Francis Morrone September–December 2021
Hello,
Well, the early summer optimism about the pandemic has, to put it mildly, subsided, and we're in for another season of Zoom. I led an in-person walking tour, limited to 15 people, on August 15. I scheduled that tour before Delta was a thing, and decided to go ahead with it—and am glad I did. It felt great to be out on the street with some of my regular tourgoers of many years. In fact, it felt better than I had any idea it would. And I am anxious to do it again! I have one in-person tour scheduled in the fall, a Wednesday afternoon walk around Washington Square on August 22, sponsored by the Scarsdale Adult School. (See below.) That's it for in-person appearances for the fall. My hope is that we'll all largely be back in person by spring 2022.
When the pandemic began, my thoughts naturally turned to the influenza pandemic of 1918–20. I figured COVID would also be three years of stops and starts. My prediction is now looking pretty good. But by spring we'll all have had booster shots, and the experts will know a lot more about how to deal with the variants that will continue to emerge, and we'll all be that much closer to a new normal in which we're comfortable getting on with our lives. That's my hope, and my expectation. Until then, we're still mostly virtual.
I have a whole slate of Wednesday afternoon programs for Scarsdale Adult School. I love working for them, and one of the positives of the Zoom era is that it's really broadened the audience for the programs I do for SAS. For those among you who prefer Zoom to in-person programs, rest assured that the organizations I work for will likely continue to offer Zoom in addition to in-person programming forever. It's a godsend to those with impaired mobility, and for those who live out of town. See below for links to the Zoom talks I will be giving.
Among my many Wednesday afternoon programs for Scarsdale Adult School are more virtual tours of neighborhoods in London and Paris. Recently, someone asked me if I really knew these places intimately or just did a lot of research. That threw me, I must say. I would never, ever feel comfortable doing such a program if I did not have extensive firsthand experience of the subject. I think the person was surprised that my interest in London and Paris is as high as—is indeed higher than—my interest in New York. All my interests and knowledge are organized around the histories of cities. For as long as I can remember, from earliest childhood, I've always been able to learn things and remember things through geographical references. As soon as I associate something with, say, Córdoba in the 8th century, or Florence in the 1630s, or Chicago in 1968, then it's fixed in my mind forever, and I can always find it. In the same vein, I've found certain cities that contain so much that by focusing on them, by going deeper into them, I find whole worlds—of architecture, art, literature, music, economic and political history—opening up. These are London, Paris, and New York. Obviously, the last named has an advantage: I live there! The others I've only visited. But I know them well. I know their neighborhoods, their transit systems, their bookshops and cafés; I know their histories. (I also know a lot of people in those cities.) Indeed, it's what I know best and care about the most. Since I live in New York, I get opportunities to talk about it—and to lead tours in it—on a routine basis. London and Paris, not as much, though I do teach courses about them. What the Zoom era, with its "virtual tours," has given me is this opportunity to "walk" with you in London and Paris. It's been my favorite thing in these last 18 months. And it's the one thing about this otherwise pretty dreadful year and a half that I hope never ends. So far I've done three Paris tours (Place de la Concorde/Place Vendôme/Place des Victoires, the Marais, and the Faubourg Saint-Honoré/Champs-Élysées) and six London tours (From St. James's Square to Langham Place, Baroque London, Marylebone, Belgravia, South Kensington, and Mayfair). To these I will this fall be adding one Paris tour (Faubourg Saint-Germain) and four London tours (Chelsea, Holland Park and Kensington, Bloomsbury, and Whitehall).
I will also be doing a series called "Lost Mansions of New York," seven one-hour talks each devoted to one great New York house that is no longer there. The houses will be those of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, William Kissam and Alva Vanderbilt, Charles Lewis Tiffany, Senator William A. Clark (Huguette's father), Henry Gurdon Marquand, Charles M. Schwab, and Mrs. William B. Astor and her son John Jacob Astor IV (who died on the Titanic). After concluding my 92Y series "The Age of American Palaces," where I devoted each lecture to a single great American house, and which I agreed to do before I had any idea of whether the requisite images even existed, I felt emboldened to take on this even more daunting series.
I will continue my series "Every Building on Fifth Avenue from Start to Finish" on Sunday, November 21 and on Sunday December 19. These will be the fifth and sixth installments. Part 5 (November 21) will begin on the north side of 42nd Street and go as far north from there as I get in two hours. Part 6 (December 19) will begin where Part 5 ends (I'm guessing around 51st Street.) I've long had it in the back of my mind to write a book about Fifth Avenue, and this series is to help me put my years' worth of notes in order, to determine the date and architect of every building on the avenue, to make sure I've taken or have found an image or images of every building currently standing, and to begin to gather material on what was there before the current building. As you know, I like doing these "start to finish" tours of New York streets, but this series is the first time I've sought to include every building. I will be doing this by Zoom, and you can sign up through Eventbrite:
Sunday, November 21, Every Building on Fifth Avenue from Start to Finish, part 5
Sunday, December 19, Every Building on Fifth Avenue from Start to Finish, part 6
In each number of this newsletter I recommend something other than something I've produced. Two newsletters ago, I directed you to Sunday Classics with Ken, Ken Furie's excellent classical music blog, and one newsletter ago I recommended The Medici: Portraits & Politics, 1512–1570 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (That exhibition, by the way, is up through October 11, and is a must-see.) This time, it's a book, in line with what I said about my love of cities. People often ask me to recommend a book on the history of the city. I've always hemmed and hawed on that one. Such books exist, of course, and some are worth reading, but often they're written from a point of view you have to buy into in order to get through the book, or they are dry and technical. Cities in Civilization (1998) by Sir Peter Hall is a favorite of mine; it's also 1,169 pages long, and I think people asking for a recommendation aren't asking for that much of a recommendation. It was a great pleasure, then, to read the British historian Ben Wilson's Metropolis: A History of the City, Humankind's Greatest Invention, originally published in London in 2020 by Jonathan Cape, and later the same year in New York by Doubleday. Wilson's approach is to devote each chapter to a specific city in a specific period, beginning with "Uruk, 4000–1900 B.C." and ending with "Lagos, 1999–2020" (and including "New York, 1899–1939"). It's a great way to do it in a popular book, as it keeps the reader focused. Add that he's a very good writer, with a great sense of the apt anecdote, and the book's 464 pages fly by. The author has no axes to grind, and he was even able, at the last second, to include mention of the COVID pandemic, so that, unlike Peter Hall's book, or Lewis Mumford's (also excellent) The City in History (1961), it's very up to date. It's easy to find and available in hardcover, audiobook, and ebook editions.
So here's the schedule. (All of these are for Scarsdale Adult School. Unless otherwise noted, each is on Wednesday from 1:00–2:00, and costs $20).
September 15, tour of the Faubourg Saint-Germain in Paris
September 22, in-person walking tour of Washington Square (this one is from 1:00–3:00 and, I just saw, costs $65, so I guess that means I better make it good)
September 29, Lost Mansions of New York, Cornelius Vanderbilt II House
October 6, Lost Mansions of New York, Charles Lewis Tiffany House
October 13, Lost Mansions of New York, Charles M. Schwab House
October 20, Lost Mansions of New York, William Kissam and Alva Vanderbilt House
October 27, Lost Mansions of New York, Mrs. William B. Astor and John Jacob Astor House
November 3, Lost Mansions of New York, Senator William A. Clark House
November 10, Lost Mansions of New York, Henry Gurdon Marquand House
November 17, tour of Whitehall in London
December 1, tour of Chelsea in London
December 8, tour of Kensington and Holland Park in London
December 15, tour of Bloomsbury in London
As you know, I try not to glut your in-box with emails. Should you get another one from me this fall it will be only to correct something in this email, or to let you know about something that's been added.
Thanks, and I hope I see you this fall.
All my best,
Francis