Friday, February 28, 2014

View Of Early 1970's Roosevelt Island From Harry & Tonto Film - Passenger Elevator Storehouse To Queensboro Bridge, Nurses Residence And Ravenswood Power Plant Coal Chute

The Roosevelt Island Twitterverse gives us a look at Roosevelt Island from the early 1970's in this screenshot from the movie Harry and Tonto.

I asked Roosevelt Island Historical Society President (RIHS) Judy Berdy:
What are the buildings next to queensboro bridge in picture?
Ms Berdy replied.
Next to bridge ELEVATOR STORE HOUSE
Yellow building CENTRAL NURSES RESIDENCE
According to Neil Tandon writing for the RIHS:
... The Elevator Storehouse, opened in 1919, housed an elevator that transported cars and people from the Queensboro Bridge down to the present-day Tramway Plaza. In addition, it contained storage space and a reception ward for the island's Metropolitan Hospital. The building, whose main lobby was on its top floor, was nicknamed the upside-down building and was featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not for its peculiar design. With the opening of the Welfare Island Bridge, the building closed in 1955 and was demolished in 1970....
The Greater Astoria Historical Society provides this picture of Elevator Storehouse on Roosevelt (then Blackwells) Island


Here's more on the Queensboro Bridge passenger elevator to Roosevelt Island from Ms. Berdy's Book Images of America Roosevelt Island.  An excerpt:
Perhaps, one day in the future a passenger elevator from Roosevelt Island to the Queensboro Bridge will return.

Harry and Tonto was a very good film starring Art Carney. According to Rotten Tomatoes:
In Paul Mazursky's rueful character drama, 57-year-old Art Carney plays Harry, a 70-plus Manhattan widower who loses his tiny apartment to the wrecking ball. Accompanied by his pet, an aged cat named Tonto, Harry sets out on an odyssey to Los Angeles....

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