Jonathan Cohen's photos with the keyword: Jackie Robinson

The Hotel McAlpin is a historic hotel building on Herald Square, at the corner of Broadway and 34th street in Manhattan, New York City. In its heyday the McAlpin employed a staff of 1500 and could accommodate up to 2,500 guests and residents. Designed by the noted architect Frank Mills Andrews (1867–1948) the hotel was built in 1912. It was the largest hotel in the world. The top floor had a Turkish bath and there were two gender-specific floors; women checking into the hotel could reserve a room on the women’s only floor and bypass the lobby and check in directly at their own floor. One floor, dubbed the "sleepy 16th" was designed for night workers so that it was kept quiet during the day. It also hosted a travel agency In 1920, The McAlpin hosted what may have been the first broadcast from a New York hotel. The Army Signal Corps arranged the broadcast by singer Luisa Tetrazzini from her room in the hotel. Tetrazzini (1871-1940) was an Italian lyric coloratura soprano who had an enormous popularity in America from the 1900s-1920s. Several dishes were named after her, the origin of the "Tetrazzini" dish is unknown, but several newspaper articles attribute it to a famous chef (not named) in New York City. Luisa Tetrazzini supposedly gave her recipe for "Spaghetti Tetrazzini" to Louis Paquet, Executive Chef of the McAlpin Hotel on Herald Square in New York City. Luisa Terazzini would subsequently take cooking lessons from Chef Louis Paquet of the McAlpin Hotel on how to make his Spaghetti Tetrazzini before embarking on one of her concert tours. On April 10, 1947 Hall of Fame player Jackie Robinson received the historic phone call from the Brooklyn Dodgers that ended the colour bar in major league baseball and forever transformed America. It currently operates as a 700-unit apartment building known as The Herald Towers.

Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) was the first African American to play in Major League Baseball since the 1880’s. The example of Jackie Robinson’s character and unquestionable talent challenged the traditional basis of segregation, which then marked many other aspects of American life, and contributed significantly to the Civil Rights Movement. Following honourable service in World War II, Robinson played for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro League before the Brooklyn Dodgers signed him. He spent the 1946 season with the Montreal Royals of the International League, the Dodgers’ premier farm team.. During that year, Robinson lived in a French Canadian working class neighbourhood with his wife, Rachel. In a 1987 editorial for the New York Times on the 40th annivesary of his milestone, Rachel Robinson reflected on their time on de Gaspé Street after a difficult experience enduring discrimination in spring training in Florida. "We left the South bruised, stimulated, and more contemplative than we arrived. A more resilient pair. Had it not been for the fact that we broke in in Montreal, I doubt seriously we could have made the grade so rapidly," Jackie Robinson himself said in a 1964 CBC interview. "The fans there were just fantastic and my wife and I have nothing but the greatest memories. Our totally opposite experience in Montreal later that year provided us with an excellent springboard into the majors … Montreal and then Brooklyn became special havens where we gradually regained our sense of ourselves and our dignity." Jackie Robinson died in 1972. This statue by Jules Lasalle was dedicated on May 16, 1987 by the Montreal Expos baseball club in the presence of his widow.