August72012

Newspaper gems

Today, while trying out our new microfilm reader for the first time, I was looking at the New York Times from January 1, 1974.  Somewhere buried deeply in the  paper from that day was a segment where the rich and famous were asked to share their new year’s resolutions in terms of “Management By Objective,” (M.B.O) a trendy-at-the-time goal-based business management practice.  The article was titled “The Rich, Famous, Talented and Powerful Resolve.”

In the dead center of the page, was an image of an elderly woman in a huge brimmed hat.  She was identified as Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt.  Her response to the request to share her “objective” for the year was:

“Objective?  I don’t have any.  I don’t even think about it.  What perfect nonsense.” 

I hope that at the ripe old age of 89, I would have the experience and confidence to dismiss trends and goals.  I would hope to trust my gut in the same way. 

This is one of the many reasons I enjoy looking backward, especially in a more random manner.  I love the ability to feel a connection with someone of the past or to discover a little gem of wisdom that is so completely unexpected.  It is why I work with a historical collection on my day off.  It is those surprises. 

With our collection at the Valley Cottage Library, these discoveries can be made in a multitude of ways: by perusing our book collection, by looking at some of our holdings in the local history collection or spending some time with our databases. 

We subscribe to the Historical New York Times, which gives our patrons in-house access to every New York Times article from 1851 to 2007.  It can be searched using a keyword, and these little tidbits of the past are easily uncovered. The articles are scanned in, so they are shown in their original typeface.  By doing a quick search for Valley Cottage, I have learned about car accidents on Lake Road from 1910, buildings that were burned down and rebuilt, and the comings and goings of various families that lived here.  It makes me keep my eyes always searching for a small reminder of what was here before. 

I invite anyone to come into the library and give this a try.  It is enlightening and interesting and always full of surprises. 

-Katie Karkheck

NewYorkTimes local history databases news 

May32012
What is this?!!  For as long as I can remember, I have been puzzled about this structure every time I had gone to Memorial Park in Nyack.  “Is it a boat that was wrecked?  It looks like a boat!  Why is it there? Why would anyone make a boat out of concrete?  It would surely sink!”  This is what would go through my head every time I walked by.  I finally decided to try to dig up a little history on it, which proved to be surprisingly difficult.  I first did a quick Google search for concrete ships in Nyack, only to come up with a number of other people asking the same questions I was.  I then scouring the Valley Cottage local history collection, where I found nothing on this particular subject.  My next step was to turn to the Nyack Village Historian.  She gave me a lot more information.  According to excerpts of the Nyack Village Board minutes, after the building of the Tappan Zee Bridge, John Kilby, the mayor of Nyack, planned to extend Memorial Park, build a restaurant and a marina.  Apparently,  barges and concrete were intended to be sunk at the perimeter of the park extension and the rest was to be filled in.  The restaurant would have been too expensive, so it never came to fruition.  Unfortunately, while trying to make the extension of the park, someone miscalculated on the measurements and sunk the barges too far out into the water, so that the land couldn’t be appropriately filled in.  While this told me why the barge was there, it still didn’t tell me what it was and why anyone would build a concrete boat in the first place! On a whim, I decided to look at Google Earth to see if I could see anything else sunk under the water.  There was another structure there, but what was far more interesting was the fact that it was labeled “Erie Canal Concrete Boat.”  I had a new direction!  Upon searching for Erie Canal Concrete Boats, I found several sources.  According to the blog of Don Rittner, the Schenectady County Historian, these concrete barges were made during WWI as an experiment in using materials other than steel to move cargo through the Erie Canal.  The pictures on his site matched our local concrete barge!  He mentioned that these barges ultimately failed, and weren’t very well planned.  While concrete was inexpensive, it was extremely heavy and those that constructed these barges didn’t really know how they would hold up under constant use.  I came across the memoir of Richard Garrity, a former Canal Boatman, entitled Canal Boatman: My Life on Upstate Waterways.  He wrote a bit about these concrete canal boats.  It seems that the Nyack Barge was probably one of only 21 concrete barges that were made during this experimental time.  They were 150 ft long, by 21 ft wide and could hold 520 tons of cargo.  On their incredible failure he stated: “The concrete barges were not much of a success commercially or otherwise.  They drew 4 feet of water when empty compared to a wooden or steel barge’s 18 to 22 inches.  The sides were holed and sunk when they struck a solid object with a moderate force that would not have damaged a steel or wooden barge.  And many of them were damaged or sunk along the canal between Albany and Buffalo.  To the best of my knowledge, none of them had a useful life of more than three or four years.” It is so much fun for me to dig up weird, obscure bits of information about my surroundings and this kind of research makes me love what I do.  I will no longer look at that barge with confusion, but will look at it knowing its bizarre history and the experiment intending to make concrete float. -Katie Karkheck

What is this?!!  For as long as I can remember, I have been puzzled about this structure every time I had gone to Memorial Park in Nyack.  “Is it a boat that was wrecked?  It looks like a boat!  Why is it there? Why would anyone make a boat out of concrete?  It would surely sink!”  This is what would go through my head every time I walked by.  I finally decided to try to dig up a little history on it, which proved to be surprisingly difficult. 

I first did a quick Google search for concrete ships in Nyack, only to come up with a number of other people asking the same questions I was.  I then scouring the Valley Cottage local history collection, where I found nothing on this particular subject. 

My next step was to turn to the Nyack Village Historian.  She gave me a lot more information.  According to excerpts of the Nyack Village Board minutes, after the building of the Tappan Zee Bridge, John Kilby, the mayor of Nyack, planned to extend Memorial Park, build a restaurant and a marina.  Apparently,  barges and concrete were intended to be sunk at the perimeter of the park extension and the rest was to be filled in.  The restaurant would have been too expensive, so it never came to fruition. 

Unfortunately, while trying to make the extension of the park, someone miscalculated on the measurements and sunk the barges too far out into the water, so that the land couldn’t be appropriately filled in.  While this told me why the barge was there, it still didn’t tell me what it was and why anyone would build a concrete boat in the first place!

On a whim, I decided to look at Google Earth to see if I could see anything else sunk under the water.  There was another structure there, but what was far more interesting was the fact that it was labeled “Erie Canal Concrete Boat.”  I had a new direction!  Upon searching for Erie Canal Concrete Boats, I found several sources. 

According to the blog of Don Rittner, the Schenectady County Historian, these concrete barges were made during WWI as an experiment in using materials other than steel to move cargo through the Erie Canal.  The pictures on his site matched our local concrete barge!  He mentioned that these barges ultimately failed, and weren’t very well planned.  While concrete was inexpensive, it was extremely heavy and those that constructed these barges didn’t really know how they would hold up under constant use. 

I came across the memoir of Richard Garrity, a former Canal Boatman, entitled Canal Boatman: My Life on Upstate Waterways.  He wrote a bit about these concrete canal boats.  It seems that the Nyack Barge was probably one of only 21 concrete barges that were made during this experimental time.  They were 150 ft long, by 21 ft wide and could hold 520 tons of cargo.  On their incredible failure he stated:

“The concrete barges were not much of a success commercially or otherwise.  They drew 4 feet of water when empty compared to a wooden or steel barge’s 18 to 22 inches.  The sides were holed and sunk when they struck a solid object with a moderate force that would not have damaged a steel or wooden barge.  And many of them were damaged or sunk along the canal between Albany and Buffalo.  To the best of my knowledge, none of them had a useful life of more than three or four years.”

It is so much fun for me to dig up weird, obscure bits of information about my surroundings and this kind of research makes me love what I do.  I will no longer look at that barge with confusion, but will look at it knowing its bizarre history and the experiment intending to make concrete float.

-Katie Karkheck

Nyack local history localhistory concrete boats boats hudson river hudsonriver research 

March222012

I love working on the Local History collection at the library.   For me, learning the history of a place makes me feel much more connected to my surroundings.   While it helps me get acquainted with our community’s current and past events, sometimes I find little unexpected gems in the collection.

Tuesday, while indexing our file on local poets, I came across one of those rare gems.  Among the obituaries and photocopied chapbooks, were several postcards with the handwritten poems of Berenice Heaton, aka Beren Van Slyke!  Berenice Heaton was the wife of well-known glass artist, Maurice Heaton.  Berenice and Maurice lived in Valley Cottage for many years.  Berenice died in 1977, at age 86.  Her poems were published in several journals, including Poetry Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, and The Saturday Review. She also published a few full-length books and chapbooks. 

What a nice surprise to find a poet’s work in her own hand almost 35 years after her death!  I believed that the Heatons sent these postcards as their Christmas cards each year.  I wonder if she wrote a new poem for each card for each person, or if she wrote one poem a year for her cards.  Was she that prolific?

- Katie Karkheck

local history serendipity library poetry valley cottage 

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