Elisa Rolle's Blog, page 229

February 22, 2017

Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950)

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism.
Born: February 22, 1892, Rockland, Maine, United States
Died: October 19, 1950, Austerlitz, New York, United States
Education: Vassar College
Lived: Ragged Island, Harpswell, Maine
75½ Bedford St, New York, NY 10014, USA (40.73138, -74.00499)
Steepletop, 440 E Hill Rd, Austerlitz, NY 12017, USA (42.32114, -73.44319)
Whitehall (52 High St, Camden, ME 04843)
200 Broadway, Rockland, ME 04841
Buried: Steepletop Cemetery, Austerlitz, Columbia County, New York, USA
Find A Grave Memorial# 713
Siblings: Norma Millay Ellis, Kathleen Millay
Movies: Hitler's Madman

Edna St. Vincent Millay was a lyrical poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was known for her feminist activism and her many love affairs. Counted among her close friends were Witter Bynner, Arthur Davison Ficke, and Susan Glaspell, as well as Floyd Dell and Edmund Wilson, both of whom proposed marriage to her and were refused. While playing the lead in her own The Princess Marries the Page at Vassar, she was approached by the British actress Edith Wynne Matthison, who, excited by the performance, came backstage to kiss Millay and invite her to her summer home. Millay felt great passion in the kiss and the two exchanged letters, providing one of her few known straightforward pronouncements of lesbian love: "You wrote me a beautiful letter,--I wonder if you meant it to be as beautiful as it was.--I think you did; for somehow I know that your feeling for me, however slight it is, is of the nature of love. . . . When you tell me to come, I will come, by the next train, just as I am. This is not meekness, be assured; I do not come naturally by meekness; know that it is a proud surrender to You.” Another of Edna’s lovers was Thelma Wood, who later became Djuna Barnes’ lover.
Edith Wynne Matthison (November 23, 1875 – September 23, 1955)
Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950)

Queer Places, Vol. 1 edited by Elisa Rolle
ISBN-13: 978-1532901904
ISBN-10: 1532901909
Release Date: July 24, 2016
CreateSpace Store: https://www.createspace.com/6228297
Amazon (print): http://www.amazon.com/dp/1532901909/?...
Amazon (kindle): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IZ1BU9K/?...

75½ Bedford St is a building in the Greenwich Village area of New York City that is only 9 feet 6 inches (2.9 meters) wide. It is considered to be the narrowest house in New York. Its past tenants have included Edna St. Vincent Millay, Ann McGovern, cartoonist William Steig and anthropologist Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 - November 15, 1978). It is sometimes referred to as the Millay House, indicated by a New York City Landmark plaque on the outside of the house.
Address: 75½ Bedford St, New York, NY 10014, USA (40.73138, -74.00499)
Type: Private Property
Place
Built in 1873
The three-story house is located at 75½ Bedford St., off Seventh Ave. between Commerce and Moore Streets, in the West Greenwich Village section of Manhattan. On the inside, the house measures 8 ft. 7 in. wide; at its narrowest, it is only 2 ft. wide. There is a shared garden in the rear of the house. The archives of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation states that the house was constructed in 1873 during a smallpox epidemic, for Horatio Gomez, trustee of the Hettie Hendricks-Gomez Estate, on what was the former carriage entranceway for the adjacent property, which includes the 1799 house at 77 Bedford St., built by Joshua Isaacs, the oldest house in Greenwich Village. However, the house may have been constructed earlier, as the style that appears in a 1922 photograph at the New-York Historical Society is typical of the 1850’s Italianate architecture common in the area at the time. In 1923, the house was leased by a consortium of artists who used it for actors working at the Cherry Lane Theater. Cary Grant and John Barrymore stayed at the house while performing at the Cherry Lane during this time. Edna St. Vincent Millay, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet and her new husband, coffee importer Eugen Jan Boissevain, lived in the house from 1923 to 1924. They hired Ferdinand Savignano to renovate the house, who added a skylight, transformed the top floor into a studio for Millay and added a Dutch-inspired front gabled façade for her husband. Later occupants included cartoonist William Steig, and his sister-in-law, anthropologist Margaret Mead. The current owner is George Gund IV (son of sports entrepreneur George Gund III), who purchased the house for $3.25 million in June 2013. “A centrally placed spiral staircase dominates all three floors and bisects the space into two distinct living areas. The narrow steps call for expert sideways navigational skills. Under the stairwell on the first floor is a tiny utility closet, the only closed storage space in the house. All three floors have fireplaces.” The house has two bathrooms, and its galley kitchen comes with a microwave built into the base of the winding staircase that rises to the upper floors.
Life
Who: Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950)
Edna St. Vincent Millay was a poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work. The poet Richard Wilbur asserted, "She wrote some of the best sonnets of the century." Millay was openly bisexual. Counted among her close friends were the writers Witter Bynner, Arthur Davison Ficke, and Susan Glaspell, as well as Floyd Dell and the critic Edmund Wilson, both of whom proposed marriage to her and were refused. In January 1921, she went to Paris, where she met and befriended the sculptor Thelma Wood. In 1923 she married 43-year-old Eugen Jan Boissevain (1880–1949), the widower of the labor lawyer and war correspondent Inez Milholland, a political icon Millay had met during her time at Vassar. Boissevain died in 1949 of lung cancer, and Millay lived alone for the last year of her life.

by Elisa Rolle

Queer Places, Vol. 1 edited by Elisa Rolle
ISBN-13: 978-1532901904
ISBN-10: 1532901909
Release Date: July 24, 2016
CreateSpace Store: https://www.createspace.com/6228297
Amazon (print): http://www.amazon.com/dp/1532901909/?...
Amazon (kindle): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IZ1BU9K/?...

Steepletop, also known as the Edna St. Vincent Millay House, was the farmhouse home of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay and her husband Eugene Jan Boissevain, in Austerlitz, New York. Her former home and gardens are maintained by the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society. The Millay Colony for the Arts, founded in 1973 by Norma Millay Ellis, sister of the poet, is also located at Steepletop.
Address: 440 E Hill Rd, Austerlitz, NY 12017, USA (42.32114, -73.44319)
Type: Museum (open to public)
Hours: Monday through Friday 9.00-17.00
Phone: +1 518-392-3362
National Register of Historic Places: 71000534, 1971. Also National Historic Landmarks.
Place
The name Steepletop comes from a pink, conical wildflower that grows there. The Society opened the house for tours in 2010. The guest house is believed to have been built in the late XVIII century, considerably predating the main house, which is believed to have been built around 1870. Millay and Boissevain bought the property, which had been a 635-acre (257 ha) blueberry farm and moved in in 1925, after the period in which critics and scholars generally believe she had done her best work. She continued to write since the rural setting provided sufficient distance from the outside world, and the couple lived there except for periods of travel. After WWII, in the late 1940s, she left Steepletop less frequently. Boissevain died in 1949, making her even more reclusive in the year before she was found dead at the foot of the stairway in the main house. The fall was the proximate cause of death, but what led to it is unknown. Her sister Norma and her husband, painter Charles Ellis, moved in afterwards. In 1973, they established Millay Colony for the Arts on the seven acres (2.8 ha) around the guest house and barn. After her husband’s death in 1976, Norma continued to manage the colony program until her death in 1986. During that time, in 1980, she renovated the barn into housing for visiting artists. In 1997 a disabled-accessible main building was built on colony property. The colony continues to offer one-month residencies to writers, visual artists and composers from the U.S. and other countries. The Edna St. Vincent Millay Society remains in charge of the main house, the outbuildings around it and the grounds as a whole. It operates the property as a historic house museum dedicated to Millay and has spent much effort on restoring the house and grounds.
Life
Who: Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950)
On the grounds of Steepletop, Boissevain and Millay built a barn (from a Sears Roebuck kit), and then a writing cabin and a tennis court. Millay grew her own vegetables in a small garden. The couple later bought Ragged Island in Casco Bay, Maine, as a summer retreat. Edna St. Vincent Millay died at her home on October 19, 1950 and is buried at Steepletop: the path rises through hardwood forest to the poet's grave, in a small clearing with a bench that invites contemplation. It's a short walk, maybe a half-mile from the country road high on the Taconic Ridge. In 2003 the Friends of the Millay Society built the Millay Poetry Trail along the dirt road leading to her grave and those of several family members. The trail is open to the public and posted with her nature poetry along the shaded route.

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Published on February 22, 2017 03:30

Cosmé McMoon (February 22, 1901 - August 22, 1980)

Cosmé McMoon was a Mexican-American pianist and composer, best known as the accompanist to notably tone-deaf soprano Florence Foster Jenkins.
Born: February 22, 1901, Mapimí, Durango, Mexico
Died: August 22, 1980, New York City, New York, United States
Buried: Sunset Memorial Park, San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas, USA
Find A Grave Memorial# 45333475
Genre: Classical

At the turn of the XX-century the blocks between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in midtown saw the advent of high-end residential hotels and exclusive clubs as once-fashionable residences one-by-one were demolished or converted for business purposes. One of the first, the Royalton Hotel for well-heeled bachelors, was erected in 1898 spanning the block from 44th to 45th Streets.
Address: 44 W 45th St, New York, NY 10036, USA (40.7561, -73.98168)
Type: Guest Facility (open to public)
Place
In 1901 A. G. Hyde sold four lots on 45th Street, Nos. 44 through 50, and a single lot on 44th Street next to the New York Yacht Club. On July 24, 1901 The New York Times reported that “The site will be improved with a twelve-story apartment hotel.” By August of the following year the Seymour Hotel was nearly ready for occupancy. Built by developers Irons & Todd, it was touted as “fireproof” and “positively exclusive.” Unlike the Royalton or the Hotel Mansfield which would open on West 44th Street a year later in 1903 the new Seymour was not intended just for bachelors; but was marketed to well-to-do families. M.F. Miller was the President of the Iroquois Hotel at No. 49 West 44th Street and his brother, J.C. Miller, was its Secretary and Treasurer. On August 16, 1902 they added the Seymour to their responsibilities, leasing the new hotel from Irons & Todd for 21 years at a gross rental of $1,395,900. On October 1 the Seymour Apartment Hotel opened its doors to its new residents. The Beaux Arts building was constructed of red brick with limestone trim, sitting on a two-story rusticated limestone base. The main 45th Street entrance was framed in a dramatic limestone portico above a set of three stone steps. The white stone quoins and bandcourses contrasted with the red brick and a sumptuous balcony stretched the wide of the structure at the 10th floor. On the narrow 44th Street side, the skinny building did its best to keep up. It mimicked the rusticated base and even the balcony; yet the strange proportions resulted in a gawky, cartoonish structure. Residents were offered apartments from two to “five or more” rooms with yearly leases. The magnificent dining room offered both “Restaurant a la Carte” or “Table d’Hote.” Guests were promised that the hotel was planned “for the comfort of its guests, luxurious and artistic in its appointments.” The once-magnificent midtown hotels suffered in the latter part of the XX century as new, modern hotels and apartment buildings left them dowdy and somewhat seedy. On January 19, 1981 New York Magazine remarked about the Seymour Hotel. “An AAA sign hangs out front, and, inside, the dim lobby and corridors—with the obligatory red carpet—give off a sense of better days gone by…Not as Spartan or desperate as some, it’s just…cheerless; call it a 4 on the Depression Scale.” While some of the old hotels—like the Royalton—were reclaimed with multi-million dollar makeovers; it was not to be for the Seymour Hotel. In 2000 it was demolished, replaced with the soaring 30-story Sofitel which, almost ironically, has its main entrance at the skinny little plot on West 44th Street.
Life
Who: Robert Emmett "Bobby" Harron (April 12, 1893 – September 5, 1920) and Narcissa Florence Foster Jenkins (July 19, 1868 – November 26, 1944)
Robert Harron was an American motion picture actor of the early silent film era. Although he acted in over 200 films, he is known for his roles in the D.W. Griffith directed films “The Birth of a Nation” (1915) and “Intolerance” (1916). Born in New York City, Harron was second oldest child of nine siblings in a poor, working-class Irish Catholic family. Harron's younger siblings John (nicknamed "Johnnie"), Mary and Charles also became actors while one of his younger sisters, Tessie, worked as an extra in silent films. Charles was killed in a car accident in December 1915. Tessie died of Spanish influenza in 1918 while Harron's brother John died of spinal meningitis in 1939. Harron attended the Saint John Parochial School in Greenwich Village. At the age of fourteen, he found work as an errand boy at American Biograph Studios. In addition to cleaning duties, Harron also appeared as an extra in a few shorts for Biograph. Within a year of working for Biograph, Harron was noticed by newly hired director D.W. Griffith. In September 1920, Harron traveled from Los Angeles to New York by train to support Lillian Gish at the film premiere of her film “Way Down East.” He checked into the Hotel Seymour on September 1. He was sharing the hotel room with screenwriter and director Victor Heerman. After the premiere, Harron was alone in his hotel room when a gun in his possession discharged and wounded him. According to published reports, Harron had the gun in a trunk along with other possessions. As he took some clothes out of the trunk, the gun fell to the floor, discharged and hit him in the chest, puncturing his lung. He called the hotel desk for assistance and was still conscious when the hotel manager came to his room. Not realizing he was seriously wounded, Harron joked with the manager that he was in a "devil of a fix" having shot himself. He initially refused to let the manager call an ambulance, only wanting to be examined by a local physician. After a physician could not be found, Harron agreed to allow the manager to call an ambulance. Harron was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center. Shortly after the shooting, rumors arose that Harron had intentionally shot himself. There was speculation that Harron was despondent over being passed over for the leading role in “Way Down East” (Richard Barthelmess was cast in the lead role). Several of Harron's friends rejected the suicide theory. Harron's friend Victor Heerman, with whom he often went on double dates and was staying with Harron in the Hotel Seymour, later said that he went to see Harron after the shooting and Harron denied that he intentionally shot himself. There were also rumors that Harron had attempted suicide over the breakup of his relationship with Dorothy Gish. Victor Heerman said that Harron was a teetotaler and a virgin because he was a devout Catholic, and for those reasons Heerman rejected claims that Harron had killed himself. Miriam Cooper and Lillian Gish agreed, largely because he was his family's major source of income and he was about to start filming with Elmer Clifton. Harron also told his friend, a priest, that he did not attempt suicide. Friends who visited Harron in the hospital were optimistic about his recovery as he appeared to be on the mend. However, on September 5, four days after he was shot, Harron died of his wound. He is interred at Calvary Cemetery (4902 Laurel Hill Blvd, Woodside, NY 11377). Critic Richard Schickel believes he was gay and shot himself out of stress from having to hide this. Also Florence Foster Jenkins was living at The Seymour Hotel. nkins was an American socialite and amateur soprano who was known and mocked for her flamboyant performance costumes and notably poor singing ability. The historian Stephen Pile ranked her "the world's worst opera singer". "No one, before or since," he wrote, "has succeeded in liberating themselves quite so completely from the shackles of musical notation." Despite (or perhaps because of) her technical incompetence, she became a prominent musical cult figure in New York City during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Cole Porter, Gian Carlo Menotti, Lily Pons, Sir Thomas Beecham, and other celebrities were fans. Enrico Caruso is said to have "regarded her with affection and respect". The poet William Meredith wrote that what Jenkins provided "... was never exactly an aesthetic experience, or only to the degree that an early Christian among the lions provided aesthetic experience; it was chiefly immolatory, and Madame Jenkins was always eaten, in the end.” At the age of 76, Jenkins finally yielded to public demand and booked Carnegie Hall (152 W 57th St, New York, NY 10019) for a general-admission performance on October 25, 1944. Tickets for the event sold out weeks in advance; the demand was such that an estimated 2,000 people were turned away at the door. Numerous celebrities attended, including Cole Porter, Marge Champion, Gian Carlo Menotti, Kitty Carlisle, Tallula Bankhead, Daniel Pinkham, Lily Pons with her husband, Andre Kostelanetz, who composed a song for the recital. McMoon later recalled an "especially noteworthy" moment: "[When she sang] 'If my silhouette does not convince you yet/My figure surely will' [from Adele's aria in Die Fledermaus], she put her hands righteously to her hips and went into a circular dance that was the most ludicrous thing I have ever seen. And created a pandemonium in the place. One famous actress had to be carried out of her box because she became so hysterical." Five days after the concert, Jenkins suffered a heart attack while shopping at G. Schirmer's music store, and died a month later on November 26, 1944, at her Manhattan residence, the Hotel Seymour. She was buried next to her father in the family crypt at Hollenback Cemetery (540 N River St, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18702), Plot: Foster Family Mausoleum. Cosmé McMoon (born Cosmé McMunn; February 22, 1901 – August 22, 1980) was a Mexican-American pianist and composer, best known as the accompanist to Florence Foster Jenkins. McMoon never ended up making a career in music after Jenkins' death in 1944, and instead took an interest in bodybuilding and judging bodybuilding contests. He resided in New York City until shortly before his death in August 1980. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and moved back to San Antonio, where he was buried at Sunset Memorial Park (San Antonio, TX 78218). He never married or had any children and is rumoured to be gay.

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Published on February 22, 2017 03:04

Christopher Bram (born February 22, 1952)

Christopher Bram is an American author. Bram grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he was a paperboy and an Eagle Scout. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1974. He moved to New York City in 1978.
Born: February 22, 1952, Buffalo, New York, United States
Education: College of William & Mary
Movies: Gods and Monsters, Queer City, Dangerous Music
Awards: Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Canada, Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction
Nominations: Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men's Mystery, more
Anniversary: October 1979

Christopher Bram is an American author. In 2012, he published Eminent Outlaws: much of the literary history Bram recounts takes place in New York City, where Bram - a native of Virginia - has lived since 1978. Unsurprisingly, a large proportion of that history centers on Greenwich Village, where Bram lives with his partner, filmmaker Draper Shreeve. “We met in a bar talking about movies in 1979 - we are still talking about movies.” Bram has also written two shorts directed by Draper Shreeve. Bram’s 1995 novel Father of Frankenstein, about film director James Whale, was made into the 1998 movie Gods and Monsters starring Ian McKellen, Lynn Redgrave, and Brendan Fraser. The film was written and directed by Bill Condon who won an Academy Award for the adapted screenplay. Shreeve has made several documentaries, including Kids of Penzance, about a high school production of Gilbert and Sullivan, and Queer City, about LGBT lives in New York.
Together since 1979: 36 years.
Christopher Bram (born February 22, 1952)
Draper Shreeve (born May 5, 1954)
Anniversary: October 1979
We met at Julius', a New York gay bar, on a Friday night in October 1979. I was standing by the cigarette machine, Draper by the jukebox. He smiled and I walked over. When he told me his name, I said, "Oh. You're from the South." I am from the South myself and was hoping to meet someone more exotic. Then we started talking about movies. We had both seen the new Bertolucci film, Luna, and we knew it was bad but we admitted we had enjoyed it. We moved from the bar to a diner, where we talked about politics. Then we went uptown to my place, where we stopped talking. The next morning we went for a long walk around Columbia University and talked about our families. We have been talking about movies, politics, and our families ever since, along with books, art, music, friends, and everything else under the sun. We have not run out of words or news or thoughts to share with each other. -Christopher Bram

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Published on February 22, 2017 02:57

Angela Baddeley (July 4, 1904 – February 22, 1976)

Angela Baddeley, CBE was an English stage and television actress, best-remembered for her role as household cook Mrs. Bridges in the period drama Upstairs, Downstairs. Her stage career lasted more than six decades.
Born: July 4, 1904, West Ham, London, United Kingdom
Died: February 22, 1976, Grayshott, United Kingdom
Lived: 64 Pretoria Road, West Ham, London
4 Holmbush Road, Putney
Buried: St Mary's, Mill Green, Station Road, Wargrave, Berkshire, RG10 8EU
Find A Grave Memorial# 41541832
Children: Juliet Shaw
Spouse: Glen Byam Shaw (m. 1929–1976), Stephen Thomas (m. 1921)

Glen Byam Shaw was an English actor and theatre director, known for his dramatic productions in the 1950s and his operatic productions in the 1960s and later. In the 1920s and 1930s Byam Shaw was a successful actor, both in romantic leads and in character parts. He worked frequently with his old friend Sir John Gielgud. Actress Constance Collier was impressed by Byam Shaw and used her influence to gain him roles. She introduced him to Ivor Novello, then a leading figure in London theatre. This drew him into contact with the poet Siegfried Sassoon, a friend of Collier; he and Byam Shaw became close. Their friendship lasted for the rest of Sassoon's life, although they ceased to be partners quite quickly; Sassoon became involved with Stephen Tennant, and Byam Shaw fell in love with an actress, Angela Baddeley. Their 1929 marriage, which lasted until her death in 1976, was, Denison writes, "a supremely happy one, both domestically and professionally”. Angela Baddeley was an English stage and television actress, best remembered for her role as "Mrs. Bridges" in the period drama Upstairs, Downstairs. They are interred together at St Mary's Church, Wargrave, Berkshire.
Together from 1929 to 1976: 47 years.
Angela Baddeley, CBE (July 4, 1904 – February 22, 1976)
Glencairn Alexander "Glen" Byam Shaw, CBE (December 13, 1904 – April 29, 1986)

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Published on February 22, 2017 02:51

Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 - February 22, 1987)

Andy Warhol was an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture, and advertising that flourished by the 1960s.
Born: August 6, 1928, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
Died: February 22, 1987, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States
Education: Schenley High School
Carnegie Mellon University
Lived: 242 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA (40.74651, -73.97963)
13 E 87th St, New York, NY, USA (40.78177, -73.95884)
158 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA (40.74684, -73.98409)
57 E 66th St, New York, NY 10065, USA (40.76781, -73.96725)
1342 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10128, USA (40.78164, -73.95428)
33 Union Square E, New York, NY 10003, USA (40.73551, -73.98985) [Decker Building, 03001179, 2003]
860 Broadway, New York, NY 10003, USA (40.73715, -73.99002)
22 E 33rd St, New York, NY 10016, USA (40.74728, -73.98391)
Buried: Saint John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery, Bethel Park, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA
Find A Grave Memorial# 1459
Movies: Chelsea Girls, Blow Job, Sleep, Empire, more
Periods: Modern art, Pop art

Andy Warhol was an artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture, and advertisement that flourished by the 1960s.
Addresses:
242 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA (40.74651, -73.97963)
13 E 87th St, New York, NY, USA (40.78177, -73.95884)
158 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA (40.74684, -73.98409)
57 E 66th St, New York, NY 10065, USA (40.76781, -73.96725)
1342 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10128, USA (40.78164, -73.95428)
33 Union Square E, New York, NY 10003, USA (40.73551, -73.98985) [Decker Building, 03001179, 2003]
860 Broadway, New York, NY 10003, USA (40.73715, -73.99002)
22 E 33rd St, New York, NY 10016, USA (40.74728, -73.98391)
Place
- In the summer of 1953 Andy Warhol and his mother moved into a floor-through apartment in a four story building at 242 Lexington Avenue. According to Warhol biographers, David Bourdon and Victor Bockris, Warhol subleased the apartment from another ex-classmate at Carnegie Tech., Leonard Kessler.
- No. 13 E. 87th St was the first studio outside his home, rented in 1963. Warhol subleased part of an old firehouse near his home, Hook & Ladder Co., that the tenant was leasing from the City of New York.
- 158 Madison Avenue was Warhol’s last personal studio.
- Andy Warhol bought 57 E 66th St, a brownstone, in 1974 for $310,000. He lived here until his death in 1987.
Andy Warhol Factory locations:
• 1342 Lexington Ave: The first Factory in 1960. This was his home and studio and the first Factory location. “The town house bought by shoe ads,” Andy’s friend Emile de Antonio called it, and it was true: everything Andy owned was paid for with a ceaseless flow of hundred-dollar drawings of shoes, hats, scarves, perfumes, handbags, and other ladies accessories... In 1960, Andy would gross $70,000, his best year yet, and when 1342 Lexington had come up for sale he was easily able to put down $30,000, almost half of the building’s price..."
• 231 E 47th St: The Silver Factory, from 1963 to 1967, the building no longer exists.
• 33 Union Square E: The White Factory, from 1967 to 1973, Decker Building.
• 860 Broadway, from 1973 to 1984, the building has now been completely remodeled.
• 22 E 33rd St: from 1984 to 1987, the building no longer exists.
Life
Who: Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987)
Interviewed in 1980, Andy Warhol indicated that he was still a virgin—biographer Bob Colacello who was present at the interview felt it was probably true and that what little sex he had was probably “a mixture of voyeurism and masturbation—to use his [Andy’s] word abstract.” Warhol’s assertion of virginity would seem to be contradicted by his hospital treatment in 1960 for condylomata, a sexually transmitted disease. It has also been contradicted by his lovers, including Warhol muse BillyBoy who has said they had sex to orgasm: “When he wasn’t being Andy Warhol and when you were just alone with him he was an incredibly generous and very kind person. What seduced me was the Andy Warhol who I saw alone. In fact when I was with him in public he kind of got on my nerves… I’d say: “You’re just obnoxious, I can’t bear you.”” Asked if Warhol was only a voyeur, Billy Name also denied it, saying: "He was the essence of sexuality. It permeated everything. Andy exuded it, along with his great artistic creativity… It brought a joy to the whole art world in New York. But his personality was so vulnerable that it became a defense to put up the blank front." Warhol’s lovers included John Giorno, Billy Name, Charles Lisanby, Jon Gould. His boyfriend of 12 years was Jed Johnson, whom he met in 1968, and who later achieved fame as an interior designer. The first works that Warhol submitted to a fine art gallery, homoerotic drawings of male nudes, were rejected for being too openly gay.

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Published on February 22, 2017 02:39

February 21, 2017

W.H. Auden (February 21, 1907 – September 29, 1973)

Wystan Hugh Auden was an English poet, who later became an American citizen. He is best known for love poems such as "Funeral Blues," poems on political and social themes such as "September 1, 1939" ...
Born: February 21, 1907, York, United Kingdom
Died: September 29, 1973, Vienna, Austria
Lived: 2 West Cottages, West End Lane, NW6
559 Finchley Road, NW3
38 Upper Park Road, NW3
77 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10003, USA (40.72795, -73.98559)
46 Fitzroy Street, W1T
15 Loudoun Road, NW8
54 Bootham, York YO30, UK (53.96413, -1.08782)
43 Thurloe Square, SW7
25 Randolph Crescent, W9
George Washington Hotel, 23 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10010
43 Chester Row, SW1W
February House, 7 Middagh St, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA (40.7008, -73.99468)
Education: University of Oxford
Gresham's School
Buried: Kirchstetten, Kirchstetten, Sankt Pölten-Land Bezirk, Lower Austria (Niederösterreich), Austria
Westminster Abbey, Westminster, London, SW1P 3PA (memorial)
Christ Church Cathedral, St Aldate's, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX1 1DP (memorial)
Find A Grave Memorial# 2969
Books: Poems, The Age of Anxiety, The Dyer's Hand, more
Influenced by: T. S. Eliot, Christopher Isherwood, John Donne, more
Married: June 15, 1935

Erika Mann was a German actress and writer, the eldest daughter of novelist Thomas Mann and Katia Mann. Her first noted affair was with actress Pamela Wedekind, whom she met in Berlin, and who was engaged to her brother Klaus Mann. She later became involved with actress Therese Giehse, and journalists Betty Knox and Annemarie Schwarzenbach, whom she served with as a war correspondent during World War II. On July 24, 1926, Erika Mann married German actor Gustaf Grundgens, but they divorced in 1929. In 1927, she and Klaus undertook a trip around the world, which they documented in their book Rundherum; Das Abenteuer einer Weltreise. She was involved as an actor in the lesbian film Mädchen in Uniform (1931, Leontine Sagan) but left the production before its completion. In 1935, she undertook a lavender marriage (marriage of convenience) to the homosexual English poet W.H. Auden, in order to obtain British citizenship. She and Auden never lived together, but remained friends and technically married until Erika's death. “Isherwood told me that Thomas Mann jokingly referred to him as the "family pimp" due to Isherwood having suggested the marriage in the first place.” Stathis Orphanos
Together from 1935 to 1969: 34 years.
Erika Julia Hedwig Mann (November 9, 1905 – August 27, 1969)
W.H. Auden (February 21, 1907 – September 29, 1973)
Married: June 15, 1935

Days of Love edited by Elisa Rolle
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
ISBN-10: 1500563323
Release Date: September 21, 2014
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54 Bootham is situated in a Conservation Area. It was the birthplace in 1907 of the poet, W. H. Auden.
Address: 54 Bootham, York YO30, UK (53.96413, -1.08782)
Type: Private Property
English Heritage Building ID: 462897 (Grade II, 1954)
Place
A substantial three storey house of c. 1840. The symmetrical five-bay front built in white brick has the central bay and pilaster strips at each end projecting forward; brackets under the eaves cornice are set against a white plaster frieze which is matched by a deep white band under the second-floor windows. The front door is protected by an open porch and the window above is emphasised by a bold plaster surround. The back is built in red brick and has a central projection which on the upper floors contains alcoves leading off the half-landings of the staircase and giving access to what were water closets. The plan, apart from the projections at the back, is square with the common arrangement of four rooms disposed two on each side of the central hall. This central hall has the entrance hall divided from the stair-hall by Corinthian pilasters carrying enriched entablature, the doorways to principal rooms have enriched architraves and overdoors and the alcove off the half-landing is reached between fluted columns with foliated capitals, but the detail of these decorative features is all coarsely designed. The building was once used as a dormitory by Bootham School, later to become the home of the Buddhists in York, and since its purchase in 1986 is now used as offices by a firm of chartered accountants, and is the registered office of this Trust.
Life
Who: Wystan Hugh Auden (February 21, 1907 – September 29, 1973)
W.H. Auden was an English poet, who later became an American citizen. He is best known for love poems such as "Funeral Blues," poems on political and social themes such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles," poems on cultural and psychological themes such as The Age of Anxiety, and poems on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae." He was born in York, grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class family.

Queer Places, Vol. 1 edited by Elisa Rolle
ISBN-13: 978-1532901904
ISBN-10: 1532901909
Release Date: July 24, 2016
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8th Street is a street in the New York City borough of Manhattan that runs from Sixth Avenue to Third Avenue, and Avenue B to Avenue D; its addresses switch from West to East as it crosses Fifth Avenue. Between Third Avenue and Avenue A, it is named St. Mark’s Place, after the nearby St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery on 10th Street at Second Avenue.
Address: 77 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10003, USA (40.72795, -73.98559)
Type: Private Property
Place
St. Mark’s Place is considered a main cultural street for the East Village. Vehicular traffic runs east along both one-way streets. St. Mark’s Place features a wide variety of retailers. Venerable institutions lining St. Mark’s Place include Gem Spa, Yaffa Café, the St. Mark’s Hotel, St. Mark’s Comics, and Trash and Vaudeville. There are several open front markets that sell sunglasses, clothing and jewelry. There are also a number of restaurants and bars, as well as several record stores. Wouter van Twiller, colonial governor of New Amsterdam, once owned a tobacco farm near 8th and Macdougal Streets. Such farms were located around the area until the 1830s. Nearby, a Native American trail crossed the island via the right-of-ways of Greenwich Avenue, Astor Place, and Stuyvesant Street. Under the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, a city grid for much of Manhattan was defined. Eighth Street was to run from Sixth Avenue in the west to Third Avenue and the Bowery to the east. The area west of Sixth Avenue was already developed as Greenwich Village. Mercer, Greene, Wooster, Thompson Street, Sullivan Street, and Macdougal Streets, as well as Laurens Street (present-day LaGuardia Place), extended to Eighth Street until the 1820s, when the construction of Washington Square Park severed Laurens, Thompson, and Sullivan Streets south of 4th Street. After the Commissioners’ Plan was laid out, property along the street’s right of way quickly developed. By 1835, the New York University opened its first building, the Silver Center, along Eighth Street near the Washington Square Park. Row houses were also built on Eighth Street. The street ran between the Jefferson Market, built in 1832 at the west end, and the Tompkins Market, built in 1836, at the east end. These were factors in the street’s commercialization in later years. Eighth Street was supposed to extend to a market place at Avenue C, but since that idea never came to fruition. Capitalizing on the high-class status of Bond, Bleecker, Great Jones, and Lafayette Streets in NoHo, developer Thomas E. Davis developed the east end of the street and renamed it "St. Mark’s Place.” Davis built up St. Mark’s Place between Third and Second Avenues between 1831 and 1832. Although the original plan was for Federal homes, only three such houses remained in 2014.
Notable queer residents at St. Marks Place:
• No. 33: Home to poet Anne Waldman in the late 1960s/mid-1970s. In 1977, the storefront was occupied by Manic Panic, the first U.S. boutique to sell punk rock attire, which developed its own line of make-up and vibrant hair dyes; notable patrons have included performers David Bowie, Cyndi Lauper, Debbie Harry, and Joey Ramone.
• No. 51: In the early 1980s, this was home to 51X, a gallery that featured graffiti art, representing artists such as Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
• No. 57: Club 57 was an important art and performance space in the late 1970s and early 1980s; notable people, such as Ann Magnuson, Keith Haring, Klaus Nomi, John Sex, Kenny Scharf, David Wojnarowicz, Wendy Wild, The Fleshtones, and Fab Five Freddy, performed or showed there.
• No. 75: The Holiday Cocktail Lounge has had a range of visitors including W.H. Auden, Allen Ginsberg and other Beat writers, Shelley Winters, and Frank Sinatra, whose agent lived in the neighborhood.
• No. 77: Home to W.H. Auden (February 21, 1907 –September 29, 1973) for almost 20 years, from 1953 to 1972. Born in England, the poet Wystan Hugh Auden, arrived in New York City in 1939. After stints at the George Washington Hotel on East 23rd Street and in Brooklyn Heights, he and companion Chester Kallman settled into a second-floor apartment at this location. His living quarters were described as being so cold that the toilet no longer functioned and he had to use the toilet in the liquor store at the corner. Auden is regarded by many as one of the greatest writers of the XX century. The building now houses a restaurant, La Palapa. The basement of this building was the location where the newspaper Novy Mir ("New World" or "New Peace"), a Russian-language Communist paper, was founded in 1916. It was edited by Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, and Leon Trotsky worked there; the paper stopped publishing after the Russian Revolution of October, 1917.

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Published on February 21, 2017 02:17

Paul Bowles (December 30, 1910 – November 18, 1999)

Paul Frederic Bowles was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. He became associated with Tangier, Morocco, where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his life.
Died: November 18, 1999, Tangier, Morocco
Education: University of Virginia
Lived: Rue Sidi Bouknadel (near Rue Riad Sultan), Tanger, Morocco (35.78906, -5.81259)
Taprobane Island, Weligama By Pass Rd, Sri Lanka (5.96775, 80.42573)
February House, 7 Middagh St, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA (40.7008, -73.99468)
Buried: Lakemont Cemetery, Lakemont, Yates County, New York, USA
Find A Grave Memorial# 10542065
Spouse: Jane Bowles (m. 1938–1973)
Movies: The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles: The Complete Outsider, more
Married: February 21, 1938

Paul Bowles was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. Jane Bowles was an American writer and playwright. Jane spent her life examining lesbian identity with an honest and sardonic wit. Jane's adventures in the lesbian and gay bars of Greenwich Village, and her open pursuit of women lovers, caused her mother and her family consternation. In 1937, she was introduced to Paul--himself a homosexual--and agreed to marry him. The two soon recognized that their marriage would succeed only as a platonic friendship; both continued their homosexual liaisons. After a brief sojourn in France, they were prominent among the literary figures of New York throughout the 1940s, with Paul working under Virgil Thomson as a music critic at the New York Herald Tribune. In 1947, Bowles settled in Tangier, Morocco. Except for winters spent in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) during the early 1950s, Tangier was Paul Bowles’ home for the remaining 52 years of his life. Paul Bowles died in 1999 at the age of 88. His ashes are buried in Lakemont Cemetery in upstate New York.
Together from 1937 to 1973: 36 years.
Jane Sydney Auer Bowles (February 22, 1917 – May 4, 1973)
Paul Frederic Bowles (December 30, 1910 – November 18, 1999)
Married: February 21, 1938

Days of Love edited by Elisa Rolle
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
ISBN-10: 1500563323
Release Date: September 21, 2014
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February House was the most fertile and improbable live-in salon of the XX century. Its residents included, among others, Carson McCullers, W. H. Auden, Paul Bowles, and the famed burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee (January 8, 1911 – April 26, 1970). This ramshackle Brooklyn brownstone was host to an explosion of creativity, an extraordinary experiment in communal living, and a nonstop yearlong party fueled by the appetites of youth. Here these burgeoning talents composed many of their most famous, iconic literary works while experiencing together a crucial historical moment--America on the threshold of WWII.
Address: 7 Middagh St, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA (40.7008, -73.99468)
Type: Historic Street (open to public)
Place
In 1940, George Davis, an editor recently fired from Harper's Bazaar, rented a dilapidated house in Brooklyn Heights in which he installed brilliant, volatile artists, who spent the next year working, fighting, and drinking. Carson McCullers sipped sherry while, down the hall, the burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee typed her mystery novel with three-inch fingernails, and, downstairs, Benjamin Britten and Paul Bowles fought over practice space. W. H. Auden was housemother, collecting rent, assigning chores, and declaring no politics at dinner. Like all bohemian utopias, February House (so named because of the residents' February birthdays) was unable to withstand the centrifugal force of its constituent egos. The artists dispersed—to return home, serve in the military, or follow wayward lovers—and the house was demolished to make way for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

Queer Places, Vol. 1 edited by Elisa Rolle
ISBN-13: 978-1532901904
ISBN-10: 1532901909
Release Date: July 24, 2016
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In 1947 Paul Bowles settled in Tangier, Morocco, and his wife Jane Bowles followed in 1948. Except for winters spent in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) during the early 1950s, Tangier was Bowles’ home for the remainder of his life. He came to symbolize American expatriates in the city.
Address: Rue Sidi Bouknadel (near Rue Riad Sultan), Tanger, Morocco (35.78906, -5.81259)
Type: Historic Street (open to public)
Place
In Paris, Paul Bowles became part of Gertrude Stein’s literary and artistic circle. On her advice he made his first visit to Tangier with Aaron Copland in the summer of 1931. They took a house on the Mountain above Tangier Bay. Bowles later made Morocco his full-time home, and it inspired many of his short stories. From there he returned to Berlin, where he met British writers Stephen Spender and Christopher Isherwood. (Isherwood was reportedly so taken with him that he named character Sally Bowles in his novel after him.) The next year, Bowles returned to North Africa, traveling throughout other parts of Morocco, the Sahara, Algeria, and Tunisia. In 1947 Paul Bowles received a contract for a novel from Doubleday; with the advance, he moved permanently to Tangier. Jane joined him there the next year. Bowles commented: “I was a composer for as long as I’ve been a writer. I came here because I wanted to write a novel. I had a commission to do it. I was sick of writing music for other people — Joseph Losey, Orson Welles, a whole lot of other people, endless.” He set his second novel, “Let It Come Down” (1952), in North Africa, specifically Tangier. It explored the disintegration of an American (Nelson Dyar), who was unprepared for the encounter with an alien culture. The first American edition by Random House was published later that same month. While Bowles was concentrating on his career as a writer, he composed incidental music for nine plays presented by the American School of Tangier. The Bowles couple became fixtures of the American and European expatriate scene in Tangier. Visitors included Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal. The Beat writers Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Gregory Corso followed in the mid-1950s and early 1960s. In 1951, Bowles was introduced to the Master Musicians of Jajouka, having first heard the musicians when he and Brion Gysin attended a festival or moussem at Sidi Kacem. Bowles described his continued association with the Master Musicians of Jajouka and their hereditary leader Bachir Attar in his book, “Days: A Tangier Journal.” After the death of Jane Bowles on May 4, 1973 in Málaga, Spain, Bowles continued to live in Tangier. He wrote regularly and received many visitors to his modest apartment. Bowles died of heart failure on November 18, 1999 at the Italian Hospital in Tangier at the age of 88. He had been ill for some time with respiratory problems. His ashes were buried in Lakemont, New York, next to the graves of his parents and grandparents.
Life
Who: Paul Frederic Bowles (December 30, 1910 – November 18, 1999)
In 1938 Paul Bowles married Jane Auer, an author and playwright. It was an unconventional marriage: their intimate relationships were with people of their own sex, but they maintained close personal ties with each other. Bowles has frequently been featured in anthologies as a gay writer, but during his life, he always regarded such typecasting as both absurd and irrelevant. After a brief sojourn in France, the couple were prominent among the literary figures of New York throughout the 1940s. Paul Bowles also worked under Virgil Thomson as a music critic at the New York Herald Tribune. His light opera “The Wind Remains,” based on a poem by Federico García Lorca, was performed in 1943 with choreography by Merce Cunningham and conducted by Leonard Bernstein. His translation of Sartre’s play “Huis Clos” (No Exit), directed by John Huston, won a Drama Critic’s Award in 1943.

Queer Places, Vol. 3 edited by Elisa Rolle
ISBN-13: 978-1532906695
ISBN-10: 1532906692
Release Date: July 24, 2016
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House: In 1952, Paul Bowles bought the tiny island of Taprobane, off the coast of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka.) There he wrote much of his novel “The Spider’s House,” returning to Tangier in the warmer months. He returned to Sri Lanka most winters.
Place
Taprobane Island is a rocky private island with one villa, located just off the southern coast of Sri Lanka opposite the village of Weligama. The island was named after the old Greek word for Sri Lanka. The island was previously owned by (self-titled) Count Maurice Maria de Mauny Talvande who fell in love with Weligama Bay. It was he who had the villa built on this tiny island. The islet passed on to the American author and composer Paul Bowles and then the Sri Lankan born former UN Chief Prosecutor Sir Desmond Lorenz de Silva before it came to the ownership of the Australian businessman Geoffrey Dobbs. Notable people who stayed on Taprobane include Dutch author Peter ten Hoopen, who spent a month there in 1984 during civil unrest on the mainland, as well as Kylie Minogue, who composed a song about the island inspired by her stay titled "Taprobane (Extraordinary Day.”) It had inspired Jason Kouchak to compose "Dark Island" in his 1999 album Watercolours.
Life
Who: Maurice Talvande, Count de Mauny Talvande (March 21, 1866 – November 27, 1941)
Maurice attended St Mary's College at Hales Place in Canterbury, which was run by French Jesuit Priests, during the period 1883-1884. His brother Roger also attended St Mary's College and stayed on for a longer period from 1883-1888. Maurice, subsequently, went to Saint-Cyr Military College which was also influenced by the Jesuit Order. Despite the basic French environment that he was surrounded by, Maurice probably learned his English too while he was under their tutorship. His close friendship with George Byng, brother of Lady Mary, whom he first met at St Mary's College in Canterbury, may have given him the opportunity to meet Mary, in the first place, and then develop into a relationship that ended in marriage to her. After completing his education, it is reported that, he travelled widely in America for several years. He is reported to have sailed from Le Havre and arrived in New York, in the US, on November 19, 1894 on board the 9,000 ton SS La Touraine., being in transit to Boston, in a journey that lasted about seven days. Count Maurice Maria de Mauny Talvande married Lady Mary Elizabeth Agnes Bynge, daughter of the fourth Earl of Strafford, enry William John Byng, on June 24, 1898. The wedding was a great social occasion and attended by the Princess of Wales, Princess Christian and Prince and Princess Saxe-Weimer. His mother Mme de Mauny Talvande and brother Roger de Mauny Talvande also attended. His father, Felix Talvande, was not present. The bridegroom was 32 and the bride was 33 years old at the timeof their marriage. The newly wed De Mauny's settled down in 1898 at the famous Azay-le-Rideau castle, whose long and memorable history goes bact to the reign of Francois I in the XVI century. From Azay, Maurice and Mary moved to Cannes where their son Victor Alexander Christian henry George was born on April 19 1899. From here they moved briefly to San Remo and then returned to England. On their return from France in 1900 the de Mauny family moved to an old Queen Anne house called "Terrick House", near Ellesbrough in Buckimhamshire. A daughter, Alexandra Mary, was born here on July 19 1904. Maurice is reported to have written three books, "The Peace of Suffering 1914-1918", "Gardening in Ceylon", "The Gardens of Taprobane". Maurice was a great traveller. It is believed that he visited Ceylon for extended periods of a time a year or two after 1910. William Warren has suggested in "Tropical Asian Style", that de Mauny was first invited to Ceylon in 1912 by Sir Thomas Lipton, the tea magnate. Warren has conjectured that it was some “great personal disaster” that drove de Mauny to Ceylon. It is possible that both his diminishing financial status and also his many marital problems he was facing may have been the reasons for his move eastwards.de Mauny travelled several times between Hampshire and Ceylon soon after his bankruptcy problems. His skills as an expert gardener and furniture maker in Ceylon, and, later on Journalism, may have provided him with the necessary finances to supplekent his travel and living. There are accounts from people who knew him in Ceylon that he also used to receive remittances from overseas which probably could have beensent by his wife, Mary, from time to time for his upkeep and living. It is reported that he also ran a furniture factory and workshop in Colombo. A number of de Mauny furniture pieces have survived in the hands of private owners. They are now highly valued and cherished in Sri Lanka. He started the "Weligama Local Industrues" in 1925 which as he claimed gave employment to over 200 carpenters, carvers and inlayers. By 1930, the enterprise suffered at the hands of the Depression and had to be halted until better times. It was restarted in 1936. The craftsmanship was most admirable and the designs were very much French styles of that time. Ferguson's Ceylon Directory for 1920-21 shows that his address was “Ascot,” Albert Crescent, Cinnamon Gardens, Colombo 7, a very elite and high-society area of Colombo. His son, Victor, is also listed as living there. It was in September 1927 that he saw for the first time, and quite by chance, a place that was to become his final home. At the center of the arc of the Bay of Weligama, in the southern tip of Ceylon, “a red granite rock, covered with palms and jungle shrub, rising from the Indian Ocean - an emerald in a setting of pink corral” was where he finally chose to build andlive his eternal dream of peace and tranquility close to nature that he loved so much. He swam across the narrow straight and saw an admirable view as he reached the plateau of the rock. "There was nothing", he recalled some ten years later, "between me and the South Pole". Having located and identified his magical island, which was only a few acres in area, de Mauny then set upon the task of building it into his future home that he had been dreaming of for so many years. The foundation stone of the house was laid on February 1, 1927 and thus initiated the beginning of what was to become a famous and much visited site by many distinguished persons. The seeds of "The Gardens of Taprobane" had been planted. The island was named "Taprobane" based on the ancient name for Ceylon given by the Greeks and also because it suited its pear-shape outline more like a mini Ceylon itself. The local name, by tradition, for the sland was "Galduwa" meaning "Rock Islan" in Sinalese. It is conjectured that the island may have been a art of the mainland in ancient tmes as it is not shown in maps of the Portuguese Colonial era. The name Taprobane is also considered to have been originated from the sanskrit "Tamba Vanna" meaning "copper colored" as a reference to the many famous golden beaches of Ceylon. The house was built on a 135 feet square area with a broad terrace surrounding it. It was octagonal in shape spanninga surface of 25 by 25 yards. This gave the resident and eight faced view of the outsde world with the north side facing towards the mainland and the south facing Antarctica in the South Pole. The central hall was called the "Hall of Lotus" and was also octagonal in shape measuring 26 by 26 feet. A 30 foot high dome lined with eight panels of inlaid wood was located in the center of he hall. The panels were dyed with an opaque gold and blue color and bore designs of Lotus buds and flowers. The dome was supported by eight square pilars of Wedgewood-blue, 24 feet tall. On either side of these were two light columns, 12 feet tall, making sixteen in all, terracotta with gilded capitals. They supported a white stone traverse that connected the pillars in an arch that was 12 foot span. This was hung with curtains of soft blue silk with a deep brocaded border of art noveau design at the bottom colored black and gold on cream. The rooms converged on the hall through eight arches. A Sigiriya frescoe styled border ran along the stone white walls. The whole scheme was engulfed in a golden hue by light entering through Venetian blinds created out of amber colored glass. The furniture within was made by local craftsmen using some of the rarest woods of Ceylon. They were mainly of French style although here were any pieces that belonged to the Dutch designs too. A carpet of Maidenhair ferns and a light bronze creeper with clumps of Eucharist Lilies adorned the hall. From the north-east terrace here was a splendid view of the shoreline, the forest of coconut palms fringing the Bay of Weligama, and the copper colored sands clustered with boats on a pea-green sea. Through the entrances of iron gates, with their design of brass-headed peacocks with prussian blue eyes one could see he openness and vastness of the mighty Indian Ocean sprawling through time. The Count was residing at Weligama in 1931. His son, Victor Alexander, was then residing at "Boxmead", Turret Road (now renamed to Dharmapala Mawatha and running from Kollupitiya junction in Colombo 3 all the way down to Liptons Circus in Colombo 7, bounding one of the most prestigious residential areas of Colombo), Colombo 7. Victor was employed at the Rosehough Tea Company, first as an Assistant and then as an under-manager. It is also reported in the Fergusons Directory that he held the position of Second Lieutenant in the Royal Navy. he went on to become a Commander in the Royal Navy in WW II, wher he was awarded the DFC. He eventually went on to become the Chairman of Rosehough until he resigned in the early 1970's. Local records in Sri Lanka show that the island was actually purchased by de Mauny for a sum of Rs 250 in 1925 in the name of his son Victor Alexander. It remained in his ownership until it was sold by public auction, in 1942, for Rs 12,000. The Count encouraged people to visit is island. His historical visitors book was filled with names of Kings, Princes, Dukes, Duchesses, Aristocrats, Prime Ministers, and other famous personalities from across the blue marble. Count Maurice de Mauny Talvande died on November 27, 1941 while at the Chelvarayan Estate, Navatkuli, in the northern city of Jaffna in Ceylon. Hs remains were buried at St Mary's Burial Grounds in Jaffna. Maurice's son Victor passed away in 1978 and his daughter Alexandra died in 1989. They were both chidlless. De Mauny's island was a very famous destination for many notables from different nations. The island was sold by public auction in 1942 after having been neglected ad in a state of derelict for many years. In 1957 Paul Bowles wrote an article about finding and living on a tiny tropical island in the Indian Ocean – Taprobane – only one hundred yards off the coast of Weligama, near Galle, in southern Ceylon (now Sri Lanka.) He first became intrigued by Taprobane island in 1949 when he saw photographs of it during a stay at Wilton House, the magnificent ancestral home of his friend from Tangier, David Herbert. The Herbert family had stayed on the island in the mid-1930s. Bowles first visited Ceylon in 1950 and two years later, when Taprobane was put up for sale, he bought the island with some of the proceeds from his second book “The Delicate Prey and Other Stories.” Paul Bowles wrote the final chapters of “The Spider’s House” while living on Taprobane. Bowles sold the island n 1956 to the Irish writer Shaun Mandy. For several years, since 1964, the island was in the ownership of of the de Silva whose senior member was Desmond de Silva QC, the very distinguished British barristor. The island was then on a long lease to to the very successful Hong Kong business tycoon Geofrey Dobbs. It may be interesting to note that the wife of Desmond de Silva is Princess Katharina of Yugoslavia. The author Robin Maugham, who visited the Island as a young man, and in the mid-1970s, considered the unique beauty and harmony of the villa had become compromised after de Mauny's death by partitioning and the loss of his furniture and fittings, and that the area itself had been despoiled by the construction of a new road along the mainland beach. Since then, and particularly after the 2004 tsunami, significant development of the adjoining mainland village has occurred.

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Published on February 21, 2017 01:33

Mary Edwards Walker (November 26, 1832 – February 21, 1919)

Mary Edwards Walker was an American feminist, abolitionist, prohibitionist, alleged spy, prisoner of war and surgeon. As of 2016, she is the only woman ever to receive the Medal of Honor.
Born: November 26, 1832, Oswego
Died: February 21, 1919, Oswego, New York, United States
Education: Syracuse Medical College
Buried: Rural Cemetery, Oswego, Oswego County, New York, USA
Find A Grave Memorial# 23089
Awards: Medal of Honor
Books: A Woman of Honor: Dr. Mary E. Walker and the Civil War, Hit: Essays on Women's Rights, Hit
Parents: Vesta Walker, Alva Walker

Born in 1832, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker (November 26, 1832 – February 21, 1919) is the second woman to become a physician in the US. She served as a doctor during the Civil War and is the only woman to receive the Medal of Honor. She preferred to dress in masculine clothes and often offered her home as sanctuary for others who chose to dress unconventionally. Her grave at Rural Cemetery (242 Cemetery Rd, Oswego, NY 13126) is identified as a property associated with the Women's Rights Movement in the NPS "Women's Rights National History Trail Feasibility Study" 2003.

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Published on February 21, 2017 01:14

John Henry Newman (February 21, 1801 – August 11, 1890)

John Henry Newman CO was a Catholic cardinal and theologian who was an important figure in the religious history of England in the 19th century. He was known nationally by the mid-1830s.
Born: February 21, 1801, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Died: August 11, 1890, Edgbaston, Birmingham, United Kingdom
Education: University of Oxford
Lived: Oratory House, Birmingham B45 8, UK (52.38483, -2.00464)
Newman House, 52 Ham Street, Richmond, Greater London TW10 7HQ, UK (51.43782, -0.31251)
Buried: Rednal Roman Catholic Cemetery, Rednal, Metropolitan Borough of Birmingham, West Midlands, England
Buried alongside: Ambrose St. John
Find A Grave Memorial# 35439076
Parents: Jemina Fourdrinier, John Newman

John Henry Newman was an important figure in the religious history of England. The Reverend Father Ambrose St. John was an English Oratorian, convert to Catholicism. He is now best known as a lifelong friend of Cardinal Newman. Newman wrote after St John's death: "I have ever thought no bereavement was equal to that of a husband's or a wife's, but I feel it difficult to believe that any can be greater, or any one's sorrow greater, than mine." In accordance with his expressed wishes, Cardinal Newman was buried in the grave with Fr. St. John at Rednal Roman Catholic Cemetery, Rednal, England: "I wish, with all my heart, to be buried in Fr Ambrose St John's grave — and I give this as my last, my imperative will.” The pall over the coffin bore his cardinal's motto Cor ad cor loquitur ("Heart speaks to heart".) The two men have a joint memorial stone that is inscribed with the words he had chosen: Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem ("Out of shadows and phantasms into the truth"). In The Dream of Gerontius, Edward Elgar's piece on Newman's poem, the Guardian Angel is considered to be based on St. John. In preparation for his beatification and canonization, the Catholic Church wanted to transfer his body, but when the grave was opened in 2008, no remains were found due to his body being buried in a wooden coffin in very damp ground.
Together from (around) 1835 to 1875: 40 years.
The Reverend Father Ambrose St. John (1815 – May 24, 1875)
Cardinal John Henry Newman CO (February 21, 1801 – August 11, 1890)

Days of Love edited by Elisa Rolle
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
ISBN-10: 1500563323
Release Date: September 21, 2014
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English Heritage Blue Plaque: Grey Court, Ham Street, Cardinal Newman (1801–1890), "In this house John Henry Newman, later Cardinal Newman spent some of his early years"
Address: 52 Ham Street, Richmond, Greater London TW10 7HQ, UK (51.43782, -0.31251)
Type: Student facility (open to public)
English Heritage Building ID: 205346 (Grade II, 1950)
Place
Built in late XVIII century
Grey Court School was built in the grounds of a Georgian house called Grey Court House. The school would take its name from the house. The house itself was renamed Newman House after Cardinal Newman who lived there as a child in the early part of the XIX Century. Three storeys, 5 windows. Brown brick with parapet above cornice. Slate roof. Central pedimented porch. Grey Court School is a coeducational secondary school with academy status, located in Ham, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It is twinned with Alexander-von-Humboldt-Gymnasium in Konstanz, Germany. The school has received an "outstanding" rating in all areas from Ofsted. In September 2014, a new Sixth Form Centre opened for Grey Court’s founding sixth form students. The school occupies a large acreage in Ham, with playing fields and tennis courts. The school’s current head teacher is Maggie Bailey. The school was opened in 1956 to provide education for the children of the newly constructed Ham Estate.
Life
Who: John Henry Newman Cong. Orat. (February 21, 1801 – August 11, 1890)
Cardinal Newman was born in London in 1801. Three years later the family moved to Grey Court House, an XVIII century mansion that still stands in Ham Street, but has been re-named Newman House. The future cardinal only lived there for three years but it became engraved on his memory. Revisiting it 54 years later, he wrote: "I have been looking at the windows of our home at Ham near Richmond, where I lay aged five looking at the candles stuck in them in celebration of the victory of Trafalgar. I have never seen the house since September 1807 - I know more about it than any house I have been in since, and could pass an examination in it. It has ever been in my dreams." Built in 1742, the house was already a school before Newman died in 1890. Now it forms part of Grey Court, the school built in its grounds some 50 years ago.

Queer Places, Vol. 2 edited by Elisa Rolle
ISBN-13: 978-1532906312
ISBN-10: 1532906315
Release Date: July 24, 2016
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The Birmingham Oratory is an English Catholic religious community of the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, located in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham. The community was founded in 1849 by the Blessed John Henry Newman, C.O., the first house of that congregation in England.
Address: Birmingham B45 8, UK (52.38483, -2.00464)
Type: Cemetery (open to public)
English Heritage Building ID: 217208 (Grade II, 1952)
Place
The living quarters of the Birmingham Oratory, called the Oratory House (1850–51), fronting Hagley Road, served as Cardinal Newman’s home from 1852 to 1890 (except for four years spent in Ireland). His personal papers are located here. The Birmingham Oratory was to play a major role in the life of J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of “The Lord of the Rings,” who was a parishioner there for about nine years during his childhood. J. R. R. Tolkien lived at Fern Cottage in Rednal at the age of 12, and his mother died there in 1904. He wandered widely around the Lickeys and later recalled: “When I think of my mother’s death ... worn out with persecution, poverty, and, largely consequent, disease, in the effort to hand on to us small boys the faith, and remember the tiny bedroom she shared with us in rented rooms in a postman’s cottage at Rednal, where she died alone, too ill for viaticum, I find it very hard and bitter, when my children stray away.” The body of Cardinal Newman was buried in the small Roman Catholic cemetery at Rednal, by the Oratory country house. Attempts to move his body to Birmingham Oratory, near Birmingham’s city centre, as he was being considered for canonisation, failed due to the absence of any mortal remains.
Life
Who: John Henry Newman Cong. Orat. (February 21, 1801 – August 11, 1890), aka Cardinal Newman and Blessed John Henry Newman and Ambrose St. John (June 29, 1815 – May 24, 1875)
In accordance with his express wishes, Cardinal John Henry Newman was buried in the grave of his lifelong friend Ambrose St. John (1815-1876.) The pall over the coffin bore the motto that Newman adopted for use as a cardinal, “Cor ad cor loquitur” (Heart speaks to heart), which William Barry, writing in the “Catholic Encyclopedia” (1913), traces to Francis de Sales and sees as revealing the secret of Newman’s "eloquence, unaffected, graceful, tender, and penetrating.” Ambrose St. John had become a Roman Catholic at around the same time as Newman, and the two men have a joint memorial stone inscribed with the motto Newman had chosen, “Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem” (Out of shadows and phantasms into the truth), which Barry traces to Plato’s allegory of the cave.

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Published on February 21, 2017 01:10

John E. Fryer (November 7, 1937 - February 21, 2003)

John Ercel Fryer, M.D. was an American psychiatrist and gay rights activist best known for his anonymous speech at the 1972 American Psychiatric Association annual conference where he appeared in disguise and under the name Dr. Henry Anonymous.
Born: November 7, 1937, Winchester, Kentucky, United States
Died: February 21, 2003, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Education: Transylvania University
Vanderbilt University,
Ohio State University
University of Pennsylvania
Buried: Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio, USA, Plot: Garden LN, Section 134, Lot 133, Space 3
Find A Grave Memorial# 49661173
Employer: Temple University
Field: Psychiatry

Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum (733 acres) is a nonprofit garden cemetery and arboretum located at 4521 Spring Grove Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio. It is the second largest cemetery in the United States. The cemetery dates from 1844, when members of the Cincinnati Horticultural Society formed a cemetery association. They took their inspiration from contemporary rural cemeteries such as Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, and Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Address: 4521 Spring Grove Ave, Cincinnati, OH 45232, USA (39.17433, -84.52501)
Type: Cemetery (open to public)
Phone: +1 513-681-7526
National Register of Historic Places: 76001440, 1976
Notable queer burials at Spring Grove Cemetery:
• Clara Chipman Newton (1848–1936), Plot: Garden LN, Section 57, Lot 49, Space 21.
• Grace W. Hazard (died in 1952), Plot: Garden LN, Section 14, Lot 305, Space 13.
• John E. Fryer, M.D. (1937–2003), American psychiatrist and gay rights activist best known for his anonymous speech at the 1972 American Psychiatric Association (APA) annual conference where he appeared in disguise and under the name Dr. Henry Anonymous. This event has been cited as a key factor in the decision to de-list homosexuality as a mental illness from the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The APA's "John E. Fryer, M.D., Award" is named in his honor.
• Mary Louise McLaughlin (1847–1939), Plot: Garden LN Section 54, Lot 50 space 18.
Life
Who: Mary Louise McLaughlin (September 29, 1847 – January 19, 1939) and Clara Chipman Newton (October 26, 1848 – December 8, 1936)
Mary Louise McLaughlin was an American ceramic painter and studio potter from Cincinnati, Ohio, and the main local competitor of Maria Longworth Nichols Storer, who founded Rookwood Pottery. Like Storer, McLaughlin was one of the originators of the art pottery movement that swept the United States. In 1877 she worked out how to paint the porcelain under the glaze, and consequently became the first artist in the United States to implement the underglaze technique. Eventually other artists began utilizing this same technique, and in 1879 McLaughlin founded the Cincinnati Pottery Club along with Clara Chipman Newton and others. Mary Louise McLaughlin was born to a wealthy family of Cincinnati, her father being the owner of a successful dry goods company in the city. Her older brother was architect James W. McLaughlin. In spite of her independence, McLaughlin was always quick to admit that she had invaluable assistance from her companion and housekeeper of 47 years, Margaret "Maggie" Hickey. Hickey was an Irish immigrant who joined her sister in the United States and began work for McLaughlin around 1885. Maggie was about 20 years old at the time. While she lacked formal education, her natural intelligence was considerable. She was soon able to assist McLaughlin in every aspect of the porcelain process. By the winter of 1898-1899 she was doing all the casting of the ware, and by the fall of 1901 she was also managing all the firing. at the time of Hickey's death in 1932, she was still working for McLaughlin. In 1894, shortly after her brother George died, McLaughlin moved to 6 Oak Street near Gilbert Avenue, and by 1897 she was renting a house at 2558 Eden Avenue in Mount Auburn, not far from her brother James's home. It was at her Eden Avenue address that she decided to make porcelain. In 1912 McLaughlin moved from 2558 Eden Avenue in the suburb of Mount Auburn to her final address at 4011 Sherwood Avenue in Madisonville, another Cincinnati suburb. She designed the house, and it was built by her architect brother James. The simple plan, which placed all living needs on the ground floor, was ideal for the artist who was then 65 years old. On Mar. 4, 1923, Louise's brother, James McLaughlin, died at the age of 88 at his retirement home in New York City. His obituaries hailed him as one of Cincinnati's most important architects. Margaret Hickey died in 1932. In 1934 Miss Grace W. Hazard, then 65 years old, assumed Hickey's position. Hazard always affectionately referred to McLaughlin as "Ma." McLaughlin's will was contested for years by various members of the family and by Hazard, her last companion. Clara Chipman Newton was an American artist best known as a china painter. In 1879 she became one of the founding members and the secretary of the Cincinnati Pottery Club along with Mary Louise McLaughlin, who was to become a close friend.

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Published on February 21, 2017 00:56

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