Horse Racing Venues - A Short Series

A shout out to my client, Michelle, who recently returned from a visit to her family, and brought me back a couple of postcards, including one of the Saratoga Race Course.  It inspired me to indulge in a "race track" series, although it might be a pretty short series.

Saratoga is the oldest sporting venue in the USA, opening in its current location in 1864.  Its most well-known race is the Travers Stakes which is the oldest thoroughbred race in the country.  Saratoga's nicknames provide a glimpse into its history:  "The Spa" and "The Graveyard of Favorites".  The Spa refers to the nearby hot springs.  There's actually a mineral springs located in the picnic grounds which produces potable water.  "The Graveyard of Favorites" is a reminder of significant  upsets that occurred here: "Man o' War suffered his only defeat in 21 starts while racing at Saratoga; Secretariat was defeated ... by Onion after winning the Triple Crown; and Gallant Fox was beaten by 100-1 longshot Jim Dandy in the 1930 Travers Stakes."

Note:  I don't think I have a postcard from Churchill Downs (Kentucky Derby) in my collection - I  have to check.  However, I have already posted one with the recipe for a Mint Julep, the official drink of the Kentucky Derby, here.

New York City Skyscrapers, III

While these postcards from the 1915 "New York City Skyscrapers Souvenir Folder" don't focus on any particular skyscraper, they do feature well-known intersections surrounded by skyscrapers.  In the upper left corner, Wall Street, looking pretty much the same today, with the exception of the cars and the clothes.  In the upper right corner, Herald Square,  known primarily by most non-New Yorkers from the line in the song Give My Regards to Broadway where the singer asks "remember me to Herald Square".  The flagship Macy's Store is also located here.  Next up, lower left, the intersection of 5th Avenue & 42nd Street, dead center of one of the most expensive shopping areas in the world and the location of the New York Public Library.  Finally, in the lower right, Times Square, nicknamed the "intersection of the world".  and well-known for the New Year's Eve midnight countdown and ball drop, the theater district, and its seedy past. Around the time of this picture, it became the eastern end of the Lincoln Highway, conceived  in 1913 as the first automobile road across the United States, starting from 5th & Broadway (part of Times Square) and ending in Lincoln Park, San Francisco, 3,389 miles away.  The route has been streamlined over the years, and is now 3,142 miles long.   [Road Trip Bucket List!]

P.S.  It's Flag Day and Postcard Friendship Friday.  Check out the posting (as well as the other postcard people's postings) for an interesting history of Flag Day.   

New York City Skyscrapers, II

Another couple of postcards from the 1915 "New York City Skyscrapers Souvenir Folder":

The Singer Building (left) sadly, no longer exists.  Opened in 1908, the Singer Building was the tallest building in the world for about a year, until the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Building (seen in yesterday's post) was opened in 1909.  It was built as the headquarters for the Singer Sewing Machine Company in the Second Empire Baroque Style.  Other examples of this style of architecture in NYC include the St. Regis Hotel, the Plaza Hotel, Temple Beth-El, and Lord & Taylor.  In 1968 it was demolished to make way for the U.S. Steel Building (currently known as One Liberty Plaza), making it the tallest building ever demolished due to replacement (as opposed to attack as was the case in the Avala TV building in Serbia or the World Trade Center Towers in NYC).  Check out the images at the first link, above.  It was spectacular!

The Whitehall Building (right) does still exist, having been turned into apartment buildings in 1999.  It is located at 17 Battery Place next to Battery Park in Lower Manhattan, NYC.  It is referred to as a "skyscraper", but given it's only 20 stories tall it is hard to think of it as such.

New York City Skyscrapers

This "New York City Skyscrapers Souvenir Folder" features 22 fold out postcards, primarily skyscrapers, from around 1915.  It is printed by the H.H. Tammen Curio Company which, according to the Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York City was "a novelty dealer and important publisher of national view-cards and Western themes in continuous tone and halftone lithography."  They were located in Denver, Colorado and in business from 1896-1953.

Here's one of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Building, located at One Madison Avenue, and which, with 50 floors, was the tallest buildling in the world from 1909 to 1913.  It is not to be confused with the Met Life Building which didn't open until 1963.













And here's the Flatiron Building, considered  to be among the first skyscapers ever built (1902) and located at 175 5th Avenue.  I could swear there was a movie about a music company located in the Flatiron building, and the song writers working there in the 60s, but I only find (among others)  "Spider Man", the 1998 version of "Godzilla", and the opening credits of "Late Night with David Letterman" as movies/television shows that feature the building.








More tomorrow!

The Frick Collection

The Frick Collection on 5th Avenue in New York City is home to a permanent collection of more than 1,100 works of art from the Renaissance to the late 19th Century.

While it is not the largest museum in the United States, it "has played a very significant role in collecting and connoisseurship in the United States. The types of paintings collected by Mr. Frick deeply affected the taste of Americans in the decades after his death — first and foremost, that of Andrew Mellon, his close friend, and other collectors who gave to The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., founded by Mellon." (From the Frick Collection website)

There is an interesting array of painters represented here, a few of whom I'd be particularly interested in seeing:

There are multiple works by Whistler (of Whistler's Mother fame).

Thomas Gainsborough, of Blue Boy fame which hangs at the Huntington Library in my home town, has a number of paintings at The Frick.

There is a series of paintings called "Arts & Sciences" by Francois Boucher, which includes pairings like "Fowling and Horticulture", "Architecture and Chemistry", "Astronomy and Hydraulics" and "Singing and Dancing".

Finally, who wouldn't want to see paintings by Turner and Constable?

Perhaps next time I visit New York........

Bear Mountain State Park, New York

I love the image on this postcard, but it took me a bit to figure out that it was a horse from a carousel. It says "carousel" on the bottom of the card, but it is covered by some sort of smudge. Interesting tidbit about Bear Mountain State Park: the first section of the Appalachian Trial was created at Bear Mountain, opening on Oct. 7, 1923.

I hope they have bears on this carousel!

Storm King Art Center

This postcard shows a Calder sculpture in a place called the Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, New York, just an hour north of New York City. What an incredible place! 500 acres of rolling hills and woodlands, "celebrating the relationship between sculpture and nature". My friend was there when the trees were red and yellow and orange. Must have been incredible.

More important is her message. Sounds like she'll finally be back to San Francisco (or at least back when I get to see her) for the first time in over 20 years. Hurray!

The Guggenheim

Among my most faithful and constant postcard senders are my friends, the Guggenheims. They aren't the Guggenheims of the museum, but their message is, "we're visiting the family store".

How cool is that?

New York City

I must have 100 postcards from NYC, but this is my most recent.

My friend Randi & I (with her two big dogs) walk in the Presidio every Wednesday morning. Last Wednesday she was eating breakfast in New York rather than walking with me!