Bonwit Teller Redux

In frustration and pride, I am reposting a Missive that I first published on November 15, 2020, 40 years after the event. Why? Because the New York Times published its basics on November 8 this year in an article about Trump’s destruction of the East Wing and other architectural ideas he has in tribute to himself around Washington, DC. Details were missing, and the one that was most important to me was my wife’s role in that story. So here is the blog, but first a preview photo:

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Missive 11-16-2020


WHAT HAPPENED AT BONWIT TELLER?

When the Biden victory was called that Saturday morning, my wife started crying and for many hours couldn’t stop. I had to explain to one person at the hospital that she was not in pain, but there were tears of joy. I was wrong!

Penelope told me later that when she heard Trump (I will never capitalize his name) was on his way out, she was reliving what he did to her and her institution 40 years earlier.

It was June 5, 1980, and Penelope called me totally frantic, “Get your camera and meet me at the Robert Miller gallery. My colleague’s gallery was right across the street from the Bonwit Teller department store, which was being demolished to make way for Trump Tower.

Built in 1929 by the Stewart Company, it was meant to be the last word in elegance in the French-inspired Art Deco style. Bankrupted following the Wall Street crash, the Stewart store was purchased by Bonwit Teller, who engaged the well-known architect, Eli Jacques Kahn, to redo the building in an updated American style. The entrance was modernized with a 20x30-foot bronze grill, but two 15-foot-tall figural Art Deco relief sculptures remained at the top of the façade. Penelope felt that the two elements were a wonderful illustration of New York’s architectural transition from 1920s Art Deco to what was to become known in the 30’s as the Modern style.

At that time, Penelope was the curator in the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of 20th Century Arts, building the decorative arts (today known as Design) collection. When she learned that Bonwit Teller was going to be torn down by the new owner, Donald Trump, she contacted his staff. Getting him a serious appraisal of $200,000, which could have served as a tax deduction, she also offered great PR for his debut as a developer in Manhattan. She vividly remembers the personal meeting where he agreed to donate the grill and reliefs to the museum, saying, “It will be a great deal!”

The entrance grill disappeared first. Penelope was told that it had gone to a salvage yard in New Jersey, so the Met sent out a truck and registrar’s crew, but the salvage company knew nothing about it. Lately, it has been rumored to be in the Trump Tower dining room, which, at a couple of stories high, could accommodate it.

Then, on June 5, Robert Miller, the art dealer whose gallery looked out directly on the Bonwit Teller reliefs and who had made the appraisal, called Penelope at the Met to say he believed that they were about to jackhammer the stonework. Penelope, 9 months pregnant, (our son was born on June 14) jumped into a cab only to get caught in a typical Fifth Avenue traffic jam. “She “got out and ran, as well as a pregnant woman can, the 10 blocks to the Miller gallery. I joined her at my colleague’s gallery as Penelope declared, “I am going over there,” but Robert cut her off, saying, “They will recognize you. I will go”. Gathering all the cash in the gallery, he rushed down to find the foreman of the crew, offering to pay if they would preserve the reliefs. When he came back fuming, he said, “They won’t do it. The foreman said that the young Donald told him personally that the reliefs must be destroyed because some crazy lady from a museum up town wanted them”.

The story received several articles in the New York Times and on television at the time. A photograph I took was panned over by ABC, making it look like a video, but Robert Miller’s gallery director, got most of the photographic play!

The story is included in a book by Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher called “Trump Revealed,” published by Scribner in 2016. It was revived in the NY Times and Washington Post and even made it to our local paper, the New Mexican, when Trump posed as a defender of history and culture after Charlottesville.

Back in 1980 Trump, using a technique we have unfortunately come to know well, contacted the press as a “Mr. Baron” of the Trump organization, making up stories that ranged from their having had had the sculptures appraised by three art experts who had found they had no artistic merit, to it would have cost too much to take down the reliefs, to someone on the street below might have been hurt during their removal.

Today, it is just more of the same!

Losses to Our Culture

I am sure that some of my readers have not been happy with some of my political commentary. However, when politics obstruct our culture and the arts, left or right, we should care!

The most obvious case was highlighted in an article in The Guardian with the headline “Kennedy Center Ticket Sales Fall to Lowest in Years after Trump Takeover”. The Washington Post was cited on many of the details including the fact that 43% of ticket sales between September 3 and October 19 remained unsold! A year ago, over the same period 93% of tickets were sold or given on a complimentary basis. To be fair the fact that the President had called in the National Guard to Washington, DC. did not make people feel more secure, but Kennedy Center staff told the Post reporters that the week after Trump declared himself Chair and replaced the Board, sales had dropped by roughly 50%. We also know that some performers have bowed out of scheduled performances in protest. It becomes a downward spiral. With subscriptions way down, it discourages additional donations.

The administration’s directives to the National Smithsonian Institutions on what should be shown and emphasized and what not, has put pressure to fall in line on all 22,000 U.S. museums who have previously received grants for everything from exhibitions to updating their records.

Think about what it means to defund PBS (The Public Broadcasting Service). Some of the larger stations may find ways to survive but not those in smaller towns and rural areas. Children will miss out on PBS programs that provide free pre-school education. The beloved Sesame Street is just one of the PBS programs teaching basics like numbers and the alphabet, as well as social skills.

I am mystified by this war on Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI). Maybe for once we should not be just using the letter abbreviations but rather what they stand for. What is left if you leave those words out of your life? Maybe the Left has gone to extremes with their wokeness but that is not a reason to censor plays, movies, books, and museum exhibitions, denying the foundation on which society is based and from which it learns. Happily, many arts organizations do not rely heavily on government funding, but even those will be strained to find private donations to cover any losses.

The National Endowment for the Arts was established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency to fund the arts and arts education nationwide and act as a catalyst for public and private support. It is the only organization that does so in all 50 states. Just one example is the Creative Writing Fellowship, created In 1966, which awarded up to $50,000 to published writers of prose and poetry. It was cancelled this past August. Many well-known writers, such as Louise Erdrich, Joys carol Oates and Isaac Bshevis Singer took advantage of the Fellowship early in their career and we are the richer for it.

The Greater Pittsburgh Art’s Council last month published an Art Blog on Cultural Policy reported, “On October 1, NPR reported on 550 celebrities who relaunched The Committee for the First Amendment a group first organized during the post-World War II Red Scare.” In the letter shared by NPR, the authors wrote: "This Committee was initially created during the McCarthy Era, a dark time when the federal government repressed and persecuted American citizens for their political beliefs. They targeted elected officials, government employees, academics, and artists. They were blacklisted, harassed, silenced, and even imprisoned. The McCarthy Era ended when Americans from across the political spectrum finally came together and stood up for the principles in the Constitution against the forces of repression."

As I have often said, history repeats itself …

The Heist

Need I say more? You already knew that I was going to write about the theft of the Napoleon III Jewels at the Louvre. I decided to write about it with the first announcement and then I could not avoid it, looking at French, U.S., British, and German press.

Everyone loves to read about art thefts, as I do. They seem to happen on a regular basis. Probably the most famous one being the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911, which was, obviously, eventually recovered. There have been a number of less serious burglaries that have happened there since, the most recent being the theft of a small landscape by Corot in 1998.

Seizing on some interesting details by putting many of these articles together:

The value of the jewels was put at one hundred and two million dollars immediately after the robbery though they were not insured since the Louvre like many other major museums are self-insured since values of their collections would be too great for any commercial insurer.

One camera outside the Louvre was facing in the wrong direction. Does that mean there was help from the inside by either reporting this fact to the thieves beforehand or, actually moving it before the robbery?

The perpetrators wore yellow vests looking like construction workers reached the second floor using an electric ladder from a truck, though they had brought kerosene to burn the truck with any evidence, in their rush they neglected to do so.

They broke through a glass panel in the door into the Apollo Gallery, threatened visitors and two guards to clear the gallery, broke into the case got out with 8 pieces and escaped on motorcycles, in case you are interested they were Yamaha TMASX models.

In the process they dropped a crown during their escape. It was created in 1855 for Princess Eugénie, Napoleon III’s wife with nearly 1,400 diamonds and 56 emeralds. which I would guess, though damaged, was both the most important, identifiable and valuable piece taken. The three other thieves were probably not happy with their colleague who dropped it!

The remaining pieces are so well known they would be most difficult to sell so there is the fear that the jewels will be removed and then still difficult to move as they have been cut in the manner of the 19th century. An expert diamond cutter would have to be found to make them look like modern cutting. Of course, any such desecration will erase some royal French history. Adding my two cents there are collectors with hidden collections who may have paid the thieves in advance. In that case how much less would they pay without the missing crown?

Immediately after the robbery occurred the excuses and blame commenced. The government had not funded enough guards; the cases for the jewels were new and not equipped with enough security devices; dysfunctional alarms (which has been contradicted by French officials); too few perimeter cameras as well as the afore mentioned misfocused camera. The Louvre Director, Laurence des Cars, then submitted her resignation but, refreshingly, it was not accepted. Because of the notoriety and it was, after all, the Louvre a government enquiry has naturally begun.

The police had taken 150 DNA samples and within days one suspect who had a record was apprehended at the airport, then another was arrested and shortly after another 5, though there was no sign of the missing jewels. One of the 5 was believed to be the third of the four thieves and, ostensibly the others were those behind the theft. According to the Paris prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, the first two “partially confessed” with no explanation. I had to ask myself whether that was like being a little bit pregnant!

As of the end of last week she added, “Brick by brick, the investigation is taking shape and closing in on those who may be involved”. Interpret that as you may but there is no doubt we will be hearing more as the days and weeks go by.