Bits and Pieces: Polychrome Terra Cotta- and Tile-Clad Buildings

While wandering around New York City taking photos of architectural ceramics and glass, I’ve come across many buildings with facades clad with polychrome terra cotta or tiles, or buildings with fragments of terra cotta that only hint at what they once were. Below are some of these buildings.

226 East 70th Street, Manhattan

Entrance to 226 East 70th Street, Manhattan. Manufacturer unknown. (Color photos courtesy of Michael Padwee unless otherwise noted.)

A search of the Office for Metropolitan History’s New Building Database for Manhattan shows that in 1927 the architect, Joseph Martine (of 1482 Broadway), designed this building for Leo Bernstein of the Bruitford (sic: should be Brentford) Realty Company. The building is a six-story brick tenement, 125’ wide by 100’ deep. (http://www.metrohistory.com/dbpages/NBresults.lasso?-MaxRecords=10&-SkipRecords=20922)  The owner obtained a Certificate of Occupancy, No. 14429, in 1928.

The front double-door entrance of this building is flanked by spiraling terra cotta columns topped by a semi-circular terra cotta panel.

Very little is known about the architect, but The Brooklyn Daily Eagle wrote about “Joseph Martine,...who has designed many of Brooklyn’s newest houses as well as hundreds on Long Island and in Westchester County.” (“Suggests Newlyweds Plan 6-Room House To Be Only Temporarily Two-Family”, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 7, 1929, p. G3)

Ehrich Brothers Emporium/J. L. Kesner Building, Manhattan

(695-709 Sixth Avenue)

This building was designed in 1889 by the architect William Schickel as the Ehrich Brothers Emporium. The Ehrich Brothers store closed in 1911 and the building passed to Chicago merchants J.L. Kesner Company. Architects Taylor & Levi added new storefronts with Arts and Crafts style pilasters with terra cotta tile panels sporting the initial "K". The tiles were made by the Hartford Faience Company. Kesner moved from the building in 1913 (http://www.nyc-architecture.com/SOH/SOH054.htm), and the building is currently occupied by Staples and the Burlington Coat Factory. The building is within the Ladies Mile Historic District and has an elegant cast iron facade. The Kesner Building is built in the Renaissance Revival tradition. There is some damage to the tiles due to neglect.

A tiled storefront and pilaster in 2000.

Two closeup photos of the pilaster tiles (courtesy of Michael Padwee), and one of a damaged pilaster showing holes cut through the tiles. (Photo: http://billywoerner.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/walking-home-midtown-to-park-slope-may-5th-2010/)

The Hartford Faience Company was located in Hartford, Connecticut. This company was founded in 1894 as the Atwood Faience Company by Eugene Atwood, who had been a partner of William H. Grueby in Boston. (Susan J. Montgomery, The Ceramics of William H. Grueby, Arts and Crafts Quarterly Press, Lambertville, NJ, 1993, pp. 13-16) 

The Ambassador Apartments, Staten Island

(30 Daniel Low Terrace)

(Photo from Jan Somma-Hammel, “Cool Spaces: Staten Island's Ambassador Arms, an Art Deco classic with star-studded history”, Staten Island Advance, September 15 and 19, 2014; http://www.silive.com/homegarden/index.ssf/2014/09/cool_spaces_staten_islands_amb.html)

In the mid-1990s I worked on Staten Island. A few blocks from my office (and from the ferry terminal) was an apartment building at 30 Daniel Low Terrace in the St. George/Fort Hill neighborhood (http://forgotten-ny.com/2009/02/st-georgefort-hill-staten-island/) near Belmont Avenue, the Ambassador Apartments.

The street was named for a member of one of the early families that settled the area. The art-deco style gold, blue, white and pink terra cotta panels above the entrance and the first floor windows were possibly manufactured by the Atlantic Terra Cotta Company of Staten Island and Perth Amboy, New Jersey. The building was built in 1932 and designed by the architect Lucien Pisciotta. The lobby of the building still has the original tilework and fireplace ornamentation. (http://www.silive.com/homegarden/index.ssf/2014/09/cool_spaces_staten_islands_amb.html)

Terra cotta at roof line; terra cotta ornamentation on facade; lobby tiles and fireplace ornament. (Photos from Jan Somma-Hammel, “Cool Spaces: Staten Island's Ambassador Arms, an Art Deco classic with star-studded history”, Staten Island Advance, September 15 and 19, 2014; http://www.silive.com/homegarden/index.ssf/2014/09/cool_spaces_staten_islands_amb.html)

The Park Plaza Apartments, Bronx

(1005 Jerome Avenue)

The Park Plaza Apartments. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Park_Plaza_Apts_1001_Jerome_Av_jeh.jpg, photo taken by "Jim.henderson" in March 2011) 

In the Bronx, in the shadow of the original Yankee Stadium, stand the “Park Plaza Apartments [which] were one of the first and most prominent art deco apartment buildings erected in the Bronx in New York City. The eight-story, polychromatic terra cotta embellished structure at 1005 Jerome Avenue and West 164th Street was designed by Horace Ginsberg and Marvin Fine and completed in 1931. It is an eight story building divided into five blocks or sections, each six bays wide. There are about 200 apartments, ranging from one to five rooms." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Plaza_Apartments_(New_York)

"[…The] most unusual architecture-related imagery can be found on the Park Plaza... . 

"A terra-cotta panel depicts a kneeling figure symbolically offering a skyscraper before an architectural alter on which the Parthenon is placed! 

"Additional polychrome plaques showing the city skyline and the rising sun also embellish this 1929-31 building." (Susan Tunick, Terra-Cotta Skyline: New York's Architectural Ornament, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, NY, 1997, p. 98)

The polychrome terra cotta was installed between 1929 and 1931, but it is not known which company manufactured the terra cotta. These buildings were listed as a New York City landmark in 1981 and in the National Register of Historic Places in June 1982 under reference number 82003346.

753-755 Flushing Avenue/738 Broadway, Brooklyn

There is a building at 755 Flushing Avenue in Brooklyn, just off Broadway and across Flushing Avenue from Woodhull Hospital, that has the remnants of polychrome terra cotta cladding. Much of the remaining terra cotta is obscured by signage, and I believe some of the terra cotta may have been removed in the past.

It is not known if the "TFC" tiling is original to the building or a result of one of the renovations.

Currently, this is a pharmacy. In the 1990s it was a fast food restaurant. The building, 753-755 Flushing Avenue, goes through the block at an angle to another entrance at 738 Broadway. A Certificate of Occupancy from 1929 shows renovations to this building completed by Stuckert & Leo, architects. And another CofO from 1951 shows more alterations to the Flushing Avenue exterior. The terra cotta manufacturer is unknown to me.

The polychromed terra cotta tiling rises from halfway up the inner doorposts (753 and 755 Flushing Avenue) and extends around the entryway arches.

There is at least one course of tiling that runs from the 755 entryway to the 753 entryway above the arches, but this is obscured by the signage on the building. Originally there may have been additional terra cotta on the upper floors of the building, but there is no proof of this at this time.

713-723 Nostrand Avenue/855-859 Sterling Place, Brooklyn

The building is “clad in  buff brick and terra cotta under a parapet with urns over bosses comprised of acroteria accentuated with puti; polychrome terra cotta cladding with baroque-inspired figural and foliated ornament; arched second-story windows with bundled polychromatic terra-cotta surrounds, some with decorative bosses.” (National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Crown Heights North Historic District, August 14, 2013, Section 7, p. 127)

A corner building located at 713-723 Nostrand Avenue exhibits baroque polychrome terra cotta cladding. “The property is a two story retail building consisting of 7 units located on Nostrand Avenue between Sterling Place and Park Place. It is on a highly trafficked block in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.” (http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/17425948/713-723-Nostrand-Avenue-Brooklyn-NY/)  This building is further described in the Crown Heights Historic District II Designation Report: “Commercial buildings [in the district]...include the two-story building at 713 Nostrand Avenue..., which was designed by Isaac Kallich and completed c. 1929 [New Building # 2387-29]. Although its ground floor has been altered, this building’s second floor is a lively and fantastical display of Baroque Revival design, executed in polychrome terra cotta. Like the movie palaces of the time, which were often designed in freely adapted versions of exotic historical styles, this building was a place of amusement, constructed as a bowling alley and billiard hall.” (New York City Landmarks Commission, Crown Heights North Historic District II Designation Report, Edited by Mary Beth Betts, June 28, 2011, p. 30)

“Isaac Kallich [d. 1962] studied architecture in Odessa, Russia and completed his training at New York University. He practiced architecture in New York City for over fifty years and headed the firm of Kallich & Weinstein in Brooklyn.” (Crown Heights North Historic District II Designation Report, p. 522)  The New York Times has numerous articles that mention apartment buildings and single residences built in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn during the 1930s-50s, all designed by Isaac Kallich or his firm.

The Philadelphian Sabbath Cathedral/Kameo Theatre 

(530 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn)

The Philadelphian Sabbath Cathedral, started out “...as the Cameo Theater in February of 1924. ...In 1925, the Loew’s chain took over the theater and renamed it the Kameo. It remained a movie theater until 1974, after which it was sold to the church. Although it needs to have the grime of the city removed, the terra-cotta ornament is well preserved and highly unusual. The structure of the roof theater remains as well. Inside, the church has preserved many of the original details. ...The architect, Eugene Wiseman, was a veteran theater architect." (http://www.brownstoner.com/blog/2010/08/building-of-the-112/#530-ep1-1)  

A suggested terra cotta facade for a theater in which advertising space becomes part of the artistic composition of the building. (National Terra Cotta Society, Architectural Terra Cotta Brochure Series, Volume Two, The Theatre,  1915, frontispiece and p. 20)

As in most of the above buildings, we do not know the manufacturer of the terra cotta, but the facade illustrates one of a number of suggestions made by the National Terra Cotta Society in 1915 for a terra cotta theater facade.

Thomson (or Thompson) Meter Company/Eskimo Pie Building, Brooklyn (100-110 Bridge Street)

“The Thompson Meter Company Building is located on the southwest corner of Bridge and York Streets in the DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) area of Community District 2, Brooklyn. ...The landmark building housed a manufacturer of disk water meters and later was acquired by the New York Eskimo Pie Corporation...in 1926. [The c]ompany founder, John Thompson, is credited with inventing the disk water meter that was only one of four types approved by the Commissioner of Water Supply in New York.” (City Planning Commission, March 24, 2004/Calendar No. 33, N 040295 HKK, “In the Matter of a communication dated February 19, 2004, from the Executive Director of the Landmarks Preservation Commission regarding...”, pp. 1-2)

The building displays a fairly early use in New York of polychromatic glazed terra cotta in order to add elaborate and colorful decorations to the plain concrete exterior. “Designed by Ecole des Beaux-Arts educated Louis Jallade*, the Thomson Meter Company Building incorporates the innovative reinforced concrete construction system developed by French engineer François Hennebique** in 1892. Relatively rare in New York City, the system permitted large, open and flexible interiors that must have been extremely handy in the manufacturing of the Thomson’s disk water meters. Jallade purposefully left the exterior structural concrete unclad so as to highlight this new, modern material – presaging the exploration and celebration of industrial materials later used extensively in the Modern Movement. However, on the building’s spandrels, Jallade incorporated extraordinary and colorful terra cotta ornament which gives the building a classical feel.

"The polychrome terra cotta reflects the design of many French buildings, both in its placement against the concrete background and in the use of motifs, such as chestnut leaves, which were prevalent in France. Of particular note are the terra cotta cartouches at the building’s corners, bearing the linked letters T and M for the building’s original owners. Today, the Thomson Meter Company Building is the best example of a terra cotta and concrete structure in New York City, if not the entire East Coast.” (“Statement of the Historic Districts Council, December 9, 2003, Regarding the Thomson Meter Company Building, 100-110 Bridge Street; http://www.hdc.org/testimonydec9.htm) 

*[Louis Jallade (1876-1957) “had come to the United States in 1877 and had been naturalized in 1897. He was a student in the New York Latin School from 1886 - 1892 and then studied in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Schools from 1892 to 1896. After three years in the ateliers of the Beaux-Arts Society in New York, Jallade went to Paris to study in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (1901-1903) in the Atelier Laloux. Upon his return to the States, Jallade entered the office of Allan & Collins in Boston and was placed in charge of construction for the Union Theological Seminary in New York. By the end of 1906, however, he had set out on his own and constructed an illustrious career with a concentration on YMCA buildings (Norfolk, VA; Newport, RI; Roanoke, VA; Worcester, MA; Allentown, PA; McKeesport, PA; Hartford, CT; Passaic, NJ). In addition to a great number of YMCA structures, Jallade undertook a general practice that included churches, college buildings, hospitals, factories, hotels, garages, residences, schools, and libraries.” (http://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/51969)]

**[François Hennebique (1842-1921) “was a French engineer and self-educated builder who patented his pioneering reinforced-concrete construction system in 1892, integrating separate

elements of construction, such as the column and the beam, into a single monolithic element. The Hennebique system was one of the first appearances of the modern reinforced-concrete method of construction. Hennebique had first worked as a stonemason, later becoming a builder, with a particular interest in restoration of old churches. Hennebique's Béton Armé system started out by using concrete as a fireproof protection for wrought iron beams, on a house project in Belgium in 1879. He realised however, that the floor system would be more economic if the iron were used only where the slab was in tension, relying on the concrete in the compression areas. His solution was reinforced concrete – a concrete slab with steel bars in its bottom face. His business developed rapidly, expanding from five employees in Brussels in 1896, to twenty-five two years later when he moved to Paris.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/François_Hennebique)]  

It is my hope that those who read this will look up when walking around their city or town. See what types of ornamentation the architects and builders have used on their buildings to catch the eye of the beholder.


FURTHER READING:

In a previous blog post I discussed some of the color theories that were important to the architectural terra cotta industry. The books below also discuss the use of color in architecture, among other topics.

Susan Tunick, Terra-Cotta Skyline, Princeton Architectural Press, Princeton, NJ, 1996.
“Terra-Cotta Skyline presents the history, manufacture, and art of architectural terra cotta through documents, drawings, archival photographs, and brilliant new color images commissioned for this book. Lively accompanying text based on extensive research provides anecdotes and insights into the working methods of the architects, sculptors, and artisans who designed with terra cotta -- and the entrepreneurs and laborers involved in its production.” (http://www.preserve.org/fotc/skyline.htm) 

Regina Lee Blaszczyk, The Color Revolution, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2012. 
"In this book, the award-winning historian Regina Lee Blaszczyk traces the relationship of color and commerce, from haute couture to automobile showrooms to interior design, describing the often unrecognized role of the color profession in consumer culture. Blaszczyk examines the evolution of the color profession from 1850 to 1970… ."

A newly published article that illustrates the use of ceramics in New York City architecture by Garth Clark, "The New Ceramic Art Gotham", can be accessed at: https://cfileonline.org/commentary-garth-clark-the-new-ceramic-art-gotham/?mc_cid=2a85101104&mc_eid=ce20ac39ad


ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Now that Christopher Gray has retired his weekly “Streetscapes” column in The New York Times, we have lost what was probably the best continuously-written source of information about the history of architecture in New York City.  All of Mr. Gray’s “Streetscapes” columns have been digitized, however, and a listing is available here. 

Daytonian in Manhattan is an historical/architectural blog that discusses historic buildings in Manhattan. it is written by Tom Miller, a transplant from Dayton, Ohio.


Forgotten New York is a blog by Kevin Walsh that calls attention to the artifacts of a disappearing or long-gone New York.

Hiatus

My "Tiles in New York" blog will be on vacation this summer. It will resume in September with an expanded focus. Besides architectural ceramics, the blog will post articles about architectural glass and other architectural ornamentation. Over the summer we will be continuing our research for a monograph/catalogue raisonné about the stained glass artist Robert Pinart. My September posting will be an introduction to the architectural glass art of Robert Pinart.

Subway Tiles--Part II, Heins and LaFarge

A brief digression before going on to Subway Tiles:

I recently entered two photos in the Labor Heritage Foundation "Occupy Now!" photography contest. One submission, "Rise Up-We Are The 99%" won first prize for amateurs. (http://www.laborheritage.org/?p=2544)

More of my photos are at http://michaelpadweephotos.weebly.com/.

Now, the subway tiles:

A Grueby Eagle on the 33rd Street #6 platform (2012)

      In 1901 a section of wall of what was to become the Columbus Circle station was set aside so ceramic and other companies could install their wares for inspection by the Rapid Transit Commission. (The New York Times, May 26, 1901) Among these companies was the American Encaustic Tiling Company, which was hoping to obtain a contract to tile the subway stations' walls with plain tiles. According to a plaque in the Columbus Circle station, "Though these American Encaustic wall tiles were not selected, the company produced decorative tiles and mosaics for many original 1904 IRT stations, and larger plaques for stations built in the 1910s."

Plaque in the Columbus Circle station that explains the AET exhibit. 
The wall at the top is where the tiles were exhibited. (Photo courtesy of Michael Padwee)

       "Another keyhole to the past opened recently on the uptown platform of the No. 1 train at the...Columbus Circle station...: an interwoven guilloche pattern--...in red and yellow mosaic tiles. ...Next to the guilloche border is a large blue-gray mosaic medallion, enclosing a four-lobed pattern known as a quatrefoil. ...In 'Silver Connections' (1984), his monumental history and description of the New York subway, Philip Ashforth Coppola...wrote '[in 1901]...architects used its [Columbus Circle Station's] walls as an art gallery, experimenting with decorative ideas... .' After their brief service..., 'all these preliminary experiments were covered over and forgotten.'" (David W. Dunlap, "Behind an Old Subway Wall, a Glimpse of an Even Older One", The New York Times, October 20, 2010, http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/antique-mosaic-comes-to-light-not-far-from-where-the-coliseum-stood/)

     From the first contract to build a subway system in 1900 there was an emphasis on art in public areas. William Barclay Parsons, the chief engineer of the Rapid Transit Commission, hired George Heins and Christopher LaFarge as consulting architects for the IRT subway system. (Lee Stookey, Subway Ceramics: A History and Iconography, published by Lee Stookey, Brooklyn, NY, 1992, p. 14)

     "All of the station...[construction] was designed by the engineers of the Rapid Transit Board under Parsons' direction. The raw brick walls and concrete ceilings were then turned over to Heins and LaFarge to be 'beautified.' The decorative scheme that they devised was certainly influenced by Parsons... . Heins and LaFarge's plans were subject to the final approval of Parsons, who delegated authority to D. L. Turner, assistant engineer in charge of stations for the Rapid Transit Subway Construction Company. August Belmont also oversaw station decoration; he approved of the first completed station at Columbus Circle, but complained of the use of too much brick at Astor Place, 50th Street, and 66th Street. [Heins and LaFarge had designed the Zoo in the Bronx and] ...carried several techniques from that project into the subway. These included Guastavino arches and vaulted ceilings, polychrome tile, and ornamental figures... .

How a subway station wall area originally looked. ("Subway Stations in New York City", Brick, Vol. XIX, No. 3, September 1903, p. 93)

Original station decorative scheme

     "In general, the station finish consisted of a sanitary cove base that made the transition from floor to wall, upon which rested a brick or marble wainscot for the first two and one-half feet or so of wall area. This wainscot was applied to withstand the hard usage that the lower wall would be subjected to. The wainscot was completed by either a brick or marble cap, and the remainder of the wall area was covered with three by six-inch white glass tiles, completed near the ceiling by a cornice or frieze. The wall area was divided into fifteen foot panels, the same spacing as the platform columns, by the use of colored tiles or mosaic... . The full station name appeared on large tablets of either mosaic tile, faience, or terra-cotta at frequent intervals, while smaller name plaques were incorporated into the cornice every fifteen feet. Sharp corners were eliminated and junctions between walls were curved to prevent chipping and facilitate cleaning. ...the stations exhibit considerable variation in color and detail. A conscious effort was made by the architects to create a distinct wall treatment for each station, both to relieve monotony and assist in the identification of different locations, and the 'extent of the decoration varies with the relative importance of the stations.' Wherever possible, a local association was worked into the decorative scheme, such as the seal of Columbia University at 116th and Broadway. Heins and LaFarge used a number of different details to add interest to the stations." (Architectural Designs for New York's First Subway, David J. Framberger, Survey Number HAER NY-122, pp.365-412, Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service, Department of the Interior, Washington, DC 20240)

A Grueby "Santa Maria" tile plaque at the IRT 59th Street/Columbus Circle platform (2012)

Grueby Faience

A Grueby Faience ad in the 1905 Catalogue of the Twentieth Annual Exhibition of the  Architectural League of New York.

     Heins and LaFarge also worked with designers and producers of ceramics. Two of the most prominent were William M. Grueby of the Grueby Faience Company of Boston, and William Watts Taylor, president of the Rookwood Pottery of Cincinnati, Ohio.  "...Grueby...was responsible for many of the distinctive early plaques: the ship at Columbus Circle, the eagle at 33rd Street, the beaver at Astor Place and a similar plaque for 50th Street, wreath-like medallions at 116th Street and 14th Street..., and the blue oval sign at Bleecker Street...[,] also...the heavy-bordered name panel at 28th Street and smaller letter and number signs and medallions at Brooklyn Bridge, 18th Street..., 42nd Street, 103rd Street, and 110th Street." (Lee Stookey, Subway Ceramics: A History and Iconography, published by Lee Stookey, Brooklyn, NY, 1992, p. 16) 

Astor Place Beaver plaque. 2012 photo, Michael Padwee

     In March 2000 a Grueby beaver plaque was going to be auctioned off by the Cincinnati Art Galleries in Cincinnati, Ohio. According to its description it was "formerly of the New York Subway System...[i]nstalled, circa 1905, at Astor Place Station...[and r]emoved during [an] official renovation sometime in the 1960s... . The tile measures 25 by 14 inches and is signed 'MC+' on its right side in green slip." (Lot 120, "Art Tile Auction, March 1 Thru 9, 2000" [catalog], Cincinnati Art Galleries, Cincinnati, Ohio) Although this historic plaque had been sold previously and had been part of a joint exhibit by a gallery and a museum, it wasn't until this auction that a number of people thought the tile might actually belong to the City of New York and demanded that it be pulled from the auction.

Another renovation in 2012, but the Grueby plaques remain. (Photo courtesy of Michael Padwee)

     

An Atlantic Terra Cotta letter-cartouche at Canal Street

Atlantic Terra Cotta Company

     Along with Rookwood and Grueby "...the Atlantic Terra Cotta Company...joined the project...[and was] responsible for shield-like cartouches at Canal Street, Worth Street..., Spring Street and Third Avenue in the Bronx. Atlantic Terra Cotta also produced small number panels for several stations...by ingenious mass-production: a standard plaque, bordered with cornucopias, was designed to receive a separately molded panel with the street number...on it. Examples can be seen in several stations including 86th Street, 137th Street, 145th Street and 157th Street." (Lee Stookey, Subway Ceramics: A History and Iconography, published by Lee Stookey, Brooklyn, NY, 1992, p. 16)

A mass produced, Atlantic Terra Cotta Company cornucopia and street number panel

     "During the first quarter of the 20th century the Atlantic Terra Cotta Company was the largest producer of architectural terra cotta in the world. By 1908 the firm operated four plants including Perth Amboy and Rocky Hill, N.J.; Staten Island, N.Y. and Eastpoint, Ga. (near Atlanta). The company maintained branch offices in New York, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Dallas and Newark, N.J. William H. Wilson presided as company president during peak years of production.

     National production of terra cotta quadrupled from 1900 to 1912, and the industry prospered throughout the 1920s. Terra cotta provided the ideal facade for the high rise, metal skeletal, constructed buildings. Atlantic Terra Cotta manufactured products for forty percent of the terra cotta buildings in New York City...", as well as for the subway system. The company closed in 1943. (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utaaa/00038/aaa-00038.html)

Hartford Faience

     Both William Grueby and Eugene Atwood worked for the Low Art Tile Works in Chelsea, Massachusetts in the 1880s. They formed a partnership in an architectural faience company in 1891, and in 1894 Atwood formed the Atwood Faience Company of Hartford, Connecticut, which later became the Hartford Faience Company. At the same time Grueby formed his own company in South Boston. (Susan J. Montgomery, The Ceramics of William H. Grueby, Arts and Crafts Quarterly Press, Lambertville, NJ, 1993, pp. 13-16) Hartford Faience supplied some of the plaques and cartouches for at least the Borough Hall Station in Brooklyn, and the South Ferry Station in Manhattan.

`From "Hartford" Faience and Tiles 1910, a reprint of an original catalog, owned and published by Antique Articles, artiles@antiquearticles.com, c. 2000

A Borough Hall (Brooklyn) plaque and surrounding mosaic tiling

     Hartford Faience was at it's high point about 1904 when the company participated in the St. Louis World's Fair with an impressive display that included it's famous "Sun (or "Fire") Worshipers" fireplace panel.

9' x 5' "Sun-Worshipers" or "Fire-Worshipers" panel

 Rookwood Faience

     The Rookwood Pottery Company of Cincinnati, Ohio created a number of the tile plaques and other tile ornamentation in some Heins and LaFarge stations. Rookwood's company records note that the pottery's faience division was responsible for the 23rd, 79th, 86th, and 91st Street stations and the large plaques at Wall and Fulton Streets. (Lee Stookey, Subway Ceramics: A History and Iconography, published by Lee Stookey, Brooklyn, NY, 1992, pp. 16+)

A Rookwood plaque and faience "W" panel installed at the Wall Street IRT #6 station

     "Maria Longworth Nichols Storer founded Rookwood Pottery in 1880 as a way to market her hobby - the painting of blank tableware. Through years of experimentation with glazes and kiln temperatures, she eventually built her own kiln, hired a number of excellent chemists and artists who were able to create high-quality glazes of colors never before seen on mass-produced pottery." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rookwood_Pottery_Company)

A picture post card from the author's collection

     "In 1883, Nichols hired William Watts Taylor (1847-1913) as the general business manager of Rookwood pottery.  Taylor’s goals for Rookwood echoed those of [William] Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement which was to restore quality and integrity to the arts.  Taylor was adamant about nurturing innovative ideas and even commissioned leading chemists, such as Karl Langenbeck (1861-1938), to aid in the development of new glazes.  The results were the extraordinary glazes that were at the time exclusive to Rookwood pottery.  It was under Taylor’s command that Rookwood would reach the summit of its success." (Daneel S. Smith, "Rookwood Pottery as 'Fine Art'", http://journal.utarts.com/articles.php?id=1&type=paper)

     "In 1902, Rookwood added architectural pottery to its portfolio. Under the direction of Watts Taylor, this division rapidly gained national and international acclaim. Many of the flat pieces were used around fireplaces in homes in Greater Cincinnati and surrounding areas, while custom installations found their places in grand homes, hotels, and public spaces. Even today, Rookwood tiles decorate Carew Tower, Union Terminal (Cincinnati) and Dixie Terminal in Cincinnati, as well as the Rathskeller Room in The Seelbach Hilton in Louisville, Ky. In New York, the Vanderbilt Hotel, Grand Central Station, ...Lord and Taylor and several subway stops feature Rookwood tile designs." (From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rookwood_Pottery_Company)

A slightly damaged Rookwood plaque and faience "F" panel at the Fulton Street IRT #6 platform

     Both Rookwood and Grueby have "decorated" other railway facilities throughout the country. Rookwood faience tiles were used in the Oregon-Washington Railroad and Navigation Company Terminal in Spokane, Washington in 1913, and Grueby faience tiles were used in Scranton, Pennsylvania for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. In 1908 the DL&W dedicated what was to be its "star [terminal]. ...the palatial structure housed one of the most important art tile installations in America--a frieze that circles the waiting-room and consists of thirty-six murals composed of Grueby Faience tiles. Each mural depicts a scene along the railroad's lines beginning at the Hoboken Ferry slips...and ending at Niagara Falls... ." All the panels are two feet high and four to nine feet long. The railroad waiting room is now a restaurant. The story of these murals, written by Dr. Richard D. Mohr and photographed by Robert W. Switzer, can be found online at http://www.aapa.info/ Portals/0/ Lackawana.pdf where this information was obtained. 

A view of the D, L & W waiting room with the panels below the balcony in a 1909 photograph, and one of the Grueby panels, below.

     For information and photos about "everything" NYC subways check out http://www.nycsubway.org/.

     In another post I will discuss the subway tiling during the Squire Vickers era of construction.