“Dolphin Park,” a True Partnership Between the Port Authority and Community Volunteers

Posted on August 27, 2015 by PANYNJ PORTfolio

By Neal Buccino, Sr. Public Information Officer

Dolphin Park, a “hidden gem” of a playground and sprinkler park for preschoolers and their parents in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood, is finishing its first summer after having been thoroughly redesigned and made safer, more accessible, and more fun than ever, thanks to a partnership between the Port Authority and the 181st Street Beautification Project.

When the tiny park at 180th Street and Cabrini Boulevard reopened this past July, it earned glowing reviews from its preschool-age visitors, their parents and the community volunteers who manage its day-to-day operations.

A colorful slide and plastic bongos.  A frame for puppet shows.  A planting area with flowerpots.  A table for board games.  A sandbox and stepping stones.  A new ramp with access for handicapped children.  A parking area for strollers.   An improved irrigation and sprinkler system.   An elephant statue and its neighbor, a dolphin that shoots water to the delight of hot kids on humid summer days.

The dolphin gives the park its nickname.  The official name, George Washington Bridge Park, speaks to its location on Port Authority-owned land, acquired during the 1960s for entrance ramps to the bridge.  In a true partnership between the agency and community, the Port Authority built the park approximately two decades ago, provides basic maintenance and performed this year’s renovation.  The 181st Street Beautification Project opens and closes the locked gate, keeps the park litter-free, provides flowers and plants and sponsors special events.

Some of the organization’s youngest volunteers remember playing in Dolphin Park when they were little.  Here are some reactions to its new features:

“It’s awesome! Kids can learn from the new things that are in the playground, such as climbing up the stairs and how to move a steering wheel,” 12-year-old Meagan Espaillat wrote for the park’s “Youth News/Noticias” newsletter. “My favorite part is the table because of the board games.  I can play and meet new people.  I also like the sandbox because it makes me feel like I’m at the beach, and it makes me feel like I’m a kid again.”

“It’s a better environment now:  It’s safer.  It will prevent injuries because of the plastic play equipment,” 14-year-old OlgaStacy Ramirez wrote.  “It’s a major new attraction, more of a kid environment. … The puppet theater frame gives kids a chance to express themselves.”

The initial design for the park, and the new design for the renovation, were led by Ilonka Angalet, Princial Landscape Architect within the Port Authority’s Engineering Department, Architectural Unit, in collaboration with MLKW Landscape Architects.

Volunteer Jeanlee Poggi said the park is open during limited hours – 3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. each afternoon in August, and in September only on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays during those hours, weather permitting.   On some busy afternoons, total attendance exceeds 100 kids and adults.

“We always have a part-time staff person and youth volunteers on duty, and when attendance is over 100, our park staff has their hands full!” Ms. Poggi said.

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Late-breaking History: Eugene H. Klingelfuss, Maker of the Holland Tunnel’s First Washing Machine

Posted on August 25, 2015 by PANYNJ PORTfolio
In this photo dated 1928, the first washing machine for the Holland Tunnel, a new-fangled contraption in its day.
This letter, which authenticates the work, was sent to the firm by the Port of New York Authority in 1934.
Mr. Klingelfuss stands with his Swiss partners at the far right.

By Roz Hamlett, Editor

The odds are, even if you’re a glassy-eyed New York history geek, you’ve never heard of him. Because the evidence of his signature achievement has lain buried deep in the bottom drawer of an old mahogany desk for more than eight decades and only brought out on special occasions to share among his descendants.

Eugene Klingelfuss was born to poor parents in Switzerland in 1898.  He died an affluent man in Brooklyn in 1976.   His name and the names of his fellow Swiss compatriots, all hungry young men and business partners of the Klingelfuss Machine Shop – which later became Klingrose Engineering – appear nowhere in the major histories written about the Holland Tunnel.

Yet their singular contribution is definitely worthy of our belated attention:  They won the first bid ever from the Port of New York Authority to fabricate a machine that had never existed anywhere in the world before:  the first “washing machine” specially designed to clean the Holland Tunnel.

At the time his company won the contract, Klingelfuss was single and 30-something, newly immigrated to New York; he had come to America to follow his dream.  In his native Switzerland, if you were born poor, in most instances, you stayed that way.  Yet Klingelfuss would later own several other important patents, and he enjoyed business success for the remainder of his life.

In a letter dated April 18, 1934, the Port Authority highly commended his work as a “pioneering job requiring not only mechanical skill but engineering ability.  Its successful operation reflects great credit on the ability of the company to handle the fabrication of specially designed equipment.”

The tunnels opened for public use on Saturday, November 12, 1927.  The day before, the tunnel was given a thorough cleaning and inspection, and from that day forward, the ability to keep the beautiful white tile gleaming, clean and free of the sooty buildup of grime and vehicle exhaust was of paramount importance.

On its first day of operation, excited motorists lined up and waited to experience the thrill of driving underneath the Hudson River.  During the first 24 hours of operation, 52,285 vehicles passed through the tunnels, most of them passenger cars.  Like children lining up for a thrilling ride on a roller coaster, many motorists couldn’t satisfy their enthusiasm with just one trip and quickly lined up to go again and again.

Throughout the next day, there were unbroken streams of traffic backed up to Newark in New Jersey and to the Brooklyn end of the Manhattan Bridge in New York.  After a little more than a year of operation, the official traffic count for 1928 was 8,744,674.

Which would certainly have resulted in one dingy and dirty Holland Tunnel were it not for Klingelfuss’s “washing machine” and the aggressive cleaning schedule that is still a major part of Holland Tunnel maintenance and operations today.

The exact workings of Mr. Klingelfuss’s contraption are not immediately available nearly 90 years later, but we can infer from the vast array of brushes, nozzles and what looks to be a pump apparatus that the machine possessed the capability to clean every nook and cranny of the 8,558 feet of the north tube and 8,371 feet of the south tube.

Portfolio recently learned about Mr. Klingelfuss from his only child, Ann (Klingelfuss) Cabre of Washington State, now a woman in her late 70s, who contacted the Port Authority to make a donation of her father’s archival photographs.

“Are you interested in having a couple of these? They will only go into the garbage when I am gone.”

Owing to the fact that the Port Authority lost thousands upon thousands of significant records and archival photographs on 9/11, we gratefully (and somewhat greedily) accepted her offer.  We thank her for making the historical fact of her father’s accomplishment, literally, the light at the end of the tunnel.

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The Port Authority Bus Terminal’s Ralphie: An Ode to the “The Great One”

Posted on August 20, 2015 by PANYNJ PORTfolio

By Neal Buccino, Sr. Public Information Officer

Standing near the Port Authority Bus Terminal’s southwest corner, gazing happily across Eighth Avenue between 40th and 41st streets, the statue of immortal bus driver and TV icon Ralph Kramden radiates undefeatable optimism.  Which could mean he’s hatched another money-making scheme that will end in shambles – but above all else, his expression is optimistic.

Sometime in 1999, TV Land came up with the idea of developing and erecting statues of some of its fictional TV characters as a way to publicize the network and its shows.  The statue for Ralph Kramden became the first of these projects to be located in NYC.  And where else would be more perfect than the busiest bus terminal in the world, the Port Authority Bus Terminal in mid-town Manhattan.

The Port Authority accepted the 4,000 lb. bronze statue because who better than the beloved television character, Ralphie, to greet commuters and bus drivers in front of a place where 220,000 daily commuters and thousands of buses pass through every day?

The landmark statue by the late sculptor Larry Nowlan works triple shifts as a meeting place for tourists, a seat for weary commuters and a great backdrop for the taking of selfies.  Chest out and shoulders pulled back, lunch pail in one hand and thumb hooked behind his lapel with the other, Ralphie-boy, replete with cocky grin, brightens the mood on one of the most heavily trafficked sidewalks in the world.

In a metaphorical kind of way, the character of Ralph Kramden has been with the bus terminal from the beginning.  The terminal’s south wing opened on December 15, 1950 – about the same time Kramden was a driver for the fictional Gotham Bus Company. During the ensuing years, his character has made a gigantic imprint on American pop culture history.

In just one season of 39 episodes, from 1955 to 1956 – and in recurring sketches on Gleason’s variety shows before and after that time – Kramden and his co-stars originated the DNA formula for many American sitcoms that followed in its footsteps.

The cast included Ralph’s sharp-witted, all-enduring wife Alice (Audrey Meadows), best friend Ed Norton (Art Carney, who won six Emmy Awards for the role), and Norton’s wife Trixie (Joyce Randolph).  Ralph may be the one with a statue, but all four Honeymooners are TV legends.

In its creation of bizarre, now-immortal one-liners, The Honeymooners is a predecessor to Seinfeld:  “I do not possess a villa in France, a yacht, or a string of poloponies.”

Or, “They gave me that horse with the stomach in its clock.  I mean the clock in its stomach.”

How about, “$600?  A mere bag of shells.”

Or “Pins and needles, needles and pins; a happy man is a man who grins.”

And this goodie, “An Emergency Meeting is an Emergency Meeting, never a poker game.  An Executive Meeting – that’s a poker game.”

As one of the first TV shows to depict characters with financial struggles rather than an idealized life of ease, The Honeymooners was a precursor to shows like Roseanne.  Its depiction of family – with characters who trade harsh comic insults, but actually love each other – served as a pioneer to a host of shows — Sanford and Son, Everybody Loves Raymond and, of course, Norman Lear’s All in the Family.  Even those who’ve never seen The Honeymooners, Ralph’s anger management issues are legendary.  His bug-eyed simmer would build and build, then explode into incoherent rage (Unable to tolerate his mother-in-law: “She’s a BLABBERMOUTH, Alice, a BLAAAAABBERMOOOUUTH!”).

The inscription at the base of the statue reads, “Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden/Bus Driver – Raccoon Lodge Treasurer – Dreamer/Presented by the People of TV Land,” the latter describing a legion of devoted fans, who still tweet about the show and share fond memories of the show on the Jackie Gleason and the Honeymooners Facebook page.

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