The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909: Compiled From Original Sources and Illustrated by Photo-Intaglio Reproductions of Important Maps, ... and Private Collections (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-19...)
Excerpt from The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909: Compiled From Original Sources and Illustrated by Photo-Intaglio Reproductions of Important Maps, Plans, Views, and Documents in Public and Private Collections
Guiana, were examined in the hope that they might add something to our knowledge of the early years of the Dutch occupation of New York. These researches have extended over a period Of six years and have covered most of the known sources and repositories of information.
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The iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909: compiled from original sources and illustrated by photo-intaglio reproductions of important maps, ... documents in public and private collections
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
The Iconography Of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909: Compiled From Original Sources And Illustrated By Photo-Intaglio Reproductions Of Important Maps, Plans, Views, And Documents In Public And Private Collections
Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes was an American architect and housing reformer, son of famous philanthropist Anson Phelps Stokes. Among his more noteworthy designs were the Baltimore Stock Exchange, the headquarters for the American Geographical Society in New York, the Bonwit Teller department store in New York.
Background
Isaac was born on April 11, 1867 in New York City, New York, United States, the eldest of nine children (four boys and five girls) of Anson Phelps Stokes, banker and philanthropist, and Helen Louisa (Phelps) Stokes. Both parents were descended from George Phelps, who emigrated from Gloucestershire, England, to Dorchester, Massachussets, about 1630.
Besides his father, other philanthropists of note in the family were his grandfather James Boulter Stokes, one of the founders of the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, and his aunts Caroline and Olivia Phelps Stokes.
Education
After attending the Berkeley School in New York City and St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, where the homesick lad often became ill and never remained for the full year, Stokes entered Harvard in 1887. College was more of a social than an intellectual experience for him, and his record at Harvard was little better than the conventional "gentleman's C. "
Following his graduation in 1891, Stokes acceded to his father's demand that he enter the banking business. But after two years he decided to study architecture, enrolling first at Columbia University, where he specialized in economic planning, and then in 1894 at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.
Career
Stokes returned to the United States in 1897, and that year, with John Mead Howells, son of the novelist William Dean Howells, submitted the winning design for the University Settlement building. Encouraged by this success, the pair opened an architectural office in Manhattan, a partnership which lasted until 1917.
Stokes's decision to enter the field of architecture, as he later recalled, was based in part on discussions with such reform leaders as Josephine Shaw Lowell and Robert W. de Forest, who convinced him "that better housing for the poor, and particularly for the working classes, was one of the crying needs of the day, and that the designing and promotion of better housing . .. furnished as good an opportunity for useful service as any other profession".
In 1896 he submitted a design in a competition for a model tenement house sponsored by New York's Improved Housing Council.
Appointed to the commission in 1901, Stokes focused on the city's ubiquitous dumbbell tenements. The dumbbell design, conforming to the city's traditional deep and narrow lot (and, ironically, the winner of an earlier architectural competition), had contributed to the development of tenement districts which were regarded by many as the most unsanitary and congested in the world.
Determined that new housing for the poor should be more healthful, Stokes showed that, by planning a whole city block and transcending the standard 25-by-100-foot lot, the same number of people could be housed at the same cost per unit in new apartments with adequate light, air, and open space.
He incorporated some of these ideas in the design of the Tuskegee Houses, a six-story tenement for Negroes built in 1901 by Caroline and Olivia Stokes. Linking apartment construction to slum clearance, Stokes proposed that the city purchase the worst tenement blocks, demolish the old buildings, and, after converting the center of a block into a park and playground area, sell the strips along the perimeter to private developers for the construction of low-cost housing. He hoped in this way to reserve sufficient open space for local residents, while freeing builders from the restrictive dimensions of the standard city lot. Though Stokes helped write the New York Tenement House Law of 1901, which set minimum standards for air, light, and sanitation, he soon lost faith in this type of legislation.
He was especially annoyed when his Dudley model tenements, which were built in 1910, had to wait three years for approval from the Tenement House Department. Convinced that detailed codes, as advocated by such reformers as Lawrence Veiller, inhibited the architectural experimentation necessary for the development of lowcost housing, Stokes resigned in 1912 from the Charity Organization Society's Tenement House Committee because of its emphasis on restrictive legislation.
He now believed that the solution to the housing problem lay entirely in the development of more economical designs; thereafter, as president (1911 - 24) and secretary (1924 - 37) of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, which had been established by Caroline Phelps Stokes in 1911, he concentrated on technical problems to lower the cost of construction.
Stokes died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of seventy-seven at the home of a sister in Charleston, South Carolina.
Achievements
Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes was a pioneer in social housing, who co-authored the 1901 New York tenement house law. For twenty years he worked on The Iconography of Manhattan Island, a six volume compilation that became one of the most important research resources about the early development of the city. He was also a member of the New York Municipal Arts Commission for twenty-eight years and president for nine of these.
Besides, Stokes helped organize in 1898 the Charity Organization Society's Tenement House Committee. He was chiefly responsible for the preparation of the committee's tenement architecture competition and exhibition, which led in 1900 to the establishment by Governor Theodore Roosevelt of the New York State Tenement House Commission.
Reared in an atmosphere of gracious luxury and devout Episcopalian faith, Stokes inherited a strong tradition of public service and benevolence.
Views
He lamented the sacrifice of harmony and stability to what he considered the rampant selfishness and egalitarianism of the twentieth century, and hoped for a religious revival to restore social order. Late in his life, he admitted that he was both an "idealist" and a "conservative. "
His approach to the housing problem was realistic, but narrowly conceived. An officer in several family real estate ventures, he never questioned the sanctity of speculative real estate practices; indeed, he thought the key to the housing problem was to make good housing profitable enough to attract speculators, and during the 1930's he vigorously objected to the federal government's public housing program as utopian and impractical.
Personality
Tall, with a formal black beard, I. N. Phelps Stokes was a dignified man whose desire to serve society sprang from a feeling akin to noblesse oblige.
Interests
Stokes collected prints of old Manhattan as a hobby. Eventually his collection took the form of the monumental published compilation.
Connections
On August 21, 1895, he had married Edith Minturn, daughter of a New York merchant and granddaughter of Robert Bowne Minturn. They had no children of their own but adopted a young English girl, Helen Bicknell.
