Irving T. Bush
Encyclopedia
Irving T. Bush was an American businessman. His father was the wealthy industrialist, oil refinery owner, and yachtsman Rufus T. Bush
. As founder of the Bush Terminal Company
, Irving T. Bush was responsible for the construction of the massive Bush Terminal
transportation, warehousing, and manufacturing facility in Sunset Park, Brooklyn
, New York City
which employed more than 25,000 people within its boundaries. Bush also commissioned Manhattan's landmark Bush Tower
skyscraper on 42nd Street
next to Times Square
and funded the construction of Bush House
in London
. A prolific author, his life and works attracted attention from the national press, influential figures, and major publishers and journalists.
, who immigrated to New Amsterdam
, now New York, in 1662. He has no known connection or relation to the Bush political family
.
, Lenawee County, Michigan
, a small town southwest of Detroit, Irving moved with his family at a young age to Brooklyn, New York, at the time an independent city. When he was in his teens, his father sold his Brooklyn waterfront oil refinery
to Standard Oil
and retired. Irving T. Bush was educated at The Hill School
, a boarding school
outside Philadelphia, and joined his father's firm at age 19.
The two-masted schooner
yacht Coronet
, a 136 feet (41.5 m) vessel that Rufus had built during the mid-1880s, influenced Irving's life, for the ocean race between the Coronet and the yacht Dauntless in March 1887 made Rufus T. Bush and the victorious Coronet famous—the New York Times devoted its entire first page for March 28, 1887 to the story. Rufus and Irving T. Bush then circumnavigated the globe on the Coronet in 1888. Though they traveled overland and did not join the yacht until it arrived in San Diego in 1889, the Coronet was the first registered yacht to cross Cape Horn
from East to West. After crossing the Pacific Ocean
, the Coronet stopped in China, Calcutta
, Malta
(and elsewhere), giving him a view of the world that few had at the time. The Coronet was sold before Rufus's death in 1890, when Rufus accidentally drank a fatal dose of aconite
. Rufus T. Bush left an estate estimated at $2,000,000 to his wife and two sons. The family heirs quickly incorporated under the name The Bush Co. Aged 21, Irving T. Bush, a clerk for Standard Oil, could have lived off his inherited wealth and retired from the business life.
's Kinetoscope
overseas. The kinetoscope was the earliest motion picture viewer. Unlike later movie projector
s, kinetoscopes could show a moving image to only one person at a time. The Continental Commerce Co. opened the first licensed European kinetoscope parlor in London in 1894.
on the Brooklyn waterfront site where his father's former oil refinery had been located.
To induce railroads to use his car floats, (i.e. using the barges that transported railroad cars across New York Harbor), Irving had to resort to ordering dozens of carloads of hay from Michigan himself. To show shippers that using the wharves and warehouses at the new terminal could be profitable, Bush entered the banana business. Within two decades, the complex originally derided as "Bush's Folly"
became a great success. Though the complex was seized for government use during the First World War by Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt
, Irving T. Bush complied with government demands. He even helped to design the Brooklyn Army Terminal
for General Goethals
in 1918.
Irving T. Bush was named Chief Executive of the War Board of the Port of New York during the First World War
, an early version of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
.
During this period before and during the First World War, Irving T. Bush planned and had built Bush Tower
, a landmark 30-story Neo-Gothic
skyscraper on 42nd Street in Manhattan, just east of Times Square. The tower was conceived as display space for the manufacturers and shippers of Bush Terminal and New York. An even more ambitious venture was Irving T. Bush's attempt to meld commercial displays and social space in London
at Bush House
, an elaborate and large office building built in three phases during the 1920s, but the concept was not fully carried through at that project. Bush House is known around the globe today as the headquarters of the BBC World Service
, which currently broadcasts in 32 languages to all parts of the world.
from 1922 to 1924.
, with a high, almost Flemish gable
".
(See the Bush Terminal
article for a look at the Bush Terminal Building in Manhattan, also by Kirby, Petit, and Green in 1905.)
Bush commissioned southern California architect Wallace Neff
to design his winter home at Mountain Lake Estates
in Florida, near the residence (and later tower
) of his father's former business partner, Edward W. Bok
. Neff, who had recently been named "architect to the stars" by the Los Angeles Times
, designed few houses outside California.
He also commissioned the landscape architect
Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.
to design the grounds of the Florida estate. Olmsted was known not only as the son of Central Park
's designer, but among numerous other accomplishments, was notable for re-designing the White House
grounds in 1930.
After moving from his townhouse at East 64th Street, Bush lived in the 17-floor tower at 280 Park Avenue, Manhattan, New York, designed by Warren and Wetmore
, architects of Grand Central Terminal
in New York City, Michigan Central Station
in Detroit and the Royal Hawaiian Hotel
in Honolulu.
Like other wealthy Americans, Irving T. Bush collected art. His portrait painting of the Russian princess Maria Worontzova (a name Anglicized as Vorontsov
) by Franz Xaver Winterhalter was inherited by his niece and was only recently auctioned at Sotheby's
in 2003. Bush's acquisition of a Portrait of Henry VII by Jehan de Perreal
, a work from the early 16th century, made the news in 1929.
In 1922 Bush became one of the founding trustees of New York City
's Grand Central Art Galleries
, an artists' cooperative established that year by John Singer Sargent
, Edmund Greacen
, Walter Leighton Clark
, and others. Also on the board were the Galleries' architect, William Adams Delano
; Robert DeForest, president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Frank Logan, vice-president of the Art Institute of Chicago; and Clark.
His 1930 divorce in Reno, Nevada
and re-marriage one hour later to dentist, artist, socialite, and philanthropist Marian Spore Bush
made the front page of the New York Times as well as the "Milestones" section of Time
magazine. Irving had met Marian, a fellow Michigan expatriate, while working together on a breadline in New York's impoverished Bowery
during the late 1920s. After their marriage, they lived at 280 Park Avenue along with Mrs. Marian Spore Bush's niece Helen Tunison, who after Irving's death, dedicated the statue of him at Bush Terminal in front of 3,000 people.
Bush owned two yachts that subsequently served as patrol boats in the United States Navy. In 1917, during the First World War, the navy bought his 164 feet (50 m) steam yacht Christabel and commissioned the vessel as the USS Christabel (SP-162)
, which took part in at least two actions against German U-Boats and was credited with sinking one. (See Navy History website) A sailor even won a Medal of Honor during one of these engagements. His larger 185 feet (56.4 m) diesel yacht,
Coronet, built for him in Germany in 1928 and placed under his wife's name during the Great Depression, was bought by the Navy during World War II and patrolled the Caribbean as the USS Opal (Pyc-8)
before being transferred to Ecuador
in 1943, where it was scrapped in 1960.
in Manhattan and Bush House
are both landmarks.
Rufus T. Bush
Rufus T. Bush was an American businessman, oil refining industrialist, and yachtsman. His notable testimony against Standard Oil's monopolistic practices through railroad rebates left a lasting impression, while the 1887 transatlantic ocean race of his sailing yacht Coronet and his subsequent...
. As founder of the Bush Terminal Company
Bush Terminal
Bush Terminal now known as Industry City is a historic intermodal shipping, warehousing, and manufacturing complex on the waterfront in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City...
, Irving T. Bush was responsible for the construction of the massive Bush Terminal
Bush Terminal
Bush Terminal now known as Industry City is a historic intermodal shipping, warehousing, and manufacturing complex on the waterfront in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City...
transportation, warehousing, and manufacturing facility in Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Sunset Park is a neighborhood in the western section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, USA. It is bounded by Greenwood Heights to the north, Borough Park to the east, Bay Ridge to the south, and Upper New York Bay to the west...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
which employed more than 25,000 people within its boundaries. Bush also commissioned Manhattan's landmark Bush Tower
Bush Tower
Bush Tower, also called the Bush Terminal International Exhibit Building is an historic thirty-story skyscraper located just east of Times Square at 130-132 West 42nd Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was built in 1916-18 for Irving T. Bush's Bush...
skyscraper on 42nd Street
42nd Street (Manhattan)
42nd Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, known for its theaters, especially near the intersection with Broadway at Times Square. It is also the name of the region of the theater district near that intersection...
next to Times Square
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
and funded the construction of Bush House
Bush House
Bush House is a building between Aldwych and The Strand in London at the southern end of Kingsway. The BBC World Service occupies the Centre Block, North East and South East wings. The North West wing was formerly occupied by BBC Online until they relocated to BBC Media Village in 2005, with some...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. A prolific author, his life and works attracted attention from the national press, influential figures, and major publishers and journalists.
Early life
Irving T. Bush's family name comes from Jan Bosch, a native of the NetherlandsNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, who immigrated to New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....
, now New York, in 1662. He has no known connection or relation to the Bush political family
Bush family
The Bush family is a prominent American family. Along with many members who have been successful bankers and businessmen, across three generations the family includes two U.S. Senators, one Supreme Court Justice, two Governors, one Vice President and two Presidents...
.
Early years
Born in RidgewayRidgeway Township, Michigan
Ridgeway Township is a civil township of Lenawee County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 1,580 at the 2000 census. The unincorporated community of Ridgeway can be found within Ridgeway Township.-Geography:...
, Lenawee County, Michigan
Lenawee County, Michigan
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 98,890 people, 35,930 households, and 26,049 families residing in the county. The population density was 132 people per square mile . There were 39,769 housing units at an average density of 53 per square mile...
, a small town southwest of Detroit, Irving moved with his family at a young age to Brooklyn, New York, at the time an independent city. When he was in his teens, his father sold his Brooklyn waterfront oil refinery
Oil refinery
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas...
to Standard Oil
Standard Oil
Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational...
and retired. Irving T. Bush was educated at The Hill School
The Hill School
The Hill School is a preparatory boarding school for boys and girls located in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, about 35 miles northwest of Philadelphia....
, a boarding school
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
outside Philadelphia, and joined his father's firm at age 19.
The two-masted schooner
Schooner
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....
yacht Coronet
Coronet (yacht)
The Coronet, a wooden-hull schooner yacht built in 1885, is one of the oldest and largest schooner yachts in the world.-History:left|thumb|200px|Page 1, The New York Times, March 27, 1887The schooner Coronet was designed by William Townsend and built for Rufus T. Bush by the C. & R. Poillon...
, a 136 feet (41.5 m) vessel that Rufus had built during the mid-1880s, influenced Irving's life, for the ocean race between the Coronet and the yacht Dauntless in March 1887 made Rufus T. Bush and the victorious Coronet famous—the New York Times devoted its entire first page for March 28, 1887 to the story. Rufus and Irving T. Bush then circumnavigated the globe on the Coronet in 1888. Though they traveled overland and did not join the yacht until it arrived in San Diego in 1889, the Coronet was the first registered yacht to cross Cape Horn
Cape Horn
Cape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...
from East to West. After crossing the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
, the Coronet stopped in China, Calcutta
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
, Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
(and elsewhere), giving him a view of the world that few had at the time. The Coronet was sold before Rufus's death in 1890, when Rufus accidentally drank a fatal dose of aconite
Aconitum
Aconitum , known as aconite, monkshood, wolfsbane, leopard's bane, women's bane, Devil's helmet or blue rocket, is a genus of over 250 species of flowering plants belonging to the buttercup family .-Overview:These herbaceous perennial plants are chiefly natives of the mountainous parts of the...
. Rufus T. Bush left an estate estimated at $2,000,000 to his wife and two sons. The family heirs quickly incorporated under the name The Bush Co. Aged 21, Irving T. Bush, a clerk for Standard Oil, could have lived off his inherited wealth and retired from the business life.
Edison, motion pictures, and Irving T. Bush
Irving T. Bush was chair of the Continental Commerce Co., which had exclusive rights to market Thomas EdisonThomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
's Kinetoscope
Kinetoscope
The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device. Though not a movie projector—it was designed for films to be viewed individually through the window of a cabinet housing its components—the Kinetoscope introduced the basic approach that would become the standard for all cinematic...
overseas. The kinetoscope was the earliest motion picture viewer. Unlike later movie projector
Movie projector
A movie projector is an opto-mechanical device for displaying moving pictures by projecting them on a projection screen. Most of the optical and mechanical elements, except for the illumination and sound devices, are present in movie cameras.-Physiology:...
s, kinetoscopes could show a moving image to only one person at a time. The Continental Commerce Co. opened the first licensed European kinetoscope parlor in London in 1894.
Bush Terminal
But Irving T. Bush's connection with Edison's motion pictures was brief. Soon after, during the mid-1890s, Irving T. Bush started the planning and construction of Bush TerminalBush Terminal
Bush Terminal now known as Industry City is a historic intermodal shipping, warehousing, and manufacturing complex on the waterfront in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City...
on the Brooklyn waterfront site where his father's former oil refinery had been located.
To induce railroads to use his car floats, (i.e. using the barges that transported railroad cars across New York Harbor), Irving had to resort to ordering dozens of carloads of hay from Michigan himself. To show shippers that using the wharves and warehouses at the new terminal could be profitable, Bush entered the banana business. Within two decades, the complex originally derided as "Bush's Folly"
became a great success. Though the complex was seized for government use during the First World War by Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
, Irving T. Bush complied with government demands. He even helped to design the Brooklyn Army Terminal
Brooklyn Army Terminal
The Brooklyn Army Terminal is large complex of piers, docks, warehouses, cranes, rail sidings and cargo loading equipment on between 58th and 63rd Street in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. During World War II, the terminal was responsible for shipment of 85% of army equipment and personnel overseas;...
for General Goethals
George Washington Goethals
George Washington Goethals was a United States Army officer and civil engineer, best known for his supervision of construction and the opening of the Panama Canal...
in 1918.
Irving T. Bush was named Chief Executive of the War Board of the Port of New York during the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, an early version of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is a bi-state port district, established in 1921 through an interstate compact, that runs most of the regional transportation infrastructure, including the bridges, tunnels, airports, and seaports, within the Port of New York and New Jersey...
.
During this period before and during the First World War, Irving T. Bush planned and had built Bush Tower
Bush Tower
Bush Tower, also called the Bush Terminal International Exhibit Building is an historic thirty-story skyscraper located just east of Times Square at 130-132 West 42nd Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was built in 1916-18 for Irving T. Bush's Bush...
, a landmark 30-story Neo-Gothic
Gothic Revival architecture
The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...
skyscraper on 42nd Street in Manhattan, just east of Times Square. The tower was conceived as display space for the manufacturers and shippers of Bush Terminal and New York. An even more ambitious venture was Irving T. Bush's attempt to meld commercial displays and social space in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
at Bush House
Bush House
Bush House is a building between Aldwych and The Strand in London at the southern end of Kingsway. The BBC World Service occupies the Centre Block, North East and South East wings. The North West wing was formerly occupied by BBC Online until they relocated to BBC Media Village in 2005, with some...
, an elaborate and large office building built in three phases during the 1920s, but the concept was not fully carried through at that project. Bush House is known around the globe today as the headquarters of the BBC World Service
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...
, which currently broadcasts in 32 languages to all parts of the world.
Chamber of Commerce
Irving T. Bush served as president of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New YorkChamber of Commerce of the State of New York
The New York Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1768 by twenty New York City merchants, was the first commercial organization of its kind in the country. Attracting the participation of a number of New York's most influential business leaders, such as John Jacob Astor, Peter Cooper, and J...
from 1922 to 1924.
Contributions to art and architecture
Within recent decades, scholarly architects have described and critiqued the buildings Irving T. Bush had commissioned. Perhaps mindful of the Dutch ancestry of his family (and of New York's), Bush's 1905 townhouse at 28 East 64th Street, Manhattan, by the firm of Kirby, Petit, and Green was "flamboyantly JacobeanJacobean architecture
The Jacobean style is the second phase of Renaissance architecture in England, following the Elizabethan style. It is named after King James I of England, with whose reign it is associated.-Characteristics:...
, with a high, almost Flemish gable
Dutch gable
A Dutch gable or Flemish gable is a gable whose sides have a shape made up of one or more curves and has a pediment at the top. The gable may be an entirely decorative projection above a flat section of roof line, or may be the termination of a roof, like a normal gable...
".
(See the Bush Terminal
Bush Terminal
Bush Terminal now known as Industry City is a historic intermodal shipping, warehousing, and manufacturing complex on the waterfront in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City...
article for a look at the Bush Terminal Building in Manhattan, also by Kirby, Petit, and Green in 1905.)
Bush commissioned southern California architect Wallace Neff
Wallace Neff
Wallace Neff was an architect based in Southern California and was largely responsible for developing the region's distinct architectural style referred to as "California" style...
to design his winter home at Mountain Lake Estates
Mountain Lake Estates Historic District
The Mountain Lake Estates Historic District is a U.S. historic district , located north of Lake Wales, Florida, off the US 27A Scenic Highway....
in Florida, near the residence (and later tower
Bok Tower Gardens
Bok Tower Gardens is a botanical garden and bird sanctuary, located north of Lake Wales, Florida, United States. It consists of a 250-acre garden, the tall Singing Tower with its carillon bells, Pine Ridge Trail, Pinewood Estate, and a visitor center...
) of his father's former business partner, Edward W. Bok
Edward W. Bok
Edward William Bok was a Dutch born American editor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author. He was editor of the Ladies Home Journal for thirty years...
. Neff, who had recently been named "architect to the stars" by the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, designed few houses outside California.
He also commissioned the landscape architect
Landscape architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor and public spaces to achieve environmental, socio-behavioral, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic investigation of existing social, ecological, and geological conditions and processes in the landscape, and the design of interventions...
Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.
Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.
Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. was an American landscape architect best known for his wildlife conservation efforts. He had a lifetime commitment to national parks, and worked on projects in Acadia, the Everglades and Yosemite National Park. Olmsted Point in Yosemite and Olmsted Island at Great Falls...
to design the grounds of the Florida estate. Olmsted was known not only as the son of Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
's designer, but among numerous other accomplishments, was notable for re-designing the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
grounds in 1930.
After moving from his townhouse at East 64th Street, Bush lived in the 17-floor tower at 280 Park Avenue, Manhattan, New York, designed by Warren and Wetmore
Warren and Wetmore
Warren and Wetmore was an architecture firm in New York City. It was a partnership between Whitney Warren and Charles Wetmore , that had one of the most extensive practices of its time and was known for the designing of large hotels.Whitney Warren was a cousin of the Vanderbilts and spent ten...
, architects of Grand Central Terminal
Grand Central Terminal
Grand Central Terminal —often incorrectly called Grand Central Station, or shortened to simply Grand Central—is a terminal station at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States...
in New York City, Michigan Central Station
Michigan Central Station
Michigan Central Station , built in mid-1912 through 1913 for the Michigan Central Railroad, was Detroit, Michigan's passenger rail depot from its opening in 1913 after the previous Michigan Central Station burned, until the cessation of Amtrak service on January 6, 1988...
in Detroit and the Royal Hawaiian Hotel
Royal Hawaiian Hotel
Royal Hawaiian Hotel, also known as the Pink Palace of the Pacific, is a hotel located at 2259 Kalākaua Avenue in Honolulu, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. One of the first hotels established in Waikiki, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel is considered one of the flagship hotels in Hawaii tourism...
in Honolulu.
Like other wealthy Americans, Irving T. Bush collected art. His portrait painting of the Russian princess Maria Worontzova (a name Anglicized as Vorontsov
Vorontsov
Vorontsov, also Woronzow, Woroncow is a celebrated Russian family, which attained the dignity of Counts of the Holy Roman Empire in 1744 and Serene Princes of the Russian Empire in 1852....
) by Franz Xaver Winterhalter was inherited by his niece and was only recently auctioned at Sotheby's
Sotheby's
Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...
in 2003. Bush's acquisition of a Portrait of Henry VII by Jehan de Perreal
Jean Perréal
Jean Perréal -- sometimes called Peréal, Johannes Parisienus or Jean De Paris -- was a successful portraitist for French Royalty in the first half of the 16th Century, as well as an architect, sculptor and limner of illuminated manuscripts...
, a work from the early 16th century, made the news in 1929.
In 1922 Bush became one of the founding trustees of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Grand Central Art Galleries
Grand Central Art Galleries
The Grand Central Art Galleries were the exhibition and administrative space of the nonprofit Painters and Sculptors Gallery Association, an artists' cooperative established in 1922 by Walter Leighton Clark together with John Singer Sargent, Edmund Greacen, and others...
, an artists' cooperative established that year by John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
, Edmund Greacen
Edmund Greacen
Edmund Greacen was an American Impressionist painter.He was born in New York City, New York. He graduated from New York University. After traveling around the world he entered the Art Students League of New York. He also took classes at the New York School of Art, where he studied with William...
, Walter Leighton Clark
Walter Leighton Clark
Walter Leighton Clark was an American businessman, inventor, and artist based in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and New York City. Among other achievements, in 1923 he founded with John Singer Sargent the Grand Central Art Galleries, located within New York City's Grand Central Terminal, to offer...
, and others. Also on the board were the Galleries' architect, William Adams Delano
William Adams Delano
William Adams Delano , an American architect, was a partner with Chester Holmes Aldrich in the firm of Delano & Aldrich. The firm worked in the Beaux-Arts tradition for elite clients in New York City, Long Island and elsewhere, building townhouses, country houses, clubs, banks and buildings for...
; Robert DeForest, president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Frank Logan, vice-president of the Art Institute of Chicago; and Clark.
Personal life
Irving T. Bush was in the news from a young age, when he was mentioned in stories of the Coronet's circumnavigation. He married Belle Barlow, with whom he had two daughters, Eleanor and Beatrice. Divorcing her, he married Maud Beard and had one son, Rufus, named after Irving T. Bush's father.His 1930 divorce in Reno, Nevada
Reno, Nevada
Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...
and re-marriage one hour later to dentist, artist, socialite, and philanthropist Marian Spore Bush
Marian Spore Bush
Marian Spore Bush left her successful Michigan dental practice for a studio in Greenwich Village, New York City, and became a self-taught painter in the 1920s...
made the front page of the New York Times as well as the "Milestones" section of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine. Irving had met Marian, a fellow Michigan expatriate, while working together on a breadline in New York's impoverished Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
during the late 1920s. After their marriage, they lived at 280 Park Avenue along with Mrs. Marian Spore Bush's niece Helen Tunison, who after Irving's death, dedicated the statue of him at Bush Terminal in front of 3,000 people.
Bush owned two yachts that subsequently served as patrol boats in the United States Navy. In 1917, during the First World War, the navy bought his 164 feet (50 m) steam yacht Christabel and commissioned the vessel as the USS Christabel (SP-162)
USS Christabel (SP-162)
USS Christabel was a civilian yacht purchased by the U.S. Navy during the start of World War I. She was outfitted with military equipment, including heavy 3” guns, and was then assigned to patrol duty in the North Atlantic Ocean. She served as a patrol craft with honor during the war, surviving an...
, which took part in at least two actions against German U-Boats and was credited with sinking one. (See Navy History website) A sailor even won a Medal of Honor during one of these engagements. His larger 185 feet (56.4 m) diesel yacht,
Coronet, built for him in Germany in 1928 and placed under his wife's name during the Great Depression, was bought by the Navy during World War II and patrolled the Caribbean as the USS Opal (Pyc-8)
USS Opal (PYc-8)
USS Opal , formerly the yacht named Coronet , was a patrol boat in the United States Navy during World War II and then served in the Ecuadorian navy.-1928-1941: Yacht Coronet:...
before being transferred to Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
in 1943, where it was scrapped in 1960.
Legacy
Bush left behind Bush Terminal, which not only provided a model for intermodal transportation, it provided employment for thousands and their families. His Bush TowerBush Tower
Bush Tower, also called the Bush Terminal International Exhibit Building is an historic thirty-story skyscraper located just east of Times Square at 130-132 West 42nd Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was built in 1916-18 for Irving T. Bush's Bush...
in Manhattan and Bush House
Bush House
Bush House is a building between Aldwych and The Strand in London at the southern end of Kingsway. The BBC World Service occupies the Centre Block, North East and South East wings. The North West wing was formerly occupied by BBC Online until they relocated to BBC Media Village in 2005, with some...
are both landmarks.
See also
- Bush TerminalBush TerminalBush Terminal now known as Industry City is a historic intermodal shipping, warehousing, and manufacturing complex on the waterfront in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City...
- Bush TowerBush TowerBush Tower, also called the Bush Terminal International Exhibit Building is an historic thirty-story skyscraper located just east of Times Square at 130-132 West 42nd Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was built in 1916-18 for Irving T. Bush's Bush...
- Bush HouseBush HouseBush House is a building between Aldwych and The Strand in London at the southern end of Kingsway. The BBC World Service occupies the Centre Block, North East and South East wings. The North West wing was formerly occupied by BBC Online until they relocated to BBC Media Village in 2005, with some...
- Marian Spore BushMarian Spore BushMarian Spore Bush left her successful Michigan dental practice for a studio in Greenwich Village, New York City, and became a self-taught painter in the 1920s...
- Rufus T. BushRufus T. BushRufus T. Bush was an American businessman, oil refining industrialist, and yachtsman. His notable testimony against Standard Oil's monopolistic practices through railroad rebates left a lasting impression, while the 1887 transatlantic ocean race of his sailing yacht Coronet and his subsequent...
- Coronet (1885 yacht)Coronet (yacht)The Coronet, a wooden-hull schooner yacht built in 1885, is one of the oldest and largest schooner yachts in the world.-History:left|thumb|200px|Page 1, The New York Times, March 27, 1887The schooner Coronet was designed by William Townsend and built for Rufus T. Bush by the C. & R. Poillon...
- USS Opal (PYc-8)USS Opal (PYc-8)USS Opal , formerly the yacht named Coronet , was a patrol boat in the United States Navy during World War II and then served in the Ecuadorian navy.-1928-1941: Yacht Coronet:...
, ex-yacht Coronet (1928)
External links
in Time Magazine- "Bush, Irving T." in the The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (1910), full text and portrait on Google Books
- Working with the World on WorldCatWorldCatWorldCat is a union catalog which itemizes the collections of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories which participate in the Online Computer Library Center global cooperative...
- Statue of Irving T. Bush and administration building at Bush Terminal as it exists today