A to Z Challenge

L is for Little

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Located at Pier 55 in Hudson River Park @W 13th St, New York, NY 10014
Website:  https://littleisland.org/

Little Island

Little Island is a new public park, jutting into the Hudson River, over what used to be piers 54 and 55. It is located within the larger Hudson River Park, which extends from Battery Park in the south to Pier 97 in the north. 

The park is held up by 132 funnel shaped structures called Tulips. These tulips vary in height, anywhere between 15 and 62 feet above the water.

The park opened to the public on May 21 2021. It has an area of 2.4 acres and is built on multiple levels. There are two walkway bridges connecting the island park to the Hudson River walkway on the mainland. (The word ‘mainland’ is used kinda loosely here as Manhattan itself is an island!)

There are several wonderful seating areas and lookout points throughout the park. If you can imagine the whole park in the rough shape of a bowl, at the rims will be the lookout points, with a lawn, lots of seating with umbrellas for sun protection, and children’s performance area in the center which is called ‘the play ground’. You will find food vendors in this area as well. 

You can walk up the various paths to get to the three overlooks with some of the best views in the city, of the neighborhood, downtown Manhattan and New Jersey.

To the southern end of the park is ‘the glade’ where small performances take place. Usually someone is reading to children sitting in close circles, with the parents a bit further on the benches. Various music, dance, poetry, and comedy shows take place here as well.

There is an amphitheater with facilities for professional performances in the park, called ‘the amph’. For these performances you will need advance tickets, which can be reserved online. If there is no performance taking place, this is a great place to stretch your legs and enjoy the view.

Only working dogs that assist patrons with disabilities are allowed in the park. Pets and emotional support animals are not allowed as it is not conducive to the wellbeing of the garden beds and lawns.

Looking at the up and down terrain of the park it is hard to imagine, but the whole of Little Island is ADA compliant. 

The park is open to the public starting 6 am in the morning and closes at different hours, depending on the season, anywhere from 9 pm to 12 am.

There is a wide variety of trees and flowering plants growing all over the park. These are natives that thrive in the local conditions. These are maintained to suit the changing seasons. 

During the 19th and 20th centuries the Hudson River waterfront was a busy port of entry. Between 1910 and 1935, Pier 54 operated the British Cunard-White Star line, serving as a point of departure and return for trans-Atlantic ocean liner voyages. 

The pier then fell into disuse until the 1970s when it became the center of community activities in the area, especially for the city’s LGBTQ community. Starting in 1986, the annual Dance on the Pier event took place here for over 25 years.

In 2012, Pier 54 was heavily damaged by Hurricane Sandy which hit the New York City coastline. Instead of building it back up, the idea of an alternative use for it was envisioned.

Little Island was planned, designed and built under a private-public partnership. While $260 million came from private contributions, the rest of the cost was borne by the city and state of New York.

The best time to visit Little Island is early morning, just as soon as it is open. There is absolute peace and quiet and you have the whole place to yourself. And after you have done with Little Island, it just a short walk to the High Line, which will take you to the Hudson yards. So much to see, so much to do!

Tidbyte

In 1912, survivors from the Titanic disaster arrived to safety at Pier 54 where Little Island stands today, aboard the RMS Carpathia rescue liner.

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14 Apr 2023

K is for King

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Located at 150-03 Jamaica Avenue, Jamaica NY 11432
Museum Website:  https://www.kingmanor.org/

King Manor Museum

The King Manor Museum is the original country estate of Rufus King, a member of the Continental Congress, a framer and signer of the Constitution, one of the first senators from New York State, the ambassador to Great Britain under four presidents, and an outspoken opponent of slavery. It is a very well organized, gem of a museum.

King bought this house and property in 1805 and lived there with his wife Mary Alsop King, their five children, and hired help. After moving in full time, they enlarged the house and made renovations in 1810 and also expanded the property to 150 acres. A devoted scholar of agricultural science, Rufus focused on improving the land and experimenting with crops, turning it into a successful working farm.

King was a passionate advocate for the early anti-slavery movement in America and used his platforms as the first New York Senator and Ambassador to Great Britain to fight slavery in the United States.

After his death in 1827, Rufus’ eldest son John Alsop King bought the house and farm from his father’s estate. Like his father, John made his career in politics, serving in the New York State Assembly, U.S. Congress, and as Governor of New York from 1857 to 1859. 

John carried on his father’s legacy of anti-slavery advocacy and fought for the arrest of men who kidnapped free Black New Yorkers and sold them into slavery.

After the demise of Cornelia King, granddaughter of Rufus King, the house and grounds were purchased by the Village of Jamaica to be used as a park, in 1897. The King Manor Association was formed in 1900 with the purpose of caring for the house and the museum collection. The Association still exists and runs King Manor to this date. 

When the western half of Queens, including Jamaica, became part of the City of Greater New York, the house and the property were turned over to the New York City Parks Department which redesignated the land as Rufus King Park.

Dining Room of the house

King Manor Museum is part of the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, and has been declared a U.S. National Historic Landmark and an NYC Landmark.

The parlor, meant for immediate family, close friends, and long term guests

Today King Manor Museum is the second longest-running historic house museum in New York City. The museum is a picturesque edifice that stands in the center of the square block of Rufus King Park. It is a treasure-trove of 18th century information and stories, and contains furniture, furnishings, books, and pictures that date back to that era.

Room that was the master suite, now the exhibition room

When I visited last in October 2022, the annual Fall Festival was taking place at the grounds of the museum, with dozens of vendors, and a pumpkin patch for the children.

The guest bed room

The museum also on display some of the kitchen implements.

The museum provides an exhibition space, on the second-floor, for artisans to showcase their creative work in the community. The exhibits explore topics relevant to the social questions of the times. Each exhibition is on view for a few months at the museum. 

There are several online exhibitions, with interactive elements, available at the museum website.

Kings Manor Museum holds a number of programs on a regular basis. 

One of them is ‘Hands On History’, a family program series held each first and third Saturday of the month, from 1-4pm. You can find information about the workshops, school programs and special exhibitions at the museum on the Events Calendar.

Extensive grounds around the King Manor Museum

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13 Apr 2023

J is for Jazz

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Located at 58 W 129th Street between Malcolm X and 5th Ave.
Museum Website:  https://jmih.org/

The National Jazz Museum In Harlem

The National Jazz Museum In Harlem is a center for jazz that reaches out to diverse audiences to enjoy this most quintessential American music. The museum aims to preserve, promote and present jazz by inspiring knowledge, appreciation and the celebration of jazz locally. nationally and internationally. 

The Museum was founded in 1997 by Leonard Garment, senior advisor to two U.S. Presidents, an accomplished jazz saxophonist and member of Woody Herman’s band, and by former U.S. District Judge, Abraham D. Sofaer, who launched the Museum with a grant in honor of his brother-in-law Richard J. Scheuer. Jr.

The Museum opened its Harlem office in 2002 and its Visitors Center a few years later. During the following decade, the Museum created several signature public programs, including the Curious Listeners series. Other highlights included exhibitions showcasing the Museum’s growing archives, most notably its rare record collections.

In 2015, the Museum developed a range of Harlem-based education and outreach programs.

A Smithsonian Affiliate, the Museum is committed to keeping Jazz relevant and exciting in the lives of a broad range of audiences. 

The museum organizers see it a living, evolving museum for the people, center for jazz and a place in Harlem where visitors gather to enjoy history and music, and where artists come to play, rehearse, create or drop-in, even when no one else is there, just to be in the space that so many others have passed through.

Tenor Saxophone of Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis, a 1982 Selmer Super Action 80. This tenor saxophone was the last horn that Davis played.

When I last visited in November 2022, the exhibition on display was The Soul of Jazz: An American Adventure. This exhibition first took the stage at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida in 2021.

The exhibit was created as an appreciation of the unforgettable people, places, and unwavering spirit that helped invent-and continues to re-invent-the American musical art form called jazz. During a national tour, it was on view at The New Orleans Jazz Museum in New Orleans, the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, and now the National Jazz Museum in Harlem.

Though small in area, the museum offers a wide array of jazz related artifacts enabling visitors to learn about a 100 years of jazz in Harlem and the contributions of jazz to American culture. These include musical instruments, posters, artist information and memorabilia.

The extensive record collections of the museum are truly a treasure trove. Chief among them is the Bill Savory Collection consisting of over 100 hours of live radio broadcasts made between 1935 and 1941 and never heard since their initial airing. It’s Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Fats Waller, Coleman Hawkins and more, live in their prime and in high-fidelity recordings.

Other noticeable collections include the personal collections of Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis and author Ralph Ellison.

The National Jazz Museum in Harlem has released a series of never-before-heard concert recordings featuring the legendary Benny Carter, joined by such giants as Dizzy Gillespie, Hank Jones, Clark Terry, Richard Davis, Milt Hinton, Grady Tate, and many others.

The museum also has a constantly growing library of videos from interviews and concerts.

All these collections are available online at The National Jazz Museum in Harlem Collections.

The Museum offers year-round educational programs for students of all ages. And collaborates with schools, businesses, arts and other organizations to take innovative content to the community. It also offers a wide range of free online and in person programming to educate and entertain. Each year, over 100 free and highly subsidized jazz workshops are produced by the museum.

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12 Apr 2023

I is for Indigenous 

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Located at One Bowling Green, New York, NY 10004
Museum Website:  https://americanindian.si.edu/visit/reopening-ny

National Museum of the American Indian

This is actually two museums in one… the building itself and the exhibits within the building. The building, named Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House and completed in 1907, is itself a museum with its own history. 

 The magnificent architecture, the stunning sculptures on the exterior, the spectacular domed rotunda, the amazing artwork in the main hall… all these are subjects for another blog post. Here we are talking about the museum and its exhibits. 

The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) is part of the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest museum complex. The museum’s collections had their origin as the personal collection of George Gustav Heye, a New Yorker who quit Wall Street to indulge his passion for American Indian artifacts. In 1916, with the collection totaling 58,000 objects, Heye founded the Museum of the American Indian at 155th and Broadway in New York. This museum was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution in 1989.

Overall, Heye gathered some 800,000 pieces from throughout the Americas, the largest such collection ever compiled by one person.

The museum has one of the most extensive collections of native American arts and artifacts in the world. These around 825,000 items represent over 12,000 years of history and more than 1,200 indigenous cultures throughout the Americas. Ranging from ancient Paleo-Indian artifacts to contemporary fine arts, the collections include works of aesthetic, religious, and historical significance as well as articles produced for everyday use.

When I last visited in November 2022, the exhibition ‘Infinity of Nations: Art and History in the Collections of the National Museum of the American Indian’ was on. It consisted of more than 200 works of Native art from throughout North, Central, and South America, organized geographically and were a representation of the museum’s collection highlighting the historic importance of many of these iconic objects. This is a permanent exhibition.

As can be imagined, this exhibition is meant to illustrate the geographic and chronological scope of the museum’s collection.

Stunning examples representing each region included warriors’ robes, elaborately beaded women’s clothing, drums, carved and painted headdresses, water vessels, baskets, household implements etc. Also contemporary works of art by Native artists are displayed as part of the exhibition.

Another ongoing exhibition was ‘Native New York’, exploring the lives of native communities that called New York home for centuries. Long before there was a New York State, its lands encompassed thousands of Native towns, cornfields, fishing grounds, and hunting territories. European traders and other colonists migrated to these lands, intending to stay. This forced some Native New Yorkers to seek safety elsewhere. Other Native people managed to remain, and their descendants live here today. Still other Native communities moved into New York, seeking alliances and new homes. 

Native New York tells the story of these New Yorkers and how they fared through the years.

The exhibition leads you through path on the floor, to visit 12 New York places from Long Island to Niagara Falls.

By the end of this path, you would have been exposed to some uncomfortable facts, heard some heartrending stories of suffering, and learned histories not told in the books. 

The exhibition dispels several myths including the mother of them all that Manhattan was bought by the Europeans from the native inhabitants. 

Through the 12 places, visitors gain an expanded understanding of the region’s history and reveal that New York is, and always has been, a ‘Native place’.

The exhibition ‘Developing Stories: Native Photographers in the Field’, follows the work of Native photojournalists, three photo essays that provide insights into 21st-century Native lives. They portray stories that show the diversity and complexity of their contemporary lives.

imagiNATIONS Activity Center, provides visitors an interactive, opportunity to explore scientific principles behind Native innovations and technologies that are so ingenious, recommended for those 10 and older.

The National Museum of the American Indian is a great cultural resource, with something new for every one – a frequent visitor or someone on their first visit. 

You can enjoy conducted tours (schedule at the website) which provide a wealth of information. There are also a number of online exhibitions here: https://americanindian.si.edu/online-resources/exhibition-websites

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11 Apr 2023

H is for Hamilton

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Located at  414 West 141st Street, New York, NY 10031
Memorial Website:  https://www.nps.gov/hagr/index.htm

Hamilton Grange National Memorial

The Hamilton Grange National Memorial is the home of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. This handsome memorial is a must-visit for any person interested in the early history, especially financial history of the United States.

Hamilton played a significant role in forming the fundamental principles and policies of a young United States. An economic visionary and financial genius, he was instrumental in putting in place a new financial system and economy for the nation. 

He actually came to America looking for military glory, and promptly joined the American revolution at the age of 18. He rose in ranks to become Lieutenant Colonel. Always eager for action, he had his horse shot out from under him in the battle of Monmouth. He leaves the army in 1781 after the surrenderer of the English commander Lord Cornwallis. (The revolution officially ended on in 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris.)

Later in 1798, he was appointed Inspector General of the army and second in command by George Washington when Washington assumed his position as the head of the US army, in view of worsening US-French relations. Hamilton began building an army, and his plans for training officers ultimately evolved into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Alexander Hamilton was appointed the first Secretary of the treasury, by George Washington, the first president of the nation. Hamilton took over a nation mired in debt, established a modern financial system, restored the nation’s credit, promoted a mixed economy of manufacturing and farming, and helped bind the states together into a single nation.

Hamilton was a prolific writer who wrote his first political pamphlet at the age of 17, ‘A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress,’ supporting the right of the First Continental Congress to authorize a trade boycott of England. Among other publications, he has authored 51 of the 85 essays, collectively called ‘The Federalist Papers’, supporting the ratification of the Constitution. James Madison and John Jay were co-authors.

Hamilton and 31 others set forth the guiding principles for an anti-slavery group, the New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves. The society pledges not only to show compassion towards those held in captivity but also to work towards their freedom.

Hamilton supported federal assumption of all state debts to stimulate the economy and strengthen the Union, in his report ‘First Report on the Public Credit’ written after much research and study and submitted to the Congress. When this plan faced heavy attack, Hamilton struck a deal with Madison to encourage northern members of Congress to move the nation’s capital to Philadelphia for 10 years, and then to a Southern site on the banks of the Potomac River, in exchange for Virginia’s support for federal assumption of state debts.

The end to a brilliant life came in a duel in 1804, when Aaron Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel. No one knows the specific reason but it is believed to be based on gossip that at a dinner party, Hamilton stated Burr is a ‘dangerous man, and not to be trusted’. Hamilton was grievously wounded and died the next day.

The Grange is believed to be the only home Alexander Hamilton ever owned. It was moved from the original spot two blocks away in 1889, and again in 2008, but the current 1-acre site is part of Alexander Hamilton’s original 32-acre estate. 

It is built in the Federal style, completely symmetrical. The home’s interior rooms have been restored to their original condition. The foyer, parlor, study and dining room are open to the public. 

The two octagonal rooms, the parlor and dining room, are filled with windows on one side each. With the ability to open the doors between the rooms, and open the windows to the outdoors, these rooms would have created a pleasing open-air feeling in the home.

Rooms which were the sleeping quarters of the family are on an upper floor and not open.

By today’s standards, the house is not big. The open rooms give a clear of the family’s outer face… how they met with others, entertained, and did business.

The memorial is full of useful information about the beginnings of our country. There are also some exhibits that are hands-on and interactive within the house. The website too, has a ton of information, including a virtual tour of the place.

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10 Apr 2023