Walls within Walls

by Maureen Sherry

  And the children made from them.

  Our valuables many,

  Our troubles were few,

  But none was ever so treasured as you.

  And others who come to dwell in this place,

  Whose time came later to this space,

  May they remember what happy could be

  Before the four travelers

  Then became three.”

  “So the travelers L and M?” asked Pat.

  “Were Lyon and Margarite,” replied Eloise. “My parents.”

  “And he’s saying that even though they had tons of this fancy stuff—,” Brid said.

  “That you guys were his greatest treasure,” CJ said, nodding to Eloise and Julian.

  “And that the people who came after my family?” said Eloise.

  “That would be us!” Patrick exclaimed.

  “That he hopes you are happy, as happy as we were, before we went from a four-person family to three,” Eloise said, wiping her eyes. Julian put his arm around her. “Do you see, Julian? Do you see how much our father missed you?”

  “Well, we are happy,” Brid said, “so maybe he gets his wish.”

  “Yes, I think you are happy,” said Eloise. “And being around you has been making me so happy. I think my father was just afraid of losing the people and things he loved, so he tried to hide them from the world. But the trouble is that when you do that, you don’t get to enjoy them very much, do you? I mean, he got to look at these precious jewels, and he got to go visit Julian, but he never got to really enjoy them. We never used the priceless china, wore these jewels, or got to know Julian as my brother. It was because my father was so afraid of losing everything. I think I understand that now.”

  “Maybe that’s the bigger story here,” CJ said. “Maybe all these poems were messages to you, messages about how to live your life differently than he did.”

  “Funny, to the outside world, our family really had everything anyone could dream of, but we didn’t really have that much fun.” Eloise was sniffling.

  “So you want me to start wearing jewelry, Eloise?” Patrick joked, trying to cheer her up.

  She smiled. “Let’s figure out what we should do with the answer to one of New York City’s biggest mysteries. We need to know what to say to the rest of the world when they hear about this.”

  “I think we need a plan,” Brid said, turning to the very last page of her notebook. At the top of the page, she wrote, What to do with priceless valuables worth millions. “We never did think this through. We never thought about what we would do if we actually found this stuff!” she muttered as she let some gold coins fall through her fingers back into their slick black box.

  She began to make a list.

  FACT OR FICTION

  This book contains historical facts and figures mixed with made-up stuff. Here is a guide to help you discern the real from the unreal.

  There was a family by the name of Post who began Post Cereals. Grape Nuts was the first type! The Posts had a daughter named Marjorie Merriweather Post, who married a wealthy banker named E. F. Hutton, and they had one daughter named Nadinia (Dina Merrill), who became a well-known actress. The story does not represent her or her family.

  The family first lived on Fifth Avenue in New York City. In the late 1920s developers wanted to build a high-rise apartment building on the site of the Post brownstone. The family agreed on the condition that a three-story apartment as large as their mansion be constructed for the family at the top of the building. They maintained a separate entrance with a covered circular driveway so nobody got wet in the rain while awaiting a car or carriage. That entrance is at 2 East 92nd Street.

  The Post apartment was the largest in New York City, and they were famous for their lavish parties. It did include such amenities as a ballroom, a silver room, a gown room, butler’s pantry, and servant quarters. To protect the wooden floor from scratches, Mrs. Post requested guests to attach small feltlike bottoms to their heels, much like the Williamsons’ maid did. When they moved out, the apartment was split into six smaller units.

  It was true that some wealthy families of this era frequently socialized with one another and were voracious collectors of art, maps, jewels, Russian imperial art, icons, textiles, Sèvres porcelains, and silver. The J. P. Morgan family has much of their collection on display at the Morgan Library on Madison Avenue at Thirty-sixth Street. Much of the Post collection is in Washington, DC, where Mrs. Post moved later in her life, at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Coincidentally, this Smithsonian building is a Guastavino structure as well, where you can see some of Mrs. Post’s treasures, including her 275-karat diamond and turquoise necklace, originally given by Napoléon I to his wife, Empress Marie-Louise. Mrs. Post also donated an emerald that was first owned by Cuauhtémoc—the last king of the Aztec Empire. In my imagination I expect that the Smithfork kids will later find out that this emerald is missing from the cache they found, hence reopening the mystery for them and taking them overseas in the next book.

  The real Mrs. Post loved all things French and was later given the French Legion of Honor medal for underwriting the cost of field hospitals in France. Her gowns, which now reside at the Hillwood Museum in Washington, DC, all have a small red strip sewn on the left breast to note this honor.

  The Posts were fans of Ulysses S. Grant and even had serving plates with his likeness on them. You can see them at Hillwood.

  MOBSTERS

  Prohibition was a time when it was illegal to make or sell alcohol, and it lasted from 1920 to 1933. Bootleggers and mobsters flourished then, including a real man named Joe Torrio. But an assassination attempt on him in 1925 encouraged him to move to Italy. The real Post family had nothing to do with mobsters or Joe Torrio.

  CHARLES LINDBERGH

  He was a famous aviator whose baby son was kidnapped in 1932. Many wealthy families feared copycat crimes. The real Post family never sent their child away.

  THE SEVEN STRUCTURES

  Rafael Guastavino moved from Barcelona, Spain, to the United States in 1881, encouraged by demand for his fireproof and dramatic buildings. Rafael died in 1908, and his son took over his business at that time. The father-and-son team left an indelible mark on Manhattan and yet remain known only to a small community.

  Because so much skilled labor was required to build out their sloped ceilings, it was expensive work, eventually replaced in leaner times by cheaper methods. Guastavino creations remain all over Manhattan, and yet he and his son are almost entirely forgotten.

  SUGAR HILL BUILDING

  It is true that the building at East One hundred ninth Street has been destroyed and replaced by a school. I included that neighborhood so the reader could have a feel for the richness of Harlem both in the 1920s and today and to not make the mystery too easy for the Smithfork detectives.

  Numbers 409 and 555 Lenox Avenue did house famous African American residents but were not Guastavino buildings.

  No Guastavino structures survive in Central Harlem. The closest surviving structures are the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and St. Paul’s Chapel, which is on the campus of Columbia University.

  AMIABLE CHILD

  Located quite close to Grant’s Tomb. This is a true story.

  GRANT’S TOMB

  Ulysses S. Grant was a general under Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. He became president of the United States in 1869 and served until 1877. He was also an early environmentalist, creating and protecting Yellowstone National Park.

  Built by Guastavino in 1897, Grant’s burial place is the largest mausoleum in North America. New Yorkers had great affection for both him and his wife, and that is why he chose to be buried in New York City.

  GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL

  Finished in 1913, it is called a terminal and not a station because train lines end, or terminate, there. The Oyster Bar restaurant is a real place that opened on the first day the terminal did and remains popular today. The Mercury with caduceus statue is
on the clock outside the building facing Park Avenue South. The whisper gallery really works. Franklin Delano Roosevelt did have a secret platform, number 61, that could get him from his train to his hotel, the Waldorf-Astoria, without the public seeing that he was crippled by polio.

  STATEN ISLAND FERRY

  The Millay poem is printed on a wall inside the ferry building.

  ELLIS ISLAND

  Guastavino built the meeting hall after the original was destroyed by fire.

  The Kissing Post is real. Once immigrants were given the green light for admission to the United States, they would proceed to the bottom of a long staircase, where people were reunited, often with relatives they hadn’t seen in years. The Kissing Post got this name because of all the joyful reunions at that spot. There is no actual post.

  QUEENSBORO BRIDGE

  This is a real bridge built in 1909 connecting Manhattan to Queens at Fifty-ninth Street. Two trolley lines ran on the outer lanes of the bridge’s lower level. Today a large grocery store and café is currently located beneath the bridge on the Manhattan side. There you can see excellent examples of Guastavino’s work on the ceiling.

  OTA BENGA

  Ota was a real man whom a missionary took from the Congo and brought to the United States. In 1906 he was part of a Bronx Zoo exhibit, and details about him living both there and at the Museum of Natural History are, sadly, true. It is also true that he attacked a donor to the museum, Mrs. Guggenheim, by throwing a chair at her.

  SUBWAY

  Most every New Yorker can attest to unintelligible, garbled, announcements on the subway and, of course, to finding themselves on the wrong train.

  There is no cellular phone service in New York City subways.

  FIREFIGHTER KEVIN O’ROURKE, RESCUE 2

  He was a real person and cousin of mine, who sadly died trying to rescue people at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Firefighter Dennis McHugh also died that day and was a childhood friend.

  PS 149

  The Smithforks’ old elementary school is a real place; and the GKCC after-school program there will receive a percentage of the proceeds from this book. PS 149 is located in East New York, Brooklyn.

  LIST OF SOURCES CONSULTED

  ON PUZZLES AND JUMBLES:

  Coughlin, Dr. Heather. “Crack the Code!”

  www.csustan.edu/math/Coughlin/SMC06.pdf

  Stevenson, Robert Louis. Treasure Island. London: Cassell, 1883.

  THE POST FAMILY:

  Lane, Jim. “Marjorie Merriweather Post.”

  www.humanitiesweb.org/human.php?s=r&p=a&a=i&ID=868

  Lisenbee, Kenneth. “Marjorie Merriweather Post: A Biography.”

  www.paulbowles.org/marjoriemerriweatherpost.html

  Fisher, Frederick, et al. Marjorie Merriweather Post’s Art Collector’s Personal Museum. Washington, DC: Hillwood Museum and Gardens, 2000.

  “A World Unique and Magnificent: Mrs. Marjorie Merriweather Post, Head of a Great U.S. Fortune.” Photos by Alfred Eisenstaedt. New York: Time Inc.: Life magazine, Vol. 59, No. 19, November 5, 1965.

  Alpern, Andrew. New York’s Fabulous Luxury Apartments: With Original Floor Plans from the Dakota, River House, Olympic Tower and Other Great Buildings. Mineola, NY: Dover, 1987.

  New York Public Library.

  www.nypl.org

  Bellis, Mary. “The History of Scotch Tape.” http://inventors.about.com/od/sstartinventions/a/Scotch_Tape.htm

  The Morgan Library.

  www.themorgan.org

  THE POEMS:

  Hughes, Langston (1902–1967). “The Weary Blues.” The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. New York: Knopf Doubleday, 1995.

  Tennyson, Lord Alfred (1809–1892). “Ulysses.” Poems. London: Edward Moxon, 1842.

  Hardy, Thomas (1840–1928). “Faint Heart in a Rail Way Train.” The Complete Works of Thomas Hardy. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1995.

  Millay, Edna St. Vincent (1892–1950). “Recuerdo.” The Poet and Her Book: A Biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Jean Gould. New York: Dodd Mead, 1969.

  Lazarus, Emma (1849–1887). The New Colossus. First published 1883 and engraved on Statue of Liberty plaque in 1903.

  Wylie, Elinor (1885–1928). “A Crowded Trolley.” Nets to Catch the Wind. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1921.

  Bradford, Phillips Verner, and Harvey Blume. Ota Benga: The Pygmy in the Zoo. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992.

  The Seven Structures:

  Ryokan (1758–1831). Here is the story of this haiku.

  Ryokan and the Thief

  Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut, only to discover there was nothing to steal.

  Ryokan returned and caught him. “You have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift.” The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.

  Ryoken sat naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow,” he mused, “I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon.”

  www.poetry-chaikhana.com/R/Ryokan/thiefleftitb.htm

  Bowen, A. P. “I Love Corned Beef.” The Stars and Stripes. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, The Knickerbocker Press, 1919.

  Kingsley, Charles (1819–1875). “A Farewell.” A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. Edmund Clarence Stedman. Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1895.

  Sandburg, Carl (1878–1967). “Arithmetic.”

  de la Mare, Walter (1873–1956). “The Cupbouard.” Peacock Pie: A Book of Rhymes. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2004.

  Davis, Fannie Stearns (1884–1966). “For a Child.”

  Himiak, Lauren. “General Grant National Memorial (Grant’s Tomb).” http://usparks.about.com/od/nationalmemorials/p/General-Grant-Memorial.htm

  Lewis, David Levering. When Harlem Was in Vogue. New York: Penguin, 1979.

  Jackson, Kenneth T. The Encyclopedia of New York City. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995.

  Collins, George, et al. Guastavino Co. (1885–1962) Catalogue of Works in Catalonia and America. Actar/Col.legi D’Arquitectes de Catalunya; Illustrated Edition, 2003.

  Guastavino IV, Rafael. An Architect and His Son: The Immigrant Journey of Rafael Guastavino II and Rafael Guastavino III. Westminster, MD: Heritage Books, 2009.

  Parrish, Michael E. Anxious Decades: America in Prosperity and Depression, 1920–1941 (Norton Twentieth Century America series). Actar/Col.legi D’Arquitectes de Catalunya; Illustrated Edition, 2003.

  Stravitz, David. New York, Empire City: 1920–1945. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004.

  Elliott, Debbie. “Wondering About Water Towers.” NPR Radio, United States. 2 Dec. 2006. www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6567297

  TO FIND MORE ON:

  City Hall Subway Station

  www.transitmuseumeducation.org/trc/background

  or

  www.nycsubway.org/perl/stations?5:979

  The Lindbergh Kidnapping

  www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/lindber/lindbernew.htm

  Johnny Torrio

  www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Johnny_Torrio

  Marie Antoinette

  www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/biography/marieantoinette.html

  The Kissing Post

  www.history.com/content/ellis-island/ellis-island-tour/kissing-post

  The Schomburg Center

  www.ny.com/museums/schomburg.center.for.research.in.black.culture.html

  Grand Central Terminal

  http://grandcentralterminal.com/info/walkingtour.cfm

  or

  www.guidespot.com/guides/next_stop_grand_central

  AFTER WORDS

  On a rainy night in April 2010, Brid Smithfork lay in bed moving only her fingers. Flashes of lightning followed by thunderous booms did nothing to move her when she was so deep in thought. Wind whipped her curtains inward because she had left her windows open. Yet the only thing she
noticed was the object she held in her hands, a sumptuous wooden box with carved symbols on the border. The border design of the box was the same as the border design on the cover of this book. If you turn back to the front cover, you will see it.

  Eloise and Julian left New York City to travel the world after the mystery was solved. Before they left, they gave each of the Smithfork kids a gift. Brid was given the beautiful wooden box. Each night, as if in prayer, Brid had stared at the symbols and letters, waiting for them to mean something to her. It was CJ who realized the left-hand column was a simple backward skip-three code. When he stuck to the letters, ignoring the symbols just on that left column, he got a message that was the title of one of the poems in Mr. Post’s book. Can you figure out which poem it refers to?

  The other three sides of the four-sided border were the puzzle that kept Brid awake. But on that night, just as thunder seemed to shake her room apart, she finally figured it out.

  Beginning at the top of the border and reading left to right, she let each circled number relate to the stanza of the poem. The number that came after that related to a word on that stanza line. So the circled number 12 meant the twelfth line of the poem; the 3, the third word in that line. And that first word was refuse. She continued in a clockwise order to pull the lines from the poem to get the message, a message that would make her stay up all night, shaking with excitement.

  She didn’t know it at the time, but that message would launch her, CJ, and Patrick into a far more dangerous mission than the one they have just completed. They have an ancient door to break down, a door that is heavily guarded. There will be a lamp they have to free, a priceless lamp capable of mystical powers. And somehow along with this future mission, they still have to go to school.