Historical

(Photo:Wikipedia)

When I was in college, I wrote an ambitious paper about black people in Classical music. At the time, Leontyne Price, Grace Bumbry and Shirley Verrett were among the best known of a small group of classically trained singers who were changing the face of opera in the 1970’s, and I wanted to know about them, and become one of them. These ladies, as well as the other men and women who were in the profession, had to overcome skepticism, criticism on both sides of the racial divide, and out and out racism from many sources in order to become the great divas they were (and are.) But they never let the “isms” stop them from succeeding, and today are legends, and the inspirations for later singers like Jessye Norman, who would later inspire younger singers like me, and so on down the generational line. They, in turn, gave credit to earlier ladies like Marian Anderson, the first black singer at the Metropolitan Opera. They also gave their props to some amazing figures of the late 19th century, African American divas who took the Western world by storm. Brooklyn was an important stop in any diva’s tour schedule, so in this month of Black History, let’s celebrate the remarkable career of one of the greats, Madame Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones, known internationally as “the Black Patti.” (more…)

(Photo: Brooklyn Museum Archives)

On a spring Sunday morning, right after church services, on May 13, 1894, the great organ of the Brooklyn Tabernacle burst into flames. Within a matter of minutes, the fire spread to other parts of the church, like a flame going through a match box, and by the end of the day, the entire church was a burned out ruin. Not only did the fire destroy the third incarnation of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, it also destroyed the brand new Regent Hotel right next door, as well as caused damage to at least twelve other buildings in the immediate vicinity, including another church a block away. It was a conflagration of Biblical proportions, fed by flammable materials and a strong wind that blew burning cinders for blocks.

The church was called “Talmage’s Tabernacle” after its famous preacher, who had turned the church around, in less than twenty years, from a twelve member congregation to a mega-church with almost 3,000 members and another 2,000 weekly guests. The Reverend Doctor Thomas DeWitt Talmage had the gift of oratory, like no one else in Brooklyn since the great Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and a Sunday service in his church was a spiritual, theatrical and musical experience that couldn’t be missed. (more…)

(Rev. Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage. Photo: Autobiography, T. De Witt Talmage

The Second Presbyterian Church, at the Corner of Fulton and Clinton Street, was the site for the ecclesiastical “Trial of the Century” of popular preacher Rev. Dr. Thomas DeWitt Talmage, of the Brooklyn Tabernacle. There, he was to be held accountable for actions taken in his career, actions that his accusers told the larger Presbytery had been against church law. This was quite an accusation to make against one of Brooklyn’s most famous and popular ministers, a man who was second only to the great Rev. Henry Ward Beecher in popularity and standing. His enormous church, fondly called “Talmage’s Tabernacle”, was packed every Sunday, and Talmage was called upon by churches and important people across the United States and Europe, to speak and give advice. His sermons and lectures were circulated in pamphlets and books, and his church services were legendary for his enthusiastic, but intellectually stimulating sermons, and the thundering music of praise coming from the powerful organ, its massive pipes rising majestically behind the pulpit. At the keyboard of this instrument was George W. Morgan, one of the 19th century’s finest and most well-known organists. Talmage and Morgan made quite a team, and on that day in March, 1879, that team lay at the root of the some of the charges. (more…)

(Second Talmage Tabernacle, 1874. Photo: NY Public Library)

During the second half of the 19th century, the Reverend Doctor Thomas DeWitt Talmage was one of Brooklyn’s most famous preachers. Into his church, the Brooklyn Tabernacle, better known as “Talmage’s Tabernacle”, he brought passion, intelligence, wit, and not a little theatricality to his pulpit, and used those tools to persuade and cajole his audiences up to, and through, the gates of salvation. In this endeavor, he joined Henry Ward Beecher, and a handful of other 19th century Brooklyn preachers, as the mega-church pastors of their day. Although there were, and still are, dynamic preachers who literally scare the hell out of people with fire and brimstone pronouncements, Rev. Talmage’s sermons were instead much more intellectual, had practical and worldly references, and appealed to his urbane and sophisticated audience of Victorian-era Brooklynites, resulting in huge crowds of people coming each Sunday to hear him preach. (more…)

(Illustration: Wikipedia)

Brooklyn was not named the “City of Churches” only because of the many fine church buildings that graced her streets. She was also famous for some of the great men who took to their pulpits in these fine churches and thundered down the Word of the Lord to their congregations. The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher was probably the most famous of these 19th century preachers, and his sermons and anti-slavery fervor made him world famous. But he was not alone. The second half of the 19th century saw the rise of several other famous preachers, with the Reverend Dr. Thomas DeWitt Talmage probably second only to Henry Beecher himself, in terms of popularity, and the size of his congregation. Rev. Talmage, like Beecher, was a charismatic man, a speaker of great oratorical skill, and could fill a room like few others. And, like his fellow clergyman in the Heights, the Reverend Talmage’s triumphs, tragedies and tribulations were larger than life, as well. (more…)

What must have it been like to wake up in Brooklyn, on January 1, 1898, and realize that you were not in an independent city; you were now a part of Greater New York City? To be no longer the captain of your own team, but now only one of the players on someone else’s team. I would imagine for most people, especially the average working man in New York, the consolidation meant nothing, and it was just another New Year’s Day. Some Brooklynites embraced the change, eager to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the new rules. And some people, who were dead set against the whole thing, raged, mourned, and took pen in hand to complain, unable to do much more than stand, like Lee at Appomattox, and surrender their sword, outvoted, outgunned, and defeated.

The Brooklyn Eagle printed a lengthy complaint from one of these men, a citizen of Brooklyn who signed his letter “One to Serve”: “What would be the vote if Brooklyn’s citizens could vote again? Secession would be our rule. We would declare ourselves to be the City of Brooklyn, and that by an overwhelming vote…If we stay where we are and see taken from the borough offices everything that looked so promising in the massive charter to the citizen of Brooklyn, what satisfaction will it be? Where are we to get compensation for the great sacrifice we have made? What will be our reward? Will there be any? Will not the future generation arise up and condemn us to the surrender of the charter of a great city to become only one-fifth part of another city, whose moral forces were not to be compared to the City Of Churches?” (more…)

Currier & Ives print of Brooklyn. (Wikipedia)

Some like to think of the creation of Greater New York City as a battle of good and evil: “good” Brooklyn, the City of Churches and Homes, versus “evil” Manhattan, the City of graft, corruption and power run amok, and, as we all know, evil won. Well, like in all things, it’s never that simple. The real story is that there was enough power and corruption to go around, and the inevitability of the whole thing was probably in place from the day the Dutch started settling on both sides of the river.

It started with the waterfronts and rivers, and Manhattan always had the advantage. From the very beginning, it grabbed control of the bays, the East River, the Hudson and Harlem Rivers. When ferries began crossing back and forth to Brooklyn, Staten Island, New Jersey, the Bronx and Queens, they were all under a Manhattan-centric schedule and control. Water traffic was the lifeline of the city of New York, with goods and services coming and going, and people commuting to the financial and business center of Lower Manhattan. With everything and everyone coming to Manhattan, it was inevitable that a greater city would center in Manhattan. (more…)

(Political cartoon, 1894. Edward O’Donnell)

On January 1, 1898, the City of New York officially rose from the collection of cities, towns and neighborhoods that made up Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx. For those who had worked for close to twenty years to make this happen, it was a glorious day. For the common folk of New York, business probably just went on as usual. One could argue that Queens remained a collection of towns, loosely connected, and pretty independent, with much of it suburban in nature. One could certainly say that about Staten Island as well, which to this day doesn’t seem to really be a part of New York City. The Bronx has had a closer relationship with Manhattan, at least the southern part of the Bronx, just across the Harlem River, which Manhattan had already annexed, but the rest of the Bronx would also remain a collection of neighborhoods, much later, simply passed over by Robert Moses’ highway system. Northernmost Riverdale has always been more suburb than city. And then you have the relationship between Manhattan and Brooklyn. (more…)

With Brooklyn’s newly crowned status as the newest “Hippest Place on Earth” in 2011, comes some nostalgic feelings about the “Great Mistake”, the consolidation of New York City. On that fateful day, January 1, 1898, Brooklyn, the city, disappeared, and Brooklyn, the “outer borough”, was born. (As were the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island.) The decision to join all of the counties surrounding Manhattan into one central city was not made easily, quickly, or lightly. Politicians, businessmen, city fathers and ordinary citizens argued and lobbied for, or against this for almost twenty years. Involved was a tremendous amount of money and power, business interests, tax revenues, city bureaucracies, and social issues and civic identity. For some people, it was inevitable and progressive. For others, it was the end of the world as they knew it. For them, it was the Death of Brooklyn. The law that created the municipality of New York City was signed into law on May 1, 1897, but the talking and the negotiating had been going on for years beforehand, particularly between the city of Brooklyn, and the city of New York. (more…)