405 Carlton Ave. used to be the 2nd largest "colored YMCA"

According to the YMCA archives, 405 Carlton Avenue has some interesting history:

The Carlton Avenue branch of the Brooklyn Young Men's Christian Association was opened in 1902 under the leadership of executive secretary Charles H. Bullock, who had organized a branch for African-Americans in his native Charlottesville, Virginia. He was asked to come to Brooklyn to organize the first colored branch in Brooklyn, reflecting the national YMCA's growing interest in serving special populations such as immigrants, railroad workers, boys and African Americans. The work was funded by several well-known philanthropists, including George Foster Peabody, Julius Rosenwald, John D. Rockefeller, and members of the African-American community in Brooklyn. After starting its operations in a brownstone at 405 Carlton Avenue, in Fort Greene, the branch opened a typical YMCA building in 1918. The structure boasted 70 dormitory rooms, a swimming pool, bowling alleys, showers, meeting rooms, game rooms and a social lounge. It was, according to the Brooklyn Eagle, the second largest "colored YMCA" in the world. Women were welcome at this branch, and could participate in physical education classes designed for them. The branch was known for the prowess of its baseball team. In its early years, the branch focused on helping young men who had migrated from the south to New York, offering an employment service and other programs designed to help newcomers adjust to the city.

The branch closed in 1955, reflecting the decline in the need for a special branch for African Americans, who had moved away from the immediate neighborhood around the branch and were now served by other YMCA programs and buildings. The new residents of the neighborhood, many of whom had moved to New York from Puerto Rico, did not participate in YMCA programs. Moreover, the Carlton building was showing its age, and the Brooklyn and Queens YMCA was not eager to put money into a branch whose services might overlap with other branches close by. Finally, a controversy in the early 1950s over the firing of the executive secretary Herbert T. Miller, who had held the post since 1941, split the board and made cordial relations with the larger association difficult. As of 2012, the former YMCA building was operating as a nursing home.

Please find the original text at http://special.lib.umn.edu/findaid/html/ymca/ygny0025.phtml

Observing the destruction of a row of 19th century buildings

Here is a painful video: a whole row of 19th century historic homes being demolished. I made a video starting at 233 Duffield Street headed down to Willoughby and over to Bridge. 233 and 227 Duffield are clearly connected to the abolitionist movement, but the other buildings were quite charming and could have been part of creative re-use. Instead, they all get destroyed. Here is a bit of an homage.

http://youtu.be/9eoMTBrdSzk

The recreation of Downtown Brooklyn is similar but even bigger than the corner of Prospect Heights dubbed Atlantic Yards by the developer. Many of the same people are involved.

I usually try to be uplifting, but there are times to just observe the destruction of New York and to honor it by at least acknowledging what we are doing to our city.

City Moves on "Stalled" Housing Project

One of the saddest stories of Brooklyn is how the residents of Prospect Plaza were kicked out of their homes to "renovate" their homes. That was more than a decade ago. Now, the City is so proud to announce that it has finally found a new developer for site.

Here's a link to one of the few articles on what I consider a huge scandal:

City Moves on Stalled Housing Project

This reminds me of the phrase "Justice delayed is justice denied."

Labor & Electeds Launch Campaign Against City Point

One of the largest projects in Brooklyn with the least oversight is City Point, the publicly-subsidized skyscraper at the former Albee Mall. Here is the most recent news from City & State:

A controversial development project in downtown Brooklyn is facing opposition from labor unions, community advocates and elected officials who say the developers are hiring non-union contractors that pay workers unfair wages and benefits. A portion of the City Point project, a large-scale retail, office, and residential complex on Flatbush Avenue Extension, is being financed with public money, including $20 million in Recovery Zone Facility Bonds from the 2009 stimulus package. As a result, union organizers and others say that the realtor, Acadia Realty Trust, should be held accountable for paying their workers a fair salary. “With respect to the City Point project, there is tremendous opportunity to ensure that working families and middle-class workers can benefit from an initiative that would not have been made possible without generous city subsidies," said U.S. Rep.-elect Hakeem Jeffries. “Public-private partnerships like City Point must deliver a clear benefit to the public if they’re going to make sense. That’s why this is an important campaign and I’m hopeful that Acadia will conclude that the right thing to do is to ensure that everyone benefits from this project.” Calls placed to Acadia for comment went unreturned.

For more, click here. 

Louis Brandeis, the progressive cabal and Social Security

Was Social Security the result of some sort of cabal? 

According to the US government Social Security website:

Some historians date the beginning of the health insurance movement in this country from a speech by Louis D. Brandeis (later a Supreme Court Justice) in 1911. Others point either to the Progressive Party's platform in 1912, to the establishment of the AALL's Social-Insurance Committee that same year, or to the First American Conference on Social Insurance (under AALL sponsorship) in Chicago in 1913. The debate did not begin in earnest, however, until 1915.

In any case, there seems to have been an alliance of progressive organizations that lead up to the establishment of Social Security. According to "American Economics Becomes a Policy Discipline:Economic Expertise during The Progressive Era" by Thomas C. Leonard:

The economic reform organizations formed a tight network; they shared personnel as well as common causes and methods. John R. Commons, for example, later served as NCL president, from 1923 to 1935. Henry R. Seager, A.B. Wolfe of Oberlin College, and Arthur Holcombe of Harvard were members of the NCL minimum-wage committee as early as 1909 (Hart 1994, 209 n. 94). Ely and Father John Ryan of Catholic University, author of A Living Wage and drafter of the 1913 Minnesota minimum wage legislation, were also active NCL advisers. Josephine Goldmark, sister-in-law to Louis Brandeis, was active in the NCL leadership. She supervised the production of the famous Brandeis Brief, an annotated compilation of social science reports defending maximum-hours (and in later versions, minimum-wage) legislation for women, which was completed with AALL assistance. Alice Goldmark Brandeis, another NCL stalwart, secretly paid the expenses of its Washington office (Bary 1972).

The NCL worked out of the United Charities Building in New York City, a Progressive Era symbol of the overlapping and interlocking network of progressive reformers. The Charities Building, also housed the National Child Labor Committee, the Charity Organization Service, the New York School of Philanthropy and two prominent reform journals, Outlook, edited by Lyman Abbott, and Paul Kellogg’s The Survey.27 The Russell Sage foundation, established in 1907, and funder of the landmark Pittsburgh Survey directed by Kellogg, tried, unsuccessfully, to locate its headquarters in the Charities Building. Josephine Goldmark, in her memoir of Florence Kelly, recalled the quip of a friendly visitor in 1906, “what’s this bunch calling itself today?” That day the bunch was being addressed by John R. Commons, who had traveled from Wisconsin to introduce the newly formed AALL.

German immigrants fighting for Lincoln and against tyranny

The defeat of the liberals in the 1848 revolution brought had a big impact on the Civil War in the United States. Many of these immigrants were considered German, though that meant something a bit different back them. According to "German Americans During the Civil War:"

Their numbers would swell until Germans made up a  full quarter of the fighting force of the American Civil War.

While 216,000 German-born men were on the rolls of both the North and the South, 177,000 of  them, the vast majority, fought in the Union Army, sixty seven later receiving the Medal of Honor.

New York Germans were particularly dedicated to the Union cause:

While the majority of Germans served in ethnically mixed units, about a fifth of German enlistees  served in units which were all German. Over 36,000 New York soldiers were of German descent  (the 20th New York Infantry alone lost 120 men), and almost a third of them served in all-German  units. The most notable were the 29th, 46th and 52nd New York. After New York came Missouri  with 30,000 Germans serving and the 12th and 17th Missouri regiments being all German.

The enthusiasm for Lincoln has its roots in Berlin of 1811, and this turned into a series of civic organizations around the US. According to A Regimental History of the  Twentieth Regiment, New York State  Volunteer Infantry:

The Turner societies, or turnvereins, which still exist today, trace their roots to a gathering near Berlin in 1811.  Their charge was to foster nationalism and patriotism through a program of disciplined physical training and gymnastics.  The name “Turner” seems to come from the German turnen, “to perform gymnastics,” an adaptation of the French tourner, meaning “to turn.”   Turner societies sprouted up throughout the German-speaking territories until their radical espousal of German unity and representative government led authorities to suppress them in the 1830’s.

When the Forty-eighters immigrated to the United States, turnvereins blossomed quickly in the new land and soon became a strong voice in the German community for political, social, and religious reform.  The societies were also centers of literary and cultural studies and gymnastic exercise.  Many local turnvereins also had associated military organizations called Turner Rifles or "Turner Schützen".  Their dual purpose was marksmanship and protection of the society members in the often violent environement where they lived.  In 1855 the Turners ventured into American politics with a strong anti-slavery stance and naturally gravitated to the newly formed Republican Party.  The following year they endorsed John C. Fremont for president.  Fremont, who would later become a Union major general, ran on a slogan that shines considerable light on his supporters’ political leanings:  "Free speech, free press, free work, and a free Kansas."

You can read more in the PDF "The New York Turn Verein."

Here is a link connecting Joseph Goldmark to this movement: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~dettweiler/genweb/e006.htm

Brahms, Hungary and Liberalism

As a Hungarian folk musician, I have been asked by the NY Philharmonic twice to join them on stage to perform in programs with the Brahms Hungarian Dances. Until recently, I just assumed that Brahms wrote the Hungarian Dances simply because he thought it exotic. I failed to realized that Brahms was deeply connected to Hungary through his formative relationship with Euard Remenyi.

I have begun to realize that I, probably like most people, fail to understand the political context of Brahms' music. Here's a bit from "Brahms the Beleaguered" published by the NY Sun (R.I.P.!) back in 2004:

One critic complained of Brahms's use of "Jewish-temple triplets." Another lumped him with Eduard Hanslick (whose book, "The Beautiful in Music," argued that music was a pure form, not directly expressive of emotions), Karl Goldmark, and Adalbert Goldschmidt as "the music-loving and music-making Jewry." Popular support for Bruckner - a composer scorned by Brahms - was, wrote Mr. Swafford, "identical with the struggle to form a new society purged of the Jew-ridden liberals." Brahms, who was not Jewish, found the trend repugnant. "I can scarcely speak of it," he said. "It seems so despicable to me."

"Think of the American culture wars," said Mr. Frisch. "You could see Brahms and Bruckner lined up for congressional hearings on the arts. It's ironic, because Brahms is often viewed as the conservative one. "Yet, while he kept one foot in the past, the other was always firmly planted in the future. Brahms, reported Clara Schumann, spoke of "how the old masters had the freest form, while modern compositions move within the stiffest and most narrow limits." He was simply looking beyond the limits of the then-popular style, and he encouraged many young composers to do the same.