Monthly Archives: August 2016

An Addison Walking Tour

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I recently had the fun of leading a historic walk in Addison, starting with the CENTRAL SCHOOL built in 1929 and still in use. We gathered across the street at VALERIO PARK AND VALERIO PARKWAY. Mr. Valerio paved the street and the sidewalk at his own expense when the new school opened so that the children would not have to walk in mud, because he loved them.  The town held a big celebration to thank him, and the small park is now a center of community events.

*The park includes a VETERANS OF ALL WARS MEMORIAL. Now that our country is 240 years old, and has been at war for a good deal of that, communities are increasingly resorting to this approach.

*Right next to the park is the LIBRARY, originally built (1889) as the YMCA.  “Y” was big in those days, especially in industrial towns and railroad towns, to provide the young man with wholesome environment and activities.  It’s now the public library, one of 18 in Steuben County and 49 region-wide.  Addison’s library was incorporated in 1840, which may make it the oldest in our region.

*OLD VILLAGE HALL MEMORIAL PARK across the street is a small space, but it held a pretty good-sized village hall!  They ran out of money part-way through, and had to get underwriting from the Odd Fellows, in exchange for giving them use of the third floor.  Completed 1907, it unfortunately was finally lost due to arson, after the offices had been moved. Floods came down to here from the Canisteo River AND from Tuscarora Creek.

*Nearby on Main Street stood a major hotel, the AMERICAN HOUSE, very popular with travelers in days gone by.  It was demolished in 1971. 

*A few steps farther up is MIDDLETOWN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. The good folks there will make you welcome Wednesday and Friday afternoons, or by appointment. Just about everyone will enjoy the working model railroad.

*Today’s Main Street was mostly erected after a bad fire in 1879. When you’re walking the street you’re also walking the CRYSTAL HILLS TRAIL, a major branch trail of the Finger Lakes Trail. Keep going north and you’ll strike the main FLT in the woods, around the Bradford/Campbell town line. But you’re simultaneously on the GREAT EASTERN TRAIL, a National Scenic Trail. Keep walking south and you’ll end up in Alabama.

*An earlier MAIN STREET BRIDGE came from the Owego Iron Bridge Company.  Downstream, on the line of Goodhue Street, was a decorative suspension bridge.  This was used for foot traffic only after the 1935 flood, and removed altogether after the flood of 1946.  Osprey and eagles both soar up and down the river.

*Another few steps brings you to the METHODIST CHURCH. The congregation goes back to an 1830 meeting in a schoolhouse.  This site was selected, and work begun, in 1875 after a fire at another location – they wanted more space.  It was dedicated in 1876, and used locally-made bricks in construction.

*Up the hill by WOMBAUGH PARK, the EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER congregation also goes back to schoolhouse meetings, about 1847.  This building, which was finished, consecrated, and paid for in 1860, is in a very interesting Carpenter Gothic style… including pointed arches, steep gables, towers, and vertical planking. Diagonally across the way 12 WALL STREET, built in 1849, also shows Carpenter Gothic style, including lots of gingerbread under the eaves.

*The PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH congregation goes back before 1834.  This building on he other side of the park, dedicated in 1882, also used local bricks.

*Doubling back toward Main Street is the EAGLE HOTEL, built as tavern in 1805 and later expanded to a hotel with livery stable.

*The main line of the ERIE RAILROAD came through in 1850-51 – Daniel Webster and Millard Filllmore rode the ceremonial first rain.  Presidential candidates spoke from the observation cars at the ends of trains pulled up to the still-standing ERIE DEPOT, bringing such luminaries as Theodore Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, and Charles Evans Hughes. More prosaically, local producers used the Erie to ship out millions of gallons of milk.

*The WADE’S RENTAL buildings once held a company making “Reliance” bicycles and motorcycles, back in the Glenn Curtiss days. And here, by lovely flower beds along the street, we end our tour.

On to Owego

We like Owego. But for some reason (usually involving hospital visits) we haven’t been in quite a while, apart from zipping off I-86 and into a fast-food place.

 

*So as summer was a-comin’ in we made a commitment to ourselves that we would definitely and deliberately schedule a trip, and then we set July 23, and then we went, and then we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

 

*Many towns are either visitor-oriented, or else resident-oriented. Owego manages both, with much of Front Street offering things that seize the visitor’s attention.

 

*After parking downtown and strolling down the street, we started our visit at Tioga County Historical Society, as we discussed in this space back on July 26. They currently have an exhibition on the MANY things that were manufactured in Tioga County, and on the advertising items that went along with them.

 

*The society goes back to 1914, but they built themselves a lovely brick home on Front Street in 1952. It fits in with the surrounding historic architecture, but being just a few steps out of the downtown area it’s in a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood.

 

*Unfortunately the Susquehanna River flows right along the edge of Front Street, and overflows badly from time to time. There were catastrophic floods in 1935, 1972, and 2011. In that latest year (among others) the historical society itself was flooded.

 

*By the time we finished our visit we were getting hungry, so we stopped for a muffin at The Goat Boy on Front before stepping into Riverow Booksop, where there are 50,000 books (mostly used) crammed into three floors. Besides just wandering, I found (and bought!) (and soon re-read!) “Stand by for Mars!,” the first book in the 1950s Tom Corbett, Space Cadet series. And it was still good.

 

*Although we don’t have young children any more, we’ve spent much of our personal and professional lives among kids, so we took our time in The Laughing Place on Lake Street. The good folks there do a good job at building a selection of toys and games that are interesting and worthwhile. That sounds like the kiss of death when it comes to toys, but we’ve never found that to be the case. We’re very positive on this “place.”

 

*We also had a ball at Early Owego Antique Center, in the old J. J. Newberry store on Lake Street. We would have bought an antique cabinet had the problem of shipping to Bath not seemed insurmountable. But it was fun looking at 1950s radios in their glorious brightly-colored plastic, leafing through curious old comic books (Fatima, anyone?), and finding things we’d never known existed, such as small pails specifically dedicated to storing lambs’ livers. Live and learn!

 

*We enjoyed ourselves taking in lunch at Original Italian Pizza & Restaurant before heading home, leaving much of the downtown yet untouched. There were many other shops that we’ve visited in the past, and numerous other places to eat (including the Calaboose Grille, in the old county jail).

 

*Owego is the Tioga County seat, and the courthouse is a prominent downtown feature, lying straight ahead as you cross the bridge from the south to enter town. Near the courthouse are a Civil War monument and a fountain with statue of an old-time fireman. Owego was elected as America’s coolest small town in 2009. Decorated and lighted at Christmas, Front Street and the bridge form a lovely sight.

 

*It’s intriguing to us that although we’ve been dropping in on Owego for twenty years now, a great many of the businesses that we found on our first visit were still going strong on our latest, even through the Great Recession of 2009 and the terrible flooding of 2011. Change and decay in all around I see, but Owego still endures. And keeps on beckoning us back.

Fascinating Stuff at Johnson Museum of Art

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Recently in this space we reported on a July visit to the Herbert Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University. We had gone for a special exhibition (now closed, sad to say) on Aboriginal contemporary paintings. But there’s a lot more to the museum than that.

*For instance, we also enjoyed “American Sojourns and the Collecting of Japanese Art.” The thrust of this exhibit (through December 18) is the American experience of visiting or living in Japan over the past century and a half… an experience that has led to great enthusiasm for Japanese art in this country but has also led to transformations within Japanese art… either for the purpose of sales, or by way of learning, adopting, and transforming something new.  Just the adoption of photography, for instance, marked the incorporation of an entire new technology and an entirely new art form.

*We were very pleased to see three color prints donated by our friends Jerry and Virginia Wright.  Jerry, who experienced Japan while in the military and repeatedly while working for Corning Glass Works, demonstrates varieties of ways American experience that country.

*It’s interesting that earlier military visitors, still fiercely bitter about Japan’s aggression and war crimes, quickly fell under the spell of Japanese art in all its beauty. There’s a long history of “nature art” including landscapes, but Japanese artists have also found beauty even in industrial scenes.

*While not mentioned in the exhibit, American comic books in Japan influenced manga, a distinctly Japanese form of comics, and manga has bounced back across the Pacific to influence American comics. It’s a never-ending story.

*While “American Sojourns” is a temporary exhibit, a permanent feature of the museum grounds is a Japanese garden… art in landscape. This particular garden presents in landscaping the story of the three laughing sages (Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist) – a story that raises questions about the boundaries that we build around ourselves.

*There’s more Japanese art, and other Asian art, on permanent exhibit on the fifth floor. This is also the exhibit space for ancient art, including cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia (Iraq) and its neighbors. One of these included the earliest datable picture of a man riding a horse.

*The most spectacular feature of the fifth floor is seen through the wraparound windows. Strolling around the perimeter you get a fantastic view of the campus, the city, Cayuga Lake, and the far shore of Cayuga Lake. Right below, on the north side, you overlook a footbridge across the gorge of Fall Creek.

*Of the seven levels, five are public spaces dedicated to exhibits. We covered three of those levels (one incompletely), so another visit is called for (and looked forward to!).

*The building itself goes back to 1973, and has that Soviet feel that was then nearing the end of its popularity. I suppose you can argue that the minimalist structure allows the art to stand out, but it still has a cold feel – not rejecting the visitors, but perhaps indifferent to them. Were I responsible, I would make the entrance area more inviting. But perhaps the sense is that while visitors are welcome, and admission is free, its mission is about academics instead of visitation.

*Parking is at a premium on the Cornell campus, so make sure you read signs and meters and follow instructions. My experience is that no map of Ithaca or Cornell ever shows what’s actually on the ground at the time you’re there… I think they’re both playing Brigadoon. But keep your patience, and your sense of humor, because the place is definitely worth repeated visits.

“No Boundaries” Aboriginal Paintings Are Worth the Trip to Ithaca

Our rural area is pretty well served in terms of art museums.  There’s the Rockwell in Corning, the Arnot in Elmira, the Yates County Arts Center in Penn Yan.  Down in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, Gmeiner Art Center has a new exhibition each month, open hours seven days a week, and free admission every time.  Make the trip to Rochester, and you can visit Memorial Art Gallery, enjoying the outdoor sculpture garden while you’re at it.

*Of course our area is also home to a great world university, and for our fortieth anniversary we visited Cornell’s Johnson Museum of Art… as we’ve been saying we’re going to get around to doing, for exactly half of that time.

*In particular we wanted to take in a special exhibition that closes August 14, which is what got us out onto the country lanes of Tompkins and the hills of Ithaca in torrential downpours.

*This is “No Boundaries: Aboriginal Australian Contemporary Abstract Painting.”  Nine painters were represented, including one whose family had no contact at all with the western world until he was about 25 years old.  None of them have “academic” training in art, although several have been involved in community-based art programs.

*We’re not very familiar with Aboriginal art, but if we understand it correctly much of it is abstract or geometric.  These artists (only one’s still living) continued in that tradition.  The resulting paintings partake of traditional Aboriginal art, and also partake of modern western art — “no boundaries.”

*Several of the pieces would fit right in with the most hip gallery going.  Others definitely maintain a sense of “other,” the voice of a different culture.  Aboriginals maintaining their own culture… or at least drawing strongly from it… often need to function in the western culture as well.  Native peoples in the Americas often face a similar challenge.

*We looked very closely at most of them, and we were interested to see that the painters used few or no brush strokes.  Instead, the paintings were mostly formed by close-set dots, echoing the dot motif in Aboriginal body art.  It shares something with pointillism, but it’s another “movement” altogether.

*It’s overwhelming to look at a five-foot painting, completely covered with “op art” irregular swirls, and see that every single “line” is actually a line of dots.

*From what we understand, some of the painters indulged in a color palette far more varied and exuberant than those colors available traditionally.  Some of them are excitingly eye-catching.

*As a museum professional myself, I know the challenge of creating labels that are at once informative and short.  The labels really helped us in understanding something of these artists, and of individual pieces.

*But some labels communicated little more than the artist’s identity and a title in  one of the Aboriginal tongues.  Since the paintings are abstract, I would have found it worthwhile to know whether the title referred to a person… a place… an object… a concept… or what.  For all know they all said “Up against the wall, whitey,” which would certainly have been appropriate.

*This piece is a little late, given that the show closes on the 14th. But we found it was really worth the trip, and worth the look. And we haven’t even mentioned the rest of the museum, which will be a topic for a future blog.

The Taylor Wine Story

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The 1860 state gazetteer makes only the briefest mention of grapes on Keuka Lake, but the 1868 county directory shows 110 vineyards in the town of Urbana alone!

*In addition, of course, are coopers, basketmakers, and a whole panoply of support services. An Ohio wine industry had started about a decade earlier, importing European winemakers to take the lead. Blight wrecked the Ohio vineyards just as the Keuka vineyards were getting started, making those winemakers suddenly available… and helping to explain the European feel of the oldest buildings.

*In the late 1850s George and Maria Taylor removed from Connecticut to the Owego area. There their son Walter was born in 1858.

8The Taylors were engaged in coopering, or the making of casks. Young Walter learned this trade, and in 1879, at the age of 21, married Addie Chapman.

*At the time of the marriage the elder Chapmans had just sold their businesses in Tioga County and started fresh in Hammondsport, which was starting to boom from the combined forces of the grapes, the wine, the new railroad connection, and the tourist trade. Besides grocering, the Chapmans bought a vineyard on Bully Hill.

*Alerted by his father-in-law, Walter and Addie took a lease with option to buy on seven nearby acres. They built a cabin and worked the vineyard, doing very well with their first year’s harvest, which they hauled to Grimley’s packing plant in Hammondsport, then returned to Tioga County and the coopering business for the winter.

*Another nearby vineyard came up for sale, 60 acres with a house and barn, and having done so well the first year, they took a chance in 1880. They moved into the new place, experimented with blending their juices, and packed the product in the family casks. Walter took a downstate sales trip by rail, and soon had an impressive collection of orders.

*In 1881 and ‘82 they expanded the facilities, with Walter’s father supervising construction of half a dozen thousand-gallon casks, made from their own white oak. That year Walter received his license to make wine.

*By the late 1880s they had expanded their line to include still wines, dessert wines, and grape juice. Their family was expanding too, with four children born between 1883 and 1893. Greyton was born a decade later, making him twenty years younger than his elder sister.

*In 1919, as World War I was ending and Prohibition beginning, Walter bought the Columbia Winery (where Finger Lakes Boating Musuem is now); he would sell the Bully Hill homestead ten years later. Since so much of his business was in grape juice and sacramental wines, he was somewhat insulated from Prohibition.

*The original Walter Taylor died in 1934, and the firm continued as a private family company. Son Fred was one of five new owners who revived the Bath and Hammondsport Railroad after the 1935 flood.

*In 1936 they began the manufacture of champagne, and in 1940 dropped non-alcoholic products. They experienced a boom during World War II, as competition from Europe ceased. In 1958 Walter S. Taylor bought back the original homestead and began hybridization experiments in conjunction with his father Greyton… today’s Bully Hill Winery.

*A stock offering in 1961 raised capital so that Taylor Wine Company could buy the Pleasant Valley Wine Company, with Greyton as manager. By 1971 Fred, Greyton, and Clarence… the sons of Walter and Addie… had each passed away.

*Eventually the family sold out to corporate ownership, and for a time Taylor was the largest employer in Steuben County, after the Corning Glass Works. But a succession of corporate owners neglected and finally closed the operation, ending a century-old Keuka Lake heritage.