12.23.10: Almost there | New York Social Diary

Almost there

Broadway between 79th and 80th Street. 1:00 PM. Photo: JH.

December 23, 2010. Not really so cold in New York with the weatherman speculating that we might have some snow on Christmas Day. Which means probably not. Boo-hoo for us last chance gulch kids; I don’t have my hopes up.

While on the subject of High Hopes. Many years ago, 25 or more, I bought a book called the Diaries of Philip Hone and George Templeton Strong. Both men lived mid-century in the 1800s. Both lived in New York City.

Philip Hone was the elder, born in 1780, a businessman who made his fortune in the auction business. He was also Mayor of New York for two years (1826-1827). He was at the center of city life and part of a circle which included John Jacob Astor I, Daniel Webster, Washington Irving and Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the Code bearing his name and the first recorded forerunner of computer programming.


	George Templeton Strong.

	Philip Hone.

From the following year, 1828 until his death 23 years later in 1851, Philip Hone kept a Diary of life in New York.

George Templeton Strong was born forty years later in 1820 in New Jersey. He went to Columbia and and joined the firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft, now the nation’s oldest operating law firm. Although much younger than Hone, no doubt the two men knew of each other. Strong kept a Diary also, running from from the time he was fifteen in 1835 until his death in 1875.

Strong’s Diary is the most famous of the two. Discovered in 1930, more than a half century after his death, it became an important resource to scholars especially because of his accounts of life in New York during the Civil War.

These two Diaries also made a deep impression on me and were directly an inspiration for the NYSD.

I was reminded of all this the other day when JH took a photograph and published it on the Diary of the pond in Central Park at 59th Street and Central Park South, across from the Plaza Hotel. In 1859, George Templeton Strong posted an account of taking a “two hour carriage ride” up to the undeveloped land on Manhattan that was designated to be called the Central Park, and the hole in the ground that had been created to make that pond. It was an entry that most influenced my idea of a Diary in New York.

It was a rocky and not notably comfortable ride up to that part of the island. The terrain was rough, often rocky and barren, and largely uninhabited. Strong's reason for the trip was to have a look at the great hole in the ground that had just been made by detonation.

He reported on how ugly and unalluring the whole area was, especially the newly exploded muddy hole banked by smashed boulders strewn all about. The overall impression was not favorable ... BUT ... Strong continued to report that despite the mess that had been made, “a hundred years from now the citizens of New York will have a beautiful park to enjoy,” and a beautiful pond as part of it.

The pond at 59th Street and Central Park South which George Templeton Strong visited when it was first created in 1859.

I was struck by that sentence. "A hundred years from now?" Someone was thinking of the “citizens of New York?" And what’s more to foresee beauty. I was amazed and remain amazed that a man considered the future beyond his own lifetime.

We live in a time where there is no vision of the future in the city other than development of real estate for personal profit. The Central Park Conservancy actively maintains the present with its eye on the future. But those men and women who conduct business or politics rarely extend their “vision” beyond a half year. And when they do it is only to the financial advantage of themselves, and never regard the quality of life of the community. The idea seems almost absurd today. And foolhardy. It wasn’t, however, for George Templeton Strong. It was a given, and as a legacy, even today such vision remains a possibility.

DPC making introductions at NYSD's holiday lunch at Swifty's.

On Monday past, JH and I hosted a luncheon at Swifty’s which has become an annual affair. It is for those who contribute to the NYSD. We are always pleasantly amazed to see just how many there are who make up the NYSD family. Monday’s luncheon was attended by Alexandra Lebenthal, Mary Hilliard, Jesse Kornbluth, Pax Quigley, Roger Webster, Jeanne Lawrence, Wendy Lerman, Jamee Gregory, Jill Lynne, Lesley Hauge, Gail Karr, Ann Watt, Amanda Gordon, Anita Sarko and me and JH. For reasons of distance of previous plans, other contributors could not attend including Sian Ballen, Carol Joynt, Jill Krementz, Augustus Mayhew, Hilary Geary Ross, Ned Brown, Michael Grace, Hugo Vickers, Charlie Scheips and Blair Sabol.

JH and I launched the NYSD ten years ago this past September, already a quarter of the way through our eleventh year. For a long time it was just the two of us. Now, to varying degrees of input there are two dozen of us. We are deeply grateful to our contributors and to you, our readers. New Yorkers, being New Yorkers tend to think that the audience is right here. What we learned from the NYSD is that people all over the world are interested in New York, love New York, once lived here and miss; one day hope to be living here, dream of living here, like to visit here. The NYSD is a touchstone for everyone.