Stacy Horn

I got hit with some weird, but not horrible virus. I feel better now so I’m off to see Selma. I haven’t been doing much except watching tv, and there wasn’t a lot on. Watched West Side Story for the millionth, billionth time. It still amazes me how that movie contains one great song after another. I can’t imagine writing just one, imagine writing so many. What must it feel like? Although, maybe for the person (Bernstein in this case), since they know no other way, they just feel normal about the whole thing.

Imagine if all hugely talented people had to endure a period of being without their gifts, and less talented people got to experience what it was like to be able to create something so great. No. The hugely talented people might benefit from it, but it would be just too cruel to everyone else. Or maybe not. Being that accomplished must be a wonderful thing, but it’s certainly not the only wonderful thing to experience in life. Also, although there are exceptions, even hugely talented people are not productive their whole lives.

Then there are the people who are great channelers of great art. I watch that movie and I want to sing like Marni Nixon and dance through the city streets in my sneakers like George Chakiris. Just thinking about that made my heart beat faster!

This is a picture from my 2014 Christmas series. I just wasn’t as drawn to taking pictures of windows on 5th Avenue. I preferred the more modest displays, like these red and green twinkling lights next to this barbershop sign. (It has an urban, slightly West Side Story feel.)

I loved this line from the end of Willa Cather’s novel The Song of the Lark. It’s about a singer, in fact a friend of mine summed up the novel perfectly. She called it: The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman. In the book someone asks one of the main character’s singing teachers what the secret is to her great voice.

“It is every artist’s secret … passion. That is all. It is an open secret, and perfectly safe.”

I feel so supremely lucky that I’m going to get to do a book about Blackwell’s Island. It’s just the kind of subject I can immerse myself in. I want to say that the process of digging in and finding the stories is like feeding a hunger but that’s not quite it, but that kind of captures it. I have to make myself stop working at night and go to bed when I am working on a book like this.

I’ve been running around doing errands so I can relax and celebrate my good news today. One nice side effect of the cold weather I’ve found, is steam. It’s so comforting. The inside of the laundromat was wonderfully foggy and warm (see the picture below). I felt so cosy sitting in there reading while all the machines around me rumbled.

But swimming last night was especially lovely. There was only three of us left during the last half hour so we all got a lane to ourselves. It felt so luxurious and serene, going back and forth and back and forth at exactly the pace I wanted. The water was heated to the most absolutely perfect temperature, the room was cloudy and enveloping, almost tropical. I wish I could have gotten a picture, or a movie of that.

It’s official. I’m going to be doing a book about Blackwell’s Island (now Roosevelt Island) for my most fabulous publisher, Algonquin Books! I am beyond belief excited. Those who know me know that this is so, so, SO my kind of book. I’ll have much more to say about this later, but word got out so I wanted to make a quick announcement.

The picture below is of the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, Roosevelt Island, which was designed by Frederic Clark Withers and dedicated in 1889. I love this one fact I learned about the Chapel from their website. A quick backstory: the City bought the island in 1828, and then proceeded to build a penitentiary, a lunatic asylum, a workhouse, an Almshouse for the poor, and various hospitals for the poor, (and other hospitals and buildings). The point is, if you ended up on Blackwell’s Island in the 19th century it meant your life was not going well. According to the Chapel’s website the architect was instructed to design “the most beautiful church in the city for it’s most neglected class of humanity.” Nice. But sad.

It was also paid for by George Bliss, a vestryman of Grace Church, it turns out. His name came up a lot when I was researching my last book, about the history and science of singing. (I sing with the Choral Society of Grace Church and I used the Choral Society to demonstrate the rewards and benefits of group singing.)

The much neglected organ inside the Chapel of the Good Shepherd.

I’ve been glued to my tv watching coverage of the terrorist attack in Paris. Jesus fucking Christ. Also, yesterday there was a bombing next door to the Colorado Springs chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. Live and freaking let live people. But obviously these people are so severely damaged they are beyond reason and compassion. Our hearts are with you, people of France!

A very ephemeral sign on 11th Street. It clearly wasn’t meant to last very long. In case you can’t read it, underneath “I can’t breathe,” it says, “he could not do anything! But WE can!”

The Municipal Archives, one of my favorite places in the world to explore, holds historical records of New York City going all the way back to the 17th century. I’ve been digging around in there for decades and I thought from time to time I might post snippets of items I found that are particularly compelling. Like this evidence of a 1863 murder, proving—in case there’s anyone who wasn’t already aware—that lynching was not confined to the southern states (although in this case the man might have died before he was strung up). This took place a couple of blocks from where Macy’s now stands.

“I yesterday saw the body of the above described col’ed [colored] man hanging to a tree in 32 St. bet. 6 & 7 Ave. I think he was dead when I first saw him. I understood a fireman who had him shot … this man who made this statement is a [illegible] with 3 Hose Co and a tall man, and I also understood that he had him shot by a negro, and then, this negro was attack, killed, & hung as stated.” Taken July 16, 1863, Mickail Mitch.

—From the records of the Coroner and Office of Chief Medical Examiner, 1823-1946, NYC County Coroner Inquests, Roll 90.

Students of history will realize that this man was murdered during the terrible draft riots that erupted in New York City after congress passed laws to draft men into the Civil War.

The Municipal Archives also maintains an ever-growing online gallery of images. The one below is from the NYPD & Criminal Prosecution collection, which contains some pretty horrific images. This one is relatively tame. The caption reads: “Homicide 92? Nov. 23, 1915 JMR “Isabella Bradford (Black)” kitchen interior.” A quick Google search turns up the fact that an Allen Bradford was charged (I’m guessing he was her husband). I’ll see if I can find out if he was convicted, I can’t access the inmate records on Ancestry.com at the moment.