Mindful Walker

Happy 90th birthday to the beloved Empire State Building, which opened on May 1, 1931. The #ArtDeco skyscraper is timeless and ever-modern: It's always uplifting to gaze at its graceful spire, atop a building now powered by renewable wind electricity. None of the pencil-thin, banal glass towers can ever match its presence on the New York City skyline. Tonight, the Empire State Building is celebrating with lights in sparkling white with a rotating "90" in the building's mast. Photo: 2013, in classic white #NYC

This online presentation, on Thursday, 4/22, will look at the preservation of New York City's significant places of Black social, economic, political, and cultural history. It's a great opportunity to virtually explore landmarks and historic neighborhoods from Harlem to elsewhere in Manhattan; Brooklyn; Queens; the Bronx; and Staten Island. It's a free presentation, registration required.

Want an affirmation of historic preservation? New Jersey is investing $190M for the restoration and renovation of the 1935 Newark Penn Station. A look at the plans and a virtual tour of the station's classical majesty and Art Deco splendor http://www.mindfulwalker.com//renewal-on-track-at-newark-p

THE FIRST WOMAN EDITOR OF THE NEW PALTZ TIMES For Women’s History Month, this sketch that HPC member Matt Maley created honors Eliza Varick Silvernail Ackert, ...who was the first woman editor of the New Paltz Times. Eliza Ackert took charge of the editing, printing, and distribution of the newspaper from 1862 to 1864 while her husband, Charles Ackert, served in the Union Army during the Civil War. Born in 1830 in Poughkeepsie, Eliza Varick Silvernail married Charles Ackert in 1851. Charles learned all about printing and was an editor, foreman, and proprietor of a number of Hudson Valley newspapers before he ultimately founded the New Paltz Times in 1860. When her husband enlisted and then served in the Union Army, with the 156th Regiment of the New York State Volunteer’s Infantry, Eliza edited and published the newspaper. She was 31 when she assumed this role. Eliza received praise for the job she did. Mrs. Ackert "has succeeded her husband in the publication of the Times, and under her management it has maintained its high place in weekly journalism" (The History of Ulster County, New York, Vol. 2). Serving as a soldier, Charles sent dispatches from the front to his wife. He marked the dispatches as addressed to "Mrs. Publisher. Charles wrote and sent reports about the troop's movements, casualties, the ways that disease threatened and ravaged the troops, and daily occurrences. After the Civil War, Mr. Ackert assumed the position of editor and publisher again. The newspaper’s office was in a building at 40 Main Street (the frame building is no longer in existence). Over the years, he served as Town Clerk and Supervisor in New Paltz and in various other offices. He died on June 1, 1900, at the age of 70. After his death, Eliza Ackert was the publisher and proprietor of the New Paltz Times under her death at the age of 85 in 1916. HPC Member Susan DeMark #WomensHistoryMonth Sources for the above info: Historic Huguenot Street Hudson River Valley Heritage Exhibit: New Paltz in the Civil War Online Exhibit Haviland-Heidgerd Historical Collection, Elting Memorial Library New Paltz Revisited (Images of America Book) By Carol A. Johnson The Hudson River Valley Review, Fall 2005 Find a Grave pages for both Charles and Eliza Ackert

August 26 is Women's Equality Day, the 100th anniversary of when the 19th Amendment became official. The more I have delved into the suffrage movement, the less I feel I know about its many heroes. This remains one of the underappreciated rights campaigns of U.S. history, and it took longer for women of color and native women. Suffragists endured hunger strikes, beatings, freezing weather as they picketed day after day at the White House, ridicule, and so much more. Unlock th...ese stories in the exhibits and maps I share in this essay. A connective link across the generations remains how the right to vote is absolutely threatened for so many millions. So here, too, are ways to protect the vote today. Feel free to share your own thoughts! http://www.mindfulwalker.com//suffrage-at-100-the-battle-k Adelina Nina Otero-Warren, circa 1900 Descended from an influential Hispano family, she was a leading suffragist in New Mexico’s movement.

Like their other authoritarian impulses, Donald Trump and his people look poised to dictate that all new federal buildings be of classical design as the "preferred" style, like the U.S. Capitol and structures of Ancient Greece. But a Nevada Congresswoman's new bill, if adopted, would ensure that we have a diversity of designs. Our buildings speak our values, and the design styles should not erase varied cultures and community needs. http://www.mindfulwalker.com//bill-aimed-at-halting-trump- Photo: The Oklahoma City Federal Building (2005; Carol Ross Barney, chief architect), replaced the building lost in the 1995 bombing in which 168 people perished. This building design praised for its combination of security and openness would not have been allowed under the kind of dictate Trump's order contains.

Every generation leaves behind a legacy. What that legacy will be is determined by the people of that generation. What legacy do you want to leave behind? John Lewis, Across That Bridge Thank you for endowing our world with your love, grace, heart, and courage.

At some point soon, Elizabeth Jennings Graham will have a statue in her honor next to Grand Central Terminal, and many more will learn about her. On this date, July 16, in 1854 just over 100 years before Rosa Parks would not give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus this courageous woman refused to get off a New York City streetcar that prohibited black passengers. This post from Village Preservation tells the story of that day and about her life. Then 27, Elizabeth ...Jennings sought to ride a Third Avenue Railway Company horse-drawn streetcar on her way to her church in Greenwich Village. When she resisted the efforts of a conductor to remove her from the car of white passengers, the conductor (with the aid of a policeman) forcibly took her off of it. She wrote about this discrimination and the conductor's physical assault of her, and eventually sued the railway company and won. A major rally was held the day after the streetcar incident at her church (where she was an organist) on East 6th Street. Her bold action of dignity and resistance was an important milestone on the way to ending segregation on transit in New York City.

July 4 also marks the day when all slaves in New York State were finally freed, in 1827. As this Village Preservation tour of 14 historic sites shows, Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo together were a center in the 19th century of abolitionist activity, and efforts to aid fugitive slaves, desegregate the streetcar system, and establish some of the city's first black churches and schools. Fascinating history! #BlackLivesMatter #history

"What's Going On" indeed: I was 13 years old, in 1965, when the Voting Rights Act became law in the U.S. Fifty-five year later, too many are still engaging in depriving the vote for communities of color. We must protect the right to vote for everyone. This video is very moving, as it depicts the struggle over these decades. The #BlackLivesMatter protests capture it on so many fronts. We can work together at this pivotal moment in our nation's and world's history in many ways.... The video is from More Than A Vote, a group that LeBron James and his business partner, Maverick Carter, have formed to encourage African-Americans to register and to fight voter suppression in upcoming elections. Various athletes have joined in this cause. I can easily access my polling place and vote -- that is white privilege - yet far too many people still face obstacles to prevent them from exercising this right. #MoreThanAVote #ICantBreathe

As we reckon with painful events, both recent and long ago, we open the path to reconciliation and the ending of systemic racism. In Tulsa, among other important efforts, a memorial walk and history center known as Greenwood Rising is slated to open next year, the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, when white mobs set fires and destroyed a large, thriving African-American neighborhood, killing many residents. For many decades, the history books neglected this horrible incident. I wrote about the Tulsa Race Massacre for Mindful Walker's essay last week on virtual explorations of historic preservation.

The call of historic places and events has much meaning during the COVID pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests. This spring, this has gone virtual in a big way. Here's a look at some worthy virtual historic explorations. http://www.mindfulwalker.com//a-time-to-go-to-historic-pla They include a "blues poem" musical performance in Louisiana about jazz trumpeter Bunk Johnson, the Tenement Museum's presentation on the history of pickle making and selling among Eastern Europ...ean Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side (with a demo on how to make your own cucumber pickles), and an online exhibit about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Bunk Johnson and Lead Belly playing in New York, 1946 [William P. Gottlieb Collection, Library of Congress]

Perched on a rock at SUNY New Paltz

Eighty-nine years ago today, on May 1, 1931, the Empire State Building opened. It began this glorious skyscraper's 41-year time as the world's tallest building. Photo by Lewis Hine

Happy birthday to the Empire State Building, which opened on this date, May 1, in 1931. Its top is shimmering in blue and purple tonight.

An opportunity for New Paltz residents to share their favorite photos of the outdoors and historic places here #walking

I know this place with its ocean breezes the Coney Island Boardwalk is providing solace, beauty, and peace to some New Yorkers today as the city and world continue dealing with the coronavirus epidemic. The boardwalk has been here for generations, since 1923. Thankfully, it will be here for future generations since the boardwalk was designated a New York City landmark in 2018. One antidote for this very difficult time: Virtually explore and appreciate the city's landmarks and historic neighborhoods through the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission's great decade-by-decade Story Map, in honor of the 55th anniversary this month of the Landmarks Law's enactment. It gave me another sense of just how amazing the city is. https://www.mindfulwalker.com//marking-55-years-of-new-yor

This shows the beautiful ceiling details in the Grand Lobby of the Loew's Paradise Theater, located on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. This theater is one of the landmarks the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) cited as part of the 55th anniversary of the Landmarks Law, on April 19, 2020. Loew's Paradise Theater opened this theater in 1929 as one of five "Wonder" movie palaces in the New York metropolitan area outside of Times Square-Midtown Manhattan. Th...e LPC designated the interior as a city landmark in 2006, after having designated the exterior in 1997. A mega-church, World Changers Church, leases this historic theater space. Check out the incredible and diverse landmarks and historic districts that the law protects, through the LPC's Story Map tool: http://www.mindfulwalker.com//marking-55-years-of-new-york Photo: New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission