Why Did He Build This?

 During my “afternoon delight” ride, I came across this:

In the Bronx, one can find many buildings like it: handsome, even beautiful, structures built during the early 20th century, just after the Bronx became a borough of New York City.

(Most of the Art Deco buildings for which the Bronx is famous were constructed during the interwar period.)

Like so many structures in the Bronx—and throughout New York City—it is not serving its original intended purpose.  Today a moving and storage company operates in it. From some of the building’s details, I am guessing that it was once a medical or health facility of some sort.

What really intrigued me, though, was this:

Apparently, a “Cuneo” family was involved.  That caught my eye, in part because I cycled to Cuneo, Italy during a bicycle tour of the Alps.  But I couldn’t help but to notice the inscription for Lorenzo Cuneo, born during the same year—1913–Anthony Cuneo erected the building but who died in 1924.  I would think that he was Anthony’s son, nephew or grandson.  Why did he die so young?

When I stopped to look at the building, someone gave me a suspicious glance. Did she think I wanted to buy the building (which I am in no position to do) and price her out of the neighborhood? Or is she one of many people in this city who pass things that are beautiful, interesting or simply unusual but has no curiosity about it?

A New Totem?

 Not long ago, if you saw a wooden likeness of a Native American outside a storefront, the establishment inside was more than likely a cigar shop or tobacconist.

The new equivalent of the “cigar store Indian” is a bicycle, or a likeness of one, festooned with flowers and ferns. But smoking isn’t allowed (at least here in New York City) in the sort of business this new totem most often signals: a café.

I saw this one during my early morning ride.  It was, at least, a bike I recognized: a Raleigh Colt. Like the classic Raleigh 3-speeds, it came with 26 inch wheels and Sturmey-Archer hubs. The main difference, it seemed, was that the frame design was tweaked (the boy’s version is a “camelback”) to allow for a smaller frame on full-sized wheels.

Anyway, I thought the café Colt was just another decoration until I got a second glimpse.

The flowers aren’t attached to the bike, and the rear tire is flat. I wondered whether someone had abandoned the bike there.  Or do the café’s owners bring it inside at closing time?

Riding By Their Home

Even though I have lived and cycled in this city for most of my life, an afternoon ride still can include a “What’s this?”moment

So it was late yesterday afternoon, as I spun down Park Place in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.  

This T-shaped building takes up most of a square block and seems out of place , only because of its size, in a neighborhood full of elegant brownstone townhouses and min-mansions. (Crown Heights was one of the most fashionable neighborhoods in New York—something Stingo, the narrator of Sophie’s Choice, notices.) To me, it looked like a sanitarium attached to a church.

Turns out, my hunch wasn’t far off the mark:  It opened late in the 19th Century as the Brooklyn Methodist Episcopal Home of the Aged. About two decades later, the chapel was added.

When the Home was built, Social Security and public services for the elderly and other vulnerable people didn’t exist.  So, whatever help was available came from charities, whether secular or church-related.

Mercein Thomas, the architect of the Home, refused payment for his services. So did William Kennedy, the architect who designed the extension and chapel.  The money was donated by members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which included some of Brooklyn’s most prominent families.

Today the building houses the Hebron Seventh Day Adventist Church and bilingual (French and English) school that mainly serves Haitian and Senegalese immigrants.

As I understand, the building is in peril:  A developer wants to demolish the south wing and build an apartment tower that would dwarf, not only the school, but the neighborhood. And it would accelerate gentrification, which would drive out longtime residents as well as the families of the kids who attend the school.

Where would be the sense of wonder in riding past another tower block?