Jonathan Cohen's photos with the keyword: abandoned

The Gould Hotel opened in February 1920 on the site of the Hoag House which had burned on Thanksgiving morning, 1918. That fire had been discovered in the basement and by noon the building had been a total loss and nearly all of the equipment in the hotel had been destroyed. This new Gould Hotel was described in the Syracuse Journal as "the most complete and perfectly equipped of the smaller hotels of New York State. Four stories in height, absolutely fireproof in construction and equipped in perfect taste and convenience, it is scheduled to become the mecca for travelers and autoists between Rochester and Syracuse." A postcard from the time describes it as "the gateway to the beautiful Finger Lakes region." The plans provided for a building of four floors, with a main entrance on State Street. Stores would be located on the Fall Street side of the building. The new hotel building was of concrete and steel construction throughout. The door and window sills and the picture moldings were the only things of the building itself that could burn. In addition to the large lobby, the double dining rooms and a well arranged kitchen, the hotel itself had 72 rooms and 8 apartments. Fifty of the rooms were equipped with baths, including hot and cold water, and telephone connections. The guest rooms had a mahogany dresser, desk, straight and rocker chairs, and portable and fixed lamps. The Simmons’ bed had fine hair mattresses. The dining rooms were so arranged that they could be one big room for banquets or separate so that one could be used as a ball room and the other for dining. The dining room décor was colonial in style, with the walls painted café au lait and ivory white ceilings and Windsor mahogany chairs and tables. The lobby had a Spanish style appearance, with the furniture covered with heavy morocco leather. Heavy rugs covered the lobby floor, with table and floor lamps adding a quiet but luxurious feeling. The walls were finished in imitation Caen Stone and velour drapes. The Gould Hotel eventually closed and the building was turned into apartments. It subsequently sat vacant for quite some time before reopening as the Hotel Clarence.

Call me cynical, but when we visited Seneca Falls – the site of the world's first women’s rights convention in 1848 – I couldn’t help feeling that the economic base of the town had shifted from textiles to feminist tourism. It was only when I returned home that I found out that the old Seneca Knitting Mill, which dates to 1844, is to be the new home of the National Women’s Hall of Fame. The Knitting Mill was owned for over 40 years by the Souhan family. In 1995 the mill was sold to Ridgeview, that closed the mill in 1999 with the loss of some 250 jobs. The owners, who had invested millions of dollars in Seneca Falls, said they couldn’t make a profit on the subsidiary, which specialized in making heavy, woolen socks. In an interview with the Syracuse Post-Standard, Tim Souhan said that in 1999 the economic conditions in Seneca Falls weren’t the greatest. "If there’s a growth industry here, it’s tourism," he added. The Hall of Fame was founded in 1969 and has some 247 inductees so far. Nine more American women, including House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, will be inducted later this year.

Early in the 20th Century, Yonkers was home to many ethnically based social clubs and organizations. Mirroring the US at that time, newly immigrated groups would settle in geographic proximity to each other to build a new life in America. Establishing social clubs, brotherhoods and houses of worship were some of the ways ny which they could help each other, and build the community, and assimilate into US society. One such group were the Germans who established a "singing and literary society" in Yonkers in 1856, at which time it had a membership of eleven and was known as "Yonkers Liederkrantz." In 1891 membership had grown to some two hundred men and women and was known as the "Teutonia." To accommodate their social and cultural needs, the organization erected a two-story masonry building with terra cotta and cast iron details – at a cost of $32,000 – on the west side of Buena Vista Avenue near Hudson Street. It contained a large assembly hall, dining room, committee rooms, a pool room, and bowling alleys. Vocal and instrumental concerts were given once a month during the winter. Today, the building has been unoccupied for many years and was recently sold to a developer. When completed, the hall is expected to become the site of a 25-story residential tower with 412 units and a 550-space parking garage. The developers of the Teutonia project, Metro Partners, plan to demolish much of the aging music hall while preserving its historic facade.

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