11,517. RUDIMENTS, pt. 585

RUDIMENTS, pt. 585

('that got flooded too')

Elmira had the Arnot Art

Museum. (I always wanted

to say 'Am So!' or 'Are Too,'

but never got there). This

Arnot guy, along with the

Ogdens, somehow, were

old-time bigwigs in the

town who had done a lot

for establishing it, while

making many millions 

off the solid, workingman's

industrial base they also

founded. Before the years

of taxation, they made

squads and wads of money 

and, like most of the old 

anarchic rich, as the 

Wilson years closed

in (about 1912-17, 

thereabouts, when income

taxation was introduced),

they sensed the impending

introduction of new tax laws

and new duties that would 

be taking their dough from 

them, so they started by

moving quickly. Again, 

not just here but everywhere

-   the rich found new and

instant ways to maneuver 

and burrow their money. 

They endowed countless

things  -  Astor Libraries, 

Carnegie this and thats, 

Arnot-Ogen Hospitals and 

Libraries, in Elmira for those 

last two. I admit, it was a

pretty fantastic small-city

library, and a great building

too. But their crown-jewel,

in town was the (somewhat

too pretentious looking) art

museum. The Arnot Art 

Museum. The town elders

really treasured this stuff, 

their stuffy art society, their 

monthly art-appreciation 

meetings and  talks, their 

list of speakers and

guest-art-lecturers, etc.

I can only thank the good

Lord that the water stopped 

where it did. At their steps.

The temple-like building was

all elevated. Frankly, I'm

not too sure that end of town

could have taken the shock.

-

I marked carefully, to myself, 

how even the churn of the river,

unfortunately, somehow seemed

to kow-tow to the monied and

the functioning wealth of the

community. I guess that's why

the poorer types were not there,

(money) and took instead to 

those far ore beleaguered 

low-section which, as I've 

made mention, ended up 

looking, after the flood, like 

shrapnel. On the other hand,
had some realist, Ash-Can School
painter started painting all these 
poor people and their alleys 
and tenements and wrecked
homes, he would have become 
rich and famous and probably
been proudly exhibited right
there in the Arnot. The funny 

thing about that little museum  

-  and I frequented it enough, 

just to see the traveling exhibits 

and passing art items  -  was 

its reputation. You may know 

how small museums of 

whatever sort, are often 

known for their specialties  -  

this one is heavy in Impressionists; 

this one has a good representation 

of colonial-era Americana, etc. 

The Arnot Art Museum was 

know for its top-heavy 

collection of 150 year old 

or so 'medical' paintings. 

Hard to explain, yes, but 

there was a certain strain 

of academy art in the far 

earlier days that 'illustrated'  

-  quite artistically and 

with professionalism, let 

me add  -  paintings of

operating room, amphitheater

surgeries. There would be

precisely detailed and nicely 

drafted scenes of the operation

underway, the medical students 

peering in, from above, the 

surgeons in their smocks, the 

vials, the tubes, and, on the 

face of each doctor or assistant, 

the looks of wonderment and 

awe that early medical work 

must have given. There's an 

entire school of this art, and 

the Arnot Museum had lots of

it, on permanent display, and
once or twice, as well, traveling

installations of 12 or 20 or more

paintings which  stayed for a month
or two.  (Thomas Eakins, 'The Gross
'Clinic' was one example that came
through; named for a Doctor Gross,
not because it was deemed gross).
Quite the thing, it all was.

- 

I remember, some days later, in
the immediate post-flood days,
after all real fury had passed, 

being atop the standing walkway

of one of the bridges, the one that

remained and stayed open, and

looking down at the still racing

and churning water, doing its

passing eddy-dancing. The wall

marker read something of 22 feet,

at that point, a few days after

crest, where a usual flow was,

maybe 8 or 9 feet. I, nor anyone

else, really knew what to make

of this  -  time had been warped.

Would it still take another 5 or 7

days for the rest of New York State

above us to empty its overflow

into these still-building waters?

Was there to be no end? Would it

just gradually receding, lessening

by some hour at a time? It was a

very strange time, and we'd still

catch strange things running 

down with the flow. Where they

all ended up, we didn't know. My

friend Mary Kay, an Elmira native,

having grown up just two blocks 

or so off the river, in the direction

of Wellsburg, said she'd not faced

this her entire life, and didn't know

what to make of it. None of it.

-

There were problems abounding,

things you'd never think of. The

gas stations, many of them, had

become contaminated  -  beside the

flood waters, etc, the underground 

tanks were suspect, water in the

gasoline was the big rumor. 'Even

if they're open, don't buy local, it'll

wreck your engine...' The rumor

mill had started. There were tales

of people opening a closet door,

and a cadaver popping out, with

water too. Bodies were said to

have been seen floating along

this or that street. Marauding

bands of thieves were entering

and raiding anything not still

inhabited; nothing was safe,

watch yourself, look for 

strangers, keep a gun at the 

ready. It got crazy real soon.
Every nutty rumor there was.

'Dead' and 'Missing' people

were being found everywhere.

The local newscaster/weatherman

-  and bus driver  -  Vince Murphy,

was fired for saying on air that

on his bus route back and forth

to Binghamton (75 miles east)

he'd seen Jesus in the sky and

clouds, and Jesus had told him

not to worry, and to spread the

word that all would be OK and

Elmira would recover.

-

Back at home, on my Pennsylvania

farmland acreage, 21 miles off, all of

this went fairly unheeded. Nothing had

really happened or been displaced in

those parts, and the local farm people

didn't like Elmira or those who lived

there anyway. I'd gotten used to

seeing these local folks coming back,

after a day or a long afternoon in

Elmira, all fired up and frazzled

about the 'pace' of that 'city life,'

and how they'd never be able to

live like this and they had no idea

how the people there tolerated it.

(Of course, they were imagining a

scenario that didn't really exist).

Anything that may have happened

there, Agnes flood or not, the

people who lived there were seen

as probably deserving it. That was

the sort of over-arching and stern

judgmentalism which the local

sort of harsh Baptist and ruritania 

country-church people prompted.

Not good, I thought.

And it didn't hold up.

-

One thing for certain to say about

Elmira  -  from the Henry Ward

Beecher to Mark Twain and

who else connection  -  was that

it had been  a bastion, a hot-point

of Abolitionist sentiment in the

big hey-day of all that. If Harriet

Beecher Stowe's 'Little Eva' had 

to live somewhere, Elmira could 

have easily been her home. I
always put that sort of town
sentiment up against any of that
still-weirdly twisted sentiment
the likes of which had people 
saying, of Elmira, 'they deserved
it.' Boy that used to irk me, and
you still hear some of that rap
about modern day ills, from
TV preachers and pulp-book
pulpit ghouls. I, in contrast, was
always proud of Elmira, and that
Beecher church and statue right
in the middle of town.
-
Oh, yes, that got flooded too.