Mr. Clifford D. Smith lived in Passaic, the prosperous city on the Passaic River in northeast New Jersey.
The first European community in this area was comprised of Dutch settlers, but the population grew enormously in the late 19th century as Passaic became a center of metal-working and textile industries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passaic,_New_Jersey
In an earlier postcard story, we saw a photograph of the spectacular Passaic River Falls – which powered industries in nearby Patterson, New Jersey: “Alice Has Many Questions”.
In October of 1906, Clifford received a postcard from “E. B. S.”
The postcard was mailed from Passaic, but it is not clear if the sender had ever met Clifford in person.
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The face of the postcard is a photograph of an imposing marble statue.
Named on the postcard as the “Heine Monument”, the sculptural group was erected within a fenced enclosure at the southern end of Joyce Kilmer Park – near the Bronx County Courthouse on the Grand Concourse.
https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=228752
At the turn of the 20th century, the Bronx was a borough of magnificent homes and places of cultural interest.
The Bronx Botanical Garden, The Bronx Museum of Art, and the Bronx Zoo all reflect the prosperity of the Gilded Age.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bronx
Heinrich Heine was one of the great lyric poets of German literature, and this monument represents one of his best-known poems, “Die Lorelei”.
https://www.thoughtco.com/heinrich-heine-german-author-1444575
Here, a female figure representing the Water Spirit arises from a bowel – three mermaids attend her.
The monument, carved from Italian white marble by the sculptor Ernst Herter, was intended for the city of Dusseldorf which planned to honor the centenary of Heine’s birth in 1897.
Heine, whose varied career and literary output represented a cosmopolitan sensibility, became a flashpoint in German culture wars and the plans were abandoned.
After many alternative plans were presented and rebuffed, a German-American singing group in New York (The “Arion Society”) acquired the controversial statue in 1894 and erected it in the Bronx in 1899 (after five years of political and administrative feuding within New York City.)
(This history of the statue which will sound alarmingly familiar to those who care about artistic freedom in the US)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorelei_Fountain
The postcard photograph was published by the Souvenir Post Card Company of New York & Berlin.
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Because there is no space for a message on the reverse, EBS inscribed a few words on the margin of the face.
“Yours received – thanks you ever so much”.
The lack of greeting or personal content suggests that the sender and Clifford might be members of a postcard exchange club.
Interestingly, Clifford received the postcard at work – his address is given as the “Robins Conveying Belt Co,” in Passaic.
Here is a history of this firm, founded by Thomas Robins Jr. in 1896.
https://mycompanies.fandom.com/wiki/Robins_Conveying_Belt_Company
Clifford preserved the postcard in very good condition throughout his life.
One hopes that he enjoyed a successful career and that he exchanged many more postcards.
