Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
In fact, Gil Kerlin split from Friends of the Greenbelt, the organization that was leading the battle against the proposed development. As you can discern from The Times article (though the writing is not as clearl as it might be) he favored the developer’s plan to build 72 units in the kind of condominium development typical at the time in Westchester, arguing that since development was inevitable, low-rise condos of this sort would be preferable to apartment buildings. The Friends organization, which won the fight, favored single-family homes on larger lots.
The late Gilbert Kerlin, who in 1954 championed the effort to preserve the area west of the parkway for private homes when developers sought to build highrises and who founded the Riverdale Nature Preservance 50 years or so later saw mapped but unbuilt streets as part of the arsenal of those who sought to block out-of-character development. They can’t be built on. So many preservationists want them to remain on the city map, not to be removed.
I have a decorative plate depicting the Henry Hudson statue that the bank gave to customers, though I don’t know if it was an opening-day gift or just a premium for opening an account at any time.
My parents bought our first television at Progress. It was a Hoffman, and it had a green screen. I’m not sure of the year, but it was no later than 1953, because neighbors who had no tvs watched the coronation of Queen Elizabeth at our apartment. The owner at the time was a family friend, Irving Schilian. When he sold the store, he became the advertising manager of The Riverdale Press, a position he filled with distinction for decades. When I was the editor of The Press, the store’s owner was Tom Travis. A founder, I believe, and certainly the leader, of the Kingsbridge Chamber of Commerce, he was one of the leaders of the boycott and picket lines at the Dale Theater on W. 231st St. when the movie house began showing porn. Tom was a zealous advocate for the neighborhood and its businesses–an overzealous one, I often thought, as I fended off his demands for favorable coverage, accompanied by threats of withholding advertising. I’m not sure any of this is helpful to the person who made the inquiry about her family history, but perhaps it will stir other memories from old-timers.
Does this summary of the archeology project in the park help? https://archaeology.cityofnewyork.us/collection/map/riverdale-park-archaeological-project/borough/bronx
Great find, but your description of Jim hardly does him justice. He was a great reporter and one of our finest writers. His Times obit included this: “In prose that might have leapt from best-selling novels, Mr. Dwyer portrayed the last minutes of thousands who perished in the collapse of the World Trade Center’s twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001; detailed the terrors of innocent Black youths pulled over and shot by racial-profiling state troopers on the New Jersey Turnpike; and told of the coronavirus besieging a New York City hospital.” You can read his Pulitzer-winners here: https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/jim-dwyer And he was one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.
I’m pretty sure I recall Riverdale Press coverage of 6 Ploughman’s Bush. If memory serves, whether the current home was the Delafield hunting lodge or a later building was in dispute. However, Gilbert Kerlin, founder of the Riverdale Nature Preservancy and an intimate of Edward Delafield, the last of the family to live on the Delafield estate, told me that Delafield told him it was the hunting lodge. There’s also this: https://6tocelebrate.org/site/6-ploughmans-bush-building/
Here’s the correct link: https://blstein718.wordpress.com/2006/09/21/celebrate-a-celebrated-voyage/
The Riverdale Press tried to drum up interest in a similar celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Half Moon’s voyage. https://blstein718.wordpress.com/?s=Henry+Hudson Not for the first or the last time, it did not succeed.
In the 1950s when I was a boy, I thought Madame Chiang lived at 3900 Greystone Avenue, the apartment building where I grew up. She certainly visited there, and gave my parents an ornate bowl from China, which my mom proudly displayed in the living room for as long as she lived.
Incidentally, The Riverdale Press of the 1940s was a short-lived publication that had no relationship with today’s Riverdale Press, founded by my father David Stein in April 1950. Ah Ping was an early advertiser, and Tom Hsu and my father became friends. Mr. Hsu traveled to China frequently, and claimed to be working with U.S. intelligence. On one of his trips, he brought back a bolt of silk brocade fabric for my mom.
Their friendship ended when Mr. Hsu fell afoul of the law. In 1968, he was convicted of defrauding eight victims of $250,000 by claiming to be an aide to Madame Chiang’s husband Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek. He was furious that The Press reported his conviction. My father never ceased to regret the story and its consequences, but he always remained convinced of the necessity of reporting the news.
