Month: February 2011

Saratoga Auto Museum 1950s Fundraiser

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On Saturday March 5th, Saratoga Automobile Museum is celebrating their 2nd Beer and Burgers fundraiser from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm. The event features micro-brews and local beers, live entertainment, and food by local chef Kim Klopstock served car-hop style by the women of the Albany All Stars Roller Derby.

This year’s featured exhibition includes Right Coast Rods, Historic Roadsters & Coupes from the 1950s in the main gallery of the Museum. The second floor gallery will host vehicles made in New York along with Racing in New York exhibit.

“We have put together a wide variety of Micro Brews that will delight your taste buds,” Richard Selikoff, Development Director for the Museum, said. “You will be able to sample brews from Saratoga Brewing, Goose Island, Redhook, Windmere Bros., Davidson Bros., Ommergang, Kona and Shock Top. Sliders will be once again on tap by master chef Kim Klopstock from Lily and the Rose, she is promising to have a full selection of veggie burgers as well. Burgers are not the only thing on the menu for the evening, there will be a full selection of side dishes to compliment the beer and the burgers.&#8221 Two bands from Schenectady, Summer of Doug and The Uncle Bootsy Project will provide entertainment.

The event is a fundraiser for the Saratoga Automobile Museum. Tickets are $35.00 per person and are available at the Museum or on their website. For more information contact Richard Selikoff at 518-587-1935 x 26. The Saratoga Automobile Museum is located at 110 Avenue of the Pines, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866

Proper ID is required- poodle skirts are optional.

Two Short Films Celebrate IBMs Centennial

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The international corporation IBM, based in Armonk, Westchester County, is celebrating it’s 100th Anniversary this year. The company was founded in 1911 as the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation, following a merger of the Computer Scale Company of America and the International Time Recording Company with the Tabulating Machine Company. The conglomerate adopted the name International Business Machines in 1924, a name the company had used in Canada.

A recently produced video to celebrate their centennial anniversary, 100&#215-100, tells IBM’s history through the eyes of 100 different individuals beginning with a 100-year-old and ending with a newborn baby. The video has been posted to YouTube.

A second IBM film was directed by famed documentation Errol Morris. The 30-minute documentary, They Were There was scored by Philip Glass and chronicles many of the influential people involved at IBM throughout its history.

Illustration: The original IBM Logo. Courtesy Wikipedia.

This Weeks Top New York History News

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Each Friday morning New York History compiles for our readers the previous week’s top stories about New York’s state and local history. You can find all our weekly news round-ups here.

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This Weeks New York History Web Highlights

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Each Friday afternoon New York History compiles for our readers a collection of the week’s top weblinks about New York’s state and local history. You can find all our weekly round-ups here.

Subscribe! More than 550 people get New York History each day via E-Mail, RSS, or Twitter or Facebook updates.

Graphic Design Expert to Discuss 1939 Worlds Fair

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On Sunday, February 27, at 2:00 pm, the Albany Institute of History & Art will host a free lecture by renowned graphic design expert Steven Heller on the topic, Designing the World of Tomorrow: Did the 1939 New York World’s Fair Change the World?

Steven Heller is an American art director, journalist, critic, author, and editor who specializes in topics related to graphic design. Heller will offer expert insight into how the 1939 World’s Fair—the second largest American world’s fair and the first to focus on the concept of futurism—affected powerful change in the world of graphic design.

The lecture is being held in conjunction with the Albany Institute’s current exhibition, Graphic Design—Get the Message!, which uses posters, broadsides, package designs, paintings, decorative arts, historical photographs, and computer interactives from local designers and companies to examine broader issues of national and international significance. The exhibition and public programs are funded by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts. Exhibition planning was funded by a grant from the New York Council for the Humanities.

For 33 years, Heller was an art director at The New York Times, for both the Op-Ed Page and The New York Times Book Review. He is the co-founder and co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he lectures on the history of graphic design. The author, co-author, and/or editor of more than 100 books on design and popular culture, Heller has curated numerous exhibitions on the subject of graphic design.

The lecture is free and open to the public. Museum admission is not included. Call (518) 463-4478 or visit www.albanyinstitute.org for more information.

New York Folklore Society Latino Artists Gathering

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The New York Folklore Society, in collaboration with Go Art!, will hold its second Latino Artists’ Gathering on March 19, 2011 At the Homestead Event Center, Batavia City Center, Batavia, New York.

Supported by funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts, the gatherings provide an opportunity for Latino artists residing in non-metropolitan New York State to come together to discuss issues and solve common problems. March’s theme will be &#8220Challenges and Opportunities for Traditional Artists in Rural New York&#8221, and we will hear of some of the current initiatives being tried to link artists across distances.

Read more →

Split Second: A Unique Exhibition Experience

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Split Second: Indian Paintings, a small installation of ten rarely seen works from the Brooklyn Museum collection, on view July 13 through December 31, 2011, will result from a unique online experiment that was inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s critically acclaimed book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.

The project is designed to explore how a viewer’s initial reaction to the work is affected by what they know, what they are asked, and what they have been told about the object in question. Just launched on the Museum website, the experiment consists of three steps.

The first phase consists of a timed trial. To gauge a person’s split-second reaction to a work of art, participants are given a four second countdown clock and asked to select which painting they prefer from a randomly generated pair of images from a pool of 167 works. Next, they are asked to write about a painting in their own words and then rate its appeal on a scale. In the final step, participants are asked to rate a work of art after being given unlimited time to view it alongside a typical interpretive text. Each part of the exercise aims to examine how a different type of information-or lack thereof-affects a viewer’s reaction to a work of art.

The resulting installation will include the Indian paintings that generated the most controversial and dynamic responses during the evaluation process. Each painting will be accompanied by an analysis of the data collected and a visualization of the data that explores the public’s response during the online evaluation.

The Brooklyn Museum collection of Indian paintings is considered among the finest in the United States. Rarely on public view because of their extreme sensitivity to light, Split Second: Indian Paintings provides a rare opportunity to view these seldom seen works of art.

The installation is organized by Shelley Bernstein, Chief of Technology, in consultation with Joan Cummins, Lisa and Bernard Selz Curator of Asian Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Bernstein was also the organizer of the landmark exhibition Click! A Crowd-Curated Exhibition presented at the Brooklyn Museum in 2008.

Illustration: Dhanashri Ragini. Page from an illustrated Ragamala series. Northern India (Punjab Hills, Kangra), ca. 1790 or earlier. Opaque watercolor and gold on paper. Overall: 10 x 6 15/16 in. (25.4 x 17.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum.

March: Upcoming Events in Old Saratoga

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The following events and items of interest are scheduled for the public in the Old Saratoga region (Schuylerville, Saratoga, Victory and nearby) for the month of March.

Old Saratoga Happening presents a book discussion for Farmer Boy on Thursday, March 10 at 7:30 pm in the Schuylerville Public Library. Join the Old Saratoga Historical Association’s winter historical reading group as they discuss Laura Ingalls Wilder’s story which recounts the boyhood adventures growing up on a farm in upstate New York in the 1860s. A second discussion will take place on Tuesday, March 15 at 7:30 pm.

Glorous Art by and of Women in the 18th Century on Sunday, March 13 at 1:30 in the Saratoga NHP Battlefield Visitors Center in Stillwater. Park Ranger Eric Schnitzer brings to life these magnificent paintings that will take your breath away. Superb feminine artistic talent that was rarely publicized since being created over 200 years ago.

The Genealogy Group meets on Tuesday, March 15 at 10 am in the Schuylerville Public Library

A photo scanning session will be held on Saturday, March 19 from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
at the Saratoga Town Hall in Schuylerville. Get your old photos of the Schuylerville area scanned, archived with the town, and receive a photo CD.

The Heritage Hunters of Saratoga County has their meeting on Saratoga County Genealogy: US Grant’s Last Days on Saturday, March 19 starts at 1 pm. at the Saratoga Town Hall. The meeting features Dave Hubbard, a former site manager at Grant Cottage on Mt. McGregor in Wilton. Hubbard shares a virtual tour of Grant Cottage as he talks about General Ulysses S. Grant’s last days and weeks which he spent at the Cottage in June and July, 1885.

Archive Scanning Working Session is planned for Thursday, March 24 at 4:30 pm at Saratoga Town Hall. Volunteers are needed to help the Historian’s Office to continue scanning documents and photos in the historical archive.

Saratoga Area Postcards is the topic of the Old Saratoga Historical Association meeting on Thursday, March 24 at 7:30 pm at the Saratoga Town Hall. Learn about old postcards from the Schuylerville area from historian, author and Town Supervisor Tom Wood.

All events are open to the public, wheelchair accessible and free of charge.

For more information about these events contact [email protected], follow them on twitter @OldSaraHappenin, on facebook Old Saratoga Happenings or on the web.

Old Saratoga Happenings is a collation to promote cultural and heritage programs in the Old Saratoga region. The collation includes Hudson Crossing Park, Old Saratoga Historical Association, Saratoga National Historical Park, Schuylerville Area Chamber of Commerce, Schuylerville Public Library and the Town of Saratoga and Village of
Victory Historian’s Office.

Canal Society Symposium Announced

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The Canal Society of New York State’s (CSNY) daylong 2011 Winter Symposium, will be held March 5th, 2011 at the Monroe Community College campus in Rochester, New York. The Symposium covers topics that are directly or indirectly related to historic or operating New York State Canals, canals and inland waterways worldwide, and the communities through which they run.

This year’s symposium will include a presentation, &#8220Clinton’s Ditch and Enlarged Erie Aqueduct Survey&#8221 by Capt. Rob Mangold, Vice President, CSNY- &#8220An Exploration of the Burlington and Desjardins Canals by Robert W. Sears, of the Canadian Canal Society- &#8220Managing NYS Canal Infrastructure in Difficult Economic Times&#8221 by Carmella R. Mantello, Director of the NYS Canal Corporation- &#8220Geographic Resources for the Erie Canal&#8221- &#8220Three Generations on the Erie Barge Canal: A Photographic Chronicle&#8221 by &#8220High Canals and Deep Rivers—Southern Germany Waterways Tour&#8221 and more.

CSNYS membership is not a requirement to attend. Pre-registration cost prior to February 23rd is $40 per person.

Contact:

David L. Kipp
61 Thistledown Drive
Rochester, NY 14617

The $40 per person cost covers a continental breakfast, coffee break, lunch, parking and speaker fees. Provide Davd Kipp with the names of the attendees and a telephone number. A check for $40 should be made payable to: Canal Society of New York State

Registration can be made on the day of the seminar at $50 per person.

A downloadable program can be found at the society’s website.

Schoharie Creek, Mohawk River Ice Jam History

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Every spring the Mohawk Valley and Schoharie Creek rise to flood level, mainly due to the snow melt and ice jams. Tomorrow, Wednesday, February 23, at 7:00 pm Schoharie Crossing State historic Site (129 Schoharie Street, Fort Hunter, five miles west of Amsterdam) will host John Quinlan of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who will offer a unique look at the area’s water history. Fee $3.00 for adults, $2.00 seniors, $1.00 for children under age 16. Call 829- 7516 or email [email protected] for more information.

Photo: Flooded canal lock on Mohawk River near Rotterdam Junction (January 25-26, 2010). Photo courtesy Schenectady County Emergency Management.