Monday, October 11, 2010

Gallery 2 - The late years of Old Equitable (1895 - 1912)

Sources: Google, Yahoo, NYPL Digital Gallery and Tim Brennan

Broadway, NY, 1896


The following pictures have been shared
by Tim Brennan from Madison Wisconsin.
after visiting the blog.

Picture(s) of a litography (1899)
 





Here are some pieces from the E-mail-exchange with Tim, giving you more information about the picture:

"This is an original and restored (in the original frame) 1899 American Lithograph Co hand colored street scene with the entire building as backdrop, done and signed by Charles Graham (signed fancifully as C. Graham 1899). As I have done a little research it tells me he was a very famous illustrator for Harper's Weekly magazine during the 1870's thru the early 1890's."

"The piece is signed C Graham (Charles Graham) '99 and was produced by the American Lithograph Co, NY - - - The title is "Equitable Building, New York." - - - Lithograph measures about 26"w x 35"t and overall with the original quarter sawn oak frame is 31"w x 40.5"t. "

"I am so glad that you liked the photos. As I was studying the lithograph I actually felt a sense of what the artist must have felt from the vantage point in which it was presented. It has majestic qualities and a vibrance that give the setting so much more than simply the image of a fine piece of architecture...it blends the world at street level with this great backdrop and adds a personal, humanistic character to a grand structure and presents it in a real down to earth way that most famous buildings lack. It has done a great job in transporting me into that scene with a feeling that seems natural and reminicsent of another era. (...) I live in Madison, Wisconsin, USA and this is where I found the lithograph. The '99 does mean 1899 as this is nearing the end of this famous illustrator's professional life as an artist. He worked for years as a contributing artist for the popular and well-known Harper's Weekly magazine, as well as becoming one of a number of famous chroniclers of America's wild west through their art work. (...) I do not know what the cupola building is or may have been...if I can find out more about it I will let know."

A big Thank You to Tim Brennan
for sharing this great picture.




This two pictures are part of the Broadway Street Views (1899)




Part of a 1900 New York skyline photo


Old Equitable 1906


Photo from the 1900s



Broadway in the 1900s (?)

Broadway in the 1900s, roadwork was caused by the construction of the New York Subway


Lower Manhattan in the 1900s

and some Stereo Cards from the late times





NEXT GALLERY
inside the old Equitable

4 comments:

  1. Fascinating; I'm wondering: Considering the enormous wealth, i.e., stocks, bonds, securities, located in the Equitable Insurance Building which was destroyed in 1912, was it a similar attack to 9/11 re extremely wealthy elite families involved in enormous financial frauds through attacks on each other?

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  2. interesting idea, a conspiration caused the end of the old Equitable Building. But on the other hand: the safety in the old buildings wasn't the same in 1912 as we know it now in the presence. When it reached it's end, the building was about 40 years old, build in 1870, maybe more wood and less steel and masonry than later buildings. The Equitable Fire wasn't the only spectacular fire in New York City at this time, remember the Triangle Shirtwait Factory Fire in spring 1911 or the Dreamland Park Fire in summer 1911. Times have changed and 1912 surely was a time, when people still had a lot to learn about fire and danger.

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  3. From: The World Order: A Study in the Hegemony of Parasitism, The history and practices of the parasitic financial elite-- by: Eustace Mullins, 1984

    CHAPTER FOUR: THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA\
    http://www.whale.to/b/mullins43.html

    Brown Brothers Harriman

    Harriman employed judge Robert Scott Lovett as general counsel for Union Pacific. When Harriman and Otto Kahn were summoned by the ICC in 1897, Lovett advised them to refuse to answer all questions about their stock operations. In 1908, the Supreme Court upheld their refusal to talk. The records of this case, SC No. 133 US v. UP RR, later disappeared from the Library of Congress. In 1911, [sic...1912] the Equitable Life Insurance building, which contained all the records of the Union Pacific RR, burned, destroying all UP papers to that date.

    Oh so redolent of Building 7, FCC, IRS, Secret Service...not to mention Global Crossing in Building 1. Can you believe that after the loss of data due to the Oklahoma City bombing in 1993, these essential government agencies still hadn't back up their computers? That is what we are asked to believe.

    The Equitable Life Assurance Building was as fire-proof as they come. The whole media narrative of the fire is as bogus as aluminum airplanes melting into steel structures on 9/11---although the 1912 effort was much more crude, given that more innocent and credulous era. The sharks were as corrupt and avaricious then as 2008.

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  4. Hello Steven Warran, thanks for these interesting informations, to fill the mosaic with knowledge about a lost and gone building. Schaedel

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