Month: August 2010

Destruction of Historic Staten Island Beach Community?

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Following a determination by the New York State Historic Preservation Office that the Cedar Grove Beach Club was eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district, Staten Island elected officials have called on NYC Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe to abandon plans to demolish the 99-year old community in New Dorp.

Cedar Grove Beach Club is a collection of 41 historic beach bungalows largely built between 1920 and 1940 in New Dorp, Staten Island. The community was established around 1907 as one of many beach campgrounds during the heyday of Staten Island’s shore. Today the Beach Club, located south of the corner of Ebbitts Avenue and Cedar Grove Avenue, is a close-knit community of families who have been on the beach for generations. In the 1960s, New York City took land and cottages by eminent domain as part of a plan to build an expressway through the site. While the road was never built, the scheme that resulted in the destruction of almost all of Staten Island’s historic seaside resort communities.

Cedar Grove alone escaped demolition because the bungalow owners and the Beach Club have rented the property back from the City for nearly 50 years while being responsible for all maintenance of the public beach, playgrounds and property. As one resident remarked, “the Beach Club now pays more in rent in a year than the City paid for the bungalows.”

In December 2009, NYC Parks announced they would not renew the Club’s lease, and ordered the bungalow community’s residents to vacate by December 31, 2009. Following public outcry, and with the support of local community groups and elected officials, Parks agreed to extend the lease until September 30, 2010. Parks has recently announced its intentions to demolish most of area’s buildings immediately after the lease expires, although, as Congressman McMahon’s letter of July 22, 2010 points out, the City has no projected start date or funding for its plans to furnish the beach with lifeguard and concession stands or to facilitate greater public access to the beach area. The sand beach area of Cedar Grove is currently open to the general public and accessible from New Dorp Beach Park to the north and Great Kills Park to the south.

Area residents fear that the city will evict the current occupants of the bungalow colony and defer any future plans for the property indefinitely, leaving the site unmaintained and littered with construction debris, the same situation that exists at the adjacent New Dorp Beach Park. This fear is supported by fact that the city has not initiated the process to obtain appropriate permits to demolish historic structures, to begin new construction on a site designated by the State as a potential sensitive wetlands area, or any of the other clearances typically necessary for a proposed capital project.

Recently, Manhattan Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito (chair of the Parks Committee of City Council) has joined her Staten Island colleagues Vincent Ignizio, James Oddo and Deborah Rose, Congressman McMahon, NYS Senator Lanza, Assmebly member Janele Hyer-Spencer, the New Dorp Central Civic Association and the Historic Districts Council in calling for Parks to abandon their plans to destroy this important historic district and evict 41 families from the Beach Club.

In a letter citing the historic importance of the site, Congressman Michael McMahon, State Senator Anthony Lanza (NY-24), and Councilmen James Oddo (50th District) and Vincent Ignizio (51st District) objected to the Parks Department’s lack of firm plans and the absence of funding for any project at the property, stating that they “fail to see the logic” of evicting the site’s long term residents, especially “given the current economic climate faced by the city” and “the significant financial burden” of taking new construction on the site.

Fenimores Art by the Lake Set for Saturday

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The Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown announces its third annual juried art event celebrating the relationship between artists and the landscape &#8211 Art by the Lake, taking place Saturday, August 7 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on the Museum’s expansive back lawn. The event offers plein-air painting demonstrations, exhibits of works by contemporary landscape artists, music, educational programs, and samplings of New York State foods and beverages – all in a lavish setting overlooking Otsego Lake.

Art by the Lake is a juried art competition featuring 12 selected artists. These artists, chosen this past May, include Jessica Dalrymple (oil), Evelyn Dankovich (Oil, Watercolor, Acrylic), Denise Dolge (Pastel), Grant Dolge (Pastel), Lois Holz (Watercolor), Tom Hussey (oil), Bill Mowson (Watercolor), Marilyn A. Roveland (watercolor), Elaine Wentworth (watercolor, acrylic), Meg Anderson Argo (Soft Pastels), Andrea House (Oil), and Susan Jones Kenyon (Oil). A panel of judges will determine awards for categories such as “Best Interpretation of a New York Landscape,” Most Outstanding Use of Color,” and others. There will be spectator voting for the “Audience Favorite” until 2:30 p.m. The award ceremony takes place at 3:00 p.m.

The Museum will provide tours of current exhibitions including Empire Waists, Bustles & Lace: A Century of New York Fashion with curator Chris Rossi (11:00 a.m.)- Watermark with artist Michele Harvey (12:00 p.m.)- In Our Time: The World as Seen by Magnum Photographers with curator Michelle Murdock (1:00 p.m.)- and John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Praise of Women with chief curator Paul D’Ambrosio (2:00 p.m.). The Mohawk Bark House and Interpretive Trail will also be open in the afternoon.

Author Marian Mullet will be signing copies of her book, Richard Andrew: Called to Paint, throughout the day and Cynthia Marsh will have information available on the Oneonta Mural Project.

In addition to the art, there will be children’s activities from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. including lawn games such as bocce and croquet. Kids can also create their own postcard and partake in an afternoon tea (1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.).

Art by the Lake provides delectable culinary experiences including wine and beer tastings from Cooperstown Brewing Company and Four Chimneys Organic Winery (11:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.). The Museum’s food staff will create dishes incorporating ingredients from local sources &#8211 available for purchase from 11:30 a.m. – 3:30 pm. Cabot/McCadam Cheese will offer samples and the Fenimore Art Museum Cafe will be open throughout the day.

Admission to the event is free with paid admission to the Fenimore Art Museum. Adults (13-64): $12.00 and seniors (65+): $10.50. Members of NYSHA, children 12 and under, as well as active and retired career military (must present card at admissions) are free.

Visit their website for more information at FenimoreArtMuseum.org/lake.

‘Grace Coolidge Musicale’ To Feature 1920s, 1930s

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The music of the era in which Vermont’s native son, Calvin Coolidge, served as president will be featured at a free recital at his birthplace. Pianist Abigail Charbeneau and soprano Jane Berlin Pauley will perform at the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site on Sunday, August 8 at 3:00 p.m.

Their 45-minute program, “Tunes of the 1920s & 1930s,” will feature music by American composers George Gershwin and Cole Porter, as well as Russian composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff. An afternoon tea follows at the site’s restaurant, the Wilder House.

“Rachmaninoff was an honored guest at the Coolidge White House, performing there on at least three occasions,” said William Jenney, Regional Historic Site Administrator for the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation.

“In fact, the Coolidge Site’s collection includes the menu for the tea prepared for Rachmaninoff on March 30, 1927,” Jenney said. “He and 156 invited guests were treated to an assortment of sandwiches and desserts for the sum of $151.13.”

This is the first concert of the 2010 Grace Coolidge Musicales, a series named in honor of one of America’s favorite First Ladies. The program includes patriotic melodies honoring the country that Coolidge served.

Jenney said the audience will also have the rare opportunity to hear a soprano sing Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise,” a piece typically heard as a string solo with piano accompaniment.

Charbeneau and Jane Berlin Pauley currently teach at the Concord (NH) Community Music School. Abigail Charbeneau is a native of Woodstock, Vermont and has a master of music in piano performance and piano pedagogy from the University of Illinois.

A regular performer with the Musicians of Wall Street in Concord, Abigail has performed on the Walker Lecture Series and has played at two Inaugural Balls for New Hampshire Governor John Lynch. In addition to her teaching duties, she is the music director at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Concord.

Jane Berlin-Pauley received her master’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music. She pursued further studies at Westminster Choir College, Manhattan School of Music, and the Tanglewood Music Center.

Her opera and concert engagements include Rutgers Summerfest, New England Lyric Operetta, Dartmouth Handel Society, and Longwood Opera.

The concert will be first official performance in the President Calvin Coolidge Museum & Education Center, which will be dedicated during Plymouth Old Home Day festivities on August 7.

It will showcase the famous “Grace Coolidge piano,” given to Mrs. Coolidge by the Baldwin Company and used in the family quarters at the White House.

The Grace Coolidge Musicales continue on September 12 and October 3 and are organized by the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation and generously sponsored by the Alma Gibbs Donchian Foundation.

The concerts are free and open to the public- donations are welcome. Reservations are recommended.

For further information or to make reservations call (802) 672-3773, or visit www.HistoricVermont.org/Coolidge

Illustration: &#8220Coolidge Village&#8221 Artist: William Fisher. Oil on canvas, c. 1925

Whiteface Memorial Highway Turns 75

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The Whiteface Veterans Memorial Highway, in Wilmington, N.Y., celebrated its 75th birthday on July 20th. At a cost of $1.2 million, construction of the winding roadway began in 1929 and was a part of the Depression Era public works projects. The highway opened to automobile traffic July 20, 1935 and the official opening ceremony took place later that year, in September.

During the opening ceremony celebration, then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was New York’s Governor when ground was broken for the eight-mile long stretch of roadway, dedicated it to the veterans of World War I. In 1985, then-New York Governor Mario Cuomo re-dedicated the highway to all veterans.

Today, from mid-May to early-October, visitors to the area can take a drive or cycle up the five-mile long scenic highway, from the toll booth to the top. Along the way there are scenic lookout points and picnic areas where visitors can stop and enjoy views of the Adirondack region.

Once at the top of the 4,867-foot high Whiteface Mountain, guests can enjoy a 360-degree, panoramic view of the region, spanning hundreds of square miles of wild land reaching out to Vermont and Canada. Guests can also visit the castle, built from native stone, where they will find a gift shop and restaurant. For those who are unable to reach the summit on foot, an elevator is available that will take guests the final 26-stories to the summit’s observation deck.

Admission to the Whiteface Veterans Memorial Highway is $10 for vehicle and driver, $6 for each additional passenger. Bicycles can enjoy the more than 2,300-foot climb for only $5.

Photo: President Franklin D. Roosevelt attends the official opening of the Whiteface highway, Sept. 1935, and dedicates it to all veterans of World War I. Courtesy 1932 and 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympic Museum.

30,000 Rensselaer County Marriage Records Online

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The Renssealer County Clerk’s office and the Troy Irish Genealogical Society (TIGS) have joined forces to put more than 30,000 early 20th century marriage records online. The Marriage Index Automation took five years to complete. The online records include a 10-volume set of indexes to marriages in Rensselaer County between 1908 and 1935. The records, which cover every person married in Rensselaer County, not just those with Irish surnames, are available online through the TIGS website.

Rennselaer County Clerk Frank J. Merola lauded the efforts of TIGS members in bringing the project to fruition, including former TIGS president Donna Vaughn, current president Kristin Cooney Ayotte, project coordinator Bill McGrath and webmaster and librarian Jeanne Keefe.

“I am very pleased to have been involved in this partnership with TIGS, and I commend them on taking the time and effort to open our historical records to the widest audience possible,” Merola told the Troy Record newspaper.

“We have made tremendous progress in restoring county naturalization records with the help of organizations like TIGS, and I am thrilled about our future projects and the future of genealogy in Rensselaer County,”

he was reported to have said.

New Board Members for Finger Lakes Museum

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Two new members were elected to seats on the Finger Lakes Museum’s board of trustees at its July 21 st meeting. According to board president, John Adamski, New York City attorney William Gaske, who serves as the museum’s legal counsel, and Village of Aurora vice mayor George Farenthold, were both added to the board in unanimous votes.
The board of trustees now has 10 members seated. Former trustee, Don Naetzker, resigned in May to take a paid position as the museum’s Project Director and is now in charge of managing its design and construction.

In other motions, the board elected six members to sit on a newly­created advisory board including Keuka College president Joseph Burke, former Kodak chairman and CEO Daniel Carp, Yates County Historian Frances Dumas, Fox Run Vineyard owner Scott Osborn, and former Rochester Institute of Technology president Dr. Albert Simone. Albany health­care consultant Mary Anne Kowalski was elected to chair the advisory board.

Adamski also announced that the board approved a motion to retain Brakeley Briscoe, a Connecticut consulting firm, to develop strategies for a capital fundraising campaign in an effort to raise up to $40 million. In April, Keuka Lake State Park had been selected as the preferred site to build the museum.

In a parallel move, the board of trustees launched its own fundraising drive, which it calls its 2010 Founders’ Campaign and is intended to raise $1 million in startup funds to hire staff, purchase computers, office equipment, and set up shop at the museum’s operations center in the Branchport Elementary School.

Anyone can become a museum founder for as little as $100 by logging on to the museum’s website at www.fingerlakesmuseum.org. Founders will receive a Founder’s Certificate, vehicle decal, and their names will be permanently inscribed on a Founders’ Wall in the lobby of the museum. The school building was vacant because of district consolidation but has been recently purchased by the Finger Lakes Visitors Association for use by the museum.

The Finger Lakes Museum Project is an initiative to create a world­class educational institution that will showcase the cultural heritage and ecological evolution of the 9,000­square­mile Finger Lakes Region. Plans will call for a freshwater tunnel aquarium, a glacial­geological exhibit of the Finger Lakes, outdoor wildlife habitats, and an auditorium­theater to be built at the Keuka Lake State Park site. Opening is scheduled for spring in 2014.

For more information see www.fingerlakesmuseum.org