Leigh Witchel Posted October 28, 2002 Author Share Posted October 28, 2002 I walked by what I think is the site of the Adelphi on my way home tonight. If I'm right, it's now 1325 Seventh Avenue, but the entrance is halfway down the block on 54th street - it is right next to the Hilton Hotel and across the street from the Righa Royal. If anyone recalls anything about that space, I'd be curious! Was it a large house? small? Good to dance in? Bad? Big backstage? Cramped? Good sightlines? Anything! I think I'm next going to pay a visit to 225 West 24th Street when I get a moment. I bet if I called the principal I could look at the auditorium. Link to comment
Mme. Hermine Posted October 28, 2002 Share Posted October 28, 2002 i haven't been by there in a while, but how about the harkness house building, which had been shuttered up for a while the last time i saw it, on 75th street? Link to comment
Kyriakoula Posted October 28, 2002 Share Posted October 28, 2002 The "old" ABT studios were not where David Howard's or Robert Denvers' studios were. It was between Broadway and CPW and is still an empty lot. It was shocking to me that they tore the building down that the studios were in (the studio had not been there very long and it had been a major renovation) and then the lot has sat empty for so many years. I believe Millenium Partners own that lot. To me, the old Abt studios were on 57th street. I took from Pereyaslavic (sp), Swoboda and Danielion (sp) there. I also saw Carla Fracci rehearsing Giselle in a miniscule studio there. Link to comment
Estelle Posted October 28, 2002 Share Posted October 28, 2002 [Note: silly, I has missed the second page of the thread and was replying to Alexandra's post...] Also having a map would make it easier for non-new yorkers to understand the discussion By the way (sorry if it's getting a bit off-topic) I think it might be a bit interesting (even if somewhat morbid) to have some list of ballet-related cemeteries... A few years ago, the French magazine "Danser" had made an article with photographs of the graves of many ballet people buried in or near Paris. Are there some famous graves of ballet people in NYC? For example, is Balanchine's tomb there? Perhaps we could even start an "online ballet graveyard" with scanned photos of tombs or urns... The only one I can offer is that of Isadora Duncan's urn at the Pere Lachaise (last spring my husband's friends organized a weird "bachelor's day" (like a bachelor party) for him which started near the urn of Georges Perec at the Pere Lachaise, and since he noticed Isadora Duncan's name not very far he took a photo of it). Link to comment
Leigh Witchel Posted October 28, 2002 Author Share Posted October 28, 2002 Estelle - There are precious few cemeteries on the island of Manhattan; the ones left are quite old, and I think closed to new burials (but I could be wrong). Balanchine's funeral service was held at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Our Lady of the Sign at 75 East 93rd Street and he was buried, I think, in Sag Harbor, about a two hour drive to the east on Long Island. [Again - this is just off the top of my head; I haven't fact-checked any of this yet.] Link to comment
Calliope Posted October 28, 2002 Share Posted October 28, 2002 It's outside of NY, but there's a website with photos of Balanchine's summer house in Weston CT (lots of LeClercq on the site too) www.katzhome.com/history.htm I don't know if there's any cemeteries in NY that they still bury people in. Link to comment
Mel Johnson Posted October 28, 2002 Share Posted October 28, 2002 There are still new burials in New Trinity Cemetery which is above Riverside Park 'way up on the West Side. Riverside Drive overlooks part of the burial ground. Link to comment
Leigh Witchel Posted October 31, 2002 Author Share Posted October 31, 2002 A book about the times and demolition of the old Metropolitan Opera House: Last Look at the Old Met And here are pictures of the Old Met Link to comment
Mel Johnson Posted October 31, 2002 Share Posted October 31, 2002 Thanks, Leigh, those were nice trips to nostalgia-land for me! Link to comment
balletmama Posted October 31, 2002 Share Posted October 31, 2002 Just a small, factual point: Finis Jhung now teaches at Peridance. Link to comment
Farrell Fan Posted October 31, 2002 Share Posted October 31, 2002 As has been noted, this is a really wonderful thread. Balanchine also lived at 27 West 67th Street. A friend of mine who still lives there recalls the time during a strike of building employees when Mr. B took his turn operating the elevator. Amazingly, the elevator in that building still has an operator. And a fellow Ballet Alerter sent me a photo this past summer of Balanchine's grave in Sag Harbor. Link to comment
kfw Posted November 1, 2002 Share Posted November 1, 2002 Lincoln Kirstein lived at 128 E. 19th, or 126, or whatever one door west of 130 is. 130 is the number I can just barely make out, with a magnifying glass, on the snapshot I took. I knew he'd lived on East 19th, but no one in the neighborhood seemed to know where and I only discovered it by accident a few months later while on vacation in Massachusets. I'd made arrangements to see few pieces at Harvard's Fogg Museum that weren't then out in the galleries, and one was an Elie Nadelman sculpture. After we viewed them, the curator asked if we'd like to see the papers pertaining to each piece. Well, sure. And there in the Nadelman papers was a letter to Kirstein. Oh happy day! Link to comment
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