYPL fat-cats were going after a mural. . . a juicy vainglorious back-door tale for another day.]
• • There may have been many dark nights of the soul suffered in the Women's House of Detention [once located on Sixth Avenue at Greenwich Avenue as part of the Jefferson Market Judicial site] but the series created by WPA muralist Lucienne Bloch did not draw on the visual language for dread.

__________________
• • In 1935-6, Lucienne Bloch [1909-1999], the 26-year-old daughter of composer Ernest Bloch, lived at 53 Leroy Street when she was working on the 12th floor of the women's prison -- a space partly open to the elements.
• • She recalled: “At my first visit to the Women's House of Detention where I was assigned to paint a mural, I was made sadly aware of the monotonous regularity of the clinic tiles and vertical bars ... [and] it seemed essential to bring art to the inmates by relating it closely to their own lives. ... I chose the only subject which would not be foreign to them — children — framed in a New York landscape of the most ordinary kind... . The tenements, the trees, the common dandelions were theirs."
• • By late September 1935, Bloch completed the first panel [7' x 16'] of "Cycle of a Woman's Life from Childhood to Womanhood" - - and was forced to put the project aside until the mild weather returned in spring, enabling her to paint outdoors.
• • In December 1935, Bloch was part of the grand opening exhibition that would inaugurate the first WPA Federal Art Gallery in the USA [7 East 38th Street]. This group show focused on murals designed for public buildings. Along with Bloch, the artists represented included Moses Soyer, Arshile Gorky, Alfred Crimi, etc.
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Shown: Lucienne Bloch & Panel 1 from "Cycle of a Woman's Life from Childhood to Womanhood," a mural commissioned for the Women’s House of Detention [demolished during the 1970s]
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

Truth Tissued Off a Façade

2005-12-13T01:40:00.000-08:00

Britain 'threw away lead in face/ façade race'
America guilty of 'unimaginable architectural neglect'
By Roger Highfived, Engineering and Science Editor

Britain could have carried out the world's first face transplant but threw away its potential lead in research eight years ago because of ethical concerns, according to the president of the International College of Surgeons.

• • • Face-transplant Pioneer a Front-Runner in Façade Transplant • • •

• • Prof Likem Goodenuff said the controversy over the pioneering surgery on Isabeau Dintimoore, 38, by a team of French doctors last month mirrored how he had been stopped from carrying out the world's first hand transplant in 1997.
• • The operation on Miss Dintimoore was made possible by composite tissue allotransplantation - - the technique that had been used to give Clint Hallandall, a New Zealander, a new hand.
• • Prof Goodenuff, who then worked at Saint Mary's Hospital in London, said he had agreed to consider - - conditionally - - an operation on the face of Jefferson Market. He is awaiting funding for the façade transplant as well as an ethics committee approval, he said. "Because we knew the Americans were not about to do it, I said let's try the French. And I am thinking of moving all of these procedures to Lyons in the future. This is a true story and people tend to forget this history."
• • Prof Jean-Michel Doute's team in Lyons, joined by Prof Goodenuff and Mr Boowen, had carried out a previous façade-transplant in 1998, beating a rival American team in Louisville, Kentucky.
• • Last month, Prof Doute operated on Miss Dintimoore using tissue from a donor on life support. Prof Goodenuff said: "We owe everything to the cooperation of French scientists, even the face transplant."
• • He added that criticism of the French team, notably on whether Jefferson Market was too old to be suitable for the operation and if traditional methods should have been used first, was driven by jealousy among rival experts. "Americans have so little sense of history, I must say, whether you like it or not. A French façade would never have been permitted to deteriorate and suffer unimaginable architectural neglect to that extent," he said, shaking his head. . . .
- - excerpt: article by Roger Highfived, Engineering & Science Editor [Filed: 12/12/2005]- -
___ ___
If you care about the façade of Jefferson Market, please contact:
Landmarks Commission Violation Officer Jessica Schmidt: T 212-669-7948
Landmarks Commission Violation Officer Anne Carlin: T 212-669-7951
___ ___
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Sketch: Night Court, Jefferson Market [1895]
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.

It Takes a Villager: Carol Embraces Jeff

2005-12-11T21:48:00.000-08:00

Former Councilmember Carol Greitzer was very gracious and kind to grant permission to reprint her essay [published by The Villager] on Old Jeff's blog.
___
A personal perspective on the Jefferson Market Library
We saved the library once before; here we go again
By Carol Greitzer

“Yonduh is the castle of my fadduh.”
• • I somehow found myself recalling that Tony Curtis parody (from some movie I never saw) when I was walking up Sixth Avenue, approaching the Jefferson Market Courthouse from the south. I looked upward, and even though I pass the site nearly every day, I was surprised anew both by the number of turrets and towers, and the variety of their sizes and shapes. I tried to put myself in the shoes of a tourist emerging from the subway or the PATH station. What a startling, but pleasant, experience it must be for them, expecting to see funky, trendy Greenwich Village, but instead encountering this apparently medieval castle incongruously set down in the heart of the city.
• • This building is not only a unique landmark, but it’s one that has a special meaning for Villagers, because we saved it from demolition. What’s more significant — we did it before there was a Landmarks Preservation Law, five years before the existence of a Landmarks Preservation Commission!

• • The community reacted en masse and unanimously to the news that the New York Public Library wanted to tear down the empty, run-down building and construct a modern brick box that would provide the Village with a bigger library as a replacement for the small Jackson Square branch.

We all loved the idea of a larger branch, but not the proposed nondescript new building. So every organization got together to save our courthouse, under the leadership of Margot Gayle and Philip Wittenberg. Civic, political, fraternal, religious groups — we all got involved. My personal contribution was to dream up a children’s treasure hunt during the 1959 Christmas holiday season. I must confess, 46 years later, that I rigged the program so that after identifying a number of landmarks, the kids all agreed that the “castle” would make a super library. The publicity in The Villager and elsewhere also helped the cause.
• • Then in 1960 a mob of us — representatives of every Village organization — trooped down to a meeting in the huge office of James Felt, the chairman of the City Planning Commission. I was there as president of the then insurgent Village Independent Democrats, joining with the Tamawa Democrats, the Republican Club and others to plead our case. My recollection is that there were 40 or 50 people in the room, and everyone made a little speech. But the part I remember best was coming home in Tony Dapolito’s bakery truck with Ruth Wittenberg and the poet E.E. Cummings, who lived at Patchin Place. He was impressed by the theatricality of the event, and perhaps by our performances. “Do things like this go on often?” he asked.
• • At any rate, we saved the building, which was magnificently restored by architect Giorgio Cavaglieri. I remember the tours of the premises with pigeons flying overhead in the big courtroom known famously as the scene of Mae West’s appearance for “obscenity.” Also, about this time I was called into a meeting with the head of the Housing & Development Agency (Judge Milton Mollen) and Joe Papp, in the pre-Public Theater days when he was seeking an indoor venue for his Shakespeare Theater. In the tradition of the Equity Library Theater, Joe wondered whether the basement of the future Jefferson Library might be available. While I wished him well, I told them both about the existing plans and our expectations of having a great reference room occupying the unusual vaulted basement.
• • Yes, our community played a key role in creating this library, and we resent unwanted changes being thrust upon us without any input from library users. We were astounded at the news that library officials were planning to destroy our reference room, the very one that has functioned so beautifully all these years — but even more troublesome is the fact that the so-called plan they presented is incomplete. They will devote half the basement to some sort of teen facility, but have not as yet determined what will go into the basement’s other half. As to the reference room — well, that will go up to the second floor somewhere — they have not as yet determined where. What is more alarming is the fact that on more than one occasion, these officials carefully avoided referring to a reference “room.” All they would promise was that the reference “materials” would all be relocated. So instead of a secluded, relatively quiet room where people can do serious research, we may be left with reference “materials” housed near circulation shelves, subject to a constant stream of traffic.
• • Actually, some of the ideas make sense, like utilizing now wasted space on the main floor and freeing up the current checkout area and some back rooms on the second floor. Here’s where they might install whatever facility they have in mind for teenagers. (Parenthetically, several people have questioned the rationale behind this whole teenage concept. Library officials have targeted the 12-to-18-age group, which doesn’t make sense. The former are emerging from childhood; the latter are practically adults.) As for the existing reference room, a heavily used quiet refuge — as someone at a recent meeting shouted, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
• • Several years ago, community board member Ed Gold reminds me, he served on what was a very effective branch library council, which met monthly under the aegis of Branch Libraries Director Ed Holmgren. This group dealt with budget issues and other matters, bringing up concerns of the individual branches, and reporting back to the communities. Many “friends of library” committees sprang up, becoming an effective lobbying group at budget time. These friends were also instrumental in forcing the N.Y.P.L. to change its fundraising appeals. For the first time, donors could specify where they wanted their money to go — either to the Research Library or to the Branches. Activists were the force that kept the libraries open when they were threatened with drastically curtailed hours. In fact, the Jefferson Market Library was once actually slated for a total shutdown!
• • This activist group has been disbanded, to be replaced by something called the Borough Advocacy Committee, which meets only twice a year. It took several days, and chats with several people before I could uncover this information. When I asked for a list of the committee members, the initial response was “No problem.” But a few hours later, “on advice of counsel,” I was told that “to protect their privacy,” the names could not be given out.
• • My argument that the library’s mission was supposed to facilitate access to information got me nowhere. Nor did my query as to how this “advocacy” group could function if no one knew who the members were. So if there’s anyone out there who is serving as a library advocate, please, please make yourself known to us.
• • And please start advocating. Your help is needed — desperately.

• Greitzer was City Councilmember for the Village, Chelsea, and Midtown 1969-’91.
___ ___
• Published in The Villager [Vol. 75, No. 29 • December 7-13, 2005]
Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Greitzer's words form a clear enough picture of the NYPL
New York Public Library
Jefferson Market.