Public History

Finger Lakes Museum Narrows Design Teams

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Project director Don Naetzker announced that the number of design teams interested in planning the Finger Lakes Museum has been narrowed from 35 to 4. The four teams are led by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Cambridge 7, HBT Architects, and The Smith Group. Each team has museum design experience.

In September, representatives from 60 architectural, engineering, exhibit design and landscape architecture firms from across the country and Canada met at Keuka Lake State Park to hear Naetzker and board president John Adamski describe the concept, mission, and vision for the project. Attendees were invited to submit qualifications to compete for the design commission. Thirty-five qualification packages were received by museum officials.

Naetzker said that the museum’s facilities committee, which he chairs, worked long and hard to evaluate the submissions, some as thick as phone books. He saluted the efforts and stated, “The choices were not easy to make. Each of the firms is nationally-known and very-well qualified.”

The four design teams on the short list will be asked to submit proposals outlining design concepts and fee structures by the end of December. A final selection is scheduled for January 2011.

The Finger Lakes Museum is an initiative to create a world-class educational institution that will showcase the cultural heritage and ecological evolution of the 9,000 square-mile Finger Lakes Region. Last April, Keuka Lake State Park was selected as the preferred location to build the project.

For more information or to make contact, see www.fingerlakesmuseum.org.

Museum Professional Joins Historic Huguenot St

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John H. Page has joined the board of trustees of Historic Huguenot Street after being elected at the September meeting of the organization’s board. Page, a member of the organization’s collection’s committee prior to his election, brings a wealth of experience to his new role, according to Historic Huguenot’s Richard Heyl de Ortiz.

Page manages and operates the reconstructed 18th century gristmill at Philipsburg Manor, a historic site in Sleepy Hollow which is owned and operated by Historic Hudson Valley. In this role, Page manages the daily operations of the mill and cooperage, contributing to its interpretive and educational programs and managing on-site staff and both its public and school group visits.

Prior to this, Page has served as the executive director of The Hermitage, a National Historic Landmark in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey. The site features a mid 19th century Gothic home that incorporates a colonial-era stone house. He has also worked as an independent contractor, and brings over a decade of building restoration experience to his new role at Historic Huguenot Street.

Mary Etta Schneider, president of Historic Huguenot Street, says of Page’s election, “We are thrilled to welcome John and very pleased to have a museum professional of his caliber on our board of trustees. John has been a valuable member of our collections committee. We look forward to his input and hope to leverage his experience in museum operations, restoration and program development.”

After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Swain School of Design in 1985, Page completed a Master of Arts History from Hunter College in 2007. He also has a Certificate in Museum Studies from Harvard University. Page is a practicing artist, a painter in landscapes with over twenty-five years of professional experience. Examples of his work may be seen online. He lives in Nyack, New York.

Travel Channel to Feature Ellis Island Museum

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Travel Channel’s new series, Mysteries at the Museum, will be featuring New York tonight at 9 EST. The show will be highlighting the Ellis Island Immigration Museum.

The episode will feature literacy tests given to all new arrivals at Ellis Island. In theory the test should have prevented thousands of poor, illiterate immigrants from gaining entry into the U.S., but what many immigrants lacked in literacy, they made up for in cunning and guile. How could they possibly have beat the test that was designed to keep them out of America?

Finger Lakes Museum Adds Three Trustees

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Finger Lakes Museum board president John Adamski announced that three new members have been elected to the organization’s board of trustees. The addition of Nancy Rees and Susan van der Stricht, and Texas businessman George Slocum brings the current number of board members to 12.

Rees, a retired Xerox senior vice president, currently coaches and speaks on practical approaches to leading organizations through change, and business process improvement. She also serves on the advisory board of Forte Capital Wealth Management and chairs the Garth Fagan Dance Company, an internationally renowned modern dance group.

She is a founding board member of Moonshadow’s Spirit, a non­profit organization benefiting people who are seeking treatment for eating disorders. She earned a bachelor’s degree in music education and a master’s degree in computer science from Ball State University, and a management certificate from Smith College. Rees and her husband, Michael, live in Farmington and on Keuka Lake.

Susan van der Stricht is a Pittsford and Canandaigua Lake resident and former paralegal who worked for three major law firms during her 28­year career. She is a graduate of Union College with a bachelor’s degree in American Studies and she also attended the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester. Van der Stricht is an outdoor enthusiast who serves on the boards of The Nature Conservancy and the Genesee Country Museum and is active in conservation and preservation initiatives. She was recently involved in the transfer of title of the 7,000­ acre Hemlock and Canadice Lake watersheds from the City of Rochester to the State of New York. The new Hemlock­ Canadice State Forest will now be preserved in a forever ­wild state, immune from development.

Houston, TX entrepreneur George Slocum was elected to the board of trustees in October. Slocum grew up in the Finger Lakes Region but moved to Houston early in his career. He and his wife, Priscilla, live on Cayuga Lake for six months each year, where Slocum owns and operates the 1,200­ acre Cayuga Lake Farm. Slocum is a private investor and entrepreneur engaged in proactive investments in agriculture, energy, and venture capital. In his former corporate executive career, he served as CFO and CEO of Transco Energy Company, now part of the Williams Companies. Before that he was a vice
president in charge of energy project financing at Citibank.

Slocum is presently a trustee of Wells College in Aurora and a former trustee of University Council at Cornell University, where he is an active member. He has also chaired the Houston Council of Boy Scouts of America and served as a vice­chair of United Way of Houston. The Slocums have three grown children and eight grandchildren.
Adamski said, “George brings the business acumen and fundraising expertise that we need to keep the museum project on course. And he knows a little something about staying on course. His grandfather was the first person to sail around the world solo.”

Albany Institute Celebrates Mummy Collection

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They may be thousands of years old, but they don’t look a day over 101. In 1908, Samuel W. Brown, a prominent citizen of Albany and member of the Albany Institute of History & Art’s board of directors, was traveling through Cairo, Egypt, where he bought two mummies that he donated to the Institute. Since the day they arrived in Albany in 1909, the mummies and their coffins have become part of Albany history, seen by generations. More than 100 years later they remain objects of ongoing international study, slowly unveiling clues about the ancient world in which they once lived.

On Sunday, November 21, the Albany Institute will celebrate the 101th anniversary of the arrival of the famous Albany Mummies with art activities, stories, tours, and refreshments, all devoted to Albany’s oldest residents.

Children can bring a toy to mummify it in our studios from 1:00 to 4:00 pm. Tours of the Ancient Egypt exhibit will be held at 1:00 and 3:00 pm. Storytelling by Jeannine Laverty will take place at 2:00 pm. Yummy mummy treats will be provided by Gigi’s Treats. All activities are free with museum admission.

For more information contact Barbara Collins, Education Coordinator at [email protected], or call (518) 463-4478, ext. 405.

Photo: Partially unwrapped mummy, male, Late Dynastic to Early Ptolemaic Period, (525-200 BC). Courtesy Albany Institute of History and Art.

New Netherland Research Center Opened

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A ribbon-cutting ceremony today officially opened the New Netherland Research Center (NNRC) on the 7th floor of the New York State Library in Albany. The NNRC will focus attention on New York State’s rich collection of historic Dutch Colonial documents and facilitate access to them for future scholars, teachers and students both here and abroad.

The New Netherland Research Center, which will provide access to the colonial Dutch documents held by the New York State Archives and New York State Library Manuscripts and Special Collections, is the first step in an international effort to launch a collaborative digitization project to share collections and archives from former Dutch colonies.

During the 2009 Quadricentennial celebration of Henry Hudson’s voyage opening up the New World to Dutch settlement, Dutch dignitaries, including the Prince of Orange and Princess Maxima of the Netherlands, visited the Cultural Education Center’s 1609 Exhibition.

At that visit the government of the Netherlands committed to a grant of €200,000 (approximately $275,000) to the New Netherland Institute to continue and expand the New Netherland Project by establishing a New Netherland Research Center. This gift, with matching support from the Institute, are expected to transform what started out as a translation project into a collaborative research initiative with international scope and context.

Modern technologies are hoped to make New York’s collections, along with those in other similar or complementary repositories, available digitally and to promote a more complete story of the Dutch global reach during the colonial period and its lasting impact on today’s world.

The NNRC is the culmination of a decades-long translation effort, the New Netherland Project, at the New York State Library. Dr. Charles Gehring is the project’s Director and principal translator. Dr. Janny Venema is Assistant Director. Both have worked to unlock the wealth of information in these collections by making them available in English. They have also written extensively and spoken widely on the scope and legacy of our early Dutch heritage.

Seventeenth century collections of government records in the New York State Archives and non-government documents in the Library’s Manuscripts and Special Collections constitute the world’s largest collection of early Dutch language documentation of the New World colonies. Encompassing what is now a large part of the northeastern United States, the early Dutch colony, its language, culture and laws, lie at the roots of much of our nation’s modern history. Scholars regularly explore the collections for insights into 17th century life in New Netherland. Russell Shorto relied heavily on Gehring and Vanema and the New York State collections in writing his book The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America.

The New York State Library is a program of the New York State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education.

Study: Ogdensburg History Event Offers Local Boost

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Between $250,000 and $500,000 was injected into the regional economy by the Fort La Presentation Association’s Founder’s Day Weekend, July 16-18, 2010, according to Association President Barbara O’Keefe. The financial impact was made by the 3,000 visitors and 700 re-enactors who came to Ogdensburg to commemorate the last Battle of the French and Indian War.

In an exit survey conducted Friday, Saturday and Sunday, visitors were asked to estimate their expenditures related to the event in terms of transportation, meals and beverages, accommodation, and all other expenses.

Harold G. Needham, a consultant to the Fort La Presentation Association, designed the survey, analyzed the data and wrote the report. He took a very conservative approach. Needham disregarded the high-end estimates of the dollar value in each expenditure range selected by respondents- he also disregarded estimates exceeding 50 percent of the dollar range selected by respondents in each expenditure category.

“I deliberately undervalued event organizers’ estimates of numbers of visitors and gave a zero value to the estimates of people who didn’t respond to the economic impact questions in the survey,” Needham said. “I believe my estimated range of total expenditures errs, if at all, in underestimating the economic impact of the event.”

As to the infusion of visitors’ cash Needham wrote, “While most of this would have been spent in the immediate area, some of it impacted on the economy elsewhere in the state and nation, and a very small part in adjacent areas of Canada.”

The survey did not ask about money spent on groceries, but found from $75,000 to $150,000 was spent on meals and beverages and $31,000 to $63,000 on accommodation. Visitors’ transportation expenses infused between $68,000 and $136,000 and from $77,000 to $154,000 flowed into all other expenses.

“As the Founder’s Day Weekend re-enactment and colonial trade fair has grown over the years, we have assumed a significant amount of money is spent locally by the visitors and re-enactors,” said Barbara O’Keefe, President of the Fort La Presentation Association. “We decided this year, when we hosted New York State’s final 250th anniversary commemoration of the French and Indian War, would be a good opportunity to gauge the potential economic impact of this tourist-focused event, and we have been pleasantly surprised.”

This is the second survey conducted for the Fort Association to get a profile of the visitors and their responses to Founder’s Day Weekend activities. However, this is the first look at what the weekend can pump into the economy.

“We know people spent money getting here. Some traveled lengthy distances to get to our re-enactment and colonial trade fair, and some who were here to visit family took in the event,” said O’Keefe. “Regardless, local motels, bed and breakfasts, restaurants and other business saw trade directly linked to Founder’s Day Weekend, and we are very pleased to have helped contribute to their bottom lines.”

Re-enactors and others who brought the mid-18th century to life put their dollars into the local economy. They arrived in Ogdensburg one, two or more days before the Friday opening and some did not leave until Monday.

In addition, St. Lawrence County and the City of Ogdensburg benefit from their share of the sales tax collected by local merchants.

As of the end of September 2010, the financial statements of the Fort La Presentation Association indicate almost $59,000 had been spent in the local economy on the event. When bills yet to be received are paid, the total will rise to at least $60,000, giving the event a total economic impact of between $300,000 and $550,000

“The major events hosted by the Fort translate into enough additional business for our restaurant that we can do improvements that we otherwise could not afford,” said Deb Janson, owner of the Freight House Restaurant. “The Fort brings in the additional customer base that establishments like ours really need to move ahead.”

Of the visitors to Founder’s Day Weekend, 61.7 percent live in St. Lawrence County and another 18.9 percent elsewhere in New York State- 11.7 percent came from other U.S. states and 7.6 percent from Canada.

June and Art Explores Family History Collections

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A new blog has launched called &#8220June and Art,&#8221 based on the 1949-51 courtship letters of June Anderson and Art Price, while she was attending Traphagen School of Fashion (1680 Broadway between 52nd and 53rd) and he was just out of the Navy and working as a grocery clerk in the Hamptons. The blog includes historic photos, postcards, and their artwork- both June and Art were amateur artists.

The blog’s creator Lee Price, who is also Director of Development at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia, PA, has also created a companion blog, &#8220Preserving a Family Collection,&#8221 which is about conserving the photos and artwork of the &#8220June and Art&#8221 collection.

Lee Price has visited both the New York Historical Society and the New York Public Library in search of late 40s/early 50s photographs of the Traphagen school and the two Upper West Side streets where June lived, 96th Street and 83rd Street, both times between Central Park West and Columbus and would greatly appreciate ideas for other places to look for photos from these areas and this particular time.

Virtual Tours of State Parks, Sites, Now Online

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The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation has partnered with Fisheye Virtual Tours to provide 360-degree views of scenic vistas, popular attractions, gathering spots and select interiors of nearly 50 parks and historic sites on its website, www.nysparks.com.

&#8220Virtual tours are an innovative and user-friendly tool for both tourists and frequent park visitors to plan their next adventure,&#8221 said State Parks Acting Commissioner Andy Beers. &#8220By showcasing New York’s incredible natural and cultural treasures, the virtual tours will help draw new visitors to popular, favorite spots and provide regular visitors with glimpses of features of the park system they’ve never visited before.&#8221

The virtual tours include images of assorted campgrounds, trails, play areas, golf courses, boat launches, beaches and pools in the parks, as well as landscapes, architectural elements and collections in many of the state historic sites. Tours also feature interior and exterior images of the diverse types of lodging available at State Parks – from the many amenities of the Ironworkers Cabins at Taconic State Park’s Copake Falls to the rustic camping areas of Allegany State Park. Additional tours will be added in the coming weeks.

&#8220We are very excited to be working with the state of New York on the first phase of our &#8216-Explore America’s Parks’ project. This partnership truly shows New York’s commitment to bringing exciting new features to their website and to show their global audience the stunning beauty of their parks and historic sites,&#8221 said Fisheye Virtual Tours president Michael Brennan.

The pilot program between Parks and Fisheye Virtual Tours began in 2009 and has expanded to include the unique photography of all 11 state park regions. The initiative is supported through sponsorships developed and administered by Fisheye Virtual Tours.

The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation oversees 178 state parks and 35 historic sites. For more information on any of these recreation areas, call 518-474-0456 or visit www.nysparks.com. For information about Fisheye Virtual Tours, sponsorship and the Explore America’s Parks program, visit www.exploreamericasparks.org.

On The Web: Helderberg Hill Towns Wiki

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Regular New York History reader and GeneaBloggers.com founder Thomas MacEntee wrote me recently to let me know about a wiki called Helderberg Hill Towns, and devoted to the the Hill Towns of Albany County.

Local native Hal Miller created the concept and arranged for volunteers to provide content to the site- the software installation and other technical components of the project were handled by MacEntee.

The site has 2,548 articles so far and growing, including architecture, biographies, businesses, cemeteries, documents, events, images, maps. military history, natural history, and a lot more.

Photo courtesy Helderberg Hilltowns Wiki.