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Arts, Arts & Entertainment, Culture, Long Island travel, Museums and Exhibits

‘Solar Impressions’ Exhibit at Gold Coast Arts Center Features Innovative ‘Solarplate’ Etching Process, Workshop

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Regina Gil, Founder and Executive Director of the Gold Coast Arts Center; DanWelden, artist, master printmaker, and director of Hampton Editions, Ltd., in Sag Harbor; and Jude Amsel, Gallery Director at Gold Coast Arts Center  © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

by Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

“Solar Impressions,” a new art exhibit featuring works using the innovative Solarplate print-making process, has opened at the Gold Coast Arts Center in Great Neck, Long Island. The exhibit, which runs through April 10, 2020, brings together the works of more than 40 artists including internationally acclaimed American painter Eric Fischl. Each work of art is a representation of an ongoing exploration of the Solarplate etching process developed by Dan Welden, and reflects the extraordinary diversity of applications of the technique.

Noted artist, master printmaker, educator, and author, Dan Welden, was among scores of artists and art lovers on hand at an opening reception that took place on Sunday, January 26. Welden, director of Hampton Editions, Ltd., in Sag Harbor, is the developer of the Solarplate etching process, which uses light-sensitive material applied to a metal plate, and then hardened by the sun. The innovative process is a simpler and safer alternative to traditional etching that uses corrosive acids and is now used at universities and art schools all over the world.

Ron Pokrasso, Who is Pulling My Chain, 2019 , “Solar Impressions” exhibit, Gold Coast Arts Center, Long Island.

Solarplate eco-friendly sunlight and water to fix an image from a photograph or drawing into a steel plate which has been treated with polymer. Artists can apply color by hand into the ridges and grooves, or use a silk-screen process.

What is impressive is the versatility of the Solarplate process for artists across various media – photographers, painters, printers, collage makers – as well as the materials they use – paper, textured paper, Mulberry paper, fabric – which is very much on view in the Gold Coast exhibit.

“Rather than using all of these harmful materials that get inside an artist’s lungs and immune system, solarplate etching uses sunlight and water,” Welden said in an interview with Robert Pelaez of Blank Slate Media. “It’s pretty easy to grasp for people of all ages, and you don’t need an extensive artistic background for this.”

Solarplate is a light-sensitized steel-backed polymer material. Artist can work on the plate directly, with opaque materials in nonwater-based pigments, or by expose the plate through a transparent film with artwork on it. The artwork is printed on the plate through UV exposure for 2 to 5 minutes depending on light exposure, time of day and other variables.

When Welden first developed the technique, he called fellow artist Jude Amsel. and current Gold Coast Gallery Director Jude Amsel.  More than 30 years later, Amsel, the Gold Coast Gallery Director, brought together 40 pieces of solarplate etching from across the country for the Gold Coast exhibit.

“At first I definitely had some questions about the process,” Amsel told Pelaez during a studio tour. “But once I did it, I realized how revolutionary an art form this would be for artists all over the world.”

Curator and artist Jude Amsel, with her works. Gold Coast Arts Gallery, Long Island, Presents “Solar Impressions: Contemporary Printmaking” © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

“There’s a common ground of personal creativity,” Amsel said. “Some feature nature, traveling, or aspects of life that resonate with an artist, but there’s no limit to what can be done with solarplate etching. It’s one of the many things I think is fascinating about it.”

Jude Amsel, “Temps,” (2018) which incorporates Solarplate, Polaroid transfer and pastel. Gold Coast Arts Gallery, Long Island, Presents “Solar Impressions: Contemporary Printmaking” © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Amsel said artists from all backgrounds are able to use the technique. Even photographers can use the art form by reprinting and then shading in the outline of their subject through etching.

Kelli Glancy with her works,  “Freedom Tower, Pier A” (2019) and “The Conductor” (2019). Gold Coast Arts Gallery, Long Island, Presents “Solar Impressions: Contemporary Printmaking” © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

One of them, photographer Kelli Glancey, has two pieces in the exhibit. Using the process, she has created photo images – shot in color on a phone – that harken back to Steichen and Stieglitz. Two of her works, “Freedom Tower, Pier A” (2019) and “The Conductor” (2019), are images taken from the 1907 Lackawana train depot in Hoboken, NJ, pay homage to Steiglitz who lived in Hoboken.

Describing herself as a “newbie” to solarplate, Lori Horowitz said, “Artists are so fixated on making art we poison ourselves. This is safe process for print making.” She holds up the original color photograph from which she made the black-and-white solarplate.

Lori Horowitz, “Four Under Four” (2019 ), Solar Impressions (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

“The realm of possibilities is really endless with solarplate,” Amsel told Pelaez. “My personal relationship with Dan makes this exhibit even more special. Watching him work and being a part of the early stages of this art is a blessing.”

Welden innovated the process but says he has not patented it. “I did it to share, not to own.” He travels around the world giving workshops in the technique.

Printmaking, which is almost 2,000 years old, developed in China with the invention of paper, is a process used in art to transfer images from a template onto another surface. The design is created on the template by working its flat surface with either tools or chemicals. Traditional printmaking techniques include engraving, etching, woodcut, lithography and screen-printing. In the 1970’s, Dan Weldon, a Long Island printmaker created Solarplate, a new printmaking technique.

Time-honored printing press is used in the Solarplate process. Gold Coast Arts Gallery, Long Island, Presents “Solar Impressions: Contemporary Printmaking” © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

“Printmaking with Solarplate is a simple approach and safer alternative to traditional etching and relief printing,” Amsel writes in the introduction to the exhibit. “Solarplate is a prepared, light-sensitive polymer surface on a steel backing for artists to produce fine prints. Since Dan Welden’s development of the process in the 1970s, printmakers, painters, photographers and art teachers interested in multiple impressions have found printmaking with Solarplate a new tool. All an artist needs is inspiration, a graphic image crated on a transparent film (acetate or glass), sun or UV light, and ordinary tap water. Both positives and negatives can be utilized; intaglio and relief printing techniques can be applied.

Artist Barry Stern, “End of a Way” (2017) Gold Coast Arts Gallery, Long Island, Presents “Solar Impressions: Contemporary Printmaking” © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

“Universities and art schools all over the world are using Solarplate as part of their curriculum. The simple, spontaneous approach also makes it faster and more economical for use in professional printmaking workshops and collaborations with artists. Educators are replacing traditional acid techniques with Solarplate because of safety regulations. Photographic in nature, Solarplate incorporates a broader range of techniques than any other printing medium,” Amsel writes in the introduction to the exhibit.

Welden’s 50-year career includes collaborations with numerous artists, including Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Jimmy Ernst, James Brooks, Kurt Vonnegut, and Eric Fischl, andis among those on display at the Gold Coast Arts Center Gallery. Fischl’s work graces the cover of the “Solar Impressions” souvenir catalog guide.

Artist Justin Greenwalk, “Crisis” (2019). Gold Coast Arts Gallery, Long Island, Presents “Solar Impressions: Contemporary Printmaking” © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Artworks in the exhibit are available for sale to the public, according to Regina Gil, Founder and Executive Director of the Gold Coast Arts Center. The artists have priced the art well to make them affordable to art lovers and collectors.

“‘Solar Impressions’ presents the public with a display of unique and creative works of art using Dan Welden’s innovative process now used by artists and art students around the world,” Gil said. “This is an opportunity for everyone to acquire some of these outstanding pieces.”

Chris Ann Ambery, “Guardian of the Past” (2019). Gold Coast Arts Gallery, Long Island, Presents “Solar Impressions: Contemporary Printmaking” © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The gallery is open to the public and is free. For more information about “Solar Impressions,” including gallery hours, visit www.goldcoastarts.org. For tour information or to register for classes, visit https://goldcoastarts.org/art-gallery/ or call 516-829-2570.

Gold Coast Arts Gallery, Long Island, Presents “Solar Impressions: Contemporary Printmaking” © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Printmaking workshops for adults will be offered at the Gold Coast Arts Center on Sunday, March 15, from 12-3 p.m. No experience necessary. (For information, visit https://goldcoastarts.org/event/solarplate-printmaking-workshop/)

Gold Coast Arts Center is a 501(c)(3) multi-arts organization dedicated to promoting the arts through education, exhibition, performance, and outreach. For a quarter-century, it has brought the arts to tens of thousands of people throughout the Long Island region. Among the Center’s offerings are its School for the Arts, which holds year-round classes in visual and performing arts for students of all ages and abilities; a free public art gallery; a concert and lecture series; film screenings and discussions; the annual Gold Coast International Film Festival; and initiatives that focus on senior citizens and underserved communities. These initiatives include artist residencies, after-school programs, school assemblies, teacher-training workshops, and parent-child workshops. The Gold Coast Arts Center is an affiliate of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts “Partners in Education” program and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Gold Coast Arts Center, 113 Middle Neck Rd.,  Great Neck, NY 11021, 516-829-2570, www.goldcoastarts.org.

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© 2020 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit goingplacesfarandnear.com, www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-rubin, and travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate/. Blogging at goingplacesnearandfar.wordpress.com and moralcompasstravel.info. Send comments or questions to FamTravLtr@aol.com. Tweet @TravelFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures

Arts & Entertainment, Cultural travel, Culture, Entertainment, Festivals and Events, Long Island travel

Ben Vereen Honored with Lifetime Achievement Award in Kickoff to 9th Annual Gold Coast International Film Festival

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Gold Coast Arts Center, Long Island, honors Actor, Entertainer Ben Vereen with Lifetime Achievement Award at opening of 9th Annual Gold Coast International Film Festival © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

by Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

Actor, entertainer Ben Vereen, honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Gold Coast Arts Center, Long Island, at the opening of its 9th Annual Gold Coast International Film Festival, Nov. 4, 2019, brings a spiritual message to the arts which explains why he has been such a strong advocate for arts education, mentor and humanitarian.

“If you would ask, ‘Why is life so important to you?’ I would say, ‘In the beginning God created.’ It’s not ‘in the beginning God manufactured’. We are living, walking, talking art pieces of the One who created us. Our job is not just performing arts, but one aspect of life itself. Life is an art piece for everybody to see. We’re supposed to care for each other, love each other, show the wonders of creation – this building, these seats – didn’t just come here, they came from thought. A thought and we bring forth that which is manifested. 

“Arts have saved people throughout the centuries. Art has calmed people from war. Art is here to embrace our lives. We are healed through the arts.”

Vereen tells the audience which included the young people from Uniondale High School who performed in their nationally acclaimed choir, Rhythm of the Knight, “Go play in hospitals. When someone would come to do art, music, singing, the vibration in building is higher. It’s important we support – we call it the arts- what it really is is ‘Let’s support life,’” he said to applause.

“The arts. Change the name to life – arts of life, the teaching part of life, the engineering part of life is all art.

If we give our children arts from the beginning, they will be better at school.”

And what do you tell a young person about pursuing a career in arts? Dilla asked. “Know thyself, study you, who you are, you are that art you would bring forth. Be conscious of who you are. It’s okay to take baby steps, eventually you will get you there. Don’t take rejection as a ‘no’ to your life – your life isn’t over, just a steppingstone to your higher self. Keep stepping up.

“We need you. Your form of art may not be on stage, it may be going to government. Your art might not be an interviewer like Frank Dilella, it might be to head a country and make the world a better place for everybody. Know thyself and to thine own self be true.”

Vereen offered insights into his life in a conversation with Frank DiLella, Emmy Award winning host of On Stage on Spectrum News NY1.

Lifetime Achievement honoree Ben Vereen with Gold Coast Arts Center and Film Festival Founder & Executive Regina Gil, and Frank Dilella, host of Stage on Spectrum News © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Vereen was honored for his epic performances that have been woven into the fabric of the nation’s artistic legacy – first coming to worldwide attention as Chicken George in the ground-breaking television series, Roots for which he won an Emmy nomination in 1977. He won a Tony Award as well as the Drama Desk Award for Best Actor in A Musical in 1973 for Pippin; and starred in Jesus Christ Superstar, Fosse, Hair, Jelly’s Last Jam, Chicago, I’m Not Rappaport and Wicked; and films including Sweet Charity and All that Jazz. 

Vereen’s recent projects include the TV series Bull and Magnum PI, FOX’s Star, produced by Lee Daniels, Sneaky Pete with Bryan Cranston, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Time Out of Mind with Richard Gere, and Top Five with Chris Rock. He is currently working on his new Broadway musical, Reflections, written by Joe Calarco, to be directed by Tony nominee Josh Bergasse with music by Stephen Schwartz.

Vereen is heralded for promoting the talents and careers of young people – through education and access to the arts – wherever he gives concerts he holds master classes and in past concerts has provided the opportunity for a talented newcomer to make their debut on stage with him – and for his humanitarian work for which he has received numerous awards including Israel’s Cultural and Humanitarian Award, three NAACP Image Awards, Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award and a Victory Award.

In 2016, he signed with Americans for the Arts, the largest advocacy group of Arts in America and has spoken before Congress defending funding for the National endowment for the Arts.

Ben Vereen spoke of his career and his calling in a conversation with Frank Dilella:

Asked about how he got started in show business, a boy of modest means from Brooklyn, he said, “This career chose me.

“This career was handed to me. In my community in Brooklyn going to the High School of Performing Arts was like being a prodigal son. It is hard to say when I chose this, because it chose me. I would never have left Brooklyn except for performing arts school – –known as the Fame School.

Apparently he got into trouble, because he was placed in a so-called “three-digit school”.

“I was placed in class with Mr. Hill, the director of theater. I was with guys named Killer, Shank Diablo. Mr. Hill said he wanted me to do King and I. I went to the Brooklyn Academy of Music – they had an all-African American company – 100 musicians – and did King and I. That was it – that was the bug.

Vereen attended the High School of Performing Arts from the age of 14 – where he studied dancing with stellar choreographers Martha Graham, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins.

He was 18 years old when he made his New York stage debut off-off-Broadway in The Prodigal Son at the Greenwich Mews Theater. The following year he was in Las Vegas performing in Bob Fosse’s production of Sweet Charity. 

He describes the audition for Sweet Charity.”Every dancer was on stage to audition – Bob Fosse was the coolest, he moved so smooth. He did the combination, smoked cigarettes, the ashes wouldn’t fall. He made the cut of dancers. Then it was time to sing. I had never seen a Broadway show.” He had nothing prepared but mimicked another and got the part anyway, going on to tour with the production from 1967-68.

He made his Broadway debut in original production of Hair. “It was a groundbreaking show, it made history.”

A real breakthrough was meeting Sammy Davis Jr. He reflected how important an influence Sammy Davis Jr. was to him. “Sammy was the first African American that I watched on tv. My father loved tv. One night Sammy was on the Ed Sullivan show.

Sammy saw Vereen at an audition. “I had attitude – Sammy Davis Jr saw it. He invited me to have dinner and hired me for Golden Boy. That’s where it began. I followed him, wanted to be like him, dress like him, the coolest cat. He loved everybody. People don’t give Sammy enough credit – he wasn’t just a song and dance man, but a great humanitarian. He died penniless because gave all his money to everybody.”

Davis took him on tour of Golden Boy to London when he was 25. That’s when he discovered he was adopted by James and Pauline Vereen, when he applied for a passport.

Vereen went on to be cast opposite Sammy Davis Jr. in the film version of Sweet Charity, and then as Davis’ understudy in Golden Boy in England.

His life changed – and nearly ended – on one fateful day in 1992 when he had three accidents the same day that put him in an ICU for 42 days when doctors thought he might never walk again.

“I don’t remember being hit by a car. The interesting thing about the spirit which inhabits this body, it decides to take a break, ‘but I’ll be back’. All I remember – Pamela [Cooper, his manager] told me this – I was driving and hit a tree, which damaged an artery in my brain. I was walking home, got a stroke, and was hit by an SUV. Amazingly, it was somebody I knew – David Foster, who I had met in Canada, a famous songwriter who wrote for Whitney Huston, Celine Dion, who had said, “We should get together.’  He could have left me and I wouldn’t be sitting here today but he stayed; he called 911, cradled me, waited for paramedics. They flew me to the hospital ICU. They told me I had a broken my left leg, suffered a stroke on right side, took out my spleen, I had an apparatus attached to my head, and a trach. The last thing I remember was getting into my car.”

“[In my mind I am thinking] what happened, why am I here? I can’t talk. All these things are going through your mind – this can’t be happening, I have show on Saturday.

“They told me it will be at least three years if you’ll ever walk again. At that point, I had just met a wonderful woman, Rev. Doctor Johnnie Coleman in Chicago [known as the “First Lady of the New Thought Christian Community]  who taught metaphysics and would say,  ‘Whenever you have something negative coming at you, learn this mantra, Cancel. That’s only man’s perception. Cancel.”

Meanwhile, he reflected, people crowded the hospital lobby praying for him. “There were letters, boxes of letters come in. Looking at boxes, thinking were bills, but they were from you [the fans].”

“[The doctors were saying] ‘We think you should think about another occupation.’ So when they sent in an occupational therapist, I thought they were to get me a new occupation instead of teaching me fine motor skills. Cancel, Cancel – I couldn’t talk.

“I said to myself if I can’t walk again, Lord, whatever you want me to do I’ll do… I had to show up – I couldn’t just lay there and ask God to heal me. I got to show up.”

“The thing about prayer, how it works – the doctor instinctively knew where to cut- spirit is always working in our favor. Steven Hawkins became my hero – if you can do that with Steven Hawkins, here I am.”

At the rehabilitation center in Kessler, NJ, he recalls, “There was a young man who had been shot named Michael Jackson, an orderly called Juice because he delivered the juice but his real name was Glen Miller, a therapist named Jerry Lewis.

“You don’t have the luxury of a negative thought. But I did what no one thought I could do, get back on Broadway.”

He was told there would be a part for him in Jelly’s Last Jam if he could be ready.

The therapists from Kessler went to show, and said, “We can do this, and a few months later, I walked on stage in Jelly’s Last Jam.

“Hear what that story is really about: the inner spirit is stronger than our physical human understanding of who we are. The idea, called surrender, take me as I am, I will go.”

Asked what he considers the highlight of his career, he reflects back to Roots.

“I heard about a show, Roots. Every African American in the world wanted to be a part of that. I go back to the same agent who said Pippin won’t make it and told him ABC was brave enough to put on show, Roots and I wanted to be a part. ‘Be real,’ he said. ‘They’re looking for actors. You’re song and dance man. So I went to Chicago –I was introducing Sister Sledge – then went to Savannah,Georgia. I did a character Bert Williams – African Americans in show business had to wear blackface and Williams made it art form. I did a tribute to him. [Roots’ producer] Stan Margulies knocked on my door and said he loved the show. ‘We’re shooting Roots for ABC, I want you to be my Chicken George.’ I fired my agent and off to Hollywood I went.”

In being awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Gold Coast Arts Center, Ben Vereen is in good company. Previous honorees and special guests of the Gold Coast International Film Festival include film industry VIPs Francis Ford Coppola, Hugh Grant, Robert Wagner, Jill St. John, Baz Luhrmann, Brian Dennehy, Paul Sorvino, Ed Burns, Bruce Dern, Isabella Rossellini, Lou Diamond Phillips, Morgan Spurlock, Eli Wallach, Gabriel Byrne, Jacques Pepin, Bill Plympton, Phil Donahue, Phylicia Rashaad, Joan Allen, Jay McInerney and Michael Cuesta, as well as composer Morton Gould, artists James Rosenquist, Oleg Cassini, Edwina SandysandBob Gruen, comedian Susie Essman, Broadway stars Kelli O’Hara, Melissa Errico andSavion Glover, and 4-time Oscar winner for production and costume design Catherine Martin. 

Ben Vereen with another Gold Coast Arts Center Lifetime Achievement honoree, artist Edwina Sandys, who is Winston Churchill’s granddaughter © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The 9th annual Gold Coast International Film Festival taking place From November 4-13, 2019, presents more than 80 feature-length and short films in venues throughout North Hempstead, Long Island and an opportunity to

This year’s highlights include The Two Popes, starring Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce; which will be the Festival’s Closing Night Spotlight Film. Other films of note this year include Marriage Story, starring Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, the winner of the Best Screenplay at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and Clemency, starring Alfre Woodard, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. The Festival will also be screening By the Grace of God, the Grand Jury Prize winner at the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival.

“Films are a unique art form, bringing together drama, dance, music, art in 90 minutes. It’s one of the most accessible and affordable art forms. You come together with 200 others, smile, laugh, cry, think, learn, and sometimes be moved to action. How often do you get to hear from artists and creators how and why they made the film?” reflected Caroline Sorokoff, the festival director.

Among the narrative films that will provoke thought and action, “Wasted! The Story of Food Waste” from executive producer Anthony Bourdain, co-sponsored by Island Harvest, the first film in a new Gold Coast series spotlighting social issues of concern to Long Island.

Uniondale High School’s Show Choir, Rhythm of the Knight, performs as Gold Coast Arts Center, Long Island, honors Actor, Entertainer Ben Vereen with Lifetime Achievement Award at opening of 9th Annual Gold Coast International Film Festival © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The Gold Coast Arts Center is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to promoting the arts through education, exhibition, performance, and outreach. Located on the North Shore of Long Island, it has brought the arts to tens of thousands of people from toddlers, tweens, teens to totterers throughout the region for 25 years. Among the Center’s offerings are its School for the Arts, which holds year-round classes in visual and performing arts for students of all ages and abilities; a free public art gallery; concerts and lectures; film screenings and discussions; the annual Gold Coast International Film Festival; and initiatives that focus on senior citizens and underserved communities. These initiatives include artist residencies, after-school programs, school assemblies, teacher-training workshops, and parent-child workshops. The Gold Coast Arts Center is an affiliate of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Partners in Education program, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. More information can be found at www.goldcoastarts.org.

Gold Coast Arts Center President Jon Kaiman and Founder and Executive Director Regina Gil (center) with North Hempstead town Councilwoman Viviana L. Russell, North Hempstead Supervisor Judi Bosworth and Nassau County Executive Laura Curran. The Gold Coast Arts Center, Long Island, honored Actor, Entertainer Ben Vereen with Lifetime Achievement Award at opening of 9th Annual Gold Coast International Film Festival © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

For information about upcoming films in the Festival’s year-round film screening program plus the latest news on the 2019 Festival visit www.goldcoastfilmfestival.org 516-829-2570.

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© 2019 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit goingplacesfarandnear.com, www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-rubin, and travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate/. Blogging at goingplacesnearandfar.wordpress.com and moralcompasstravel.info. Send comments or questions to FamTravLtr@aol.com. Tweet @TravelFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures

Festivals and Events, Long Island travel, Museums and Exhibits

Long Islanders Delight in Apollo 11 50th Anniversary Moon Fest at Cradle of Aviation

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Cradle of Aviation Museum, Long Island, Hosts Apollo 11 Lunar Landing 50th Anniversary Moon Fest © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

The climax of Cradle of Aviation Museum’s family friendly Apollo 11 50th anniversary Moon Fest was the countdown to the landing of a scale model of the Eagle lunar module timed with a video of the actual landing.

Littlest astronaut with big dreams. Cradle of Aviation Museum, Long Island, Hosts Apollo 11 Lunar Landing 50th Anniversary Moon Fest © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
The Eagle has landed. Cradle of Aviation Museum, Long Island, Hosts Apollo 11 Lunar Landing 50th Anniversary Moon Fest © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

But there was so much more during the day. Some 2500 people turned out to take part in events and activities.

They delighted in meeting three Space Shuttle astronauts, who gave talks and signed autographed photos: Bill Shepherd (a former Babylon resident, who was in the first crew and literally turned on the lights in the International Space Station and lived in space for140 days) & Charlie Camarda (of Ozone Park, an American engineer and a NASA astronaut who flew his first mission into space on board the Space Shuttle mission STS-114 and served as Senior Advisor for Engineering Development at NASA Langley Research Center) and Bob Cenker, a payload specialist and crew member on the seventh flight of Space Shuttle Columbia.

Astronaut Bill Shepherd, of Babylon, who was in the first crew and literally turned on the lights in the International Space Station and lived in space for140 days, gives a talk in Cradle of Aviation’s Red Planet Café © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
Charlie Camarda, of Ozone Park, an American engineer and a NASA astronaut who flew his first mission into space on board the Space Shuttle mission STS-114 and served as Senior Advisor for Engineering Development at NASA Langley Research Center, signs autographs during the Apollo 11 Moon Fest © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
Bob Cenker, a payload specialist and crew member on the seventh flight of Space Shuttle Columbia, on hand for an Astronaut Encounter during Cradle of Aviation’s Moon Fest © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Among the docents and guides are many former Grumman workers who helped build the machines and communications that put astronauts on the moon and the International Space Station, as well as space enthusiasts, like Matt Arnold, who, after giving a guided tour of the Space exhibit, shows us the model of the International Space Station that he built for the museum. Richard Kalen, of Hicksville, who had helped assemble the wings on the Shuttle, explained what went wrong to cause the Challenger and Columbia tragedies.

Matt Arnold shows off the model of the International Space Station he made for Cradle of Aviation Museum Fest © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
Richard Kalen, of Hicksville, who had helped assemble the wings on the Shuttle, explained what went wrong to cause the Challenger and Columbia tragedies © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
Ernest Finamore, a Grumman tool and dye worker, made the parts for the lunar module, and Alan Contessa at the Cradle of Aviation Apollo 50th Moon Fest © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
Patricia M. Campagnola points to her name among the Grumman workers on a plaque at Cradle of Aviation Museum © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
Shuttle Astronaut Charlie Camarda with Grumman employees and family at the 60s celebration for the 50th Anniversary of the Lunar Landing, at Cradle of Aviation Museum © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

There were moon buggy races, where kids got to traverse a “lunar obstacle course” driving electric lunar rovers; launched water-bottle rockets they built and decorated; looked through solar telescopes; saw student-built robotics demonstrations from the First Lego League; posed for photos with the superhero characters from the not-for-profit NY Avengers Cosplayers.

There were also screenings of the Apollo 11 First Steps Edition documentary in Cradle’s immerse Dome Theater and a virtual reality experience where you explore the inside and outside of the Apollo 11 with Microsoft’s Mixed Reality and HoloLens technology.

Cradle of Aviation Museum, Long Island, Hosts Apollo 11 Lunar Landing 50th Anniversary Moon Fest © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
Cradle of Aviation Museum, Long Island, Hosts Apollo 11 Lunar Landing 50th Anniversary Moon Fest © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Then, at 4 pm, they crammed into the atrium to watch a video of the actual Apollo 11 landing, as a scale model of the Lunar Module descended in concert with the actual events.

Countdown at Cradle of Aviation Museum to when a model of the Eagle lunar module descends to the lunar surface © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The celebration continued into the evening with a dinner menu matching the same beef-and-salmon menu served to the astronauts at the White House and dancing to the music of the 1960s.

Party like it’s 1969. Just Sixties performs at Cradle of Aviation Museum’s evening celebration marking the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 moon landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The Cradle of Aviation Museum, home of the Lunar Module, is currently exhibiting the largest collection of Lunar Modules, Lunar Module parts, artifacts, photos, and documentation in the world. 

There is still time to visit the Apollo Space Exhibit. Here are 11 “must sees”:

11. Living in Space Exhibit showcasing food & waste management for Apollo

The Living in Space exhibit at Cradle of Aviation Museum, Long Island © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

10. Pop Culture Exhibit showing space toys and memorabilia from 1969

9. Gemini Capsule Replica that you can sit in; as seen in First Steps movie

8. A real Moon Rock! 

A real moon rock is on view at Cradle of Aviation Museum© Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

7. Mission to Moon Exhibit includes an item from each mission that has been to the moon and back.

6. Tom Stafford’s Spacesuit as worn by Stafford while training for the Apollo 10 mission in 1968/69.

Tom Stafford’s spacesuit on view at Cradle of Aviation Museum© Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

5. Neil Armstrong’s Bioharness from Apollo 11

4. Rockwell Command Module w/ Parachute which was the control center for the Apollo spacecraft and provided the living and working quarters for astronauts. 

LEM simulator. Cradle of Aviation Museum, Long Island, celebrates 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 moon landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

3. Grumman Lunar Module Simulator that all Apollo Astronauts trained on, originally at Kennedy Space Center. 

2. Grumman Lunar Module Clean Room Display  featuring the LTA-1, the first fully functional LM, as it appeared while under construction at Grumman.

Go inside a Grumman clean-room where a lunar module is being assembled © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

1. Grumman Lunar Module LM-13 – the crowned jewel of the museum. The LM-13 was intended for the Apollo 19 mission to Copernicus Crater in 1973, which was ultimately cancelled. It is one of three Lunar Modules left on earth. The other two are at Kennedy Space Center and Smithsonian’s Air & Space. It is presented in a re-created lunar surface scene with a mannequin wearing an actual Apollo spacesuit. 

The real thing: the actual lunar module built by Grumman, Bethpage, for Apollo 19, a moon mission which was scrapped, at the Cradle of Aviation Museum, Long Island. It is one of only three LEMs on earth (three are still on the moon; the other two are at the National Air & Space Museum in DC and at Kennedy Space Center in Florida), but the only one on earth intended to go to the moon. © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The Cradle of Aviation Museum and Education Center is home to over 75 planes and spacecraft representing over 100 years of aviation history and Long Island’s only Giant Screen Dome Theater.  Currently, the museum is celebrating  “Countdown to Apollo at 50” sponsored by the Robert D.L. Gardiner Foundation, showcasing Long Island and Grumman’s significant role in the Apollo program. The Museum was recently recognized and listed on New York State’s National Register of Historic Places as a significant part of American history. The museum is located on Museum Row, Charles Lindbergh Blvd., in East Garden City. For more information call (516) 572-4111 or visit www.cradleofaviation.org.  

See also:

Long Island’s World-Class Cradle of Aviation Museum Hosts Special Events for 50th Anniversary of Moon Landing

Apollo Astronauts Look Back During Gala at Long Island’s Cradle of Aviation Museum Marking 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing

Long Island’s Cradle of Aviation Museum Counting Down to Apollo at 50 Moon Fest

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© 2019 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit goingplacesfarandnear.com, www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-rubin, and travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate/. Blogging at goingplacesnearandfar.wordpress.com and moralcompasstravel.info. Send comments or questions to FamTravLtr@aol.com. Tweet @TravelFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures

Attractions, Festivals and Events, Historic Places, Long Island travel, Museums and Exhibits

Long Island’s Cradle of Aviation Museum Counting Down to Apollo at 50 Moon Fest

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By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, who donned a replica space suit, and NASA astronaut Babylon resident Bill Shepherd were on hand at the Cradle of Aviation Museum to officially begin the countdown to the 50th Anniversary celebration of the first lunar landing, on July 20, at the Cradle of Aviation Museum, Long Island. © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, who donned a replica space suit, and NASA astronaut Babylon resident Bill Shepherd were on hand at the Cradle of Aviation Museum to officially begin the countdown to the 50th Anniversary celebration of the first lunar landing, July 20, 1969. They were joined by Grumman Engineer Ross Brocco, Museum President Andy Parton and Museum Curator Josh Stoff.

“We will shine a light on one of the greatest human and technological achievements in history,” Parton said.

The events that start at 9:30 am reach a climax with a Community Countdown at 4:17 pm to collectively watch, re-experience, and honor as a community, the historic “The Eagle has Landed” Lunar Module landing on the moon. A model of the Lunar Module will descend from the ceiling, precisely on time.

Astronaut Shepherd, who was in the first crew on the International Space Station (“We turned on the lights”) and lived in space for 140 days, sees the importance of Cradle of Aviation Museum, with its active STEM education programs and the ability for people, young and old, to interact with exhibits – like climb into a Gemini capsule, land a Space Shuttle, and in the current exhibit, enter a space habitation on Mars, and the largest collection of Apollo artifacts in the world, including an actual lunar module which was built by Grumman in Bethpage for Apollo 19, a moon mission that was scrubbed.

Astronaut Shepherd, who was in the first crew on the International Space Station (“We turned on the lights”) and lived in space for 140 days, sees the importance of Cradle of Aviation Museum, with its active STEM education programs and the ability for people, young and old, to interact with exhibits. © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

“The lunar landing was one of humankind’s epic achievements,” said Shepherd, who will be on hand during the day to interact with museum goers. “Beyond Apollo, it ignited a process that is still going on. NASA is on course to go back to the moon, a steppingstone to planetary expedition to Mars. Children today may take part.”

It’s critically vital, he said, for children to have the opportunity to be exposed to “first-hand” science, as opposed to watching documentaries on television. “Education is turning to project-based and experiential learning, versus textbooks. Here, kids get to see for themselves. The tangible makes learning enjoyable.”

Curran pointed to the Cradle of Aviation as one of the best museums – even attractions – on Long Island. “It is such an asset in the heart of our county..

On July 20, in addition to the Apollo events, there will be former Grumman engineers and employees who helped build the lunar module and the equipment that made the space program possible, among them Ross Bracco, a structural engineer at Grumman who is now a volunteer at Cradle of Aviation Museum. Shepherd will lead two “episodes” allowing kids to design their own lunar lander.

Ross Bracco, a structural engineer at Grumman during the Apollo program, is now a volunteer at Cradle of Aviation Museum © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Shepherd noted that the moon, itself, remains a mystery – how it was created more than 4 billion years ago – was it knocked off from earth or form separately? “We don’t know but maybe some kids here will research.” He said the moon has been static for 4 billion years, unlike the earth which is “dynamic” and changing, so is a time piece that can shed light on what the solar system was like 4 billion years ago. “We are learning about the moon’s relationship to the earth.”

And you can even get a whiff of what the moon smells like in one of the exhibit.

Cradle of Aviation Museum, Long Island, celebrates 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 moon landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

On Saturday, July 20, 2019, thousands of people will be joining together at the Cradle of Aviation Museum to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 mission. The Cradle of Aviation, home of the Lunar Module, is celebrating all day and night with two festive events to give the community an opportunity to learn, reflect, remember, & jointly celebrate, all the wonder, achievement, and pride that is Apollo.

There will be events throughout the day:

  • COMMUNITY COUNTDOWN TO LUNAR LANDING –  Join in a Community Countdown at 4:17 pm to collectively watch, re-experience, and honor as a community, the historic “The Eagle has Landed” Lunar Module landing on the moon.
  • ASTRONAUT ENCOUNTERS with Space Shuttle Astronauts Bill Shepherd (Babylon) & Charlie Camarda (Ozone Park), both from Long Island, and Bob Cenker.
  • MOON BUGGY RACES – Traverse a lunar obstacle course driving an electric lunar rover. (kids)
  • VIRTUAL REALITY – Explore the inside and outside of the Apollo 11 up close and personal with Microsoft’s Mixed Reality and the Microsoft HoloLens technology.
  • APOLLO 11 FIRST STEPS in IMAX – Experience  a free showing of the new highly-acclaimed documentary, Apollo 11 First Steps Edition in our immersive Dome Theater.  Playing hourly.
  • SOLAR TELESCOPES- Explore the sun with a special purpose solar telescope.
  • LAUNCH ROCKETS – Build, decorate, then launch a water bottle rocket.
  • ROBOTICS DEMONSTRATIONS – View and interact with student-built robotics from  the First Lego League.  
  • VISITS FROM THE UNIVERSE – The not-for profit, NY Avengers Cosplayers are assembling at the Cradle to celebrate the American heroes who contributed to the successful lunar landing.  

Museum opens at 9:30am. Family activities are 12:00 – 4:00pm. Countdown begins at 4:00pm. 

Then, from 7-11 pm, is the Apollo at Countdown Celebration, a lively dinner and champagne toast with music and dancing, as the community comes together to watch and re-experience the unforgettable first steps on the moon at 10:56 pm with a special moon landing viewing and countdown. 

Space Shuttle Astronauts Bill Shepherd (Babylon) & Charlie Camarda (Ozone Park), both from Long Island, and Bob Cenker, will be in attendance. 

Tickets to either event can be purchased at www.cradleofaviation.org/apollo or by calling Reservations 516-572-4066 (M-F) 10:00am-4:00pm) Grumman Retirees and Museum Members, may call Reservations for discounted tickets. Proceeds to Benefit Museum Education and Preservation Programs.

Cradle of Aviation

But the reason there is such a world-class space and aviation museum here on Charles Lindbergh Avenue, named for the famous aviator, is that this is indeed the cradle of aviation – it is located on what was Mitchel Air Force Base Field, which, together with nearby Roosevelt Field and other airfields on the Hempstead Plains, was the site of many historic flights , most significantly, where Lindbergh set off for his historic transatlantic solo flight to Paris and it was on Long Island that so much of the aviation industry and innovations happened. In fact, so many seminal flights occurred in the area, that by the mid-1920s the cluster of airfields was already dubbed the “Cradle of Aviation”, the origin of the museum’s name.

Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, Long Island, has one of only three actual lunar modules on display. Built by Grumman, in Bethpage, Long Island, the other three were left on the moon ©Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The events and exhibits also pay homage to Grumman engineers who designed and built the lunar exploration module (LEM), and there is an actual LEM on exhibit – the only actual LEM of the three modules on exhibit (the three that went to the moon remained there). This one was built by Grumman for Apollo 19 but that mission was scrubbed.

You can also see mock-ups of Grumman engineers in a “clean room” building a LEM.

Cradle of Aviation museum has the largest collection of Apollo artifacts anywhere – the space exhibits are phenomenal and include simulators and a real moon rock.

See inside a real Lunar Module simulator at Cradle of Aviation Museum © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

And so it was fitting at one of the Apollo 50th events held in recent weeks, the Gold Coast International Film Festival screening of “First Man,” as part of its Science on Screen series, three former Grumman engineers who worked on Apollo project related their experience.

Three former Grumman employees – Howard Frauenberger, Richard Dunne, Mike Lisa – reflect on their work on the space program at a Gold Coast International Film Festival screening of “First Man” about Neil Armstrong. Richard Dunne had met Armstrong. © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Howard Frauenberger, who was a co-op engineering intern running technical tests on the Lunar Excursion Module landing gear and in the Cold Flow area for final ascent & descent stage system tests before delivery to NASA, reflected,  “Had we never had the Apollo1 tragedy, where three astronauts were lost, the likelihood of doing a successful lunar landing was low…The  post-fire evaluation of the design of command module found so many things inadequately or improperly or stupidly designed- not the least was the hatch which opened in instead of out so that in a pressurized environment, it couldn’t open. NASA’s oversight over all the contractors doubled or tripled. So the prevailing theory is that if that fire hadn’t happened, design defects could have caused a situation where Apollo 11 couldn’t land.”

Richard Dunne, who was the chief spokesman for the Grumman Corporation, which  designed  and  built the Apollo  Lunar Module: “The fire forced a redesign of everything in the command module and lunar module.” He also reflected on how close it was that the United States might not have won the space race at all “Two weeks before Apollo 11 launched, the Russians attempted moon shot, but it exploded. The way the United States knew about it was because our spy satellites detected it.”

Mike Lisa, who worked as an engineer on the Lunar Excursion Module in 1963 until the program ended and spent 36 years at Northrop Grumman, said, “The most important thing was to bring the astronauts back healthy. A device called a tumbler would grab the LEM on both sides and flip it around – tumble and turn – to shake anything that might have been loose inside. On this particular day, I was working in a semi-clean room – we wore white jackets and different hats to show what we working on – and tumbling, there was a clink and a nut fell on the floor. The NASA inspector was there and shut the room down for a whole week, but we all had to be on station, 24/7, waiting for permission to reopen.”

Go inside a Grumman clean-room where a lunar module is being assembled © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Inspiring Future Generations Through Learning

Cradle of Aviation Museum originally opened with just a handful of aircraft in the un-restored hangars in 1980. A major renovation and expansion program in the late 1990s allowed the museum to re-open in a state-of-the-art facility in 2002. Additional expansion plans are currently under development. The museum is an educational center preserving Long Island’s contribution to aerospace, science and technology by inspiring future generations through learning.

Feel what it is like to sit inside a Gemini capsule, at Cradle of Aviation Museum© Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The Cradle of Aviation Museum and Education Center today is home to over 75 planes and spacecraft representing over 100 years of aviation history and Long Island’s only Giant Screen Dome Theater.  The museum has been celebrating  “Countdown to Apollo at 50” sponsored by the Robert D.L. Gardiner Foundation, through much of the year, showcasing Long Island and Grumman’s significant role in the Apollo program. The Museum was recently recognized and listed on New York State’s National Register of Historic Places as a significant part of American history. The museum is located on Museum Row, Charles Lindbergh Blvd., in East Garden City.  For more information call (516) 572-4111 or visit www.cradleofaviation.org.  

See also:

Long Island’s World-Class Cradle of Aviation Museum Hosts Special Events for 50th Anniversary of Moon Landing

Apollo Astronauts Look Back During Gala at Long Island’s Cradle of Aviation Museum Marking 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing

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© 2019 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit goingplacesfarandnear.com, www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-rubin, and travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate/. Blogging at goingplacesnearandfar.wordpress.com and moralcompasstravel.info. Send comments or questions to FamTravLtr@aol.com. Tweet @TravelFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures

Attractions, Long Island travel, Museums and Exhibits

Apollo Astronauts Look Back During Gala at Long Island’s Cradle of Aviation Museum Marking 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing

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Apollo astronauts and flight directors reflect on their experiences at a Gala at the Cradle of Aviation Museum, June 6: Charlie Duke (Apollo 16), Gerry Griffin, Milt Windler, Jack Schmitt (Apollo 17), Walt Cunningham (Apollo 7), Rusty Schweickart (Apollo 9), Fred Haise (Apollo 13) © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

On a grand night at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Uniondale, Long Island, five of the Apollo astronauts, including three of only 12 men who have ever walked on the moon, and two flight directors who controlled the Apollo missions, reflected on their experiences. It was an epic event in a year of events at the museum marking the 50th Anniversary of the first man to walk on the moon, inspiring interest in space science, which will climax on July 20 at the exact moment when Neil Armstrong made his “giant leap for mankind.”

The Cradle of Aviation Museum has special meaning to the astronauts, many of whom have come to the museum over the years to give talks and participate in events. Not only is it home to one of the world’s most extensive collections of Lunar Modules,(LM-13, LTA-1),  Lunar Module parts and Lunar Module photos and documentation, but it also is home to the engineers of Grumman Aerospace Corporation that designed, built and tested the Lunar Modules between 1961-1972 which successfully landed 12 men on the moon between 1969-1972.

“I helped build that:” Richard A. Hoffman, in front of the Cradle of Aviation’s actual lunar module, was a metallurgical engineer at Grumman who helped design the lunar module. © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Here are highlights from the discussion of Walt Cunningham (Lunar Module Pilot, Apollo 7), Rusty Schweickart (Lunar Module Pilot, Apollo 9), Fred Haise (Lunar Module Pilot, Apollo 13). Charlie Duke (Lunar Module Pilot, Apollo 16), Harrison Schmitt (Lunar Module Pilot, Apollo 17) and Apollo Flight Directors, Gerry Griffin and Milt Windler.

Apollo 9 astronauts were in space March 3-13, 1969. Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, LI, celebrates 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Rusty Schweickart was the first to pilot the Lunar Module, testing the craft on the Apollo 9 mission in 1969 before it was used on the moon in Apollo 11. He was one of the first astronauts to space-walk without a tether, and one of the first to transmit live TV pictures from space. He is also credited with development of the hardware and procedures which prolonged the life of the Skylab space station.

Apollo 9 Lunar Module pilot Rusty Schweickart at Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, LI, celebrates 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Schweickart reflected on a moment when he was essentially stranded in space. “I turned around and looked at earth, brilliant blue horizon. There was no sound – I was floating inside my suit which was floating. Just hanging out looking at earth, completely silent. My responsibility at that moment was to absorb: I’m a human being. Questions floated in: how did I get here, why was I here. I realized the answer was not simple. What does ‘I’ mean?  ‘Me’ or ‘us’.  Humanity – our partnership with machines allowed humankind to move out to this environment. 10,000 years from now, it will still be the moment when humanity stepped out to space. While we celebrate something we were part of, it’s one of the events in human history, , that if we don’t wipe ourselves out, we will still have this unique moment in time when life moved out to outer space.”

Apollo 13 astronauts held the world’s collective breath during their dramatic time in space, April 11-17, 1970, a mission considered a “successful failure.” Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, LI, celebrates 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Fred Haise, the Lunar Module Pilot on the Apollo 13 mission, would have been the 6th man to walk on the moon. After the Apollo program ended in 1977, he worked on the Shuttle program, and after retiring from NASA, worked for 16 years as an executive for Northrop Grumman Corporation.

Haise reflected that when JFK made his challenge to go to the moon before the end of the decade, he thought this was mission impossible based on where the technology was. “I saw nothing at hand that would have accomplished that. By then, there was just Alan Shepherd who went up and down, the rockets were invented by Germans in World War II.”

“We weren’t afraid,” said Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise. Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, LI, celebrates 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

When the disaster struck the Apollo 13 – an oxygen tank exploded, crippling the Service Module which supplied power and life support to the Command Module, he reflected, “We weren’t afraid. All of us in the program did the best we could. We were aware of the problems. Everyone was willing to pay the price to make the mission successful.”

The situation was not immediately life-threatening .  ”Clearly we had lost one tank. I was sick to my stomach with disappointment that we had lost the moon. It took us almost an hour to stop the leak in the second tank. “

The Lunar Module was pressed into service as a literally lifeboat and tugboat – a role never anticipated for it.

Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise. Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, LI, celebrates 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

“The LM bought time. I was never worried. Not sure how it would operate past the two days. Nothing had been damaged in the LM, so I knew we had a homestead we could operate from, and people on the ground were losing a lot of sleep working through the challenges. We never really got to the cliff we were about the fall off.”

Despite great hardship caused by limited power, loss of cabin heat, shortage of cooling water and the critical need to make repairs to the carbon dioxide removal system, the crew returned safely to Earth. It was hailed as the most successful failure.

Apollo 16, April 16-27, 1972, was the fifth mission to land on the Moon. Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, LI, celebrates 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Charlie Duke (Lunar Module Pilot, Apollo 16, the 10th person to walk on the moon and the youngest, at 36 years old), reflected “Driving over the surface of the moon, we didn’t have TV. I was the travel guide for mission control, 250,000 miles away. So I narrated, ‘Now we’re passing on the right…’ – giving a travelogue – as we drove from point A to point B, and I was taking pictures. My job was to get us A to B and describe for mission control what seeing while John was driving…

Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke. Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, LI, celebrates 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

“The rover did tremendously well, it revolutionized lunar exploration. Prior, we had to walk everywhere, not the easiest thing.  Thankfully the rover was a revolution to see so much. Say to all the Grumman folks here who worked on that, you guys built a great machine. We shared the moon speed record because the odometer only went to 17 mph. Three rovers are up there – if you want an $8 million car with a dead battery.”

Apollo 17, Dec. 7-19, 1972, was the last mission in which humans traveled to and walked on the moon. Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, LI, celebrates 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Harrison Schmitt (Lunar Module Pilot, Apollo 17) was also a former geologist, professor, US Senator from New Mexico. He was the lunar module pilot on Apollo 17, the final manned lunar landing mission. He was the first scientist and one of the last astronauts to walk on the moon – the 12th man and second youngest person to set foot on the moon.

Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, Apollo 17’s Lunar Module pilot, became a US Senator from New Mexico. Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, LI, celebrates 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

“The thing about our valley [where the mission explored], Apollo worked in a brilliant sun, as brilliant as any New Mexico sun, but the sky was absolute black. That was hard to get used to. We grow up with blue skies. I never felt comfortable with black sky. But in that black sky was of course that seemingly small planet Earth, always hanging over the same part of the valley. Whenever I was homesick, I would just look up – home was only 250,000 miles away.”

Milt Windler was one of the four flight directors of Apollo 13 Mission Operations Team, all of whom were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard M. Nixon for their work in guiding the crippled spacecraft safely back to Earth. Formerly a jet fight pilot, he joined NASA in 1959 during Project Mercury. Windler also served as a flight director for Apollo 8, 10, 11, 14, 15 and all three Skylab missions. After Apollo, he worked in the Space shuttle project office on Remote Manipulator Systems Operations until 1978. He is the recipient of the NASA Exceptional Service Medal.

Milton “Milt” Windler is best known for his work helping bring back Apollo 13. He also served as flight director for Apollo 8, 10, 14, 15 and all three Skylab missions. Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, LI, celebrates 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Reflecting on the Apollo 13 mission, he said, “It is a common misconception that flight control was one person all 15 days of a mission. But missions were divided into distinct phases – launch, lunar descent, EVA, rendezvous – and there were teams for each. Each team simulated, practiced problems. One of the things that worked well on Apollo was anticipating what would happen. After a flight, we would discuss lessons learned, to come up with improvements. By the time of Apollo 13 developed a real serious problem, we were a finely honed machine.”

Gerald D. “Gerry” Griffin was flight director during Apollo program and director of Johnson Space Center. His team played key role in safe return of Apollo 13 astronauts. Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, LI, celebrates 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Gerry Griffin joined NASA in 1964 as flight controller in Mission Control during Project Gemini. In 1968, he was named a Mission Control flight director, for all the Apollo manned mission. Gerry’s “Gold” team conducted half of the lunar landings made during Apollo 14, 16, and 17, and would have conducted the landing of Apollo 13 but played a key role in the safe return of the astronauts. Later Griffin played several Hollywood roles in movies including “Apollo 13, “ “Contact”, Deep Space” and “From the Earth to the Moon,”, as a consultant and even an actor.

The astronauts reflected on the “perfect storm” of forces and factors that resulted in the incomparable space program that put a man on the moon within a decade – Griffin, quoting Neil Armstrong, said you needed four things: threat, bold leadership, public support and resources. “He said that most of the time, those are out of sequence with each other – you may have the threat but not the resources. It was a perfect storm when Apollo happened”: the threat from the Soviet Union taking mastery of space frontier; a balanced budget not yet weighted down by national debt; bold political leadership and public support. “You had the resources and human resources, primarily from World War II from the aviation industry, with Grumman part of that. 

Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin plant the American flag on the moon, the first humans to land on the lunar surface. Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, LI, celebrates 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

“If it hadn’t been Apollo, it would have been something else. When the Soviets launched Sputnik and then Gagarin [became the first man in space], the threat was clear, and everything else fell into line. I think he’s right. Nowadays, we have a threat now – China – those guys are good. There is a technological threat now, and could be more later. Leadership? Draw your own conclusion. Resources? We haven’t had them. Public support? … But I’m an optimistic. If we are going to make 2024 – that’s awful tight, but I was like Fred, I didn’t think we could land on moon in the 1960s, but we did. Maybe if things line up better, we could do it by 2024, if not 2028.”

Asked why we haven’t been back to the moon, Schweickart said, “You need to be young, innovative, not an aging bureaucracy….

“You need technological, political courage. The moon was in exactly the right place. The next steps are not quite that easy . There is a debate between going back to the moon or on to Mars that has raged for years and still does. There’s not the same opportunity that we had at that time. In many ways, the most important thing in terms of a sense of challenge, moving out, moving forward is one of age. Bureaucracy – corporation or government – where the average age increases every year, you’re cooked.”

Charlie Duke, Apollo 16 Lunar Module Pilot, recalls his Rover ride on the moon. “The rover revolutionized lunar exploration.” © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com.

They are much more encouraged by private enterprise taking over space exploration. “You don’t see much about Blue Origin and Jeff Bezos, but we will. When you see [Elon Musks’s] SpaceX launch Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and bring back two stages that land in formation, and the cameras show all these kids, 20 years old, hooping and hollering, they did it! That’s what it takes. NASA used to be that way. Part of the real juice in space exploration is encouraging private activities in space. That today is where most of the juice is, getting young people involved is the key, giving them the opportunity. Jeff Bezos says it well. His fundamental motivating, commitment to space is to reduce the cost so more and more can take part and therefore dramatically increase the quality and opportunity for innovation. As the cost of getting to space drops, the creativity will dramatically increase. That’s where it’s at in the future.”

Apollo 7, Oct. 11-22, 1968, was the first mission in the Apollo Program to carry a crew into space. Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, LI, celebrates 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Walt Cunningham a fighter pilot before he became an astronaut, in 1968, he was a Lunar Module Pilot on the Apollo 7 mission. He’s also been a physicist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist and author of “The All American Boys.”

“Our society is changing,” he reflected the next evening when he gave a lecture at the museum. “Back when Apollo was a story of exploration and adventure – my generation – we had te opportunity and courage to reach around the moon and to the stars. We were willing to take risks, didn’t shy from unknown. In those days, it seemed normal to do what we were doing – exploring the next frontier. Today, the entire world takes pride in this greatest adventure.”

Apollo 7 astronaut Walt Cunningham at Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, LI © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Sixty years ago, “the main drive was beating Russians to the moon. They beat us around earth. When that started a technological fight to finish, not a single American had been in orbit, but Kennedy was willing to take the risk – not just technological, but human, economic, political. He took the initiative, the leadership. Today, that goal is history. Fifty years ago, we never thought of failing –we had fighter pilot attitude – common dream to test limits of imagination, daring.

“That attitude enabled us to overcome obstacles. Any project as complex as Apollo required resources, technology, but most importantly, the will. Driven by the Cold War, all three came together in the 1960s and we went to moon. Think of it: only three generations separated man’s first flight off the earth and man’s first orbit around the earth. Only three generations.”

Littlest Astronaut meets Astronaut Walt Cunningham: Mission of Cradle of Aviation Museum inspire a new generation of space scientists and astronauts © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Somewhat ironically, on the same day as the astronauts were assembled at Cradle of Aviation, President Donald Trump was contradicting Vice President Mike Pence and his own policy, which said that the US would be back on the moon by 2024. Trump called another moon mission  a waste of money which should be spent, instead to go to Mars.

Trump also has called for the creation of a Space Force, a new branch of the armed forces, effectively undoing the spirit of international cooperation in space exploration to advance human knowledge, with a shift toward militarizing space.

Cradle of Aviation Museum, Charles Lindbergh Blvd, Garden City, NY 11530, General (516) 572-4111, Reservations (516) 572-4066, http://cradleofaviation.org.

Earth as a blue marble in this famous image taken from space. Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, LI, celebrates 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

See also:

Long Island’s World-Class Cradle of Aviation Museum Hosts Special Events for 50th Anniversary of Moon Landing

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© 2019 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit goingplacesfarandnear.com, www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-rubin, and travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate/. Blogging at goingplacesnearandfar.wordpress.com and moralcompasstravel.info. Send comments or questions to FamTravLtr@aol.com. Tweet @TravelFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures

Attractions, Family Travel, Historic Places, Long Island travel, Museums and Exhibits

Long Island’s World-Class Cradle of Aviation Museum Hosts Special Events for 50th Anniversary of Moon Landing

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Littlest Astronaut meets Apollo 7 Astronaut Walt Cunningham at one of the 50th Anniversary of the Lunar Landing events being held at Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, Long Island this year. A central mission of Cradle of Aviation Museum is to inspire a new generation of space scientists and astronauts © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

The countdown clock in the lobby of the Cradle of Aviation Museum showed 43 days to July 20, the 50th anniversary of the first man to walk on the moon, on the night of the museum’s grand gala at which seven former astronauts and flight directors were feted – Walt Cunningham (Lunar Module Pilot, Apollo 7), Rusty Schweickart (Lunar Module Pilot, Apollo 9), Fred Haise (Lunar Module Pilot, Apollo 13). Charlie Duke (Lunar Module Pilot, Apollo 16), Harrison Schmitt (Lunar Module Pilot, Apollo 17) and Apollo Flight Directors, Gerry Griffin and Milt Windler –  along with Grumman employees who built the lunar module and the equipment which put them there.

Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, LI, celebrates 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Throughout this year, the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Uniondale, Long Island, not far from where the lunar module was designed and built by Grumman engineers in Bethpage and a stone’s throw from Roosevelt Field where Charles Lindbergh took off for his historic transatlantic flight to Paris, has been hosting special events to mark the anniversary, use it for STEM education and inspire a new generation eager to reach for the stars.

Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, LI, celebrates 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The events climax on July 20, when at the exact same moment as Neil Armstrong made his “giant leap for mankind”, a replica lunar module will descend from the ceiling. Museum goers also can see an actual lunar module, one of the six that Grumman built (three are still on the moon, and the other three are in the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum in Washington DC, the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and here at the Cradle of Aviation Museum).

One of the extraordinary exhibits on view at the museum now is “Space: A Journey to Our Future,” which is on view through August 18, 2019, an absolutely thrilling, immersive exhibit which takes you from the dawn of man’s earliest visions of space exploration to the heroic achievements of the past, the unfolding discoveries of today, and the frontiers of the universe that lie ahead. You get to touch actual rocks from the lunar surface and the red planet, explore a futuristic Lunar Base Camp while walking through a full-size space habitat and work pod, get an up-close look at a wide range of artifacts from the space program and experience the past, present and future of space through these and dozens of other displays, interactive (try your hand at landing the space shuttle!) and experiences.

Find yourself in a lunar station in Cradle of Aviation’s “Space: A Journey to Our Future” exhibit © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Also, as part of this special celebration, the museum is showing Todd Douglas Miller’s new documentary film, “Apollo 11: First Steps Edition,” a special giant-screen edition created exclusively for science centers and museum theaters, like Cradle’s Dome Theater. With a newly-discovered trove of never-before-seen 70mm footage and audio recordings, APOLLO 11: First Steps Edition joins Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, the Mission Control team and millions of spectators around the world, during those momentous days and hours in 1969 when humankind took a giant leap into the future.  

The “Apollo at 50: Moon Fest,” on July 20 will be a family festival (9:30-5 pm, with activities 12-4pm) with visits from Long Island Space Shuttle Astronauts including Bill Shepherd (Babylon) and Charlie Carmada (Ozone Park). All day activities include virtual reality experiences, model rocket launches, and a countdown at 4:18 pm to collectively watch, re-experience, and honor as a community, the historic “The Eagle has Landed” Lunar Module landing on the moon. As a special bonus, all museum attendees will get a free showing of the new highly-acclaimed documentary, Apollo 11 First Steps Edition in the immersive Dome Theater. (Tickets: $20)

Then, in the evening, there will be a Countdown Celebration, a lively dinner and champagne toast with 1960s music and dancing, as the community watches and re-experiences the unforgettable first steps on the moon at 10:56 pm with a special moon landing viewing and countdown. There will also be photo opportunities in a re-created 1969 living room.  (The dinner event ticket includes admission to Apollo Moon Fest events during the day; tickets: $125).

Long Island: The Nation’s Cradle of Aviation

The Cradle of Aviation Museum and Education Center is home to over 75 planes and spacecraft  representing over 100 years of aviation history, from hot air balloons to the lunar module, in eight galleries, a planetarium and Long Island’s only Giant Screen Dome Theater.

Cradle of Aviation Museum displays its collections in the original hangars of historic Mitchel Field © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The Cradle of Aviation Museum commemorates and celebrates Long Island’s part in the history of aviation and space exploration. It is set on land once part of Mitchel Air Force Base which, together with nearby Roosevelt Field and other airfields on the Hempstead Plains, was the site of many historic flights. In fact, so many seminal flights occurred in the area, that by the mid-1920s the cluster of airfields was already dubbed the “Cradle of Aviation”, the origin of the museum’s name. The Museum was recently recognized and listed on New York State’s National Register of Historic Places as a significant part of American history.

The museum originally opened with just a handful of aircraft in the un-restored hangars in 1980. A major renovation and expansion program in the late 1990s allowed the museum to re-open in a state-of-the-art facility in 2002. The museum is undergoing a major fund-raising campaign for a future expansion.

Historic aircraft hang from the ceiling at Cradle of Aviation Museum © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

It is remarkable to contemplate that within a century, aviation went from the Wright Brothers to the moon, from a dangerous sport to mass transportation and commercial enterprise, and Long Island played a significant part.

It starts with Long Island’s geography: a natural airfield, on the eastern edge of the United States, the western edge of the Atlantic Ocean, adjacent to a major population center, and Hempstead Plains, the only natural prairie east of the Allegheny Mountains, writes Joshua Stoff, Curator, Cradle of Aviation Museum.

We trace flying back to the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, NC in 1903, lasting 59 seconds over a distance of 852 feet but Stoff notes that the first recorded aircraft flight took place on Long Island, in 1896 when a Lilienthal-type glider was flown from the bluffs along Nassau County’s north shore. By 1902 gasoline-powered airships were flown over Brooklyn (why doesn’t Long Island get more credit?). By 1910, there were three airfields operating on the Hempstead Plains, Long Islanders were building their own planes, and there were several flying schools and aircraft factories that made Long Island “the center of the aviation world.” Exhibits show artifacts of these early pursuits.

Belmont Park hosted the 1910 International Aviation Meet of the greatest aviators from America and Europe.

Long Island’s vital role in aviation history is told at Cradle of Aviation Museum © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

“The period between 1918 and 1939 is considered the ‘Golden Age of Aviation’ when flying went from being a dangerous sport to a major commercial industry,” Stoff writes. Most famous of all was Charles Lindbergh’s historic solo transatlantic flight, from Roosevelt Field to Paris, in 1927. “This single event revolutionized aviation as nothing else before or since…

“By the early 1930s Roosevelt Field was the largest and busiest civilian airfield in America with over 150 aviation businesses and 450 planes based there. In 1937 the first regular commercial transatlantic airline service in America was begun at Port Washington as huge Pan American Martin and Boeing flying boats departed and arrived regularly at Manhasset Bay.”

Long Island’s aviation history is told in eight galleries at Cradle of Aviation Museum © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

World War II sparked aviation and demand for aircraft. The two biggest aircraft companies, Grumman, was founded in Long island in 1930; Republic in 1931. They produced most of the military aircraft; other companies, Sperry, Brewster, Ranger, and Columbia, also contributed to the war effort. By 1945, 100,000 Long Islanders were employed in the aircraft industry.

Though aircraft are no longer manufactured on Long Island (the Grumman plant in Bethpage is now a movie and television studio), it is surprising to realize that there are still 240 Long Island producing parts for virtually every American aircraft that flies. 

Long Island’s important contribution to aviation is brilliant displayed in exhibits throughout the halls.

Long Island in Space

Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, Long Island, has one of only three actual lunar modules on display. Built by Grumman, in Bethpage, Long Island, the other three were left on the moon © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Thomas J. Kelly, of Cutchogue, retired president of the Grumman Space Station Integration Division and formerly lunar module engineering director, writes that there is still some Long Island left on the moon – six spacecraft built on Long Island remain on the moon,

Lunar rock on view at Cradle of Aviation Museum © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Designing and building those craft, as part of the greater challenge of beating the Russians to the moon by 1969, was a monumental endeavor. Writing on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the moon landing, Kelly reflected, “For some 7,000 Grumman employees, however, it was far more intimate than an issue of national prestige. We felt personally empowered to put Americans at the edge of a frontier that even today seems incomprehensible. Yet not only did we succeed in meeting the mission; the efforts of our nation’s commitment to lunar exploration also inspired people around the world and showed the finest possibilities of human achievement and of creating technology that now helps to power our society…

“Nobody at Grumman who worked on the LM will ever forget it. Even the 12-and 14-hour weekdays, the frustrating paperwork and the sheer complexity of designing, building and testing the module could not dim our dedication. From the sweeper to the chief engineer, we all knew that we were part of a majestic endeavor, that we were making history happen.”

“I helped build that:” Richard A. Hoffman, in front of the Cradle of Aviation’s actual lunar module, was a metallurgical engineer at Grumman who helped design the lunar module. © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

At the gala, I meet Richard A. Hoffman sitting in front of the museum’s own actual lunar module, built by Grumman in Bethpage. He was a metallurgist who determined what the different parts should be made of aluminum for the struts, titanium for the propellant tanks, stainless steel propellant lines, high output silver and silver oxide batteries. He had to figure the pyrotechnics that would cause the four bolts that secured the module on the descent, to burst at just the right time with guillotine cutters for lift off from the moon. Hoffman told me he came to Grumman in the summer of 1963, and got a job there right after graduating Brooklyn Polytech in 1964. He was in just the right place at the right time, when Grumman started working on the Apollo program and he was transferred to engineering.

Next: Apollo Astronauts Look Back During Gala at Long Island’s Cradle of Aviation Museum Marking 50th Anniversary of Lunar Landing

Cradle of Aviation Museum, Charles Lindbergh Blvd, Garden City, NY 11530, General (516) 572-4111, Reservations (516) 572-4066, http://cradleofaviation.org.

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© 2019 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit goingplacesfarandnear.com, www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-rubin, and travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate/. Blogging at goingplacesnearandfar.wordpress.com and moralcompasstravel.info. Send comments or questions to FamTravLtr@aol.com. Tweet @TravelFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures

Festivals and Events, Long Island travel

16th Annual Bethpage Air Show at Jones Beach, Long Island, Honors Spirit of Memorial Day

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US Air Force Thunderbirds display their precision flying at Bethpage Air Show, Jones Beach, Long Island, for Memorial Day weekend © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

The US Air Force Thunderbirds headlined the 16th Annual Bethpage Air Show at Jones Beach State Park, Long Island, flying the thrilling red, white and blue F-16s. The event over Memorial Day Weekend draws almost 400,000 in the course of three days.

Most thrilling at this year’s Memorial Day weekend Bethpage Air Show at Jones Beach, Long Island, were the number of women doing the most daring feats: US Air Force Thunderbirds pilot Michelle Curran, commanding the “Opposing Solo”; Jessy Panzer, the only civilian woman aerobatic pilot in the country, mimicking the astonishing stunts of Sean D. Tucker, a “living legend” of aerobatics; Golden Knights parachutist Maj. Marissa Chierichella and the Red Bull Air Force sky diving team had Amy Chmelecki.

Michelle Curran, flying the #6 Opposing Solo for the US Air Force Thunderbirds, has some of the most thrilling moments in the Bethpage Air Show, where the two F-16s come at each other at a combined speed of 1000 mph © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

This was the 16th annual Jones Beach air show – I’ve seen almost all of them – and though many of the performances repeat year after year, or follow a two-year cycle, this show was particularly exciting with the infusion of new energy.

The headliners, the US Air Force Thunderbirds, are a team of six F-16 Fighting Falcons that roar through the skies, to demonstrate the power and dexterity of these fighting crafts. Most thrilling is when the two opposing solos race at each other at combined speed of 1000 mph.

US Air Force Thunderbirds display their precision flying at Bethpage Air Show, Jones Beach, Long Island, for Memorial Day weekend © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
US Air Force Thunderbirds (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

We were treated to the final appearance of Sean D. Tucker’s specially-engineered plane that enables him to do feats never before imagined, the Oracle Challenger 3, will be donated to the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum in Washington, where it will be part of a new Thomas W. Haas We All Fly gallery, opening in 2021.

Sean D. Tucker flying his Oracle Challenger 3 at the Bethpage Air Show, Jones Beach © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

This year, for the first time, Tucker flew in tandem with Jessy Panzer, the only female civilian air show pilot in the USA. Together, Team Oracle performed the most exquisite, thrilling pas de deux in flight, with incredible precision at 200 miles mph, at bone-crushing G-forces, with Panzer magnificently following the smoke trails of Tucker. Her skill is all the more apparent since she is flying a different plane from the Oracle Challenger 3 biplane. And the back-story – that each were afraid of flying initially, he because his father was an aviation lawyer who knew all too well the risks, and she because her father died in an airplane crash.

Sean D. Tucker and Jessy Panzer, Team Oracle at the Bethpage Air Show, Jones Beach © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
Team Oracle (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
Team Oracle (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
Team Oracle (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

GEICO Skytypers, a team of advanced training aircraft used in World War II, are fascinating because they demonstrate actual fighting techniques – an implosion run where they evade the enemy by actually flying into each other to create confusion, missing each other by mere feet; opposing craft which come at each other at incredible speed.

GEICO Skytypers re-create aerial battle strategies in their WWII-era training planes © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
GEICO Skytypers (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
GEICO Skytypers (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
GEICO Skytypers (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
GEICO Skytypers at Bethpage Air Show, Jones Beach (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The airshow traditionally kicks off with a ceremonial parachute drop by a representative of the US Army Parachute Team, the Golden Knights, delivering the American flag to a tiny target on Jones Beach. The whole team then returns for a demonstration performance. They barrel out of their plane from an altitude of 12,500 ft, at a speed of 120 mph before pulling the cord to release their parachute; in one demonstration we see what happens when a chute fails at just 5,000 ft. (they have a spare chute). We learn that the parachutes they use, use the same aeronautical techniques as the original Wright Brothers plane in 1903.

US Army Golden Knights parachute team at Bethpage Air Show, Jones Beach, Long Island (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
US Army Golden Knights parachute team (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
US Army Golden Knights hurtle through space from more than 2 miles up before they open their parachutes © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
US Army Golden Knights (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Red Bull Air Force launch out of a plane from 13,000 feet, speeding like a cannon ball at almost 200 mph, crossing in flight, before releasing the parachute, and sailing down at 60 mph to the target. The helicopter is the only aerobatic helicopter in the US.

Red Bull Air Force sky diving team (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The F-18 Super Hornet, traveling at 700 mph, nearly breaking the sound barrier, where the pilot experiences bone-crushing Gs. The fighter is flown by the United States Navy and Marines

F 18 Super Hornet flies at the Bethpage Air Show just below speed that would break the sound barrier© Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
F-18 Super Hornet (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
F 18 Super Hornet flies at the Bethpage Air Show just below speed that would break the sound barrier© Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Matt Chapman, flying for Embry Riddle, performs maneuvers in which he experiences as much as 9 positive Gs and 6 negative Gs.

Matt Chapman (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
Matt Chapman (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
Matt Chapman thrills audience at the Bethpage Air Show on Jones Beach, Long Island © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

John Klatt Airshows and Jack Link’s Beef Jerky teamed up to create a one-of-a-kind plane, the Screamin’ Sasquatch, powered by dual powerplants: a Pratt & Whitney 985 Radial Engine and a General Electric CJ610 (J85) Jet Engine with 3,000 lbs of thrust. This system allows the plane to achieve feats other stunt planes are unable to do. During his performance, Ret. USAF Lt Colonel John Klatt experiences forces of plus and minus 4Gs, which means a 200 lb. man would weigh 800 lbs. He travels at 250 mph. Considering the ridiculous aerobatics Klatt performs in the plane, it is astonishing to learn that the plane is a Taperwing Waco made famous by the barnstormers of the 1920s and 1930s, and is based on a 1929 Waco, modified and “beefed up” big time.

Screamin’ Sasquatch© Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

David Windmiller, Long Island’s hometown hero (from Melville), thrills spectators in his Zivko Edge 540 aircraft, built especially for aerobatics, with seemingly impossible feats at speeds of up to 220 mph that keep his peers and his fans in awe. Windmiller has been flying since 14 year old, soloed at 16 year old and started aerobatic flying before he got his license and has accumulated 18,000 flight hours, including 8,000 doing aerobatics. He performs snap rolls, inverted flat spin (where the plane falls from the sky), 4 knife edge tumblers, inside-outside octogan loop.

Long Island native David Windmiller, professional stunt pilot who has a school to teach aerobatics, performs at Bethpage Air Show on Jones Beach © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
David Windmiller (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
David Windmiller (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

US Coast Guard demonstrated a rescue by helicopter into churning seas – on a typical day, the Coast Guard, with fewer members than can fit in Yankee Stadium, save 15 lives, patrol some 96,000 miles of coastline through the US, as well as South China Seas, Pacific, Persian Gulf and wherever the US has forces.The air show also pays homage to aviation’s heritage.

US Coast Guard (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The Bayport Aerodrome Society, formed in 1972 ands composed of aviation professionals, recreational pilots, and people interested in preserving aviation history, flies aircraft from the 1920s. ​As a “living museum” they have a variety of antique aircraft flying on the field including Bi-Planes, Champs, and Cubs. One of their pilots, is 92-year old pilot who served in World War II, who flew with his grandson.

Historic aircraft from flown by the Bayport Aerodrome Society © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
Historic aircraft from flown by the Bayport Aerodrome Society © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
The vintage B-25 Mitchell Bomber used in the “Catch 22” series on Hulu © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com
World War II vintage aircraft from the American Air Power Museum mark Memorial Day at the Bethpage Air Show, Jones Beach, Long Island © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

World War II vintage aircraft from the American Air Power Museum, at Republic Airport (flights available over Memorial Day weekend) were flown, including the B-25 Mitchell Bomber used in the “Catch 22” series on Hulu.

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© 2019 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit goingplacesfarandnear.com, www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-rubin, and travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate/. Blogging at goingplacesnearandfar.wordpress.com and moralcompasstravel.info. Send comments or questions to FamTravLtr@aol.com. Tweet @TravelFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures

Arts, Arts & Entertainment, Long Island travel, Museums and Exhibits, Uncategorized

Gold Coast Arts Center, Long Island Presents ‘Chinese Artists in America’ Exhibit

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Artists Ping Wang and Arthur Liu with Town North Hempstead Supervisor Judi Bosworth and Gold Coast Arts Center Executive Director Regina Gil at opening of exhibit, “Chinese Artists in America” © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

The Gold Coast Arts Center, Great Neck, Long Island presents an exhibition of “Chinese Artists in America.” The works by eight contemporary Chinese-American artists is on view through March 20.

“The exhibition reflects the creative vitality of Chinese and American cultural interaction and growth through the arts and its historical and aesthetic links to other communities,” Gallery Curator Jude Amsel writes.

“These artists created a new visual language that embodies aspects of traditional Chinese art while responding to a time of great transition. Their artworks express personal beliefs, national pride, and international awareness.”

“The Gold Coast Arts Center is dedicated to promoting awareness and understanding through the arts and through public events that bring people together,” stated Regina Gil, founder and Executive Director of the Gold Coast Arts Center. “We are proud to have enabled artists from around the world to share their vision and craft with our audiences. The exhibition of art by Chinese-American artists weaves the heritage, experience and craft that has emerged from each artist’s personal exposure to Chinese and American culture and education.”

The opening reception for the art exhibition was accompanied by a cultural performance, music and dance presented under the aegis of the Great Neck Chinese Association.

Here are highlights, with the artists’ own statements.

Zhen Guo © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Zhen Guo: “With ‘Muted Landscape; I present a view of the world, and we who live on its surface, that is at once expansive and frightening.  The images, created (I do not say painted because there is no obvious brush work in the ink on rice paper creation) present a landscape as if from 36,000 feet, muted by both the gray color and by the distance.  Mountains, lakes, a sheer rock face wall, caldera, fields of snow, high and pointed peaks and rivers are joined and blended but not necessarily in the places or ways we expect.  It is as if the vision of Ansel Adams has been stirred shaken and kneaded merged a late Autumn vision of the natural world.  As our eyes travel over the painting the view changes and rivers become shadows, mountains become fields, and lakes become snow covered peaks.  We are entranced and at the same time afraid that, if we landed, there we could not find our way out. Perhaps this is a place for own internal search for a perch for our soul or to find our way forward.”

“Country Fair,” by Dexiang Qian © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

Dexiang Qian: “I was born in Zhijiang. Many artists have come to Zhijiang to observe, sketch, and experiment with depicting the rural countryside. During my creation process, I use a glazing technique with a limited color palette. I continue to simplify the elements, and the resulting composition often is in geometric patterns.”  © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

Xiangdong Shi © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Xiangdong Shi: ““Food: Chinese beauty, taste and auspicious meaning. Chinese cuisine is not only delicious, but also the pursuit of form and color, such as Sweet Dumplings, put in a few red medlar, and immediately look happy, and eat the Sweet Dumplings at the Lantern Festival, so the Sweet Dumplings are also called Yuan Xiao, means the first full moon night of the year. Chinese cuisine is rich and auspicious Meaning, such as birthday, Chinese people often cook a bowl of noodles, called longevity noodles, meaning healthy longevity. Another example is the Traditional Chinese Rice-Pudding, is the exclusive food of the Dragon Boat Festival, it is to commemorate the ancient Chinese famous poet Qu Yuan, in addition, often in the  Traditional Chinese Rice-Pudding have any jujubes, white rice and red jujubes are put together, the color contrast is strong. Red has a special meaning in Chinese culture, and represents good luck. Therefore, the food series I painted not only expresses the taste of food, but also the sense of form and meaning of food. This is the true essence of Chinese culture.”

Arthur B. Liu © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Arthur B. Liu is President of Queens Art Education Center, New York, visiting professor of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, member of the Watercolor Society of USA, artist of the National Art League of USA, director of the Chinese Culture Art Association of New York, USA. He is the Educator, Artist and Inventor. He is the only one Chinese American artist who has been granted patents for inventions. He is showing “The flowing colors Chinese painting series” in this exhibition.

Ping Wang © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

Ping Wang: “The initial idea of my “In and Out” series were body parts extended from a “Square”(space ) merged into a background. The background scenes are from Chinese illusional landscapes to recent New York City landmarks and daily life.  After a year or two reminiscing in depth I subconsciously escaped in the collision between China and American culture. I was enormously inspired by traditional Chinese composition and techniques. In the ‘Fight Club; series, I tried to combine some oriental perspectives and compositions into a Western story. Now living in New York for several years, I can see the integration of eastern and western cultures.”

“Sacrifice the Body to Feeding the Tiger,” by Yulin Huang
© Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Yulin Huang: “In the face of the canvas, I have never forgotten all the so-called knowledge, just by intuition, in a simple, primitive, child-like way, straightforward and quick to smear. “Sacrifice the Body to Feeding the Tiger” (2018) is a “Dunhuang” mural from the ancient East, painted on the walls of the grotto 2000 years ago. It tells a Buddhist story. A prince, giving up his life and helping his hunger with his own flesh   The hungry tiger mother and son are born into Buddha after death. Like the cross that Jesus passed. In “Chinese New Year,” red lanterns, dragon dances, lion dances, firecrackers, fireworks, spring couplets, red envelopes… The people celebrate the biggest festivals, joyous and lively. But I feel a very loneliness.”

Hai Wei © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Hai Wei: “Even though we all advocate tolerance, different habits and beliefs sometimes constitute an offense.  Each different culture and art is connected of each other while learning from each other and integrating with each other. When the plane flies over the Arctic Circle, across the window, the outside is a mountain like a scarf, inside is a scarf like a mountain… All things connected, miraculous conversion. Similarly, in the body, the blood, the fresh life, can also be converted and reincarnation?  We have been watching ourselves for too long and rarely look at them. Most people think the sheep is weak ,ordinary, silent. In fact, they still have power and charm of wildness. The art created by nature is life, the beauty of life, and it does not depend on us. It is a kind of dignity.”

Yafu Wang with “Chinese Artists in America” curator Jude Amsel © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Yafu Wang: Yafu’s works are varied and diverse.  Those selected art pieces cover his early works in road, shadows, posters, and temples etc.  Yafu always states that his work expresses his deep love and awe for the mighty God.  It fulfills all the missing parts in his life. 

Here are highlights from the performances:

Chinese Drum “Ma Deng Dance” featuring Anthony Wu, Dorie Liu, Kexin Huang, Yuxin Huang, Kingsley Liu. © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

Chinese Guzheng Duet “Dong Ting New Song” featuring Ella Li, Shiying Wei. © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

Chinese Cucurbit Flute Solo, “Wedding Vow,” featuring Ricky Deng © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

Violin & Piano in Chinese song, “Painted Heart” with Aili Tian, Phoenix tian, Joy Yang and Selena Lu (piano). © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

Chinese Instruments ensemble “Xi Yang Yang (Be Happy)” “Turpan’s Grapes Turn Ripe (with Dance)” featuring Xiulu Xin (Banhu):, Yuqi Sun (Erhu), Xianyi Wang (Dulcimer), Xiuzhen Liang (Ruan), Rongxian Chen (Electronic Guitar), Cathong Li (Rock Percussion/Dance) © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

Children’s Chorus: Jasmine Flowers featuring Evan Cao, Derick Chen, Melissa Chiang, Jessica Chiang, Anthony Chiang, Athena Jin, Ella Li, Jack Pei, Dorothy Qian, Lucas Wang, Madeline Wang, Isabella Wu, Kenneth Wu, Katharine Xu, Carolyn Zuo and Kaitlyn Feng (piano) © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

Gold Coast Arts Center, Long Island Presents “Chinese Artists in America”

The Gallery is open when the Gold Coast Arts Center is open, 113 Middle Neck Road, Great Neck, NY, 516-829-2570, goldcoastarts.org.

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© 2019 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit goingplacesfarandnear.com,  www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-rubin, and travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate/. Blogging at goingplacesnearandfar.wordpress.com and moralcompasstravel.info. Send comments or questions to FamTravLtr@aol.com. Tweet @TravelFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures

Attractions, Christmas holiday travel, Festivals and Events, Historic Places, Holiday Travel, Long Island travel

Candlelight Evening in Old Bethpage Village Restoration Warms the Heart, Soothes the Soul

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Carolers sing holiday favorites at the bonfire in the middle of Old Bethpage Village © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

Music abounds throughout Old Bethpage Village Restoration, the evening warmed by the orange-red glow of candlelight, fireplace embers, a bonfire.   The annual Candlelight Evenings at Old Bethpage Restoration, a living history museum on Long Island, is one of my favorite holiday events.

The most wonderful thing about the candlelight evenings at Old Bethpage Village Restoration on Long Island, is yes, the sense of stepping back into time, into an idyllic peacefulness that makes you feel as if you have just fallen into a Christmas card. But what I love best are the serendipitous moments when you engage the reenactors in conversation- the questions that arise just because you are immersed in that experience.

Each year, I add to the stories, my understanding of history and our community’s heritage.

Just leaving the visitors center is an experience. Just before you exit the center, inside, a group of Santas in modern dress are singing but as you walk down the ramp into the darkness, leaving pavement and electric lights behind, carolers are singing in a shadow. I meet up with them again in the village.

The village is actually a created place, assembled from historic homes from across Nassau County (it was Queens County when they were built), except for the Powell Farm, which is the only original homestead here and dates from 1855. Many of the homes were built by people whose names are well known to Long Islanders: Hewlett, Searing, Schenck, Cooper (built in 1815 for the famous inventor, Peter Cooper, in Hempstead). Most were built in the 1800s, but the Schenck House, the oldest, was built around 1765 for a Dutch landowner, Minne Schenck, who had 300 acres in Manhasset (manpower was provided by African slaves and servants).

Walking along the pebbled path, lighted only with flames, I come upon a brass band outside the Conklin House, built in 1853 by Joseph H. Conklin, a bayman, in the Village of the Branch.

Santa is making lists and checking twice, here in his workshop at the Layton House and General Store  during Candlelight Evening at Old Bethpage Village Restoration © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The centerpiece of the Village is the Layton General Store and House, built by John M. Layton, a storekeeper, around 1866 in East Norwich. Though the house seems very fine – with large rooms and tall ceilings, I am told that he was middle class. Here, in the parlor, I meet Santa Claus who seems to be making out his list and checking it twice. In the next room is the Layton General Store – the Walmart of its day – where you can purchase candy and dolls that are made by one of the interpreters.

Max Rowland plays banjo at the Noon Inn © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The next important house is the Noon Inn is appropriately just across from the general store, where when you climb the stairs, you find Max L. Rowland regaling an audience with his banjo, reconstructed to its period of the early 19th century (no frets, gut strings, deeper tone), and a concertina. If you ask, he will tell you about the instruments: in the mid-1800s, the concertina was the most popular instrument around – because it was relatively inexpensive (costing less than a violin), and compact, easy to carry and capable of such rich sound and complexity.  It was extremely popular with sailors, who could tuck it away in their gear. Rowland can testify to it: this particular concertina has crossed the sea three times with Rowland, who lives on a boat.

Carolers at the Noon Inn © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Downstairs at the Noon Inn, which dates from 1850 and was owned John H. Noon, innkeeper, in East Meadow, you can get hot mulled cider and cookies, while outside, there are carolers singing beneath a lamplight. I catch up with them again later singing at the bonfire. It is magical.

At Queens District No. 6 School House, which dates from c. 1845 in Manhasset, there is traditional fiddle music, played on a period instrument, a 150-year old violin that had been made in Prague, that has no chin rest or frets. We learn about the Manhasset School house – children attended the one-room school house six days a week – attendance wasn’t compulsory and kids came sporadically. Music would have been widespread but there were no real professional musicians in Long Island. The school house would have been the venue for music, entertainment (like the Magic Lantern shows, the movies of their day), and various gatherings in the evening. He tells me that all of Nassau County used to be part of Queens County, until the residents wanted to separate from New York City. One of the songs he plays is the Fireman’s Quick Step, written in 1822 by Francis Frank Johnson, an African American composer, for the Philadelphia Fireman’s Cotillion fundraiser.

At Queens District No. 6 School House, which dates from c. 1845 in Manhasset, there is traditional music played on a 150-year old violin, such as the Fireman’s Quickstep, written in 1822 by Francis Frank Johnson, an African American composer, for the Philadelphia Fireman’s Cotillion fundraiser  © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Music was so important to the people of the mid-19th century, the period which Old Bethpage reconstructs. When you think about it, people could only appreciate music live, in the moment.

At the Hewlett House, a grand home high on the hill, built by the founder for which the town of Hewlett is named, a fellow plays a series of flutes and a violin, while popcorn is popping in the kitchen fireplace in the next room (samples provided).

Traditional music and popcorn at the Hewlett House © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

At the beautiful Manetto Hill Church, 1857, a Methodist church that originally was located in Plainview, there is singing and storytelling – the origin of holly (representing male), ivy (representing female), so the two entwined are a symbol of marriage; mistletoe (which, rather than a romantic prompt for kissing, was used to make peace between quarreling individuals) and poinsettias. We sing carols and learn that “Jingle Bells” was written by a Sunday School teacher for a Thanksgiving  pageant(New Englanders didn’t celebrate Christmas), and Silent Night was a poem written in Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria by  Father Joseph Mohr in 1818 (his organist Franz Xaver Gruber wrote the music), desperate for Christmas music when the church organ broke.

Singing holiday songs, learning about holiday traditions at the Manetto Hill Church © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

At the Luyster Store, which dates from c. 1840 and was built by John B. Luyster, a storekeeper in East Norwich, you see the rare craft of broom making (and can purchase the brooms that are made here). Tim works on a machine from 1840 which was in the museum’s collection, and you can see how much physical effort goes into it. He says he and his brother, Chris, are two of only three broommakers left on Long Island (the third is their mentor). He explains that a home would have had 2 brooms per room, or 18-20 per household, so not to transfer dirt from one room to the next. Brooms were actually expensive: an ordinary broom might have cost 24 cents – but that was equivalent to half-day’s wages in the 1840s, when the Great Recession was worse than even the Great Depression and the average man took home 48 cents a day; that means a broom would cost about $50 today (so his price of $20 for a fancy broom decorated for the holidays with fancy ribbons, holly and weaving, is a bargain).

Tim, the Broommaker at Luyster Store, one of only three broommakers left on Long Island, who demonstrate the craft © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

This was an enterprise that farmers would do in winter to make extra money, and they would allocate an acre of land to cultivate the special wheat sorghum (called “corn” but not corn) for that purpose. A father would teach his child the craft. An interesting artifact in the store is the massive safe. The building itself was once a hardware store that was the only one within 10 miles of Theodore Roosevelt’s Sagamore Hill, so it may well be that Roosevelt would have stopped by. There is also an interesting Harrison for Reform banner, referring to William Henry Harrison, the shortest-lived president (he died of pneumonia after one month in office).

Traditional holiday music at Benjamin House © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The Benjamin House, dating from 1829, was built for William Benjamin, a minister and farmer in Northville, where there a husband and wife play holiday melodies that would have been popular at the time on a gigantic bass fiddle (it seems to fill the room) and a violin, like “Deck the Halls,” which was a Welsh melody dating back to the 1600s. We discuss Christmas traditions of the time (gift-giving wasn’t yet a tradition, but Queen Victoria had popularized table-top Christmas trees as a loving gesture to Prince Albert).

I stop into the Conklin House, a house that dates from 1853 and was built by Joseph H. Conklin, a bayman in the village of Branch. Last year, there was a demonstration of spinning being done in front of the fireplace, but this year, two ladies relax over a cup of tea after demonstrating how they bake ginger snaps.

Ladies relax over a cup of tea after a busy evening baking © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The tiny Searing House (this is the first time that I can remember it being open for Candlelight Evening), was Dr. James Searing’s office, a Hempstead physician, built in 1815 – where the doctor would have prepared his medicines  before going out by buggy to visit patients – and here, we are treated to freshly roasted chestnuts.

I usually save the Schenck House for last because each year, because it is here that I come upon the most unexpected encounters and find it the most illuminating. Instead of interpreting the holiday traditions of the mid 1800s, the Huntington Militia re-create a Colonial Christmas in the 18th century. The Schenck House dates from 1765, owned by a Dutch farmer. Here, our presenters speak in the style of the time, and celebrate Christmas of 1775, just two months after Martin Schenck, who inherited the house from his father,  had been one of the leaders of the committee of Patriots that decided to break from Loyalist Hempstead, and form North Hempstead. I learn that the south shore of Long Island was a occupied by the British from 1776-1783, the entire duration of the Revolutionary War, while the north shore was a stronghold for Patriots, many of them the Dutch families who had no great affinity for the British monarch. The Schencks came to the New World when New Amsterdam was a Dutch colony; the British took it over in 1754.

Schenck House, oldest in Old Bethpage Village, dating from 1765, where the Huntington Militia enacts a Christmas gathering in 1775 © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

I am swept into its history. I am transfixed talking with “Ambrose Everyman,” a fellow from 1775, an American of English descent really troubled by North Hempstead’s succession from the Town of Hempstead over the issue of rebellion against the King and Crown. His loyalties are clear. He raises the question over how the colonists are made so dissatisfied with the King – and questions the veracity of the crimes and accusations designed to foment rebellion. He notes that since the first Continental Congress, the Massachusetts faction of the Patriots have banned women from going to the tavern, banned theatrical entertainment – in effect, installed the Puritan societal structure on the colonies. And because of the “attack against one of the colonies is an attack against us all,” he questions whether the attacks in Lexington and Concord, portrayed as a British massacre, really happened that way.  “How do we really know?” he tells me (the original “fake news”?).  Mr. Everyman was upset with the upstarts in Massachusetts who caused so much trouble, who dared to pretend to be Indians and toss tea into the sea. He called them cowards for hiding behind their disguise. He said he knew war – had fought in the French and Indian War – but was too old to fight again. If there was a break with England, he says, his business of building and repairing houses, would be destroyed.

Schenck House, oldest in Old Bethpage Village, dating from 1765, where the Huntington Militia enacts a Christmas gathering in 1775 © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

But, he says, he cannot express his feelings: the local Committee is strictly enforcing its ban on English tea and though it had no force of law, someone who broke faith would be shamed in the Gazetteer as “an Enemy of American Liberty,” would no longer get business, and ultimately be forced out of the community. So he keeps his views to himself. Taxes? What difference does it make to pay taxes to England or taxes to the Congress, he says. And doesn’t England deserve to get repayment for the expense of fighting for the colonies? How would those who would break from England confront the greatest army on earth? Would they get aid from foreign powers like France, when France would want to take over the colonies for itself?

He gives me the sense of what a difficult dilemma this was – the prospect of confronting the most powerful nation the world had never known, the superpower of its time – and how while there had never been consensus (New York patriots fled to Philadelphia), the forcefulness with which the revolutionaries pressed their cause, the violence, a literal civil war within communities.

He goes on to show the group of Candlelight visitors that has gathered how the owner of the House, Martin Schenck, would have celebrated St. Nicholas Day (Dec. 6), when the children put out wooden shoes, filled with a carrot to draw the horse that St. Nicholas rides through the sky on, and leaves them treats – an orange that would have been an expensive treat having been imported from Jamaica, and  skates for the young girl, a pull-toy for the baby.

The Noon Inn, built around 1850 in East Meadow by John H. Noon, innkeeper, is the centerpiece of Old Bethpage Village Restoration © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Then, at The Barn on the Long Island Fairgrounds- a reconstruction of the Queens county Agricultural Society Fairgrounds that was built in Mineola, 1866-1884, there is the model train show, crafts fair, contra dancing, a brass ensemble and a delightful performance of “Scrooge’s Dream” (a condensed version of Dickens’ “Christmas Carol”).

This year, the Old Bethpage Candlelight Evenings are only five nights, Dec. 22, 23, 27, 28 and 29, 5-9:30 pm. Old Bethpage Village Restoration, 1303 Round Swamp Road (Exit 48 of the Long Island Expressway), 516-572-8401; Adults/$10, children 5-12/$7 (under 5 are free); and $7 for seniors and volunteer firefighters.

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© 2018 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit goingplacesfarandnear.com,  www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-rubin , and travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate/. Blogging at goingplacesnearandfar.wordpress.com and moralcompasstravel.info. Send comments or questions to FamTravLtr@aol.com. Tweet @TravelFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures

Long Island travel, New York State travel, Outdoors Adventures, Uncategorized

New Boardwalk Café Opens at Jones Beach State Park After 14-Year Absence

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Jones Beach Cafe_20180705_165456 (c) Karen rubin
The $20 million Jones Beach Boardwalk Café is finally open for business, bringing back a popular dining option and renewed vitality to Central Mall at the heart of Jones Beach State Park © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

The $20 million Jones Beach Boardwalk Café is finally open for business after a 14-year absence, bringing back a popular dining option and renewed vitality to Central Mall at the heart of Jones Beach State Park. The revitalization of Long Island’s most-visited state park (and one of the best white-sand beaches in the world) is part of the Governor Andrew Cuomo’s NY Parks 2020 multi-year commitment of $900 million in private and public funding to modernize New York’s state parks.

“The grand opening of the Boardwalk Café highlights New York’s progress in restoring the historic vitality of Jones Beach State Park,” Governor Cuomo said. “I encourage everyone to visit Jones Beach this summer and experience for themselves the transformation that has taken place at one of Long Island’s true natural wonders.”

The new 7,700-square-foot café, featuring an open and airy Market Hall dining concept and distinctive tensile roof, will bring back food and beverage to the Central Mall that has been absent since 2004 (for a long-time it was bogged down in a fight with Donald Trump who wanted to ignore environmental restrictions), when the previous building was demolished due to structural failure. The café will be operated by Centerplate, a concessionaire offering hospitality services at the park. There will also be a Taste NY Grab and Go component to the Café with more than 20 New York-produced items.

The Boardwalk Café anchors newly installed activities including the refurbished East Games Area and the new splash pad adjacent to the Central Mall and the adventure course to be constructed this summer and offers outdoor shaded seating options, with commanding views of the ocean, beach and boardwalk. It was designed to withstand severe coastal storms and flooding with a reinforced design built on piles that elevates the main floor 20 feet above sea level, while honoring the park’s heritage with brick, sandstone and limestone to match those materials utilized in the historic 1920/30s buildings in the park era, a large and historic photo of the Park in the interior, and restored symmetry of the Central Mall.  

Jones Beach_20180705_165022 (c) Karen Rubin-bdwlk
In a change of policy, you can now bike on the Jones Beach Boardwalk during the summer, surprisingly uncrowded on a hot July weekday © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Another wonderful improvement to Jones Beach is that the dedicated bike path that starts at Cedar Creek Park and goes alongside the Wantagh Parkway has been extended 3.5 miles along Ocean Parkway, passing by the Bay and Jones Beach Theater. What is more, you can now bike on the boardwalk during the summer (respecting walkers).

Since 2011, State Parks has committed $65 million through 2020 in projects to restore Jones Beach State Park’s historic grandeur, attract new visitors and create new recreational facilities as part of a multi-year revitalization plan. Projects completed include the rehabilitation of the West Bathhouse and Field 6 Bathhouse, restoration of the historic park mosaics, new playgrounds and West Games Area and Zach’s Bay, new gateway signage and boardwalk upgrades.

“Investing in the Jones Beach State Park is a common sense way to help grow the local economy and revitalize our entire community,” Senator John Brooks said. “I commend the Governor for his efforts and I look forward to visiting the Central Mall and enjoying the renovated Boardwalk Cafe. I encourage Long Islanders, and all New Yorkers, to come to Jones Beach State Park this summer and enjoy all of the great activities, restaurants, and natural beauty this community has to offer.”

“The Boardwalk Café is an important part of our area’s history that honors our community’s past with its beautiful Art-deco designs, while also adapting to our present and future needs,” Town of Hempstead Supervisor Laura Gillen said. “We are grateful to Governor Cuomo for making this treasured building more resilient to withstand future storms and open in time for the busy July 4th weekend.”

“Jones Beach is the crown jewel of the south shore of Long Island. No matter the season, locals and tourists come to Jones Beach for the boardwalk, ocean views, concerts, and sporting events,” Assemblywoman Christine Pellegrino said. “The restoration of the Boardwalk Cafe is a welcomed addition and I am grateful to the governor for the investment in this important project.”

“The new Boardwalk Café is a wonderful step towards growing the vision for what Nassau County should look like in the future,” Nassau County Executive Laura Curran said.

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