JULY/AUGUST 2001
www.celtic-connection.com
Page 23
LETTER FROM NEW YORK
Old Makes Way for New
When visitors now arrive in New World and New York, they will enter the United States through a modern state-of-the-art building, however, back in the age of ocean liners, the port of New York and Ellis Island were the gateways to and from Europe.
The international arrivals building back in the Forties was a series of small huts known as Quonset Huts. Back in 1959, there was a turning point in travel as more people began to cross the Atlantic by air rather than ocean liner.
From that grew the international arrival building which became so well known to millions of immigrants and visitors. It was a huge hanger-like building of glass and steel and was 11 blocks long. So large, it could accommodate a field equal to the distance the Wright Brothers flew in their first historic flight.
It also boasted the first supermarket-style customs and immigration clearance hall. In mid- May this year, the latest in design was opened to help keep up with the masses arriving in the U.S. by air. The new $1.4 billion dollar building is now called Terminal Four. It is part of the huge construction project at J.F. Kennedy International Airport. Already, some 610 billion have been spent there.
The new terminal has 144 check-in positions and looks like a huge shopping mall. Covering an area of 1.5 million square feet, it can accommodate six million passengers a year and it alone would be considered the nation's largest airport if considered separately from Kennedy's eight other terminals.
Thirty-five different airlines use the new terminal and have favourable comments on the improvement over the old building. Previously, aircraft could never be seen. By contrast, the open air design of the new building allows travellers to see the planes on the ground.
This helps travellers find their way in the overwhelming structure, thereby decreasing the anxiety and stress of travel.
Now, passengers will arrive at Terminal Four instead of the International Arrival building we have become familiar with. Visitors and immigrants from every corner of the world are greeted by a friendly staff. A few short years ago, our "trail bearers" arrived at Ellis Island, fearing their fate after a long journey of hardship across a valley of bitter tears. •
Farewell to an Irish-American Institution
One of the last Irish landmarks in a once thriving Irish enclave has closed its doors for the last time. Sullivan's Tara Irish Gift Shop in the Upper Manhattan area of Inwood has closed after 35 years in business.
Up until the Nineties, Inwood and the streets North of Dyckrman Street were one of the city's most recognizable Irish enclaves. It was one of several communities and neighbourhoods to receive a large influx of Irish immigrants.
Irish families lived in every apartment building, hurling and Gaelic football were played in Ishani Park, and the area was dotted with Irish pubs. The famed Gothic structural church - Good Shepherd Church - held standing-room-only masses and services on the hour.
Now, the Irish of Inwood have largely been replaced by immigrants from the Dominican Republic who began arriving in large numbers back in 1970. Last year's census shows 75 percent of the neighbourhood population claiming Spanish heritage. Back in the Fifties and Sixties it was the reverse, with close to 80 percent of the population either Irish or of Irish decent.
By JOHN
p FITZGERALD
The local church built and funded by the Irish with its beautifully stained glass windows, its elegant altars and exterior woodwork, is now struggling to remain open and balance its books. One local Irish pub in the area, Keenans, is missing the letter "k" from the sign.
The Tara gift shop located at 609 West 207lh Street was owned by the Sullivan family - the late Jimmy Sullivan and his wife Mary - and Tommy and Kathleen Traynor. It was something more than another business, it stood as a sentimental tie to the home amid the loneliness of our new home.
In the Sixties and Seventies, outside of Gaelic Park, it was the meeting place for the Irish. Every Monday, papers from back home were delivered on the once-a-week Aer Lingus flight from Ireland. Now, the Irish papers are delivered in New York daily.
Sullivan's Tara Irish Gift Shop offered warm and courteous service to the community with their wide selection of Irish imports such as newspapers, music, football jerseys from every county, boots and O'Neill footballs.
Nowadays, the many Irish stores throughout the city offer every variety that you would find in a supermarket in Ireland and with the exodus of the Irish to new neighbourhoods nobody visits the old Inwood neighbourhood anymore.
It is a sad farewell to a neighbourhood and to a business that served the community faithfully when times were not as good as the present da5*. The Sullivan and Traynor families offered a taste of home to many of us during those times. We wish them well and gratefully offer our thanks for their unselfish and generous contributions to the Irish community.
•
Irish Contribution to a Changing Nation
It was 118 years ago, on May 24, 1883, when a celebration unlike any other ever witnessed in the U.S. was held. It was the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge and it took 14 years of backbreakiug work to build this wonder of engineering and vision.
The President of the United States was on hand, along with every politician and dog catcher all down the ranks. Outside the chief engineer, German-born John Roeblings who was the most experienced man in this design of suspension bridges in the world, all the key figures involved in the construction were Irish or Irish American. Roeblings died soon after he designed the structure and it was his son who carried out the construction.
The Irish provided slave labour, working piece-work for 12.5# an hour - while those who worked in the most dangerous jobs beneath the waters in caissons earned 62.75 for a five hour shift. One third of the stonecutters, bricklayers, carpenters and metal workers were born in Ireland. These skilled craftsmen made a comfortable wage at the time and all belonged to unions. Over 40 died and hundreds were crippled including the engineer Roeblings.
Crippling came from what they called "the Bends," muscular distress caused by excessive nitrogen in the blood from the tremendous pressure of working in the caissions, huge boxes sunk beneath the river.
At its completion, it was an awesome sight to behold, 276 and a half feet in height, its stone towers the tallest structures in North America. What amazed people most were the miles and miles of wire. Thousands and thousands of miles, woven into giant ropes.
The age of steel had arrived and for the first time in human history people no longer equated mass with strength. It was the arrival of the modern industrial era in which new technology and material would forever transform the nation. The cost of building the bridge was five million dollars, the price of a small townhousc today on the Manhattan side of the bridge.
Pilgrimage to the Celtic Heartlands
Ecumenical group leaves Victoria Sept 4 returns Sept 24. Space for couple or 2 singles.
Vanessa
1 (250) 414-0308
vhammond@canadac.com http://wvvov.canadac.com/ celtic/events.html
VJ
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