Silent teller of history:
Architecture in NYC
“All this might seem rather remote from architecture, but it was not. Buildings reify society’s yearnings as well as its fears.”
The loud clanking of metal crashed Jimmy’s ears, vibrating them and causing the same type of pain he experienced every single day. His waterless tongue stuck to his upper jaw. Sweat was streaming down his face, dropping on his hands that were lifelessly moving along auto parts as he handed them on to worker next to him. His name did not matter to Jimmy, because they never talked, just like everybody in the factory. All of a sudden, the bell rang, which is the only time reminder in this broad, empty space. Everybody stopped, and walked slowly out of the factory.
Jimmy dragged his legs sluggishly along the road to his shattered and outdated apartment. Like always , screaming and sobbing filled the air. At the other side of the fence from where Jimmy stood, little kids held their mums tightly and looked into this world with their big, teary eyes. Men were waving their fists, cursing in languages that did not make sense to Jimmy. Policemen were fully armed as if they were facing devils, but their numb eyes showed that they were already familiar with this scene. Those who were eventually allowed to move elsewhere seemed joyful. Those left behind were stranded in a barn next to a building even more shattered than Jimmy’s little brown house.
Nowadays, the memories from the past are forever sealed in Jimmy’s mind, along with many others who experienced that era. The fast-paced modern lifestyle of modern world prevents people from knowing about the past. Nonetheless, in NYC, architecture has magically served as the record of ignored and almost forgotten historical movements. Architecture is a live chronological textbook of events in the past, which is of paramount importance to our future.
In order to understand the causes of architectural changes in NYC during the 1920s, it is important to examine all the crucial historical movements that happened at the time. Mass production made significant contributions in terms of shortening the time and lowering the cost of the transformations of materials from raw to usable. The development of the assembly line greatly increased the efficiency of this process, but gradually made people who labored faceless, nameless robots. Functioning the same as assembly line, the electrification of factories also led to greater efficiency and largely prevented injuries. Before the early 20th century, most of the towns in America were not connected to railroads or water borne shipping, which suggested that they were almost all self-sufficient. Several decades later, with the existence of a rapidly growing network of railroads and highways that provided cheaper and faster transportations for manufactured goods, a consumption craze was unleashed, which ensured the interests and motivations of factories owners. However, none of these aforementioned factors could be compared to the impact immigrants made. During the time period of 1880-1920, the number of immigrants reached almost 14 million(1). Among all of the immigrants, a large part dwelled in big cities, meaning that they, without doubt, became the main labor force in industrialization. By 1920, half of the manufacturing workers in America were immigrants, and this statistic would reach two-thirds if third-generation immigrants were included(2). All these events combined together and created a boom in the scale and sophistication of the production industry. As a result of this competition of efficiency, a constant demand for more effective machines was set off, thus sparkling plenty of scientific advancements.
Meanwhile, during the 1920s, the rest of the world was also experiencing turbulence and chaos. Far to the east of NYC, the Russian Revolution broke out, which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy. As the entire country cheered for the collapse of the imperial government, a nightmare was about to come. Eventually, the Bolsheviks took the control of Soviet union. Churches were burnt down and religious figures were slaughtered. What made the situation worse was that the insufficiency of labor power led to severe shortage of food. Thus, plenty of families fled to a young and prosperous country called America on the other side of the Atlantic. However, American citizens felt threatened by the arrival of Russian immigrants. As a result of the fear of Bolshevism, Russian and all the Eastern-European immigrants were viewed unfairly. Their large population changed the demographic patterns in most big cities in America, thus spurring the fear among American citizens that traditional American culture would be washed away by outsiders. As a result, multiple policies were imposed against immigrants. The American government used restrictive policies limiting the number of immigrants based on the demographic records in 1890(3). For instance, northern-European immigrants, who made up relatively little percentage of the entire immigrant population at the time of 1890s, had greater chances to be accepted in 1920. The National Origins Act, also known as the Johnson-Reed Act(4), aimed to control the number of “unfit” immigrants and also strengthen pre-existing law against immigrants. Among all the incidents, the most controversial one was the 200th anniversary of the birth of George Washington that took place at 1932, because it was widely believed that the real intent behind this celebration was to convey warnings to immigrants that wanted to be involved in politics.
“All this might seem rather remote from architecture, but it was not. Buildings reify society’s yearnings as well as its fears.”(Empire of brownstone and brick, P161). Without heavy attention, the architectural styles in NYC was undergoing significant transformation as those aforementioned historical events took place.
Portland quarries(5) was the origin of most of the brownstones buildings in NYC. Sediments acumulated and formed the brownstones layers at the time of Triassic epoch. Brownstones were highly valued by European settlers since they were comparatively soft enough for polishing and curving. The fact that The Portland Quarries was located next to river allowed easy transportation to metropolises, including NYC. The Quarries provided plenty of jobs and reached its peak at 1886, when it was privately owned by a company called Middlesex Quarring company. Unfortunately, at 1936, the quarries was destroyed by flood.
Although Portland Quarries, which was located relatively near to NYC, could provide cheap and convenient raw material for brownstones buildings, the transformation of brownstones from raw to usable was still costly. Surprisingly, it was the high price of polishing brownstones that enabled the birth of plentiful types of building styles. “Brownstone townhouses came in a variety of flavors that followed the rise and fall of architectural fashion--Italiante, Neoclassical, Second Empire, Romanesque, even Gothic.”(Empire of brownstone and brick, P160) Since virtually no investor at that time could afford the construction of more than several buildings, the entire block might contain buildings from ten different investors, thus making all the buildings slightly different from each other. However, the occurence of mass production significantly brought the processing cost down, in many ways such as “Forged metalwork was replaced by cast iron poured into a variety of ornamental molds. Terra-cotta replaced carved stones; hand-worked wood trim was increasingly cut by mechanized planers, routers, and lathes.”(Empire of brownstone and brick, p160.) As a result, investors could construct multiple times of numbers of brownstones buildings as they used to. On the other hand, the variety of styles vanished, and was replaced by that one tedious, original brownstones style. Because the price went down, the style was no longer the major attraction developers depended on in order to get customers.
Immigrants boom, surprisingly, also affected the general buildings styles in NYC during the time period of 1890s-1930s, in which the peak was around 1920s. At the time, America was experiencing the transformation from rural society to central economy located in metropolises. The flowing of immigrants provided large amount of labor for industrialization to successfully take place. However, significant changes in demographic patterns also caused the rages of Americans, who thought that immigrants from mainly Eastern-Europe and Asia were going to take over the America. All of a sudden, the buildings styles harkened all the way back to that of colonial era, where the entire American population was white. The main purpose of this movement, nevertheless, was the same as the anniversary of the 200th birth of George Washington, which was aimed to remind immigrants who is the one in charge.
The flowing of Russian immigrants sparked the craze for Tudorism buildings and soon replaced colonial buildings to become the most popular architectural style in NYC. As large amount of immigrants with contradictory ideas against mainstream Americans value came into states, Americans began to worry about their traditional culture being washed away. Tudorism buildings during modernist era was described as “a fortress symbol of established Anglo-American lineage at a time when Poles, Slavs, Italians and other ‘undesirables’ were seemingly flooding the country.”(Empire of brownstone brick, P161). However, as no one expected, a tax act imposed in 1920 that eliminated all the property tax and craze for Tudorism set off a fanatic building boom that suddenly put NYC ahead of London as the largest city in the world. With the development of subway and basic infrastructure, the outwash plain of Brooklyn was, almost within the blink of an eye, filled with Tudorism buildings and huge population. Ironically, the largest consumers and builders of Tudorism buildings were those “undesirables”, who sparked this architectural movements at the beginning. At the end of the day, it is fair to conclude that the combination of tax acts 1920 and mass immigrants left a trace that cans still be seen today in Brooklyn’s outwash plain.
History’s purpose would never change---it teaches people the mistakes that have been made in the past. As illustrated,“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”(George Sanrayana), buildings, in this case, played a paramount role in preserving history and reminding us what should we be aware of now.
Jimmy dragged his legs sluggishly along the road to his shattered and outdated apartment. Like always , screaming and sobbing filled the air. At the other side of the fence from where Jimmy stood, little kids held their mums tightly and looked into this world with their big, teary eyes. Men were waving their fists, cursing in languages that did not make sense to Jimmy. Policemen were fully armed as if they were facing devils, but their numb eyes showed that they were already familiar with this scene. Those who were eventually allowed to move elsewhere seemed joyful. Those left behind were stranded in a barn next to a building even more shattered than Jimmy’s little brown house.
Nowadays, the memories from the past are forever sealed in Jimmy’s mind, along with many others who experienced that era. The fast-paced modern lifestyle of modern world prevents people from knowing about the past. Nonetheless, in NYC, architecture has magically served as the record of ignored and almost forgotten historical movements. Architecture is a live chronological textbook of events in the past, which is of paramount importance to our future.
In order to understand the causes of architectural changes in NYC during the 1920s, it is important to examine all the crucial historical movements that happened at the time. Mass production made significant contributions in terms of shortening the time and lowering the cost of the transformations of materials from raw to usable. The development of the assembly line greatly increased the efficiency of this process, but gradually made people who labored faceless, nameless robots. Functioning the same as assembly line, the electrification of factories also led to greater efficiency and largely prevented injuries. Before the early 20th century, most of the towns in America were not connected to railroads or water borne shipping, which suggested that they were almost all self-sufficient. Several decades later, with the existence of a rapidly growing network of railroads and highways that provided cheaper and faster transportations for manufactured goods, a consumption craze was unleashed, which ensured the interests and motivations of factories owners. However, none of these aforementioned factors could be compared to the impact immigrants made. During the time period of 1880-1920, the number of immigrants reached almost 14 million(1). Among all of the immigrants, a large part dwelled in big cities, meaning that they, without doubt, became the main labor force in industrialization. By 1920, half of the manufacturing workers in America were immigrants, and this statistic would reach two-thirds if third-generation immigrants were included(2). All these events combined together and created a boom in the scale and sophistication of the production industry. As a result of this competition of efficiency, a constant demand for more effective machines was set off, thus sparkling plenty of scientific advancements.
Meanwhile, during the 1920s, the rest of the world was also experiencing turbulence and chaos. Far to the east of NYC, the Russian Revolution broke out, which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy. As the entire country cheered for the collapse of the imperial government, a nightmare was about to come. Eventually, the Bolsheviks took the control of Soviet union. Churches were burnt down and religious figures were slaughtered. What made the situation worse was that the insufficiency of labor power led to severe shortage of food. Thus, plenty of families fled to a young and prosperous country called America on the other side of the Atlantic. However, American citizens felt threatened by the arrival of Russian immigrants. As a result of the fear of Bolshevism, Russian and all the Eastern-European immigrants were viewed unfairly. Their large population changed the demographic patterns in most big cities in America, thus spurring the fear among American citizens that traditional American culture would be washed away by outsiders. As a result, multiple policies were imposed against immigrants. The American government used restrictive policies limiting the number of immigrants based on the demographic records in 1890(3). For instance, northern-European immigrants, who made up relatively little percentage of the entire immigrant population at the time of 1890s, had greater chances to be accepted in 1920. The National Origins Act, also known as the Johnson-Reed Act(4), aimed to control the number of “unfit” immigrants and also strengthen pre-existing law against immigrants. Among all the incidents, the most controversial one was the 200th anniversary of the birth of George Washington that took place at 1932, because it was widely believed that the real intent behind this celebration was to convey warnings to immigrants that wanted to be involved in politics.
“All this might seem rather remote from architecture, but it was not. Buildings reify society’s yearnings as well as its fears.”(Empire of brownstone and brick, P161). Without heavy attention, the architectural styles in NYC was undergoing significant transformation as those aforementioned historical events took place.
Portland quarries(5) was the origin of most of the brownstones buildings in NYC. Sediments acumulated and formed the brownstones layers at the time of Triassic epoch. Brownstones were highly valued by European settlers since they were comparatively soft enough for polishing and curving. The fact that The Portland Quarries was located next to river allowed easy transportation to metropolises, including NYC. The Quarries provided plenty of jobs and reached its peak at 1886, when it was privately owned by a company called Middlesex Quarring company. Unfortunately, at 1936, the quarries was destroyed by flood.
Although Portland Quarries, which was located relatively near to NYC, could provide cheap and convenient raw material for brownstones buildings, the transformation of brownstones from raw to usable was still costly. Surprisingly, it was the high price of polishing brownstones that enabled the birth of plentiful types of building styles. “Brownstone townhouses came in a variety of flavors that followed the rise and fall of architectural fashion--Italiante, Neoclassical, Second Empire, Romanesque, even Gothic.”(Empire of brownstone and brick, P160) Since virtually no investor at that time could afford the construction of more than several buildings, the entire block might contain buildings from ten different investors, thus making all the buildings slightly different from each other. However, the occurence of mass production significantly brought the processing cost down, in many ways such as “Forged metalwork was replaced by cast iron poured into a variety of ornamental molds. Terra-cotta replaced carved stones; hand-worked wood trim was increasingly cut by mechanized planers, routers, and lathes.”(Empire of brownstone and brick, p160.) As a result, investors could construct multiple times of numbers of brownstones buildings as they used to. On the other hand, the variety of styles vanished, and was replaced by that one tedious, original brownstones style. Because the price went down, the style was no longer the major attraction developers depended on in order to get customers.
Immigrants boom, surprisingly, also affected the general buildings styles in NYC during the time period of 1890s-1930s, in which the peak was around 1920s. At the time, America was experiencing the transformation from rural society to central economy located in metropolises. The flowing of immigrants provided large amount of labor for industrialization to successfully take place. However, significant changes in demographic patterns also caused the rages of Americans, who thought that immigrants from mainly Eastern-Europe and Asia were going to take over the America. All of a sudden, the buildings styles harkened all the way back to that of colonial era, where the entire American population was white. The main purpose of this movement, nevertheless, was the same as the anniversary of the 200th birth of George Washington, which was aimed to remind immigrants who is the one in charge.
The flowing of Russian immigrants sparked the craze for Tudorism buildings and soon replaced colonial buildings to become the most popular architectural style in NYC. As large amount of immigrants with contradictory ideas against mainstream Americans value came into states, Americans began to worry about their traditional culture being washed away. Tudorism buildings during modernist era was described as “a fortress symbol of established Anglo-American lineage at a time when Poles, Slavs, Italians and other ‘undesirables’ were seemingly flooding the country.”(Empire of brownstone brick, P161). However, as no one expected, a tax act imposed in 1920 that eliminated all the property tax and craze for Tudorism set off a fanatic building boom that suddenly put NYC ahead of London as the largest city in the world. With the development of subway and basic infrastructure, the outwash plain of Brooklyn was, almost within the blink of an eye, filled with Tudorism buildings and huge population. Ironically, the largest consumers and builders of Tudorism buildings were those “undesirables”, who sparked this architectural movements at the beginning. At the end of the day, it is fair to conclude that the combination of tax acts 1920 and mass immigrants left a trace that cans still be seen today in Brooklyn’s outwash plain.
History’s purpose would never change---it teaches people the mistakes that have been made in the past. As illustrated,“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”(George Sanrayana), buildings, in this case, played a paramount role in preserving history and reminding us what should we be aware of now.
Work Cited:
Hirschman, Charles, and Elizabeth Mogford. "Immigration and the American Industrial Revolution From 1880 to 1920." Social Science Research. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 01 Dec. 2009. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.
Commission, Connecticut. George Washington Bicentennial, Godard, George S. (George Seymour), 1865-1936, and Samuel R. Spencer. "Text/html; Charset=ISO-8859-1." Connecticut State Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.
Jacques, Dean. "The Portland Quarries." The Portland Quarries. N.p., 12 Oct. 2007. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.
Hirschman, Charles, and Elizabeth Mogford. "Immigration and the American Industrial Revolution From 1880 to 1920." Social Science Research. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 01 Dec. 2009. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.
Commission, Connecticut. George Washington Bicentennial, Godard, George S. (George Seymour), 1865-1936, and Samuel R. Spencer. "Text/html; Charset=ISO-8859-1." Connecticut State Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.
Jacques, Dean. "The Portland Quarries." The Portland Quarries. N.p., 12 Oct. 2007. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.