Ellis Island preservation group desperate for donations
Save Ellis Island, the non-profit that’s been methodically stabilizing 30 abandoned buildings at the country’s most famous immigration center, is in dire need of $500,000 in donations by April 2 in order to keep its own doors open, Judith McAlpin, President of SAE, today told NewYorkology.
The small group has already cut staff, delayed projects and put employees on furloughs. But if it’s unable to pay rent and salaries, unspent grants must be returned and no more buildings will open to the public.
Before Save Ellis Island started work a decade ago, two-thirds of the island was in serious disrepair, with crumbling staircases, broken windows and trees sprouting indoors. The deterioration has been on the public radar since 2005, when free hard-hart tours of the old hospital were first offered as part of the annual Open House New York event.
So far, 29 of the 30 abandoned buildings have been stabilized but only one has reopened as part of the museum. In 2007, SAE and the National Park Service opened the “new” ferry building, an art deco, WPA-era buidling used by immigrants who cleared customs and were waiting for the boat to Manhatttan. The renovation includes a functioning fan and bench both original to the room, as well as exhibits.
The one still-exposed building — the giant baggage and dormitory building that faces north to the Hudson River — last year received U.S. stimulus funds. The National Park Service, which runs Ellis and Liberty islands, is overseeing that project and the initial phase of stabilization has begun, NPS spokesman Darren Boch said .
While funds are available to prevent more damage to the baggage building, without Save Ellis Island, there would be no plans to reopen any more buildings.”It’s not going to happen in their absence,” Boch said in an interview this morning. “We have to work with a partner.”
Subway archaeology to go on display at Transit Annex
After a renovation, the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex at Grand Central Terminal will reopen March 18 with a free exhibition of New Amsterdam artifacts discovered while building a subway extension in Lower Manhattan.
“Archeology at the South Ferry Terminal” will include more than 100 of the 65,000 artifacts — ceramic sherds, shells, coins, tobacco pipes, and architectural materials — found at the site before it reopened in February 2009 as the South Ferry subway station.
“Among the most important finds of the excavation were pieces of two 18th century landmarks — the Battery Wall and Whitehall Slip,” museum officials said in announcing the exhibition. “Stones from the Wall are on view, as are photographs of a section of the Wall that was reinstalled in the new South Ferry station. Whitehall Slip was built in stages from the 1730s to 1790s using landfilling and dredging. It allowed boats to dock and spurred the commercial and military use of lower Manhattan. Excavation of the Slip uncovered stone, construction material, 19th century English ceramics, household goods, refuse, and animal bones, furthering our knowledge of the city’s commerce and its residents’ lifestyles.”
Wales Week USA begins today in New York with a focus on the poetery of Dylan Thomas.
Starting Tuesday, the Morgan Library & Museum will serve a special Welsh Tea and open the exhibition Dylan Thomas: Last Poems, featuring ” a characteristically playful and flirtatious letter from Dylan Thomas to Ellen Kay, a 22-year old aspiring poet with whom Thomas was enamored.” It will be on public view through Sunday.
On Sunday, a Dylan Thomas Walking Tour of Greenwich Village will cover the poet’s favorite downtown spots starting at 9:30 a.m.
Other events inlcude a Saturday concert led by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins, who will conduct his own work at Carnegie Hall including the U.S. debut of his Euphonium Concerto.
Wales Week, sponsored by the Welsh Assembly Government in the U.S., runs from March 1 through 7.
Image source: Morgan Library & Museum. Vernon Watkins (1906–1967) Photograph of Dylan Thomas and his wife Caitlin Macnamara, undated. Bequest of Edwin V. Erbe, Jr., 2007; MA 7172.1
African Burial Ground visitors center opens downtown
The National Park Service this weekened opened a proper visitors center for the African Burial Ground National Monument, illuminating one of the darker recesses of New York City history that many people would prefer remain forgotten
Located near the intersection of Broadway and Chambers streets, the 6.6-acre site contains the remains of an estimated 15,000 people, 40 percent of them children.
“It’s absolutely critical the history is not glossed over,” Tara Morrison, the National Park Service superintendent for the site, told NewYorkology during an interview before the site opened to the public on Saturday.
“The Museum of the American Gangster (MAOG) presents an opportunity to gain insight into the hidden, inside world of the American gangster through artifacts and stories told by those involved. We are working with a team of criminal authors, historians and related institutions, as well as family members and estates of pivotal crime figures, to create a museum that both casual fans and invested scholars could enjoy and benefit from. Beyond exhibits and artifacts, MOAG will offer dedicated research facilities, access to original source documents and articles, oral histories, workshops, walking tours, live performances, historic reenactments, lectures, movies and presentations,” according to Ferrara, who is also the author of “A Guide to Gangsters, Murderers and Weirdos of New York City’s Lower East Side.”
There will be a speakeasy, gift shop and “a maze of hidden rooms and artifacts in the basement left over from Prohibition (which are all part of the exhibit).”
The niche museum will be located at 80 St. Marks Place, map, inside the Theater 80 building.
The official opening is set for sometime in spring, but previews will begin March 7 from noon to 5 p.m. During previews, while not all exhibits will be in place, admssion will be $10.
Big Bambú installation to take over Met's roof garden
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s rooftop garden this summer will host a “Big Bambú” a sprawling site-specific installation designed by Doug and Mike Starn, the museum announced today.
The bamboo structure, which will go on display April 27 in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, will change throughout the exhibition, ultimately measuring 100 feet long by 50 feet wide by 50 feet high, according to the museum’s news release.
While the structure can be viewed from the garden as part of regular museum admission, special tickets will be made availble for small groups to walk through the inside of the artwork, “roughly 20 to 40 feet above the main level of the Roof Garden.”
“We need to make it so big in order to make us—all of us—feel small—or at least to awaken us to the fact that individually we’re not so big as we think. Once we’re really aware of our true stature we can feel a part of something much more vast than we could ever have dreamed of before,” Doug Starn said in the news release announcing the summer project.
Governors Island to reopen June 5 with family events
Governors Island on June 5 will reopen for the season with an Opening Day Family Festival, according to preliminary plans detailed in the Governors Island Alliance newsletter mailed today.
Water Taxi Beach will return to the island, possibly with more outdoor movie screenings.
The art-minded FIGMENT festival is set for June 11 through 13; City of Water Day will take place July 24; and Trinity Wall Street again will sponsor the Folks on the Island folk-song festival.
The Bike and Roll website also indicates they plan to return to Governors Island this year with bicycle rentals.
The historic round fort Castle Williams will not be open this summer, but for good reason, as asbestos and other toxic materials are being removed from the 200 year old structure, which will eventually offer roof access to the public once reoponed. (The project is being funded in part with $5.6 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.)
A floating dock will also be installed at the National Park Service pier to allow small boats to come and go, according to the Alliance’s newsletter.
The Governor’s Island website from the National Park Service, which operates the historic portion of the island, states that its ranger-led programs and lectures will also return this summer. More information will be released in May.
Picture credit: Water Taxi Beach on Governors Island, August 2009. Amy Langfield/NewYorkology.
Updated as of Feb. 19: As noted in the comments, Figment has launched a new website for this year’s festival. The new URL has been added to the story.
Statue of Liberty crown six-month visitor total: 32,609
In the first six months since the Statue of Liberty’s crown was reopened to the public with new strict security, 32,609 people bought tickets to climb the 354 steps to the top in 2009, according to Statue Cruises, the only ferry company authorized to take visitors to the island.
Closed since Sept. 11, 2001, the crown reopend July 4, 2009 with new procedures that allow only 30 people per hour to climb up the narrow double-helix staircase, which was criticized as a firetrap even before the 2001 terror attacks.
For the full 12 months of 2009, Liberty and Ellis islands racked up a total visitation number of 3,829,710, Statue Cruises spokesperson Tegan Firth told NewYorkology by e-mail today.
Severe weather interruped service on three days. It was snow on March 2 and Dec. 20; extreme heat closed the crown Aug. 17.
Of all the tickets sold, a mere 10 percent were online, Firth said. The bulk, 78 percent were walk-ups while 12 percent were sold through the call center.
Time-specific crown tickets must be purchased in advance. In the summer, they sold out months in advance but currently January tickets are still there for the taking.
The $12 Statue Cruises ticket covers the ferry ride to both Ellis and Liberty islands. Both are operated by the National Park Service and have no admission fee per se, except there is a $3 charge for crown access (which can only be purchased as part of the ferry ticket package.)
The Statue Cruises boats made 6,267 New York departures in 2009, and 3,835 trips from New Jersey.
Here’s how it looked July 5, 2009:
Picture and video credit: Amy Langfield/NewYorkology.
Abandoned subway stop, bus depot on transit tours list
The New York Transit Museum today publicly opened its list of tours for the winter of 2010, including visits to a bus depot and the city’s oldest subway station.
The unused Old City Hall Station — which can be glimpsed through the dark if you stay on the 6 train as it loops from the end of the downtown run to the start of the uptown route — is an architectural gem with arching Guastavino tiles, a skylight and chandeliers. The tour offers a view, and the history of the 1904 station, that you can’t get from the 6 train.
The full list of transit tours may disappoint as it’s already been picked over by museum members, who get first dibs by mail. Five tours already sold out, including the Westchester Yard maintenance shop tour, the Linden Shop subway tour and a Staten Island food tour.
Update: Tours filled up exceptionally fast. Only the East New York Bus Depot and Corona Maintenance Facility still have openings.
Membership — $40 at the friend level; $30 for seniors or students — is also required if you want to take the tour of the Old City Hall Station.
Transit tours with availability:
The Jewel in the Crown: Old City Hall Station - Jan. 16 at noon, 1, 2 and 3 p.m.
Buses in the Brooklyn Division: East New York Bus Depot - Feb. 13 at 11 a.m.
