14 thoughts on “Merry Christmas, from B.H. Roberts (1925)”

1. And a lovely building it is! Better than the verse! And the copy editing.

2. What do you have against the Baby Jesus losing weight, Mark?!

3. That poem reminds me of the anthem for my mission, which was rather memorable in a certain way.

   On the other hand, the mission office is nice.

4. It sounds to me like an alma mater hymn for some high school or college. I did like that photo, despite the “pome.”

5. Fast forward forty years from 1925 to the winter of 1964-1965. The Eastern States Mission had moved from Brooklyn to tonier quarters in Manhattan. When I visited it at that time, it was located on a side street in the east 70s very near Fifth Avenue and Central Park. As I remember it, the place was an elegant town house suitable for a late nineteenth-century robber baron, which may actually have been its original use. As I padded through this remarkable building, my host (I think of him as a local bishop rather than the mission president) explained that the house had been used to shoot the interior scenes for the film “Gone With the Wind” in the late 1930s, and that the incredible, red-carpeted staircase was the one up which Rhett Butler so famously carried Scarlett O’Hara. Does anyone have a photo of that Mission Home? Where is the Eastern States Mission (if there is one by that name) quartered today?

6. Bill, does this building look familiar? It is/was 973 Fifth Avenue, facing Central Park.

   

   As for current missions, the old Eastern States Mission has been subdivided umpteen times since BHRoberts was there. There are even two missions (New York, New York North, and New York, New York South) with headquarters in Manhattan. Maybe a New York reader knows what kinds of buildings they’re in today.

7. Fabulous stuff, Ardis.

8. Any idea what the address was in Brooklyn?

   Merry Christmas!

9. (psst: Ben, it’s in the intro to the post: 273 Gates, near Franklin)

10. There’s an identical building around 267 Gates.

11. That is not just an identical building, it’s the very same building. The old mission home is directly between the old Brooklyn Ward chapel, which is at 267 Gates Avenue, on the corner of Gates and Franklin. The mission home address appears to be 263 Gates–it would be a lower number than the church–but I can’t see it clearly enough on Streetview to be certain of the number.

    If it weren’t about 25 degrees outside, with wind chill factors in the single digits, I’d take a lunchtime bike ride up there and make sure.

    There are, as Ardis says, both New York North and a New York South missions. The “North” mission includes Manhattan and the Bronx and several upstate counties, extending about halfway to Albany, and also includes the southwestern corner of Connecticut. Its offices are in Scarsdale. The “South” mission includes Brooklyn, Staten Island and Queens, as well as the suburban counties on Long Island. Its offices are in Rego Park, Queens.

12. Mark, street numbers must have been adjusted at some time over the past century — the “273” comes from a contemporary letterhead. (This time, in other words, it ain’t a typo on my part.)

13. Mark, were you district president in 2008? I served as a missionary then and remember you very clearly. I served in the Bushwick Spanish branch. If you’re the same guy, you mentioned the old chapel in a district conference address. What you don’t know is that I dragged my companion out on the next P-day to find it.

14. Thanks, Ardis!

    I was curious, so I Googled “Sweet Adeline.” And now I wonder if they sang their mission song in four-part barbershop harmony. (There’s one version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_FCRvPot4s. It’s apparently a century-old barbershop standard.)

    It also suggests that that appropriating other music for Mormon-specific songs (think the sister missionaries with their “All About the Book”) has deep, deep roots.

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