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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”:
4. Rockwell Command Module w/ Parachute which was the
control center for the Apollo spacecraft and provided the living and working
quarters for astronauts.
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
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
By
Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com
Be
transported in time, place and even space. Immerse yourself into the realm of
ideas and imagination. Come in from the heat or whatever the weather is doing
outside by taking in one of New York City’s museums. Here are just a few
highlights of summer’s blockbuster attractions:
The
Metropolitan Museum of Art is about to welcome a very special visitor: Leonardo
da Vinci’s Saint Jerome. To
commemorate the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci
(1452–1519), The Met is presenting the artist’s painting Saint Jerome
Praying in the Wilderness (begun around 1483), a special loan from the
Vatican Museums. The exquisitely rendered work represents Jerome (A.D.
347–420), a major saint and theologian of the Christian Church. The scene is
based on the story of his later life, which he spent as a hermit in the desert,
according to the 13th–century Golden Legend. The unfinished painting provides
viewers with an extraordinary glimpse into Leonardo’s creative process; a close
examination of the paint surface even reveals the presence of his fingerprints.
The display of this monumental masterpiece pays homage to one of the most
renowned geniuses of all time. Opening July 15, the painting is on view
through Oct. 6, 2019.
From
the oldest works of art to the first forays of civilization into outer space, ,
the Met Museum is marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11
mission with Apollo’s Muse: The Moon in
the Age of Photography, on view through September 22, 2019. Apollo’s Muse traces the progress of astronomical
photography and attempts to produce ever-sharper images of the moon,
particularly during the 130-year period between the invention of photography in
1839 and the moon landing in 1969 as astronomers and artists capitalized on
technological improvements to cameras and telescopes to create ever more
accurate visual records of the lunar surface. Exhibition highlights include two
newly discovered lunar daguerreotypes from the 1840s, believed to be the
earliest existing photographs of the moon, and works by such pioneers of lunar
photography as Warren De La Rue (1815–1889), Lewis Morris Rutherfurd
(1816–1892), and John Adams Whipple (1822–1891). A stunning photographic atlas
of the moon, produced at the Paris Observatory between 1894 and 1908 by the
astronomers Maurice Loewy (1833–1907) and Pierre Puiseux (1855–1928), will be
displayed for the first time in its entirety.
Alongside
these scientific achievements, the show explores the use of the camera to
create fanciful depictions of space travel and life on the moon, including
George Méliès’s (1861–1938) original drawings for his film A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la lune, 1902) and
a large selection of “paper moon” studio portraits from the early 20th century.
Also featured will be artists’ evocations of the otherworldly effects of
moonlight, including major works by German Romantic painter Caspar David
Friedrich (1774-1840) and American Pictorialist photographer Edward Steichen
(1879-1973).
The night of the Museum Mile Festival, I popped into the opening of this year’s P.S. Art exhibit, an annual celebration of achievement in the arts in New York City public schools. This juried exhibition of the work of talented young artists showcases the creativity of 122 prekindergarten through twelfth grade students from all five boroughs, including students from District 75, a citywide district serving students with disabilities. The exhibition consists of paintings, prints, sculptures, photographs, mixed-media works, collages, drawings, and video. Each work of art demonstrates personal expression, imaginative use of media, the results of close observation, and an understanding of artistic processes. Some of the works on display are completely astonishing
The
Met is three museums.
At the Cloisters, “The Colmar Treasure: A Medieval Jewish
Legacy,” is on view July 22-January 12, 2020. A cache of jeweled rings,
brooches, and coins—the precious possessions of a Jewish family of medieval
Alsace—was hidden in the fourteenth century in the wall of a house in Colmar,
France. Discovered in 1863 and on view in an upcoming exhibition at The Met
Cloisters, the Colmar Treasure revives the memory of a once–thriving Jewish
community that was scapegoated and put to death when the Plague struck the
region with devastating ferocity in 1348–49. A generous loan of the Musée
de Cluny, Paris, the Colmar Treasure will be displayed alongside select works
from The Met Cloisters and little–known Judaica from collections in the United
States and France. Although the objects on view are small in scale and
relatively few in number, the ensemble overturns conventional notions of
medieval Europe as a monolithic Christian society. The exhibition will point to
both legacy and loss, underscoring the prominence of the Jewish minority
community in the tumultuous fourteenth century and the perils it faced.
At
the Met Breuer,
“Home is a Foreign Place:
Recent Aquisitions in Context,” through June 21, 2020.
(NYS
residents still can pay what they wish, by presenting proof of residence;
out-of-towners need to pay the regular admission).
The iconic Metropolitan Museum of Art is at 1000 Fifth Avenue, on Central Park, (definitely take a Highlights tour when you visit), The Met Breuer (945 Madison Avenue) and The Met Cloisters (99 Margaret Corbin Drive, Fort Tryon Park). Visit metmuseum.org to plan your visit.
Jewish Museum Pays Homage to
Leonard Cohen With Multi-Media Exhibition
“Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect
offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets
in.” from Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem”
from the album The Future (1992), provides the title for the special exhibit at the
Jewish Museum,
“Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything”.
The contemporary multi-media exhibition devoted to the imagination and legacy
of the influential singer/songwriter, man of letters, and global icon from
Montreal, Canada can be experienced through September 8, 2019.
Leonard
Cohen: A Crack in Everything includes commissioned works by a
range of international artists who have been inspired by Cohen’s life, work and
legacy. A world-renowned novelist, poet and singer/songwriter who inspired generations
of writers, musicians, and artists, Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) supplied the world with melancholy and urgent
observations on the state of the human heart. In songs such as “Suzanne,” “Bird
on the Wire,” and “Hallelujah,” he interwove the sacred and the profane, mystery and accessibility. Collectively, it is
the oddest, most creative biographical tribute. Featured works include:
I’m
Your Man (A Portrait of Leonard Cohen) (2017), a
multi-channel video installation by Candice Breitz, brings together a community
of ardent Cohen fans who pay tribute to the late legend. Each of the 18
participants was offered the opportunity to perform and record his own version
of Cohen’s comeback album I’m Your Man (1988) in a
professional recording studio. At Breitz’s invitation, the album’s backing
vocals were reinterpreted by the Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue Choir, an all-male
choir representing the congregation in Montreal, Canada, that Cohen belonged to
all his life.
Ari Folman’s Depression Chamber (2017) allows one visitor at a
time into a darkened room, where they are confronted by the demons of
depression, a theme that can be traced throughout Cohen’s body of work. After
the visitor lies down, Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat” plays while
the song’s lyrics are projected on the walls, slowly morphing into letters and
icons that symbolize Cohen’s multifaceted thematic universe.
Heard There Was a Secret Chord (after the 2017 work of the same
title, 2018) is a participatory humming experience by the art and design
studio Daily tous les jours that reveals an invisible vibration uniting people
around the world currently listening to Cohen’s Hallelujah. The
work is an exploration of the metaphysical connection between people on a
common wavelength. At the Museum, real-time online listener data is transformed
into a virtual choir of humming voices. The number of voices played back in the
gallery corresponds to the current online listener count, which is visible on
the hanging numerical display. Participants can sit or lie down on the
octagonal structure, and by humming along with the choir into the microphones,
low-frequency vibrations are generated, closing the circuit of collective
resonance with their bodies.
Organized by the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC), the exhibition is curated by John Zeppetelli, Director and Chief Curator at the MAC, and Victor Shiffman, Co-Curator. Following its New York showing, the exhibition will tour to Kunstforeningen GL STRAND and Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen, Denmark (October 23, 2019 – March 8, 2020) and the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco (September 17, 2020 – January 3, 2021).
During the run of Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything, the Jewish Museum will open one hour earlier than usual on Saturdays and Sundays, from 10 am to 5:45pm. Advance tickets are available online at thejewishmuseum.org/buy/general-admission. For questions about ticket sales, email [email protected] or call 866.205.1322.
Founded in 1904, the Museum, on Fifth Avenue’s fabled Museum Mile, was the first institution of its kind in the United States and is one of the oldest Jewish museums in the world. Devoted to exploring art and Jewish culture from ancient to contemporary, the Museum offers diverse exhibitions and programs, and maintains a unique collection of nearly 30,000 works of art, ceremonial objects, and media reflecting the global Jewish experience over more than 4,000 years.
Admission: $18 for adults, $12 for seniors, $8 students, free for visitors 18
and under and Jewish Museum members. Free on Saturdays and select Jewish
holidays. 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street, New York City, 212.423,3200, [email protected]TheJewishMuseum.org.
Museum
of the City of New York: New York at Its Core
I
make it a ritual to visit the Museum of the City of New York during each year’s
Museum Mile Festival. I never cease to be fascinated and intrigued by the
exhibits:
New
York at Its Core
is the first-ever museum show to comprehensively interpret and present the
compelling story of New York’s rise from a striving Dutch village to today’s
“Capital of the World,” a preeminent global city now facing the future in a
changing world. There are different galleries that tell the story, but most
fascinating is The Future City Lab, where you get to design the city of the
future, tackling the most pressing problems like housing, public spaces, water
supply. You even get to put yourself in the picture.
Not
to be missed: Timescapes, the museum’s popular and
critically-acclaimed multimedia experience, brings the sweeping narrative of
New York City from the early 1600s to the present day. The 28-minute,
award-winning documentary explores how NYC grew from a settlement of a few
hundred Europeans, Africans and Native Americans into the multinational
metropolis of today, re-inventing itself multiple times along the way.
Activist New York, an
ongoing exhibit, examines the ways in which ordinary New
Yorkers have advocated, agitated, and exercised their power to shape the
city’s—and the nation’s—future, from the 17th century to the
present.
City of Workers, City of Struggle: How
Labor Movements Changed New York, traces how New York became the most
unionized large city in the United States.
Cycling
in the City: A 200–Year History, on
view through October 6, 2019, tracex how the bicycle transformed urban
transportation and leisure in New York City and explores the extraordinary
diversity of cycling cultures, past and present.
Housed
in the Frank Lloyd Wright building, a major attraction in itself (just walking
through the spiral is an experience),from June 18 through September 3, the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is open until 9 pm for Summer Tuesdays, offering
music and refreshments in the museum rotunda in addition to exhibitions on view
in the galleries. Films, conversations, and performances enhance opportunities
for visitors to engage with the museum and the Frank Lloyd Wright–designed
building that celebrates 60 years as an architectural icon in 2019. Also
starting in June, Summer of Know, a conversation series addressing urgent
issues through the generative lens of art, returns to the Guggenheim, featuring
artists, activists, and other professionals discussing topics such as LGBTQIA+
rights in a global context, environmental activism, and housing rights. Details
are available at guggenheim.org/calendar.
Actually,
you can travel and visit Guggenheim museums in Venice, Bilbao, and Abu Dhabi.
Solomon R., Guggenheim Museum, 1071 5th Avenue, New York (betw. 8i8-89th St), 212-423-3500, [email protected], Guggenheim.org.
The
Whitney Museum Biennial
The Whitney
Biennial has long been one of America’s
foremost showcases of emerging artists. Every two years, the exhibition serves
as a bellwether for the culture, both reflecting on and mirroring the country’s
political and social moods. No surprise, then, to see that this year’s work—on
view now at the Whitney Museum of American Art—offers plenty of tension, with
pieces that focus on gender identity and race, among other issues. Curators
chose the works because they represent “a snapshot of contemporary art making”;
read on for more about a few of our favorites. (See: https://www.nycgo.com/articles/whitney-biennial-2019) (99 Gansvoort
St., Meatpacking district).
Museum
of Natural History Presents T.rex, The Ultimate Predator
At the American Museum of Natural History’s blockbuster exhibit, T. rex: The Ultimate Predator, you encounter a massive life-sized model of a T. rex with patches of feathers—the definitive representation of this prehistoric predator, T. rex hatchlings and a four-year-old juvenile T.rex; a “roar mixer”where you can imagine what T. rex may have sounded like; a shadow theater where a floor projection of an adult T. rex skeleton seems to come to life. At a tabletop “Investigation Station,” you can explore a variety of fossil casts with virtual tools including a CT scanner, measuring tape, and a microscope to learn more about what such specimens reveal about the biology and behavior of T.rex. Finally, you encounter a massive animated projection of aT. rexand its offspring in a Cretaceous-age setting. which reacts to visitors, leaving you to wonder, “Did that T. rex really see me?”
T. rex: The Ultimate Predator is the first major exhibition of the
American Museum of Natural History’s 150th anniversary celebration. Plan your
visit (you could spend weeks in the museum), check out the special programming
and events, and pre-purchase timed tickets at amnh.org.
At
Hayden Planetarium Space Theater, see “Dark Universe” (through December 31,
2019)
Open daily from 10 am – 5:45 pm. American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, NY 10024-5192, 212-769-5100, amnh.org.
Revolutionary
Summer at New-York Historical Society
The New-York Historical Society, the oldest museum in New
York (and directly across the street from the American Museum of Natural
History on Central Park West), is presenting a Revolutionary Summer. A Museum-wide
exploration of Revolutionary War times, Revolutionary
Summerpresents outdoor events every weekend featuring characters
from the era; 18th-century art and artifacts; a diorama of the Continental Army
and a host of programs for all ages, including trivia nights, DJ evening, and Revolutionary
Drag Tea Party. On select weekends, visitors can explore a replica of George
Washington’s Headquarters Tent at an outdoor Continental Army encampment, meet
Living Historians portraying soldiers and spies, and learn about the many
facets of camp life during the War for Independence. (Through September 15,
2019)
Also on view: LIFE: Six Women Photographers showcases the extraordinary work created
by Margaret Bourke-White, Hansel Mieth, Marie Hansen, Martha Holmes, Nina
Leen, and Lisa Larsen. (through October 6, 2019); Stonewall 50 at New-York Historical Society, through September
22, 2019, commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising and the
dawn of the gay liberation movement; Hudson Rising explores 200 years of ecological change
and environmental activism along “the most interesting river in America” (through
August 4).
Panoramas:
The Big Picture,
opening August 23 through December 8, 2019, explores wide-angle, bird’s-eye
imagery from the 17th to the 20th century, revealing the influence that
panoramas had on everything from mass entertainment to nationalism to imperial
expansion. Through more than 20 panoramas, the exhibition presents the history
of the all-encompassing medium in New York City, San Francisco and beyond.
New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West (77th Street), New York, NY 10024, 212-873-3400, nyhistory.org.
Want a real escape? Visit Spyscape, which offers a different twist on spy museums, and is more of an experiential attraction, immersing you into the psychology and ubiquity of surveillance and espionage, and literally, with the ending “profile” (developed with the a former head of training at British Intelligence) showing you where you might fit into this world (I’m an analyst). SPYSCAPE, which opened in 2018, illuminates secret intelligence, from espionage to hacking, and investigative journalism. It offers a balanced perspective on big issues – privacy, security, surveillance. You get to engage in real spy challenges, including lie-detection in interrogation booths, surveillance in a 360 degree environment and test strategy and agility in special ops laser tunnels. The museum also features quite a good Spy Shop, a Book Shop, Café and multiple Event Spaces. (928 8th Avenue, entrance on SE corner of 55th Street, spyscape.com).
And in a very real Spy v. Spy scenario, a very different
experience awaits at another new entry to New York City’s museum scene: the KGB Museum. This place presents the
artifacts and history of the KGB in a kind of antique-shop setting but the
items are chilling. You realize that the spy movies, even the satirical “Get
Smart,” didn’t so much fabricate as reveal the tools and techniques and
paranoia of Cold War spying. (KGB Spy Museum tickets are available online or in
the museum. (245 West 14th Street, New York,
NY 10011, 10 am -8 Mon-Sun).
The Museum of Illusions, which opened September 2018 in New York City’s West Village, contains three-dimensional illusions on the walls and floors which will mesmerize visitors of all ages. You might assume by its name that it is a children’s museum or about magic which depends so much on illusion. Nor can it be considered an “attraction” although many of the exhibits are interactive and you get to help create the illusions. It is really about educating about the physical and psychological science behind illusion – placards posted near each exhibit provide the explanations for what you sense. And while the museum does not explicitly delve into magic, when you leave, you will have a better understanding of how some magic tricks work. (77th 8th Ave, New York, NY; newyork.museumofillusions.us)
Cradle of Aviation Museum: Countdown to
Apollo at 50
Travel
out of this world, beyond the city limits, to Long Island: The Cradle of
Aviation Museum and Education Center is one of the great space and aviation
museums, 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.
The Museum of Illusions,
opened September 2018 in New York City’s West Village. You might assume by its
name that it is a children’s museum or about magic, which depends greatly on
illusion — it is neither of these. Nor can it be considered an
“attraction, ” although many of the exhibits are interactive, as you get to
help create the illusions. The purpose of this museum is really about educating
visitors on the physical and psychological science behind illusion. With two-
and three-dimensional illusions on the walls and floors that will
mesmerize visitors of all ages, placards posted near each exhibit provide the
explanations to help you understand what you are viewing and how the illusion
is created. While the museum does not explicitly delve into magic, when
you leave, you will have a better understanding of how some magic tricks work.
We thoroughly enjoyed
this museum with its many surprises. One of our favorite exhibits was a room
with a sloped floor — a monitor shows that you appear to be growing smaller and
smaller as you walk across the floor. Another fun, interactive exhibit is where
a visitor pokes her head out of the middle of the table, but all you see is a
head on top of the table with no body.
Friendly staff are
available to give you clues about the illusions, help you figure out where to
stand to get the most effective view, explain the science behind a particular
illusion, and take your picture. In fact, the museum welcomes photography
because the digital photograph makes it easier to visualize many of the
illusions. At the front of the museum, a staff member is ready to have two of
your party pose as part of an illusion relating to perspective (check out the
photo where Marty is patting Laurie’s head — we are literally a few feet from
each other! And no — Laurie is not that small).
Photography is encouraged at the Museum of Illusions; a photograph makes it easier to visualize many of the illusions. Friendly staff members are available to help take the photo.
The museum is housed in
a bank building dating back to pre-Depression 1920s. Before you leave, be sure
to ask to see the old bank vault.
(Be advised: the only
downside of the Museum of Illusions is that it has mobility limitations – there
is no handrail on the outside steps leading up to the main door and no
alternate ramp. The second floor is only accessible by a narrow staircase with
a banister — there is no elevator. On the other hand, visitors with mobility
issues are admitted free.)
The Museum of Illusions
(77th 8th Ave, New York, NY; https://newyork.museumofillusions.us/) is open Monday – Thursday, 9am to 10pm; Friday
– Sunday 8am to 11pm. To explore with smaller crowds, try to arrive
before noon. Plan for 45 minutes to 1-½ hours to walk the entire museum, and
bring a camera to capture the illusions at their best! Tickets are $19/adult;
$17/senior, military, students with ID; and $15/kids 6-13 years of age (under 6
is free). Tickets may be purchased online with a small service fee.
From its founding in the 1930s to the end of weekly publication in the 1970s, LIFE Magazine elevated and showcased photojournalism. Instead of just being the acoutrement to reporting, the photos were the story, or as Henry R. Luce saw it, the photojournalist as essayist.
During
that time, only six out of 101 full-time LIFE
photographers were women. Now, for the first time, these women – who contributed
so much to the evolution of photojournalism as well as the cultural and
societal trends they spotlighted – are
featured in their own exhibit, LIFE: Six Women Photographers, at the New-York
Historical Society through October 6, 2019.
“For the editors of LIFE—the first magazine to tell stories with photographs rather than text—the camera was not merely a reporter, but also a potent commentator with the power to frame news and events for a popular audience. For decades, Americans saw the world through the lens of the magazine’s photographers. Between the late 1930s and the early 1970s, LIFE magazine retained only six women photographers as full-time staff or on a semi-permanent basis. LIFE: Six Women Photographers showcases the work of some of those women and how their work contributed to LIFE’s pursuit of American identity through photojournalism,” the curators write. The exhibition features more than 70 images showcasing the extraordinary work created by Margaret Bourke-White, Hansel Mieth, Marie Hansen, Martha Holmes, Nina Leen, and Lisa Larsen.
How were these women part of a larger editorial vision? What topics did
they cover, and how did their work reflect—and sometimes expand—the mission of
the magazine? The exhibit reveals these photographers’ important role in
creating modern photojournalism and defining what LIFE editor-in-chief Henry Luce called the
“American Century.” The level of influence that LIFE Magazine wielded was
considerable – at its height, one out of every three Americans read the
magazine each month.
We learn that of the six, three were immigrants of whom two fled Fascist
Europe. In all, they produced 3,000 stories, 325,000 images that curator Sarah
Gordon, curatorial scholar in women’s history at NYHS’ Center for Women’s
History, and Marilyn Satin Kushner, curator and head, Department of
Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections, combed through to select
out the 70 images featured in the exhibit. The exhibit, interestingly,
highlights not only the photos that were selected for publication, but photos
out of the series that were not, as well as the contact sheets. There are also
displays with the magazine opened to the page, and notes from the
photographers.
Asked how the six featured stories were selected out of the
photographers’ 3,000, Kushner reflects, “We thought about what we wanted to
show and say – that kept me up at night, how to tie as a thread. The first
thought was to show a woman’s point of view, but then we don’t know how a man
would have treated the same subject. What the women did was illustrate Luce’s
idea, that the photos [depict] the American story.”
Margaret Bourke-White, one of the first four staff photographers, her image of Fort Peck Dam was the cover of LIFE Magazine’s inaugural cover ; she photographed from front lines in World War II, and worked for LIFE until her death in 1971
Yet, except for Margaret Bourke-White’s famous series on the Fort Peck Dam – illustrative of her talent to show Industrial America and technological progress – the photo essays selected for this exhibit predominantly show women and women’s issues – wrestling with their place in society after World War II’s independence, the WACS. And even when there is a story, like the Dam, Bourke-White and others showed a great sensitivity to how ordinary people – families – lived. Bourke-White chose to show shantytowns that developed around the dam, and what Saturday night dancehall was like.
Her telegram to her editor reads, “Swell subjects especially shanty
towns. Getting good nightlife. Nobody camera shy except ladies of evening but hope conquer them
also…. May I give one picture FortPeck Publishing booklet for local sale. Would
help repay their many courtesies. Could choose pattern picture we probably wouldn’t
use anyway.”
How did they get their assignments? “Sometimes the women wrote and
asked for an assignment, but usually were told to ‘do that’” Kushner tells me. Luce
wanted LIFE Magazine to reflect the American Century, and while Bourke-White
documented steel mills and dams – America’s technology and industrial
achievements – she also depicted new towns in the middle of no where, “FDR’s
New Wild West.”
Standing in front of one of the most controversial and substantial
photos in the exhibition – Martha Holmes’ 1949 image of singer Billy Eckstine being embraced
by a white female fan, surrounded by
other gleeful white teenagers – I meet Holmes’
daughter, Anne Holmes Waxman, and granddaughter of the photographer, Martha
Holmes., Eva Koshel Castleton.
“My mother came on when a lot of men were in the war. Born in
Louisville, Kentucky, she was working as a photographer at the Courier-Journal
when Life Magazine came to recruit her to come to New York. “She was shaking in
her boots, just 24 years old. She never went back.”
The exhibit shows the contact sheet with other images of multiracial crowds waiting for tickets and autographs, but the editors chose to publish the more controversial image. They were so concerned that they sought permission from Luce, who agreed with Holmes that the photograph reflected social progress and was appropriate for the story. “Holmes felt the photo was one of her best, claiming ‘it told just what the world should be like.’ The magazine, however, received vicious letters in response and the fallout adversely affected Eckstine’s career.”
LIFE Magazine photographer Martha Holmes.
In the weekly report of letters received for April 24 issue, “Fifty-nine readers are very much upset. ‘That picture of Billy Eckstine with a white girl clinging to him after a performance just turns my stomach. Why a teen-age white girl conducts herself in this manner over a Negro crooner is beyond me. Juvenile delinquency is bad enough in our own race without mixing it up with another.” “The most nauseating picture of the year.” “That picture qualifies as the most indecent picture ever published by LIFE.” “ That picture should have appeared in Pravda Your publication of it leads me to believe that Mr. Chambers was not the only Communist on your staff.” Eight readers cancelled their subscriptions, but nine praised the feature.
(What I notice in the magazine that is featured in the display is the
ad for new Coty eye cosmetics . “Eyes of natural glamour. Newest style in
beauty.”)
I ask her daughter Anne whether her mother got or lost certain
assignments because of being a woman. She related that the only assignment her
mother turned down was when, she was 8 ½ months pregnant with her, in 1956, and
had to refuse an assignment to photograph Elvis Presley. “It was the one job
she couldn’t take.” But she is renowned for her photos of artist Jackson
Pollack and the House on UnAmerican Activities hearings.
LIFE Magazine photographer Nina Leen.
A very interesting series, “The American Woman’s Dilemma” by Nina Leen, published in the July 16, 1947 issue, danced around the issue of “how are you going to get them back on the farm, after they’ve seen Par-ee” – in this case, women who worked traditionally male jobs and had independence during the war, now being shoved back into housework and child-rearing rather than pursue a career. “The essay also reflected cultural anxieties about a ‘return to normalcy’ after the Depression and war. LIFE assumed that all women desired marriage and children but voiced concern that a woman’s time was so stretched, she did not have time to pursue her husband’s interests.
“The article barely acknowledged that many women had no choice but to
find work. It did recognize women’s struggles with child care buit disparaged
separation as creating insecure children.” Only one of Leen’s photos of an unmarried
woman made the cut. “This article represented a clear attempt at setting out
women’s choices in the post-war era of societal realignment.” (The article is
opposite an ad for Singer sewing machines; LIFE Magazine clearly had an
investment in women as homemakers, wanting the latest appliances.)
LIFE Magazine photographer Marie Hansen’s series “The WAACs” (September 7, 1942) helped America accept the idea of women in uniform..LIFE photographer Hansel Mieth.
Hansel Mieth
is represented by her feature on “International Ladies’ Garment Workers: How a
Great Union Works Inside and Out” (August 1, 1938). She worked as a migrant
worker in California when she first emigrated to the US from Germany, and
photographed fellow migrant workers in San Francisco, the city’s neighborhoods
and cultural enclaves before LIFE hired her in 1937, publishing her socially
engaged photo essays over the next seven years.
Among Lisa Larsen’s iconic assignments for LIFE was photographing the John F. Kennedy-Jacqueline Bouvier wedding in 1953.
I am left to wonder to what extent were the projects reshaped by a woman’s perspective, or how much the women photographers were directed to focus on “women’s subjects”. Even Lisa Larsen’s feature, “Tito as Soviet Hero, How Times Have Changed!” (from June 25, 1956) featured a spread, “Wives Materialize to Greet a Visitor.” We would have to see many more examples of the photographers’ assignments to make that appraisal, and hope these topics will be revealed in future exhibits NY-HS’ Women’s Center.
Based on this cursory examination, it seems Luce wasn’t being progressive in having women photographers for their point of view. He was realizing that women were the market for advertisers. And they were used to socialize women back to their pre-World War II prescribed roles – as homemakers and consumers.
The exhibit is curated by Sarah Gordon, curatorial scholar in women’s history, Center for Women’s History, and Marilyn Satin Kushner, curator and head, Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections; with Erin Levitsky, Ryerson University; and William J. Simmons, Andrew Mellon Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellow, Center for Women’s History.
NYHS brilliantly uses its space to maximize an immersion into Women’s
History. Just outside the Women Photographers of LIFE Magazine exhibit is Women’s Voices, a multimedia digital installation
where visitors can discover the hidden connections among exceptional and
unknown women who left their mark on New York and the nation, even going back
to Colonial America. Featuring interviews, profiles, and biographies, Women’s Voices unfolds across
nine oversized touchscreens to tell the story of activists, scientists,
performers, athletic champions, social change advocates, writers, and educators
through video, audio, music, text, and images.
Among the many fascinating profiles featured in Women’s Voices are those of
the first Latina Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor; Nobel Prize-winning
scientist Barbara McClintock; civil rights activist and poet Audre Lorde; the
first woman to receive a medical degree in the U.S., Elizabeth Blackwell;
award-winning actress Meryl Streep; Brooklyn-born opera star Beverly Sills;
Seneca leader and artisan Caroline Parker Mountpleasant; trailblazing dancer
and principal ballerina Misty Copeland; the Manhattan Project physicist who was
snubbed by the Nobel Prize committee, Chien-Shiung Wu; Gilded Age novelist
Edith Wharton; and the teacher whose 1854 lawsuit helped desegregate public
transit in New York, Elizabeth Jennings Graham, among others.
There
are also displays about the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU),
Women’s Activism and Billie Jean King. And in the middle of the floor is a most
sensational gallery devoted to Tiffany, which includes a fascinating display
about Clara Driscoll, who headed the
Women’s Glass Cutting Department of some 45-55 young women (mainly 16-17
year olds who would work until they went off to be engaged). And who until this
exhibit was unheralded for her role in creating many of Tiffany’s iconic designs.
Revolutionary Summer at New-York Historical Society
Also on view:
The New-York Historical Society, the oldest museum in New York, celebrates Revolutionary Summer, a Museum-wide exploration of Revolutionary War times, Revolutionary Summerpresents outdoor events every weekend featuring characters from the era; 18th-century art and artifacts; a diorama of the Continental Army; and a host of programs for all ages, including trivia nights, a DJ evening, and a Revolutionary Drag Tea Party. On select weekends, visitors can explore a replica of George Washington’s Headquarters Tent at an outdoor Continental Army encampment, meet Living Historians portraying soldiers and spies, and learn about the many facets of camp life during the War for Independence.
“We’re
so excited to welcome visitors to New-York Historical this summer with a full
line-up of fun ways to experience the Revolutionary era,” said Dr. Louise
Mirrer, president and CEO of the New-York Historical Society. “Revolutionary
Summer celebrates the outstanding, revolutionary times that
ignited the birth of our country with everything from a scavenger hunt to the
chance to meet George Washington.”
The centerpiece of Revolutionary Summer is
a replica of George Washington’s Headquarters Tent, on display in New-York
Historical’s outdoor courtyard on select weekends. The original Tent is on
display at the Museum of the American Revolution (MoAR) in Philadelphia. Often
called the “first Oval Office,” the Headquarters Tent was where Washington and
his most trusted staff plotted the strategy that ultimately won the
Revolutionary War. On loan from MoAR, this painstakingly detailed, hand-sewn
replica—made of custom woven linen and wool fabrics—was created as part of a
collaboration between MoAR and Colonial Williamsburg. The Tent is staffed by MoAR
educators, who lead visitors on an immersive tour through history. (On view July
4–7, 26–28, August
16–18, 23–25, September
13–15)
A host of special installations and artifacts are on view at New-York
Historical as part of Revolutionary Summer. One of the
highlights is a recently discovered watercolor painting of the 1782 Continental
Army encampment at Verplanck’s Point, New York—the only known eyewitness image
of Washington’s Headquarters Tent during the Revolutionary War—on loan from
MoAR. Other highlights include a camp cot used by Washington at Valley Forge
during the winter of 1777; John Trumbull’s iconic painting of Washington that
he gave to Martha Washington in 1790; and a pipe tomahawk gifted by Washington
to Seneca Chief Sagoyewatha. Also on display is a diorama depicting the
Verplanck’s Point encampment and the Hudson River shoreline, providing visitors
with a 360-degree view of the scope and scale of Washington’s forces.
Revolutionary Summer also showcases historic documents
from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, including an original
1823 William J. Stone facsimile of the Declaration of Independence; a broadside
from King George III announcing the armistice and officially ending the war;
and a letter by Martha Washington detailing domestic life in the aftermath of
the Revolution.
Independence Day Celebration: Celebrate the Fourth of July
exploring George Washington’s encampment! Enter his Headquarters Tent, meet the
man himself, and experience where the future first president strategized,
dined, and slept while MoAR staff describe his daily life. Also on tap:
singalongs with the Hudson River Ramblers; fife and drum corps music; a
one-woman play about Deborah Sampson, the woman who disguised her gender to
enlist in the Continental Army; family-friendly food for purchase; and Living
Historians portraying soldiers from the Continental Army, as well as John
Adams, who’ll read the Declaration of Independence. Free Admission for
kids age 17 and under
And this fall, the New-York Historical Society explores the life and accomplishments of Paul Revere (1734–1818), the Revolutionary War patriot immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1860 poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride.” On view September 6, 2019 – January 12, 2020, Beyond Midnight: Paul Revere separates fact from fiction, revealing Revere as a complex, multifaceted figure at the intersection of America’s social, economic, artistic, and political life in Revolutionary War-era Boston as it re-examines his life as an artisan, activist and entrepreneur. The exhibition, featuring more than 140 objects, highlights aspects of Revere’s versatile career as an artisan, including engravings, such as his well-known depiction of the Boston Massacre; glimmering silver tea services made for prominent clients; everyday objects such as thimbles, tankards, and teapots; and important public commissions, such as a bronze courthouse bell.
Exhibitions
at the New-York Historical Society are made possible by Dr. Agnes Hsu-Tang and
Oscar Tang, the Saunders Trust for American History, the New York City
Department of Cultural Affairs, and the New York State Council on the Arts with
the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West (77th Street), New York, NY 10024, 212-873-3400, nyhistory.org.
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.
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.
Rusty Schweickartwas 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.
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.”
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.”
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.
“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.
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…
“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.”
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.
“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.
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.”
Gerry Griffinjoined 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.
“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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
Also, as part of this special celebration, the museumis 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.
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.
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.
“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.”
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.
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,
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.”
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.
The
Global Scavenger Hunt teams arrive in New York City for the last leg of the
Global Scavenger Hunt that has taken us to 10 countries in 23 days. Bill
Chalmers, the ringmaster and Chief Experience Officer of this around-the-world
mystery tour, in which the challenges and scavenges are designed to get us out
of our comfort zone and immerse us in a culture, fine-tune our skills as world
travelers, and most significantly, “trust in the kindness of strangers.” Back
in New York, he is delighted all 10 teams circumnavigated the world “in one
piece” without dramatic incident, in this, the 15th annual Global
Scavenger Hunt competition.
The
leading teams vying for the title of “World’s Greatest Travelers” as we enter
this final leg of the contest in 4th place, SLO Folks from
California with 96 points (where the low-score wins); in 3rd, Order
& Chaos, doctors from San Francisco with 81 points; in 2nd
place, Lazy Monday, computer networking consultant and think tank professional
from California with 46 points, and Lawyers Without Borders, from Houston, with
33 points, five-time winners who are competing in the Global Scavenger Hunt for
the 12th time.
There
is one more challenge in New York (an easy urban Par 1), and even though, based
on points and placement, the winners of the 15th annual, 2019
edition of the Global Scavenger Hunt have been determined, still the teams go
out and give it their all. Those in contention must complete at least one of
the scavenges in New York, and complete their time sheet and hand in by the 4
pm deadline.
Examples
of the scavenges: take in a
Yankees game or a Broadway show; have one of each of following: a New
York bagel, a New York hot dog, a New York deli sandwich, a slice of New York
pizza, New York cheesecake, a New York egg cream, or an old-fashion Manhattan; -locate
five pieces from five of the nations you just visited in the Met; visit
Strawberry Fields, pay John Lennon tribute; do one scavenge in each of
the five boroughs of New York City.
A
native New Yorker, this is really my turf (though there is the oddest sensation
of feeling like I am in a foreign place, reminding myself of what is familiar
like language, money, streets, drink water, eat salad), and I delight in
walking up Madison Avenue to 82nd Street to the Metropolitan Museum
of Art on Fifth Avenue.
I
elect to take up the challenge of going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to
seek out objects from five of the countries we visited (Canada, Vietnam,
Myanmar, Thailand, Abu Dhabi, Jordan, Greece, Morocco, Gibraltar, Portugal,
Spain). Greece will be easy, of course, but Morocco and Jordan (Petra), Vietnam
and Myanmar (Burma) are just a bit trickier. It is Chalmers’ way of making us
experience things on a different level, and for me, it brings together so much
of what we’ve seen, learned and experienced along the way.
I
first join a docent-led Highlights Tour, knowing from past experience that
these always lead me to parts of the museum I am unfamiliar with, and enlighten
about aspects of art and culture with the in-depth discussion of the pieces the
docents select to discuss.
The
docent, Alan, begins in the Greco-Roman exhibit with a stunning marble
sculpture of the Three Graces, showing how this theme – essentially copied from
the Greek bronzes (which no longer exist because the bronze was valuable and
melted down for military use) – was repeated over the eons, into the
Renaissance and even beyond.
Obviously, finding an object from Greece is going to be easy, and I hope to find objects from Vietnam, Myanmar (Burma), and Thailand in the Asia wing where there is a massive collection of Buddhist art (it proves just a tad more difficult, but I succeed). Morocco and Jordan (Petra) proved trickier than I expected, but brought me to an astonishing exhibit, “The World Between Empires: Art and Identity in the Ancient Middle East,” with an extraordinary focus on the territories and trading networks of the Middle East that were contested between the Roman and Parthian Empires (ca. 100 BC and AD 250). “yet across the region life was not defined by these two superpowers alone. Local cultural and religious traditions flourished and sculptures, wall paintings, jewelry and other objects reveal how ancient identities were expressed through art.”
The
exhibit features 190 works from museums in the Middle East, Europe and the
United States in an exhibition that follows the great incense and silk routes
that connected cities in southwestern Arabia, Nabataea, Judea, Syria and
Mesopotamia, that made the region a center of global trade along with spreading
ideas, spurring innovations (such as in water control), and spawning art and
culture.
It
was the most incredible feeling to come upon the objects from Petra, having
visited the site (was it only 10 days ago?) and having a context for seeing these
isolated objects on display.
The World between Empires
The landmark exhibition The World between Empires: Art and Identity in the Ancient Middle East, which is on view through June 23, 2019, focuses on the remarkable cultural, religious and commercial exchange that took place in cities including Petra, Baalbek, Palmyra and Hatra between 100 B.C. and A.D. 250. “During this transformative period, the Middle East was the center of global commerce and the meeting point of two powerful empires—Parthian Iran in the east and Rome in the west—that struggled for regional control.”
The exhibition focuses on the diverse and distinctive
cities and people that flourished in this environment by featuring 190 outstanding
examples of stone and bronze sculpture, wall paintings, jewelry, and other
objects from museums in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.
Among the highlights is a Nabataean religious shrine,
reconstructed from architectural elements in collections in the United States
and Jordan; the unique Magdala Stone, discovered in a first-century synagogue
at Migdal (ancient Magdala) and whose imagery refers to the Temple in
Jerusalem; and wall paintings from a church in Dura-Europos that are the
earliest securely dated images of Jesus. Sculptures from Baalbek illuminate
religious traditions at one of the greatest sanctuaries in the ancient Middle
East, and funerary portraits from Palmyra bring visitors face to face with
ancient people. The exhibition also examines important contemporary
issues—above all, the deliberate destruction and looting of sites including
Palmyra, Dura-Europos, and Hatra.
“The compelling works of art in this exhibition
offer a view into how people in the ancient Middle East sought to define
themselves during a time of tremendous religious, creative, and political
activity, revealing aspects of their lives and communities that resonate some
two millennia later,” said Max Hollein, Director, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Further,
in focusing on an area of the world that has been deeply affected by recent
conflicts and the destruction of sites, monuments, and objects, this show also
engages with complex questions about the preservation of cultural heritage.”
The exhibition evokes a journey along ancient trade routes,
beginning in the southwestern Arabian kingdoms that grew rich from the caravan
trade in frankincense and myrrh harvested there and used throughout the ancient
world. Camel caravans crossed the desert to the Nabataean kingdom, with its
spectacular capital city of Petra, which I had just visited, walking through
very much as the caravan travelers would have.
From here, goods traveled west to the Mediterranean and north and
east through regions including Judaea and the Phoenician coast and across the
Syrian desert, where the oasis city of Palmyra controlled trade routes that
connected the Mediterranean world to Mesopotamia and Iran and ultimately China.
In Mesopotamia, merchants transported cargoes down the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers to the Persian Gulf, where they joined maritime trade routes to India.
These connections transcended the borders of empires, forming networks that
linked cities and individuals over vast distances.
Across the entire region, diverse local political and religious
identities were expressed in art. Artifacts from Judaea give a powerful sense
of ancient Jewish identity during a critical period of struggle with Roman
rule. Architectural sculptures from the colossal sanctuary at Baalbek and
statuettes of its deities reveal the intertwined nature of Roman and ancient
Middle Eastern religious practices. Funerary portraits from Palmyra represent
the elite of an important hub of global trade. Wall paintings and sculptures
from Dura-Europos on the River Euphrates illustrate the striking religious
diversity of a settlement at the imperial frontier. And in Mesopotamia, texts
from the last Babylonian cuneiform libraries show how ancient temple
institutions waned and finally disappeared during this transformative period.
In Athens and Petra, particularly, you appreciate this synergy
between trade, migration, environmental sustainability and technology (in
Petra, the ability to control water supply was key), economic prosperity and
political power, and the rise of art, culture, and community.
It is rare (if ever ) for the Metropolitan Museum to venture into
the political, but a key topic within the exhibition is the impact of recent
armed conflicts in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen on archaeological sites, monuments,
and museums, including deliberate destruction and looting. Some of the most
iconic sites affected—Palmyra, Hatra, and Dura-Europos—are featured in the
exhibition, which discusses this damage and raises questions regarding current
and future responses to the destruction of heritage. Should the sites be
restored or will they now only exist “on paper”? How much money and resources
should go to restoring or excavation when villages and homes for people to live
in also need to be rebuilt?
There is a fascinating, if frantic, presentation of three archaeologist/historians speaking about what the destruction by ISIS and Islamic fundamentalists of Palmyra, Eura-Europos and Hatra – what it means to destroy a people’s heritage, their cultural identity. “It may seem frivolous to focus on [archaeological sites] when people are enslaved, killed…but to wipe out, destroy culture is a way of destroying people.”
Happening
upon this exhibit made the travel experiences we had to these extraordinary
places all the more precious.
It
is a humbling experience, to be sure, to go to the origins of the great
civilizations, fast forward to today. How did they become great? How did they
fall? Greatness is not inevitable or forever. Empires rise and fall. Rulers use religion,
art and monuments to establish their credibility and credentials to rule;
successors blot out the culture and re-write history.
(“The World Between Empires” is featured on The Met website as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter using the hashtag #WorldBetweenEmpires.)
I peek
out from the American Café windows to Central Park and see sun and the early
spring blossoms on the trees, and dash out to walk through my other favorite
New York City place. There is nothing more beautiful than New York City in the
spring – brides are out in force taking photos; there are musicians and
entertainers. There is a festive atmosphere as I walk through the park toward
the Palace Hotel in time for our 4:30 pm meeting.
And now, drumroll please, Chalmers announces the
winner of the 2019 Global Scavenger Hunt: “Only one team wins. The competition
was fierce.”
3rd – Order & Chaos, Sal Iaquinta & Vivian Reyes, doctors from San
Francisco
2nd – Lazy Monday, Eric & Kathryn
Verwillow, computer networking and think tank professional of Palo Alto, California
(“I am in awe of how hard worked beginning to end – embraced the spirit,”
Chalmers says.
1st Lawyers Without Borders, Rainey Booth and Zoe Littlepage of Houston, who have competed in the Global Scavenger Hunt 12 times, and won it for the 6th time. “You embody the spirit of the event, to go out of your comfort zone.” (You can follow Zoe’s blog of her experience to get a sense of how strenuous, outrageous, and determined the team was in accumulating their points: https://zoeandraineygreatescape.blogspot.com/2019/05/gsh-2019)
We celebrate at a final bon voyage dinner.
The Global Scavenger Hunt is the brainchild of Bill and
Pamela Chalmers, who in addition to forging understanding and bonds among
travelers and the people in the destinations visited, use the program to promote
voluntourism (one of the scavenges is to volunteer at an orphanage or school
during our stay in Yangon, Myanmar, and in the past travelers visited & helped out at: Tibetan
refugee camps in Nepal, orphanages in Laos, hospitals in Cambodia, homeless
schools in India, hospices in Manila, disabled facilities in Sri Lanka,
Ethiopian schools, the slums of Nairobi) and raised money for the
GreatEscape Foundation.
“The foundation is one of main reasons we do the event,”
Chalmers says. The foundation has raised money to build 12 schools (1 each in Niger, Haiti, Ecuador, India & Ethiopia; 2
each in Sri Lanka & Sierra Leone, and 3 in Kenya), helped build the Tamensa Medical Clinic in Niger for migrating
Tuareg nomads which serves as a midwives & nurse training center too. “We
know that we saved lives and bettered the lives of hundreds. We have helped
over 2400 families in more than 60 countries (mostly women entrepreneurs) with
our interest and fee free micro-loans (96% of which have gone to women with a
99% repayment).”
Through the event this and last year, the
foundation will build 2 more co-ed elementary schools , in Ethiopia and Haiti.
TheGlobal Scavenger Hunt travel
adventure competition is aimed at returning the romance of travel while testing
the travel
IQ of the most travel savvy of globetrotters. The travelers
(who must apply and be accepted to compete) completed a series of highly
participatory, authentic and challenging cultural site-doing scavenges
in ten secret countries over a 23-day circumnavigation between April 12 and May
4, 2019 designed to bring people out of their comfort zone and trust strangers
in strange lands.
“The Global Scavenger Hunt covers a lot of
extraordinary travel bases,” says Chalmers, who dubs his mystery tour, “A blind
date with the world.”
For more information, contact GreatEscape Adventures
at 310-281-7809, or visit GlobalScavengerHunt.com.
At the start of Leg 6, in Amman Jordan, only four of the
original 10 teams competing in the Global Scavenger Hunt are still in
contention to win, many of the teams can now join together, use their cell
phones for planning and booking, get help from the concierge.
But for those competing, some of the mandatory challenges
pose a difficult puzzle to achieve in terms of logistics and timing. The one
that proves problematic is requiring to go one way to or from Petra along the
ancient Kings Highway – the problem is that the Jett Express Bus doesn’t take
that route, the rules don’t allow a taxi from outside the city. Hearing how the
two top teams surmount the challenge is quite interesting.
All but one team is intent on going to Petra, but have
chosen different means to get there. I find myself on the Jett Express Bus,
departing 6:35 am, with three of the teams including one that is in second
place in the Global Scavenger Hunt, only a point behind the leader. Another 5
of us hired a car and driver (allowed because none of them were competing), and
Bill Chalmers, the ringmaster of GSH, Pamela and son Luka are traveling
separately. Each of us left at a different time by a different conveyance. But
what a surprise! we all wind up at the same mid-way trading post at the same time.
Hugs all around.
Struck for decades by the Frederic Church painting of Petra,
and then by hearing at a New York Times Travel Show talk about Petra at night,
I have decided to arrange my own overnight stay. I learn that the Petra at
night is only offered twice/weekly and am lucky enough to be there for
Wednesday. I hastily consult hotels.com for a hotel – none available under
$200/night. I check booking.com and find a hotel – more of a hostel, really –
at a very affordable price, less than a mile from the entrance to Petra. “Only
one room left” the site warns. And considering how so many of the hotels were
booked, I take the leap and book it. The concierge has reserved the seats on
the Jett bus for the morning, with the return the next day (only one departure
each way/daily), at 5 pm.
While the others have to move hastily through Petra – in fact, don’t even get as far as the Treasury (so what is the point?), I am able to move as slowly and contemplatively as I want, knowing I will return the next day. The bus – which is an hour late in departing because the company has put on a second bus – arrives at around 11 am. I use our Jordan Pass (which gives pre-paid admission to most archaeological sites, including two consecutive days at Petra, along with the visa) for the day’s admission and buy the ticket for Petra at Night ($25).
I am amazed by Petra. That now-iconic view that comes into focus as you walk through caverns with the most beautiful striations and shapes, then come upon the teaser of The Treasury through the opening, is as wonderful as I had hoped. But the rest of Petra was a complete surprise – I had not realized how vast – an entire city, in fact – how much has been carved out of the rock (the Royal Tombs are not to be believed), and how much in the Roman era had been built (The Great Temple, the colonnade). All around are fellows who hawk riding their camel, their horse, their donkey, or take the horse-drawn carriage (at fantastic speed considering the narrow walkway), to or from the entrance (it is a full mile walk from the entrance to The Treasury). It is hot, but dry and the breeze is surprisingly comfortable. Besides exploring the archaeological structures, Petra turns out to be a hiking place – you can take trails that bring you up to amazing views. One of the toughest is up to the Monastery – a mile each way up stairs and then back down again.
I decide to reserve that for the next day.
The “park” closes at about 6 and reopens for the 8:30-10:30
night program at 8 pm (it is operated separately and privately from Petra) – I
still have to get my pack, which I have left at the Exchange ($5 tip), and get
to the hotel, which I had thought was within walking distance (.7 mile), but
turns out to be totally up hill. I take a taxi (negotiating the rate).
My el cheapo-supremo hotel turns out to be exactly that –
the nicest part os the name and front entrance. When I am brought to my room, I
thought the fellow made a mistake and brought me to a room under construction
(or rather deconstruction) – plaster patches, exposed electrical outlet,
rusting shower, cracked bathroom shelf, an “armoire” that was falling apart,
only a bed and a stool (not even a chair), slippers left for the bathroom that
were too disgusting to contemplate putting on. Ah, adventure. But overall,
clean and no bugs. So this will do for a night (considering I had left behind
in Amman the five-star, ultra-hip and luxurious W Hotel).
I head out just after 8 pm, walking down the hill into the
park again, where I join throngs of people making their way along the stony
path illuminated by nothing more than lanterns and starlight, thinking how
dramatic and wonderful.
After 45 minutes, arrive at The Treasury where there are
perhaps 1000 people sitting on carpets. I am keen to reproduce the photo I had
seen of the event. The Treasury at this point is barely lighted at all. There
is some traditional music, then a fellow sings, talks for a few minutes, and
then garish neon-colored lights are shown on The Treasury, completely
destroying the mood. And then it is over. 9:30 pm (not 10:30 pm). People start
leaving, and I am totally exhausted, so leave also. I hike up the hill to the
hotel.
My adventure is redeemed the next morning when I am able to
return to Petra as early as 6 am. The hotel proprietor has packed my breakfast
in a baggie in the refrigerator. When I arrive, who should I come upon at 6:14
am but the last team (Lawyers Without Borders). What are the odds!
Walking through the caverns (some of the most exquisite
scenes) is unbelievably peaceful at this hour – I am even the only one at some
points. There are no horse-drawn carriages rattling through, none of the hoards
of people stopping for selfies and posing. And once inside, there was perfect
peace also at The Treasury – the camels posing just perfectly.
A word about the guides – I didn’t use one and they try to
convince you that they will take you places you couldn’t go yourself – but what
I observed was that they were very knowledgeable, very considerate of their
guests (in fact, it is difficult to become a guide – you have to take a test,
be accepted, and then trained). The people who provided the camels, the horses,
the donkeys (you can ride donkeys up to the Monastery), and the carriages work
exceptionally hard (the animals work even harder). And all through are the
souvenir stands (they actually look pretty good) – and you realize, Petra was a
trading center, a stop along the vital caravan routes, and this is very likely
what the scene would have looked like even then.
One guide offers to lead me on a trail that would take me to
the overview of The Treasury (ranked moderate), but I am not feeling 100% and
hope I will be able to do the Monastery trail.
I go through the park again, this time to the Monastery
trail – get some scouting information and begin the ascent. It is a very
interesting hike not just because of the gorgeous stone contours and colors,
and the views back down, but because of the stands set up along the way.
And the Monastery proves to be a highlight – it is actually
bigger than The Treasury – the largest structure carved out of a rock face (if
I have that right). So worth it.
But back down, I am exhausted and have several hours before
the Jett Bus back to Amman (I expect to arrive after the 8 pm deadline but have
informed Bill that the bus likely won’t be back until after 9 pm, and I won’t
miss a flight, will I?)
I have my plan: first I linger at the Basin Restaurant at
the entrance to the Monastery Trail, where I sit outside under trees and have
refreshment. I regain some strength and wander some more. At this point, I
realize what a phenomenal experience I had in the early morning – some 2,000
passengers off the MSC cruise ship, another 2,000 off a second MSC cruise ship,
and hundreds more off a Celebrity ship look like invaders – led by a guide with
a number (50) for their group.
My next plan is to stop into the Petra Guest House, which is
located right at the entrance to the park. (This is the hotel I would recommend
for those who want to come overnight in order to experience Petra in the early
morning – it is very comfortable, pleasant and moderate prie).
I have left an hour to visit the newly opened Petra Museum,
sandwiched between the Visitor Center and the Bus Station (perfect!). It offers
an outstanding exhibit (curiously Japan was a major contributor) – that
explains extremely well how Petra developed, the Nabateans, how they grew to
power first by controlling water through ingenious engineering, then the main
trade route, the King’s Highway, that linked three kingdoms. Artifacts
including art as wlel as everyday materials going back to the Stone Age, are on
display; there are excellent videos, graphics, displays that are engaging and
clear.
I board the Jett Bus (it is the first-class bus geared to
foreign tourists) for the 3 hour trip back. The driver is excellent, but
apparently, a taxi driver has accused him of knicking his cab and the entire
bus has to go to the police station. Surprisingly, this is handled within 20
minutes and we are on our way.
The bus station is not even a mile from the W Hotel (15
minute walk versus 5 minutes by cab) and I considered getting an Uber (much,
much cheaper than a taxi), but started walking instead. I am trying to get my
bearings when a taxi driver who solicited my business at the bus station pulls
up. I reluctantly agree – we settle the price and set out – in the wrong
direction. What should have b een 5 minutes, I see on my GPS is taking me 8 km
away from the hotel. The driver drives frantically, going the wrong way down
one-way streets, zipping here and there but essentially driving in circles that
go further away from the hotel. I show him the card, show him my GPS with the
hotel address. Finally, in frustration I think, he tries to dump me at another
hotel, saying, “W.” Perhaps he thought I
hadn’t been there yet and would be convinced this imposter was my hotel. I tell
him he is going the wrong way, the wrong hotel. Finally he sets out again, and
what should have taken 5 minutes, has taken 30.
I’ve missed the meeting when Bill Chalmers tells us our next
stop on our Global Scavenger Hunt. My teammate has texted the answer: Athens.
In the Throes of
Competition
It is so amazing to listen to everyone’s separate adventures
and experiences – even those who aren’t competing any more still pick up on
Bill’s challenges because they invariably lead us to wondrous and fascinating
things that we may not have considered, or some experience at a highlight that
we might not have considered. And since the competition is intended to crown
“World’s Best Traveler” it is designed to challenge one’s ability for
logistics.
Lawyers Without Borders, the team of Zoe and Rainey
Littlepage, of Houston, has now done this trip more than a dozen times, in
addition to being well-traveled adventure travelers on their own. But
appreciate the difference in traveling this way – first as a mystery tour, so
you have no ability to research or plan in advance what you will see or do at a
destination; second, the challenges force you to experience things or see
things from a different point of view.
The Lawyers are currently leading the contest (no surprise).
Rainey explains that a lot is luck, but I think it is more art and willingness
to embrace challenge as opportunity. And an ability to plan so effectively you
can accomplish more scavenges, higher-point scavenges, and simply amass points.
The problem is, if you fail to achieve any of the “mandatory” challenges, you
don’t get any points at all for that leg.
“It’s different than regular travel. Play t”he game. The
sheet gives purpose to do things you wouldn’t do. You have to plot,” Rainey
says. “It’s a brilliant way to see things. .. You decide how many to do, but
you turn to look and find another. How
between trains you might have an hour, and get 3 scavenges done. It’s an
experience to get it done. I feel pity for those who are just there – no
points.
Innocuous things bring a sense of accomplishment (like
identifying local fish at the market). “How you solve. I love the game. We have
been lucky this year,” he says, pointing to how one of the mandatory challenges
in Jordan was to be at the Citadel in Amman at sunset – no mean feat since they
had to get there from Petra. The sunset was at 7 and they arrived at 6:15 only
to discover the Citadel closes at 6 pm. It was cash, not luck, that got them
in: they paid the guard $5 to let them in to get the photos they needed as
proof at sunset. “We would have lost the whole competition if he didn’t let us
in.”
At the Dead Sea, where the mandatory challenge was to swim,
it was nighttime when they arrived, but found someone (the kindness of
strangers, is a theme of the Global Scavenger Hunt), to let them take the
required dip.
At Wadi Rum, where they stayed in a tented camp, another
mandatory was to be on a camel wearing headdress. But it was night and camel
rides were no longer available. They found somebody to provide the camel and
even let him put on his headdress. They then paid a guy with a pick up truck to
bring them fro the tented camp to a taxi at 3:40 am to get to Petra by 6:15 am
(when I met them). They completed the challenge of making it all the way
through Petra, hiking up the Monastery Trail (about 8 miles altogether) by 9:15
am when they dashed off to Jerash (by 2:30 pm), accomplishing in three hours
what it takes most 4-5 hours.
They had to sit through an hour-long church service before
the required element would appear, took a Turkish bath, went to a café to smoke
a hooka, ate falafel at a particular place, sent a stamped postcard from Petra
to Petra (Bill and Pam’s daughter who couldn’t come), and for the “beastie”
challenge, pose on a camel. “Points are king,” he said.
But here’s an example of real luck: Getting back from Inle Lake
in Myanmar, Zoe has her plane ticket but not Rainey (again, they had to be back
in time for the 6 pm deadline). Rainey was 30 on the waitlist, when a man
offered his place on the plane. “I had to run to an ATM down the street to get
the cash to give him.”
Think of it as “Around the World in 80 Days,” where Phileas Fogg had to use such ingenuity to get place to place (and out of trouble) by a deadline to win the bet. Or how Indiana Jones, who had that powerful scene at Petra, in “”The Last Crusade used the clues in his father’s notebook which ended with a “leap of faith.”
We are now midway in our 23-day around-the-world mystery
tour.
4th Slow Folk with 15
scavenges 3 bonus, 1150 points
3rd Order & Chaos
with 25 scavenges 8 bonus, 1860 points
2nd Lazy Monday with 25
scavenges, 9 bonus, 2045 points
1st Lawyers Without
Borders with 22 scavenges, 12 bonus, 2190 points
So the standings in the Global
Scavenger Hunt so far (where like golf, the low score wins):
1 Lawyers Without Borders 25
2 Lazy Monday
30
3 Order & Chaos 57
4 Slow Folk 66
Still 4 legs, 6 countries to go
“You all feel confident, comfortable, would do new things,
trust strangers, found balance between event and joy. Maximum joy, embrace
that,” Bill Chalmers, our Chief Executive Officer and ringmaster of the Global
Scavenger Hunt says.
If you really want to be freaked out by the KGB Spy Museum that opened just a few months ago in Manhattan, do what I did: come directly from Spyscape, where you learn about the whole business of being a spy, and be in the middle of reading a book like “The Plot to Destroy Democracy: How Putin and His Spies Are Undermining America and Dismantling the West,” by Malcolm Vance.
The KGB Museum would be scarier if it were not laid out somewhat like an antique shop (but aren’t all spy centers sequestered behind something innocuous like a tailor shop?). Row by row, there are some 3500 artifacts, all of them real, many on view publicly for the first time. They date from 1910 until 1991, the collapse of the Soviet Union when the KGB was replaced by the FSB. But these mundane objects – a lipstick, an umbrella, a pen – were lethal weapons; a tie pin and belt buckle were cameras; a heart reader could seek out a live person hiding even in a refrigerator. Another important tool? A thermometer to determine if a person were truly dead. And if a master key couldn’t unlock an apartment to install a bug? No matter, a transmitter could be aimed at the window from a huge distance to decipher the sound vibrations and eavesdrop anyway. There is even a letter remover which could take out a letter from its envelope, read its contents and replace it back in the envelope, without leaving a mark.
And then there is the “patient chair,”
used in a psychiatric hospital, with scary restraints, that were used for
interrogations under truth serum or other means.
It turns out that those fantastical
gadgets from the James Bond movies, and even the Get Smart spy spoof, were
actually based on the real thing. It seems that there is nothing too absurd in
the spy world.
The KGB story is really scary
though. KGB (КГБ in Cyrillic) stands for “Komitet
Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti,” which can be translated as the Committee for
State Security. The KGB was the main security agency for the Soviet Union, and
during the Cold War the KGB was in direct competition with the CIA and other
state security agencies around the world for cultural, economic, and military
dominance.
The KGB was born in the Russian Revolution – one of the artifacts is the carpet
memorializing Lenin (not his real last name, it turns out) and the beginning of
the Revolution in 1917 – and was initially designed to ferret out
counter-revolutionaries, or enemies of the Communist state.
One of the
world’s largest and most sophisticated intelligence operations, the KGB served
a multifaceted role as both a spy agency outside of Soviet Union and a force of
secret police within it.
You realize how pervasive and
ruthless the KGB was (is), and sense the constant terror that the people must
have lived under, as that term “enemies of the state” was broadened to mean any
one who criticized or opposed the ruling party, the leadership or policies.
There are real doors from jail cells,
and you look through at real video of real prisoners. Those who were placed in solitary
were allowed nothing to wear but their underwear; they could sleep only four
hours, when the bed would be closed up, and fed only bread and water for 5 to
15 days.
One of the
world’s largest and most sophisticated intelligence operations, the KGB served
a multifaceted role as both a spy agency outside of Soviet Union and a force of
secret police within it.
Some of the best engineering and
scientific minds were employed to devise gadgets and gizmos – miniaturizing cameras,
maximizing surveillance and detection, inventing new ways of transmitting.
“Virtually
undetectable, the agency used its state-of-the-art tools and ruthless methods
to seamlessly monitor the citizens’ lives and keep them in constant fear of
repercussions for any subversive behavior. The investment in the spy technology
had a devastating toll on the country’s economy yet it was deemed the most
effective and necessary way to keep the state isolated from the rest of the
world and keep the Western world out.”
With spies
operating in countries all over the world, the KGB had a vast influence on world
affairs, which reached its peak during the Cold War. KGB Spy Museum presents a
never-before-seen collection of items used in the missions of prominent KGB
agents, illuminating the strategies and methods that underlay many of history’s
top-secret espionage operations.
In addition
to perusing artifacts and learning about the history of the notorious agency, you
can read and listen to real stories from spies, witnesses and journalists as
well as explore and interact with authentic objects, such as telephone
switchboards (most of the operators who connected the calls and then listened
in on conversations were KGB), encryption machines, an interrogation chair,
designed to extract information from suspects and enemies.
One of the most interesting stories surrounds a wooden Great Seal in one of the cabinets, that was also one of the KGB’s greatest triumphs, that arose out of the famous summit in the Crimea of Stalin, Churchill and FDR. The head of the KGB, Lavrenty Beria, had a replica of the Great Seal made as a gift for Ambassador Averell Harriman, presented most charmingly by cherubic Young Pioneers (like boy scouts) as a “gesture of friendship.” But inside was an ingenious bug that used electromagnetic energy instead of an external power supply. It hung above the Ambassador’s desk in Moscow for seven years before it was exposed in 1952. “The Americans couldn’t figure out how it worked for a year and a half,” my guide, Sergey, says. (The original is in the NSA’s Cryptology Museum in Washington.)
The inventor of the Zlatoust/Receiver
LOSS, Lev Sergeyevich Termen, was a physicist
and a musician, who began his career by developing previously unseen electronic
musical instruments. In 1947 he won the Stalin Prize for Inventions of Listening
Devices.
One of the objects that is literally
one-of-a-kind, is a record player made expressly for
Stalin; there is also a safe, made by the Bernstein company in Berlin, that
came from KGB HQ, still containing the currency that would have been enough to buy
30 cars. Both indications of the privilege along with the power amassed by the
Communist leadership despite their calls for a equal society.
Among the rarest objects, which are
a point of pride, also seem mundane but were “mechanical masterpieces”:
Tool set КАРОЕД/KAROED (Bark beetle): This is a manual
set of special drills and instruments for drilling very narrow holes less than
0.04 inches without any sound in the tree or plastic. Holes were needed to
listen to secret conversations with a help of secret microphones. These sharp
and pointed drills are specially machined from the very hard metal. The set
includes drill extensions, which can be used to drill holes in 3.3 ft and even
thicker walls or wooden floors. A special hand-held drill holder had a stopper to
drill holes of a certain depth to protect the drill from coming out across the
wall by making only a small, hardly visible hole. A special container collects
shavings in order not to leave any suspicious marks.
Also
very rare: KGB secret drill ИГЛА/IGLA (needle): “It is a unique mechanical
masterpiece – the drill IGLA. This very complicated drill reflects the name
‘needle’, because it drills a very thin hole through the concrete. It drills
with the help of air compressor with abrasive dust to avoid the sound and
vibration. Even the drilling sound was designed by the constructors to simulate
that era washing machine Малютка/Maliutka. The person at home thought that a
neighbor was probably doing the laundry. The Igla drill had a hole through
which the air pressure was inflated according to the manometer readings, and
when the drill approached the outside of concrete wall, the air pressure
dropped in the drill as the air went out and the drill automatically shut off.
The hole was 0.04 inches in size. If the walls were painted or lined with
ceramic tiles, the eye did not even see the hole or dust outside. With this
drill, the abrasive powder and concrete dust were absorbed by air. Agents who
were very patient, slow and responsible were chosen to drill such a hole. In
order to drill a 4 inches concrete wall took about 4 hours, and with the
preparation – the whole day. Agents, through drilled miniature holes, installed
listening or photo devices. After the operation, they applied a hole with the
cement mixture and no suspicious marks were left.”
There’s an old fashioned
phone where you can “dial” a selection of officials. My guide, Sergey, dials
Putin and hands me the phone so I can hear Putin talking (it’s like listening
to the LBJ telephone tapes at the LBJ Presidential Museum in Austin). There are
also actual phones on display from KGB offices that would have features to
disguise the voice at the push of a button.
The two spy experiences – Spyscape and
the KGB Museum – have completely different approaches and perspectives, but they
complement each other so well, especially when visited one after the other.
Spyscape is modern, state of the art, interactive, pulse-pounding, engaging, immersive experience. KGB is old-school but so relevant today, with the Russian actively hacking elections and using social media to impact US and other elections, policy, and political discourse.
“The KGB Spy
Museum aims to present espionage and intelligence operations in an educational
and interesting way, emphasizing the importance of human intelligence and
setting out a frame of reference for the public to appreciate the great extent
to which spies have always influenced world events. The Museum has a policy of
presenting the history of espionage without political bias, thus offering
visitors a factual and balanced view of the subject. “
The Museum is open daily 10 a.m. to 8
p.m.Tickets are
available online or in the museum. You need about 1 ½ hours to visit. Tickets
are adults (18-64)/$25; Children 7-17, seniors, students, $20; a guided visit,
minimum 3 people is $43.99.
