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.
Pablo Picasso (born Malaga)
Woman in Blue, 1901Bust of a Smiling Woman, 1901Woman’s Head, 1909Figures by the Sea I, 1932
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.
La Clef des champs, Rene Magritte, 1936The Jockeys, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1882Quappi in Pink Jumper, Max Beckmann, 1932-34
The Masters
Watermill at Gennep, Vincent van Gogh, 1884Mata Mua, Paul Gauguin, 1892
The Art of Framing
Rue Saint-Honore in the Afternoon, Effect of Raid, Camille Pissarro, 1897Windmill Near Delft, Johan Barthold Jongkind,1857View of Notre-Dame, Paris, Gustave Loiseau, 1911Church Street, Villefranche-sur-Mer, Henri Le Sidaner, 1928
Something Old
Venecia, Canaletto, 1765Factory in the Moonlight, Maximillien Luce, 1898The Arno River at the Santa Trinita Bridge, Giuseppe Zucchi, 1741The Sick Child, Edward Munch, 1896
Something New
The Viaduct, Paul Delvaux, 1963Woman in Bath, Roy Lichenstein, 1963Tropic Nights, Charles Bell, 1991Ex-Humans, Andre Butzer, 1999Telephone Booths, Richard Estes, 1932
1910’s, ’20’s and 30’s
Fishing, Natalia Goncharova, 1909Berlin, George Grosz, 1925Autumn Evening, Emil Nolde, 1924Smoko, The Human Volcano, Reginald Marsh, 1933Woman with a Mandolin, Georges Braque, 1910Seated Woman, Juan Gris, 1917
And a Little Sculpture
Bunny Gets Snookered #3, Sarah Lucas, 1997The fighting Gaul’s next step, with elongated armature, Ryan Gander, 2018
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.
Anastasia Samoylova
Louis Stettner
Orchard Street, 1975-79Dan Construction Worker, Soviet Union, 1975Demonstrators on March in Support of United Farm Workers, New York, 1975-76Platform and Train Windows, Penn Station, New York, 1958Soldiers at a Counter, New York, 1941-46Rue Albert-Sorel et Avenue Ernest Reyer, Paris, 1947-51Rue Gustave le Bon et le cimetiere de Montrouge, Paris, 1949Restaurant Pierre, Paris, 1951Subway, New York, 1946Tree in Brooklyn, Brooklyn Bridge, from Brooklyn, 1988
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.
Passeig del Born
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.
Fossar de les Moreres
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.
Pastisseria Brunell’s
This El Born pastry shop dates back to 1852.
La Boqueria
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.
Barceloneta
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.
Estancia de Franca
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.
La Sagrada Familia
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.
Casa Mila
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.
The roof
The attic
The furniture
Casa Batllo
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
1967
H. Rap Brown (Man with Match), Emory Douglas
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.
1968
Bobby Hutton Murdered, Designer Unknown
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.
Cleaver for President (designer unknown)
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.
1969
Power to the People (designer unknown)
Free the Panthers (designer unknown)
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.
Free Bobby Seale! (designer unknown)
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.
1970
Free Angela Davis (designer unknown)
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.
No More Riots Two’s and Three’s, Emory Douglas
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
Nikke, Okuyama Gihachiro, 1935.
Poster produced to promote the company’s western style clothing.
PB Grand Prix, Tanaami Keichi, 1936. Poster represents a popular Japanese board game, Sugoroku. The PB stands for Playboy. The winner of the game is the first to reach the actress Matsuoka Kikko, shown in center of poster.
Matsuda Quick Special Oil Colours. artist unknown, 1961.
Posters promote oil paints produced by Matsuda Gaso.
Discovery of the Image, Tanaami Keichi, 1966.
Yukio Mishima/The Aesthetics of End, Yakoo Tadamori. 1966. Poster was designed to promote the novel of the same name.
Kara Juro’s “John Silver: Love in Shinjuku,” Yokoo Tadenori, 1967. Poster promotes a play by that name. Border consists of Japanese flower cards.
The Monkees, Tanaami Keiichi, 1968. Promotional poster for the band’s appearances in Japan.
Kimono/The First Year, Yakoo Tadanori, 1978. Promotional poster for Kyoto textile manufacturer.
Hiroshima Appeals, Kamekura Yusaka, 1983. First in a series of Hiroshima Appeals posters projecting a hope for peace.
Japan, Kamekura Yusaki,1988. Created for the Japan Graphic Designers Association
Five Seasons, Sato Koichi, 1988. Images of Mt. Fuju during different seasons.
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.
Photo by Angelo Rizzuto 1957
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 at the old Madison Square Garden
Nedick’s served food to take out. But most of the outlets also had an old fashioned lunch counter with wait service.
(Jerry Paffendorf)
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.
In 2014, I wrote a blog post about an abandoned and dilapidated New Deal era stadium in Paterson, N.J. At the time there were actual trees growing up through the cracks in the concrete stands and what was once the playing surface was a mix of dirt, broken glass and cracked pavement. Some Paterson high school kids had volunteered to paint the outside walls with paint donated by Valspar. That improved the eye sore but Hinchliffe Stadium had little going for it other than its history.
Built in 1932, Hinchliffe was home to two Negro League baseball teams, the New York Black Yankees and the New York Cubans. It had track meets, soccer, even auto racing. Abbott and Costello performed here. So did Sly and the Family Stone. It hosted numerous high school athletic events, most notably for many Patersonians, the annual Thanksgiving football games between the city’s two high schools, Central and Eastside.
The last Thanksgiving football game was played in 1996. In 1997, the stadium was condemned when part of the playing field collapsed into a sinkhole. It sat unused for some 25 years.
But around the time of my blog post, Hinchliffe was designated a national historic landmark. Shortly thereafter an act of Congress redrew the boundaries of the adjacent Great Falls National Park to include the stadium. A couple decades later a $100+ million renovation got underway that included a parking garage, senior housing and a yet-to-be completed Negro League museum.
Now, 85 years after the NewYork Black Yankees played their last full baseball season in Paterson, the independent minor league New Jersey Jackals have begun their first Frontier League season here. There is even some talk of reviving the Thanksgiving Day football game between Eastside and Kennedy (the school that replaced Central).
Here’s a look at Hinchliffe reborn on Jackals game night.
Some before and after:
beforeafterbeforeafterbeforeafter
But however good the stadium renovation, this is what it looked like in the stands on a pleasently cool Thursday night. The Jackals would appear to have a massive marketing task ahead of them.
I grew up in a suburb about 15 miles west of New York City. For my family it might just as well have been 1500 miles. Neither of my parents commuted. Public transportation in the town I lived in was limited to a bus to Paterson.
To my father New York might have been the name of one of Dante’s circles. He may have passed through Manhattan on his way to a ballgame but that was about it. My mother would take me into the city occasionally, showing me things like the Museum of Natural History, the UN and Radio City. She also brought me to an eye specialist when I was a first grader for treatment of a lazy eye condition.
What do I remember about those trips to New York City with my mother? The automat. Every venture ended at one of them.
The automat at 877 Eighth Avenue may well have been one of the ones I enjoyed with my mom.
The automats were mostly in big open spaces with cafe tables. There would be at least one wall of glass fronted cubes, maybe 6X8 inches. You put coins in a slot, opened the glass door, and pulled out your food. Like a vending machine? Not quite because there was a kitchen on the other side of that wall and staff was filling and refilling each compartment with freshly prepared food, appropriately hot or cold.
What did I eat at the automat? I have no idea, although I remember my mom liked the coffee. For me, it was all about the process and as a kid, I wouldn’t dream of going anywhere else.
Horn & Hardart promotional photos of food served at the automat (from New York Public Library public domain collections).
Older New Yorkers may be surprised to learn that the idea for the automat came from Germany. The first automat, named Quisisana, opened in Berlin in 1895. When Philadelphia restaurateur Joe Horn visited after the turn of the century, he bought into the technology and he and his partner Frank Hardart opened the first Horn & Hardart Automat in Philadelphia in 1902. Here’s how the Philadelphia Inquirer (June 10, 1902) described America’s first automat:
“Horn and Hardart have solved the rapid transit luncheon problem by opening a restaurant called the Automat, at 818-821 Chestnut Street. It is a mammoth nickel-in-the-slot scheme, and the only one of its kind in the United States. Heretofore, the man with one minute and thirty-seven seconds for lunch has fumed while a waiter has been getting his order. In the Automat all this is changed. If a patron’s lunch is not forthcoming speedily it will only be because he is unable to decide, oft hand, whether he wants one of a large assortment of sandwiches, pies, coffee, soup, ice cream and the unusual variety of quick lunch fare….
“There was a great rush at the Automat yesterday, and its success will doubtless continue as the service is as neat as it is rapid.”
Two Ladies at the Automat, NYC, 1966 photo by Diane Arbus
The first New York automat opened in 1912. Eventually there would be 40 of them in the city. Despite being confined to Philadelphia and New York, it became America’s largest chain eatery. The New York Daily News (Sunday, May 15, 1921) offered this colorful description of the volume of food served up at the automats:
“Automats feed 100,000 people a day, enough to fill the Hippodrome, with a capacity of about 5,000, twenty times.
“Used 9,000 eggs a day. If placed in a line would reach 2,200 feet or 7 times as high as the Statue of Liberty.
“Use 18,000 pies a week — enough to cover the grass in City Hall Park.
“Use 11,000 loaves of bread a week for sandwiches alone — placed in a line would be twice as long as Brooklyn Bridge.”
It is not just the food or the technology that automat patrons remember fondly. It is also celebrated as a place for everyone. Race, mother tongue and social status mattered little. The same Daily News article cited above noted: “At the Automat restaurant at 1241 Broadway I saw a theatrical gentleman, evidently in reduced circumstances, lunching on a cinnamon bun and a cup of coffee.” It was also kind of a predecessor to the modern coffee shop. You could buy a cup of coffee and sit there with it for hours. That is, perhaps what Edward Hopper was thinking when he created his famous “Automat” painting.
What happened to the automat? Ultimately it was replaced by a different sort of fast food restaurant, the McDonald’s and Burger Kings. (I can’t imagine that decades from now anyone is going to wax nostalgic about a Burger King.) There are many other reasons offered to explain the decline. One is the much despised decision in 1950 to raise the price of a cup of coffee from five cents to ten cents, though it is also noted that before that increase Horn and Hardart was losing money on every cup of coffee they sold. Inflation in general made the “nickel-in-the-slot” approach impractical. (How many rolls of nickels would it take to buy a meal in a New York City restaurant today.) Hard economic times in the 1970’s may have taken their toll and it has been suggested that cost-cutting impacted the quality of the food.
The last automat closed in New York City in 1991. There have been and continue to be attempts to revive them, most only lasting a couple of years. There is a website by a company calling itself Horn and Hardart that sells “automat” coffee.
I am hardly alone in fondly remembering the automat of my childhood. A recent documentary “The Automat,” which is currently streaming on HBO Max, offers up the similarly fond reflections of Mel Brooks, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Colin Powell and former Philadelphia Mayor Wilson Goode, among others.
off the leash 