Alice Austen House

The Alice Austen House, or "Clear Comfort," was first built in 1690 and expanded in the nineteenth century. It was home to prolific and pioneering photographer Alice Austen, and preserved in the later half of the twentieth century.

Alice Austen. Clear Comfort. Photograph. Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library. New York Public Library Digital Collections.

Alice Austen’s grandfather, John Haggerty Austen, purchased the 1690 Dutch farmhouse in 1844. At the time of its purchase, the house was in disrepair. However, the well-to-do and devoted Austen family transformed it into a lavish Carpenter Gothic cottage. The house belonged in the family for a century, until financial struggles caused Alice to lose it in 1945. No longer receiving maintenance and care, the house inevitably deteriorated. In the 1950s and 1960s, local activists campaigned to save the house, which they called the “Alice Austen House,” after its most prominent resident.

Alice Austen and her partner, Gertrude Tate.

Concerned that the house may be replaced with apartment buildings, activists formed a group called “The Friends of Alice Austen House” in 1967 in what may have been “the first effort made in this country to preserve a historic old house as a photographic museum of an individual photographer’s work.”[1] The group raised awareness and necessary funds to protect the house and grounds. Many who campaigned to save the Alice Austen House from destruction did so because of the site’s connection to the history of photography. Among many committee members were Bernice Abbott, Grace M. Mayer, Regina Benedict, and Margot Gayle.

Berenice Abbott was born in Ohio in 1898, and moved to New York at age twenty. She then traveled to Paris to study art, and became assistant to the renowned photographer Man Ray from 1923 to 1926. After developing her own photography skills, Abbott opened a portrait studio in Paris. She eventually returned to New York in 1929, and spent the 1930s documenting the city through photographs. Abbott’s work spanned over five decades, and she is now regarded as “one of the most gifted American photographers of the 20th century." [2]

Berenice Abbott

Grace M. Mayer was born in New York in 1901. In 1930, Mayer joined the staff of the Museum of the City of New York, which at the time was housed in Gracie Mansion. Over her thirty years spent with the museum, Mayer organized over one hundred exhibitions - including the first major show on Berenice Abbott in 1934. At the time of her involvement in preserving the Alice Austen House, Mayer was curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art. Today, Mayer is considered a “pioneering curator of photography” who was “well ahead of her time in recognizing the art of photography.”[3]

Regina Benedict was executive director of the American Society of Magazine Photographers. In an effort to attract attention to Austen’s body of work, Benedict co-authored a biographical article for the July 1967 issue of Infinity, a publication by the American Society of Magazine Photographers (of which Benedict was associate editor). The cover of the issue featured a self-portrait of Alice Austen.

New York City preservationist Margot Gayle was also deeply connected to the house’s preservation. Gayle was involved with the preservation of many Victorian sites across the City during the 1960s historic preservation movement, and founded the Victorian Preservation Society in 1966. One congressman noted “[t]he name, Margot Gayle, has always been associated with efforts aimed at preservation of our heritage.”[4]

In 1972, while Gayle was serving as Secretary of Friends of Alice Austen House and Esplanade, she made a powerful statement to the House of Representatives regarding the site's importance:

Fields, H. J. Margot Gayle. Gelatin silver print photograph. New York Public Library Archives, The New York Public Library. New York Public Library Digital Collections.

“...we learned the ships and immigrants that came into the United States passed this point in the Narrows and the little house which is the very historic 17th century Alice Austen House as we saw it, was the first building that allowed the immigrants to be close enough to sense humanity, and the people in the Austen House would come out on their little launches as you could today and they would waive [sic] to the people coming to the United States. So it came to be called ‘Number 1 U.S.A.’ and it is a rather interesting thought and it means a great deal in the hearts of people who came into the United States through New York Harbor."[5]

Alice Austen. Ships, December 12, 1900. Photographic print. Collection of Staten Island Historical Society.

Diana Mara Henry. Alice Austen house dedication, 1978. Gelatin silver print photograph. Diana Mara Henry Papers (PH 51). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

The Friends of the Alice Austen House was ultimately successful in its efforts to preserve the house. The City purchased the property in 1975. Restoration of the house took place between 1984 and 1985.

A special thanks to Victoria Munro for her assistance.

References

Jacob Deschin, “Campaign to Save Austen House: Photography,” New York Times, Aug 6, 1967.
"Berenice Abbott," In Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed., 7-9. Vol. 1. Detroit, MI: Gale, 2004. Gale eBooks. 8.
Michael Kimmelman, "Grace Mayer, Photography Curator, Dies at 95," New York Times, Dec 24, 1996.
“Statement of Margot Gayle, Friends of Alice Austen House,” Gateway Area Proposals: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs House of Representatives, 92nd Congress, Serial No. 92-15 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972), 172.
Ibid.

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