Breathtaking Moment

Aside from being a lover of fast food, I'm also a lover of history, and this truly brought a tear to my eye today...

World's Fair Anniversary Festival This Sunday

World's Fair Anniversary Festival Sunday, June 7, 2015 1:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Free Join NYC Parks in celebrating the 50th and 75th anniversaries of the 1939-40 and 1964-65 World's Fairs! Come to Flushing Meadows Corona Park on Sunday, June 7, 2015 to join free tours of historic World's Fairs sites. There will be music and dance performances in the park, as well as different foods from around the world, including Belgian waffles, which were introduced to New York City at the 1964 World's Fair. Kid-friendly activities include half-priced rides on the historic carousel, puppet shows, and face painting. For more information, visit the World's Fair Anniversary website or call 311.

70th Annivesary of end of World War II: Talk on French Resistance

On the 70^th Anniversary of the end of World War II, journalist Charles Kaiser has written the untold story of one of the leaders of the French Resistance and his family’s terrible sacrifice during World War II.   

On Monday, June 8, at 1:30 p.m., Charles Kaiser will speak at the Central Queens Y in Forest Hills on his new book, The Cost of Courage:  The True Story of One Family in the French Resistance.    

 Charles Kaiser tells the story of Andre Boulloche, who coordinated the Resistance in northern France until he was betrayed by one of his comrades, and arrested by the Gestapo. His sisters carried on the fight without him until the end of the war.   While Andre and one sister survived concentration camps, the Gestapo killed their parents and an older brother.   After the war, André and his two sisters rebuilt their lives and Andre became a prominent French politician.  None of them ever spoke about what had happened. Journalist Charles Kaiser tells at last the story of their remarkable courage and terrible sacrifice.    

Mr. Kaiser’s talk is at the Central Queens YM & YWHA, at 67-09 108 Street in Forest Hills.  All events are open to the general public, with an $8 donation requested.

After the war, the three remaining Boulloche siblings, Christiane, Jacqueline, and André, rebuilt their lives, raising ten children among them, and never spoke about what transpired.  Silence had been the Boulloche’s answer to dealing with the unbearable.

With the family’s decision to break their silence, journalist Charles Kaiser was able to tell their remarkable story for the first time.   Kasier first heard the story from his uncle, an American lieutenant stationed in Paris, living with the Boulloche sisters, immediately after the Liberation of Paris.  A long time reporter for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Charles Kaiser was able to reconstruct the remarkable story of the Boulloche family from extensive interviews with surviving family members, as well personal letters. 

World's Fair Commemoration at the Historic Midway Theater

Forest Close Named a 'NYC Priority Area Meriting Preservation'

Photo Credit: Michael Perlman

The Historic Districts Council, New York’s city-wide advocate for historic buildings and neighborhoods, announced today its 2014 Six to Celebrate, an annual listing of historic New York City neighborhoods and institutions that merit preservation attention.  Among them is Forest Hills' Forest Close, a development between Queens Blvd. and Austin St. bordered by 75th Avenue on the West and 76th Ave on the East.

Designed in 1927 in the spirit of the garden city movement, Forest Close is a charming nook of 38 neo-Tudor houses surrounding a shared communal garden. While the Forest Close Association maintains covenants that regulate design and open space elements of the community and advises residents on design guidelines for building projects, they are now exploring other tools to better protect the area’s special character. The Association is working to engage residents and local stakeholders to promote the preservation of this lush neighborhood in Forest Hills.

This is New York’s only citywide list of preservation priorities coming directly from the neighborhoods. Launching in conjunction with the 2014 list is also a website for the Six to Celebrate Program, detailing all of the preservation work done in the chosen neighborhoods since the program’s inception in 2011. The website can be viewed at www.6tocelebrate.org.

The 2014 groups will be formally introduced at the Six to Celebrate Launch Party onWednesday, January 29, 2014, 6:00-8:00pm at the LGBT Community Center (208 West 13th Street.) For tickets, visit hdc.org.

The six priority areas were chosen from applications submitted by neighborhood groups around the city on the basis of the architectural and historic merit of the area, the level of threat to the neighborhood, strength and willingness of the local advocates, and where HDC’s citywide preservation perspective and assistance could be the most meaningful.  Throughout 2014, HDC will work with these neighborhood partners to set and reach preservation goals through strategic planning, advocacy, outreach, programs and building public awareness.

The other five comprising the 2014 Six to Celebrate are:

Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn

A commercial thoroughfare for more than one hundred years, Atlantic Avenue is a diverse and varied boulevard connecting the historic neighborhoods of Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill. The Atlantic Avenue Business Improvement Districtseeks to create a shopping and dining district that celebrates its history and architecture. These efforts include educational outreach through lectures, tours and family-oriented programs, and the exploration of preservation methods to protect and enhance the elegant streetscapes that make the Avenue so enticing.

Historic Cemeteries, Staten Island

Dotting Staten Island are 19 historic places of memory and rest. The Friends of Abandoned Cemeteries of Staten Island maintains the physical sites and written records of 11 of these spaces, promotes and assists in their beautification and rehabilitation, and engages local residents through events, programs and clean-ups. Friends is working to secure the resources needed to expand awareness of and participation in preserving these sites which are a vital, if little-known, part of New York City’s early history.

Madison Square North, Manhattan

This architecturally diverse neighborhood bordering midtown Manhattan includes pre-Civil War rowhouses, late 19^th century hotels, early 20^th century loft and commercial structures, and the remaining buildings of Tin Pan Alley. Spurred by several threats to important historic buildings, the 29^th Street Neighborhood Association has recently begun a campaign to preserve this area’s rich architectural and cultural history by expanding the limited Madison Square North Historic District to better reflect the actual neighborhood.

Park Avenue, Manhattan

Working with a coalition of residents, activists and community groups, Historic Park Avenue, Defenders of the Historic Upper East Side and Carnegie Hill Neighbors seek to landmark the unprotected blocks of New York’s premier historic boulevard. With an important Historic District hearing at the Landmarks Preservation Commission early in 2014, the year is off to an exciting start. This strong push to protect its historical and architectural significance includes the effort to prevent the demolition of the rectory of Park Avenue Christian Church, an architectural jewel in the Avenue’s crown.

New York City’s Public Libraries

   Each of New York City’s public library branches is a neighborhood anchor, nurturing and educating residents. Crucial to their mission are the physical spaces they occupy. Often a community’s most distinguished building and only gathering place, these institutions have played an important role in the lives of generations of New Yorkers. Working with local advocates and organizations, the Historic Districts Council has chosen libraries as a thematic priority for 2014. HDC seeks to promote and preserve libraries across the five boroughs through education, outreach, advocacy and research. The project will include the completion of the Campaign to Preserve the Carnegie Libraries, a nomination of this thematic resource to the State and National Registers of Historic Places.

The Kennedy Assassination

An excellent short film explores the Kennedy assassination, which occurred 50 years ago today...

Author to Discuss Polish Jewish Reconciliation

An estimated eighty percent of American Jews are of Polish descent.  Poland was once  home to the largest Jewish population in Europe.  Yet today, most American Jews think of Poland solely through the lens of the horrific realities of the Holocaust.  On Monday, Nov. 18, at 1:30 p.m., author Louise Steinman will talk at the Central Queens YM & YWHA in Forest Hills, on her new book on a new movement toward Polish Jewish reconciliation, reclaiming the centuries of Jewish life in Poland.  The Central Queens Y is located at 67-09 108 Street in Forest Hills.  Louise Steinman’s talk is open to the public, with a $7 donation suggested.

During the Holocaust, three million Jews, nearly the entire Jewish population of Poland, were killed.  However, while German-occupied Poland was the site of the largest extermination camps, with some Poles participating in the destruction of the Jewish communities, Poland was also the epicenter of European Jewish life for centuries.

Author Louise Steinman set out to examine today’s burgeoning Polish-Jewish reconciliation movement through the lens of her own family's history, joining the ranks of Jews of Polish descent who are confronting both the atrocities and the heroism of Polish Holocaust rescuers, and reclaiming the centuries of Polish Jewish history, as well as with their own families’ stories.  At the same, Poland is seeing a resurgence of interest in Jewish life, including Jewish cultural festivals and the increasing popularity of klezmer music, as a younger generation of Polish non-Jews try to restore some sense of the culture that was lost in the Holocaust.

Louise Steinman codirects the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities at the University of Souther California and is the author of a previous, award winning memoir. 

More information about this event or about the Fall Author Series is available at 718 268-5011, ext. 151, or online at www.cqy.org or at  (718) 268-5011 ext. 151, or pkurtz@cqy.org. 

Quite Fascinating...

Bones Under Parking Lot Belonged to Richard III
In one of Britain’s most dramatic modern archaeological finds, tests identified the remains of the reviled English monarch, a discovery that could lead to a reassessment of his reign.

From Maureen Dowd: Hitler's Talking Dogs

“At a Nazi study course, a talking dog was once asked ‘Who is Adolf Hitler?’ and replied ‘Mein Führer!”

OPINION
Hitler’s Talking Dogs
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: July 12, 2011
Pick your poison: killer sausages, talking dogs or toxic schnapps?

For You History Buffs

150 years ago today, the first battle of The Civil War began, when the southerners opened fire on Fort Sumter, the Union fort in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.

Disunion: The Defenders
By Adam Goodheart
Published: April 11, 2011
Officers, gentlemen and “scum” witness the first shot of the Civil War.