Juane Quick-to-See Smith is a member of of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. A resident of New Mexico, she was born on a reservation in Montana. In addition to being an artist, she is a political activist, curator and educator. Her art reflects her focus on environmental issues and Native American history and identity.
The Mezquita-Catedral de Cordoba, in English the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, is historically and architecturally both a mosque and a cathedral as the name implies. Now it operates as a cathedral with Mass held daily and bears the name Catedral de Nuestra Senora de La Asuncion (Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption). This is a unique site, a magnificent blend of historic Muslim and Catholic architectural features.
Originally the site is believed to have been a Visigoth church. The mosque was built in 785 under the direction of Abd Al-Rahman, founder of the Caliphate of Cordoba. The city was captured by King Ferdinand III of Castile as part of the Reconquista in 1236. It is at that point it was converted to a Catholic cathedral.
As you can see from the pictures below, the arches and walls of the Mesquita remain largely in place. The cathedral was built up in the center of the building in the 16th century. It was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1984.
Built in 1315 this is the only preserved synagogue in Andalusia erected before the expulsion of the Jews in 1492. After that date it was used as a hospital and in the 16th century became the property of the shoemakers brotherhood. It was declared a national monument in 1885 and was restored beginning in that year.
Built in 1328, the Alcazar was erected on the site of a Visigoth fortress. Once a Moorish alcazar, it has been the site of numerous historic events. It once housed Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon. They located a tribunal for the Inquisition here. It was also the site of Christopher Columbus’ first meeting with Ferdinand and Isabella. In the early 19th century Napoleon used it as a garrison for his troops.
The Alcazar was declared a national monument in 1950.The beautiful gardens shown in the pictures below were built after that time.
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia is a museum that focuses primarily on 20th Century Spanish Art. It is the home of Picasso’s Guernica (photography not permitted). The museum, which opened in 1992 in a former hospital building, houses about 2000 pieces of art. Here you can find a Picasso that isn’t Cubist, a Dalí that isn’t Surrealist.
The museum is named after Queen Sofia. The wife of King Juan Carlos I, she was queen of Spain from 1975 to 2014 when Juan Carlos abdicated in favor of their son Felipe VI.
Appropriately, my post focuses on the great Spanish artists of the 20th century.
Juan Gris (borrn Madrid)
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(If you are viewing on a laptop or tablet, the feature photo at the top of the page is Harlequin with Mandoline in Oval, Jacques Lipchitz.)
The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza or, more simply, the Thyssen, was my favorite of the art museums I visited in Madrid.
The Thyssen evolved from a private collection. Heinrich, Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kaison, who was born in Germany and lived in Austria and the Netherlands with his Hungarian wife, began putting the collection together in the 1920’s. His son Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza continued and expanded it. At one time it was the second largest private collection in the world, behind only the British Royal Collection.
The collection was originally opened to the public at a family estate in Lugano, Switzerland. When the younger Baron was unable to get permission to expand the building there, he moved the collection to Madrid. His Spanish wife, Carmen “Tita” Cervera is believed to have influenced that decision.
The Thyssen Museum opened in 1992. One year later the 775-piece collection was sold to the Spanish government. Cervera loaned her personal collection of 429 works to the museum, a loan which renews annually.
The Thyssen houses works from the 14th century to present. As you can see from my photos below, I spent most of my time on the floor with the most modern pieces. The collection is diverse. There is an eye-catching surprise in just about every room you enter. I’ll start with my three favorites.
Fundación MAPFRE is a Spanish-based social service organization which is active in social action, culture, health promotion, accident prevention, and insurance. It’s cultural activities include museums that feature visual arts and photography in Madrid and Barcelona.
I visited the Madrid museum in June. It featured two photography exhibits that focused on images of cities. The first is by Russian-American photographer Anastasia Samoylova. Her project, Image Cities, won the foundation’s biennial KBr Photo Award in 2021. Samoylova’s photos were taken in Moscow, New York and cities throughout Europe.
The bright contemporary look of Samoylova’s images could not be more of a contrast from the work of Louis Stettner. His pictures of New York and Paris, from the 1940’s to the 1980’s, are shot in black and white, sometimes dark, sometimes grim. Stettner, a Marxist, frequently focused on working class themes.
El Born is a district within the old city of Barcelona with a history dating back to the 13th century. The cultural center, which was originally built to house a market, sits atop an archeological site. The War of Succession, which took place in the early 1700’s after Charles II died leaving no heirs, resulted in the destruction of this area of Barcelona. The El Born CC site includes the remains of some 50 buildings that were demolished to build fortifications.
The El Born market opened in 1876. It was active until 1971. The site was preserved and opened as the El Born Cultural Center in 2013.
Once the site of medieval jousting tournaments and a place where executions took place during the Inquisition, the Passeig del Born is now a gathering place and busy night spot.
This square is the place where defenders of the city during the War of Succession were buried, in the center is a monument to Catalans who died in the war. Atop the monument is a torch of eternal flame.
This El Born pastry shop dates back to 1852.
The Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria is a large public market in central Barcelona with an entrance facing La Rambla. While it has taken many different forms, folks have been selling stuff here for centuries. In 1470, it was a pig market. The current structure came into being in 1840.
The Barcelona beach was largely built in 1992 as part of the preparation for the Olympic Games. While it is hard to imagine now, looking at this active beachfront area, this was once a shantytown called Somorrostro.
This railway station opened in 1848 and was the end point for trains arriving from France. It is still operated by Renfe, but has been replaced by Sants as the main station for international and long distance services.
Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) left his mark throughout the city of Barcelona. Part of the Modernist movement of the late 19th century, the architect’s designs range from a massive cathedral to simple street lamps. His designs reflect his Catholicism, his Catalan identity and his interest in nature. Seven of his works have been declared World Heritage sites by UNESCO.
Gaudi’s signature work. Construction began on this Catholic Church In 1882. It’s still going on. Gaudi took over the project in 1883, after the original architect resigned. He devoted the rest of his life to it. Since his death in 1926, several other architects have taken on the project using Gaudi’s plans. The target completion date is 2026 although that is expected to be pushed out further. It is like no church I’ve ever seen.
A private residence, also known as La Pedrera, designed by Gaudi and built between 1906 and 1912. UNESCO designated it as a World Heritage Site in 2013. What I found most notable is the roof with its domes, staircases and chimneys.
This is a previously built home that was remodeled by Gaudii in 1904 after it was purchased by textile manufacturer Josef Batllo. It is known in Barcelona as Casa dels ossos (House of Bones). Casa Batllo has also received the World Heritage Site designation.
From the exhibit “Black Power to Black People: Branding the Black Panther Party” at Poster House, New York
H. Rap Brown was a member of both the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panther Party. He is associated with the phrase “burn, baby, burn,” hence the match.
Sixteen-year-old Bobby Hutton had joined the Black Panther Party two years earlier. Two days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, he was part of a group of Panthers led by Eldridge Cleaver who engaged in a shootout with the Oakland police. The Panthers claim that Hutton had surrendered and was unarmed when he was shot 12 times by the police.
Eldridge Cleaver ran for president in 1968 on the Peace and Freedom Party Ticket. His running mate was Peggy Terry, a white working-class organizer.
Poster refers to a group of 21 Panthers who were arrested in New York and charged with a plot to blow up three buildings and conspiracy to kill police officers. Those who couldn’t post bail was held at Rikers Island. All 21 were acquitted after an eight-month trial.
Bobby Seale was one of the original Chicago Eight, charged with conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The judge refused to grant Seale’s request that he represent himself. At one point he was gagged and bound in the courtroom. His case was declared a mistrial and the Chicago Eight became the Chicago Seven.
In 1970, Angela Davis was arrested at a Howard Johnson’s in Manhattan. She was charged with murder, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy. It was alleged that she purchased the guns used by the Soledad Brothers, three inmates who murdered a prison guard in Soledad Prison in California. Davis was acquitted of all charges.
The title of this poster reflects a strategy proposed by Huey Newton to use small groups in their rebellion rather than large-scale riots.
From the exhibit “Made in Japan: 20th Century Poster Art” at Poster House, New York
I didn’t grow up eating Big Macs or Whoppers or Chalupas. The fast food burger chains were just starting to expand in the 50’s but in Totowa, N.J., where I grew up, we didn’t know anything about McDonald’s or Burger King.
Fast food for me was Nedick’s.
Nedick’s was urban. It wasn’t on any highway. There was no drive-thru, not even a parking lot. You could find Nedick’s at a bus depot or train station, at a sports venue or hotel.
My go-to Nedick’s was on Washington Street near City Hall In Paterson. As a pre-teen my look at the outside world was pretty much confined to Paterson. I could take the #12 bus to downtown Paterson and there was a Nedick’s right where I would pick up the bus to go home. And I rarely did without stopping at the Nedick’s, even if it meant waiting for the next bus. I could always kill time checking out the 45’s at the record store next door.
One New York Times writer described Nedick’s as New York’s Starbucks. And for a younger me, indeed it was. On those rare occasions when my dad would take me into the city we usually entered via the Lincoln Tunnel and parked in the Times Square area to avoid further driving in the city. That meant a quick bite at Nedick’s on 42nd Street. When I went to the old Madison Square Garden on 49th and 8th, there was a Nedick’s on the premises. There was also one in Penn Station and outside Yankee Stadium.
Nedick’s served food to take out. But most of the outlets also had an old fashioned lunch counter with wait service.
I’m sure they must have had some other food, but my order was always the same: a hot dog and an orange drink. The hot dogs were made on the type of rolling grill you commonly see at concession stands at sports venues. I imagine you can let the dogs roll around on one of those grills for quite awhile and still have them taste fresh. No wrapping the food in paper and stuffing it in a bin at Nedick’s. Your tube steak would come straight off the grill. It was served in a toasted split top roll like the ones commonly used for lobster rolls.
What was even more iconic than the Nedick’s hot dog was the Nedick’s orange drink. There are still folks on the internet looking to puzzle out the Nedick’s orange drink recipe. Non-carbonated, it was some mix of orange juice, sugar and water. It had some pulp and a hearty pour would leave a frothy top. It was addictive.
Nedick’s dates back to 1913 when the first store opened in a hotel on 23rd Street and Broadway. The name is a mashup of the last names of the two founders, Robert T. Neely and Orville O. Dickinson. It would eventually expand along what we now call the I-95 corridor between Boston and Washington. Size wise it reached its peak in the 1920’s when the number of locations grew to 135. It shrunk during the depression but by the 1950’s had rebounded to 75-80 stores.
The last Nedick’s shut its doors in 1981. Most commentators cite the competition from the new chains of fast food restaurants. But the demise of Nedick’s was a symbol of the changes in American cities. As retail stores moved to suburban malls, as movie theaters were built in strip malls on highways rather than city downtowns, as more and more Americans owned cars and bus and train service shrunk, Nedick’s ultimately found itself in the wrong place at the wrong time. I probably haven’t ordered an orange drink anywhere since.
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Some other “Growing Up in the 50’s” posts:
off the leash 