History.Workshoppin’: Issue 2 (October 2024)
What a strange and exciting time to be in New York. We have a mayor under indictment, playoff basketball (go Liberty) and baseball, and early voting just twenty-five days away (don’t forget to turn your ballot over for the New York State Equal Rights Amendment and the charter revision questions, y’all).
Coming Up Next
It’s Fall, my favorite time in the city, for giving tours or just walking around. That being said, much of my October time will be spent phonebanking/textbanking/canvassing (see below) or watching the Libs and Bats (Joe said everyone watches women’s sports, and Joe’s right), so it’s a lighter tour schedule than I would normally have for the season. Then winter comes around and it’s back to the grind, including walking tours of the Dyker Heights Christmas Lights on Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and select Sundays and Mondays), which you can register for on the DHCL website, and a few of my own tours essentially scheduled as my own day/night doubleheaders.
October
10/5, 1:00 p.m.: Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park, and LGBTQS Lives in NYC
10/6, 11:00 a.m.: Meatpacking District and Chelsea
November
11/10, 1:00 p.m.: Quenching Gotham’s Thirst: New York Before the Croton Era
11/16, 2:00 p.m.: Greenwich Village: Activists and Agitators
11/17, 1:00 p.m.: The Bridges of Gowanus: Rezone Remix
11/30, 7:00 p.m.: Dyker Heights Christmas Lights
December
12/3, 7:00 p.m.: Dyker Heights Christmas Lights
12/6, 7:00 p.m.: Dyker Heights Christmas Lights
12/7, 1:00 p.m.: The Lost Theaters of Bay Ridge
12/7, 7:00 p.m.: Dyker Heights Christmas Lights
12/10, 7:00 p.m.: Dyker Heights Christmas Lights
12/13, 7:00 p.m.: Dyker Heights Christmas Lights
12/14, 2:00 p.m.: Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park, and LGBTQS Lives in NYC
12/14, 7:00 p.m.: Dyker Heights Christmas Lights
12/15, 1:00 p.m.: The Lost Theaters of Bay Ridge
12/17, 7:00 p.m.: Dyker Heights Christmas Lights
12/30, 7:00 p.m.: Dyker Heights Christmas Lights
January 2025
1/3, 7:00 p.m.: Dyker Heights Christmas Lights
1/4, 7:00 p.m.: Dyker Heights Christmas Lights
1/5, 1:00 p.m.: The Lost Theaters of Bay Ridge
Some Big Wazowski Energy
Back in December, I got an email from a producer at CUNY TV’s Urban U series, which focuses on CUNY students, faculty, and alumni doing cool things, that basically amounted to "hey, you're a CUNY alum doing cool things, we want to film a tour you're doing." And so that’s what they did in January, following me doing part of my Frederick Douglass in Brooklyn tour. Then the piece got produced over a few months, some additional B-roll from my Ray Carney’s Harlem tour in the interim. At long last, it’s made its way on the air as part of the September edition of Urban U, and can be found on YouTube by clicking the photo below. (If you’d like to see it on your TV at an appointed hour, the episode is still running every Monday through Thursday at 8:30 p.m. on CUNY TV, now through October 9.) I’m really pleased with how it turned out, and especially grateful to CUNY for, well, everything.
Something from the Clipping File
I’m waiting to get the ball rolling on the research for the audio tours in development for NYC Ferry, aside from some initial theorizing. Gotta exercise my Freelance Isn’t Free rights and get that contract fully executed. But while thinking about what to cover at the East 34th Street landing, I was intrigued by the possible etymologies for Turtle Bay, found in the July 29 issue of New York magazine and digitized on Curbed, and part of a larger, fascinating piece on the Turtle Bay Gardens.
I’m a Terrible Businessperson, So Here’s Another Tour You Might Like
This is already a pretty seafoam-tinged issue of the newsletter, so I suppose I’ll keep that going by recommending a tour of Atlantic Yards by the man who’s been covering it for years. I took Norman Oder’s tour of the controversial development (now known as Pacific Park) during Jane’s Walk NYC in May 2023, and was deeply enlightened by Norman’s capacious knowledge on the topic, also covered on his blog and in his newsletter. The tour packs a massive amount of history and data in (Norman will keep you at his pace to ensure you receive that information!), and I left with a better context for the area and even more questions (particularly “so when are they going to get to decking the yards themselves?”). Norman leads a wide array of tours across Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, but I have to imagine this one is his best.
Some Sensory Stimuli
I went to the Rubin Museum for its penultimate K2 Friday Night two weeks ago, one last trip before the building closes Sunday. The Rubin’s been one of my happy places in the city for the last fifteen years, a place to sit and contemplate in the Tibetan Shrine Room, see the imagery from the thangkas dance in my mind, listen to some music at the foot of the spiral staircase, or have a drink and watch a movie on a Friday night. I was on their College Committee in grad school, and nights at the Rubin planning programs were a welcome respite from my part-time studies, and a refuge from an exploitative full-time job. And by the time I finished my Master’s, one of the exhibitions led to a footnote in my otherwise unrelated thesis.
So it was with sadness that I was saying goodbye to the building on 17th Street, and a determination to take it all in one last time. The Rubin’s final temporary exhibition, Reimagine: Himalayan Art Now had two pieces one the same wavelength as my emotional state that Friday night. Kabi Raj Lama’s triptych had me thinking of shadows, ghosts, and remnants of what we leave behind. (What will the 17th Street building be but a remnant, a ghost of a place gone by, be it the museum, Barneys, or whatever came before?) And John Tsung’s Divine Generation, a conduit for vibrations from across the museum to a rock in the Shrine Room, gave me an opportunity to commune with the museum. In that moment, I, the other visitors in the galleries and shops, the DJ in Cafe Serai, and the physical space became one, and I’m grateful for that fleeting moment.
The Rubin Museum of Art is, for the moment anyway, at 150 West 17th Street in Chelsea, accessible via the 1 train at 18th Street and the 2/3/L/B/D/F/M and PATH at 14th Street, along with the M5, M6, M7, and M20 buses.
Always Twirling, Twirling, Twirling Towards Freedom
I spent a lot of late nights post-Biden/Trump debate doomscrolling, not sure what would happen next. I built up a lot of anxiety in June and early July. But I made a point that I’d outlet that doom into action. Close the news tabs, open Mobilize, sign up for opportunities the same way someone might drunk-impulse-buy something from Amazon. And that’s paid off this summer, when I got to
write 220 letters to voters in Arizona, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, and Pennsylvania with VoteForward(they just went in the mail this morning and are on their way!)
call voters in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, and Wisconsin
text voters in Texas for Black Voters Matter
knock on doors for State Senator Iwen Chu, the district right next to mine
register about two dozen college students to vote at campuses across greater Philadelphia
And the work continues now through November 5, with more phone calls (including to Missouri and Montana), more door-knocking, and a few more letters (VoteForward recently launched some late-in-the-game campaigns for Missouri, Florida, and Texas). In two weeks, I’ll be remotely dispatching rides for Rideshare2Vote’s operations in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. And of course, I’m voting early (10/26-11/3) here in Bay Ridge, where maybe I’ll once again run into Public Advocate (and future acting mayor?) Jumaane Williams as has often been the case in elections past.
Need to plan your vote? Use the League of Women Voters’ handy Vote411 site. Need to check your registration, get registered, or sign up for a mail-in ballot? Visit Vote.org. And as my mom always says, if you’re eligible to vote and you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain. So give yourself an opportunity to complain.
How Is Reading The Power Broker Going, Daniel?
Ugh. I hit a wall 750 pages in, as work, other reading, and the aforementioned volunteering hit a fever pitch. (And just as the eBook came out!) Hoping to pick it back up and get moving again after 11/5, finish by the end of the year, and celebrate with a trip to the historical society before the big 50th anniversary exhibition closes.
Hope to see you in the streets soon; otherwise, I’ll talk to you in early December. Until then, consider forwarding this newsletter to a friend, and stay safe out there.