Rediscover the UWS's Main Street! |
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"West Seventy Today" introduces you to your business neighbors along West 72nd Street, from Central Park to Riverside Park in weekly installments.
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Meet your neighbors, NOW:
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Framing art and Uplifting Spirits |
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by Claudie Benjamin
Most employees of Frames for You are artists. They care intensely about how a matte and frame enhance a work of art. They take the time, enjoying the challenge of assisting a customer in their choice of a framing option that matches their taste and pocketbook, says Joshie South, Manager of Frames for You.
She has worked at this frame shop/gallery at 136 West 72nd Street for 30 years. Joshie is never without her paints and sketches in watercolor on her commute to work and back home every day. Her art, like the work of fellow staff and other artists, is on view and for sale. "Our window tells it best," says Joshie. She is proud of the frequently changing display of paintings, prints and photographs. Pre-Covid, exhibit openings were hosted at the shop.
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Joshie already had ten years of experience as a framer when she arrived from her small home town near Spokane, Washington to begin Pratt in 1990. Needing to work to support herself, she stopped in a two frame shops and got the job at Frames for You a week after coming to NYC. She has worked for three owners. Current owner, Maria Accorisi calls her "my amazing manger."
Maria acquired the store from its previous owner in 2018. With a BA in art history, an MA in art design, and a background in producing art fairs in Miami and nYC, the gallery/frame shop concept was a natural for her. "As soon as it is safe," she says, "Frames for You will absolutely resume hosting art openings and events that may spill onto the sidewalk."
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Valvoline, Opium and Pastrami |
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by Tom Miller
In 1883 the husband-and-wife team of Francis and Margaret Crawford began construction on a row of five brownstone-faced rowhouses on the south side of West 72nd Street between Columbus Avenue and Broadway. Francis Crawford was a builder and his wife was a real estate developer. They had hired architect Gilbert A. Schellenger to design the high-end residences which were completed the following year.
Like the others in the row, 136 and 138 were designed in the Renaissance Revival style. Four stories tall above a high English basement, they shared striking similarities, like the carved panels between the third and fourth floors, the quoins that outlined the openings, and the similar pediments above the top floor windows.
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136 West 72nd Street became home to Wilbur Dixon Ellis and his wife, the former Harriet Delta Chittenden. Born in Detroit in 1848, Ellis was brought to New York City at the age of 12. His father, Dr. John Ellis, was a physician, who traveled to Titusville, Pennsylvania to investigate the medical uses of crude oil. Instead, he stumbled on a new process to lubricate machinery (animal fat had been previously used). Dr. Ellis secured four patents on his lubricating oil and marketed it under a brand name that combined the word “valve” with the Latin word for oil, “oleum”—Valvoline.
By the time Wilbur and his wife moved into their new home he was a partner with his father in John Ellis & Co. and had helped develop and manufacture a variety of petrol products, including petroleum jellies, compounded oils and kerosene for lighting. His significant wealth (estimated at about $46.3 million in today’s money) was reflected in his social club memberships—the Union League Club, Down Town Association, for instance—and his interest in art led to his memberships in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Fine Arts Club and others. KEEP READING
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72 Crosstown highlights the architectural and social histories of the buildings along West 72nd Street.
We are working on your suggestions -- if you have a building you'd like us to prioritize, or a business you think we should feature, let us know!
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See you on West 72nd Street again, next FRIDAY! |
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LANDMARK WEST!
45 West 67th Street NY NY 10023
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