“The Veranda, The Hotel at Beverly Hills, California,” ca. 1889 – ca. 1931, a postcard by the Detroit Publishing Company, via New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Tag: The New York Public Library
Uptown garden
“Artist’s uptown residence,” New York City, ca. 1860, via Robert Dennis Collection of Stereoscopic Views, New York Public Library.
Upper Manhattan at this time was rapidly transforming from country to city — as villages and small farms became blocks of middle-class rowhouses. This backyard, with its neat latticed sitting area and then large cabbage garden, seems to encapsulate the change.
Unfortunately, we don’t have the name of the artist or the address. Is he one of the two men in top hats sitting by the door, or was she standing in front of them, balancing a small boy on the fence — or maybe taking the picture?
Life in gardens: tea and talk
“Picnic-style tea ceremony,” Japan, ca. 1900, a hand-colored postcard, via The New York Public Library.
It may be a “ceremony,” but I think it’s more likely an informal bite to eat after a long walk under the cherry blossoms — with lots of conversation.
The Sunday porch: New Jersey
“Porches, New Jersey,” February 1936, by Carl Mydans for the U.S. Farm Security Administration, via The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library.
Vintage landscape: Lake Mohonk, N.Y.
The flower gardens of Lake Monhonk Mountain House, Ulster County, New York, ca. 1902, a postcard by Detroit Publishing Co., via The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Lake Mohonk Mountain House is a resort founded in 1879 by Albert Smiley, a “passionate gardener,” and a Quaker deeply concerned with the cause of world peace. (From 1895 to 1916, he convened annual conferences on international arbitration at the hotel.) The main building, shown on the postcard above, has 259 guest rooms and is now a National Historic Landmark.
enclos*ure 