Category Archives: From the Neighborhoods

Six to Celebrate Hart Island Tour

Hart Island Tour aboard the John J. Harvey

Join HDC and The Hart Island Project aboard the John J. Harvey Fireboat on Sunday, July 30th to take a truly unique trip around the Southern tip of Manhattan, up the East River to follow the original path from Bellevue Hospital past Roosevelt Island through Hells Gate to Hart Island. The Hart Island Project’s Melinda Hunt will inform tour goers about the history of Hart Island, as well as the influences it has had on New York City.

Boarding will be at 12:00 pm 

The trip will take approximately 5-6 hours

Water will be provided, but people are encouraged to bring refreshments. Casual dress is suggested, at some point the water cannons will go off.

This tour is free- RSVP is Required

SOLD OUT

 Donations to HDC, The Hart Island Project and the John J. Harvey Fireboat are greatly appreciated

Corona-East Elmhurst Walking Tour

Corona-East Elmhurst Walking Tour

Saturday, June 10, 2017

11am-1pm

Corona-East Elmhurst has become one of the largest and most intercultural Latino communities in NYC. Originally part of the colonial village of Newtown, established in the 1600s by Dutch and African settlers, it has been home over the years to sizable Italian, African-American, Caribbean, German, Irish, Jewish and Swedish populations simultaneously. It also has a history as a horse-racing destination, a railroad and baseball town and a haven for New York’s jazz community. On this two-hour tour we will explore these aspects of Corona-East Elmhurst’s heritage, concentrating on the Corona portion of this diverse area. Sights include historic houses of worship, a 19th-century country villa, beloved local parks and eateries and the longtime home of music legend Louis Armstrong, as well as the former residence of his friend and fellow legend Dizzy Gillespie, who along with Charlie Parker ushered the era of bebop into the American jazz tradition. Tour participants will have the option of extending their tour by continuing with the guide to the World’s Fair Marina, a waterfront promenade where the mysterious Candela structures stand.

Ace Hotel and Madison Square North Park

Ace Hotel and Madison Square North Park

Friday, May 5

2:20 pm

Attendees of this unique tour will get to view the Ace Hotel located in the Madison Square North Historic District, and tour Madison Square Park. You will learn how the park affected development around Madison Square and how the hotel is a part of that history. The Ace hotel has embraced its historic roots by creatively decorating its interior with contemporary pieces that reflect the neighborhoods past. The tour will begin inside the lobby of the Ace hotel, where a staff member will guide us around the the original mosaic floor and stained glass windows. The tour will then continue through Madison Square Park. The land around Madison Sq. Park was designated a public space in the first city charter of 1686; in the ensuing centuries the land would be used as farmland, military training and finally a park. Come learn the storied history of the park and the neighborhood on this special Six to Celebrate tour.

REGISTER

2017 Six to Celebrate Launch Party!

2017 Six to Celebrate Launch Party!

Calvary-St. George’s Parish 

61 Gramercy Park North, Manhattan

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

6pm

Friends $20 / General Admission $25


2017 Six to Celebrate:

Chelsea, Manhattan

Corona-East Elmhurst, Queens 

Hart Island, The Bronx

Mott Haven, The Bronx

Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn

West Harlem, Manhattan

 

Six to Celebrate annually identifies six historic NYC neighborhoods that merit preservation. These will be priorities for HDC’s advocacy and consultation over a yearlong period. Please join the Historic Districts Council at the 2017 launch party!

To read more about the 2017 Six to Celebrate go to our website 6tocelebrate.org

 


Support is provided in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and by the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Additional support is provided by City Council Members Margaret Chin, Inez Dickens, Daniel Garodnick, Vincent Gentile, Corey Johnson, Ben Kallos, Stephen Levin, Mark Levine, Rosie Mendez and Rafael Salamanca, and by New York State Assembly Members Deborah Glick, Richard Gottfried and Daniel O’Donnell.

Announcing the 2017 Six to Celebrate !

Announcing the 2017 Six to Celebrate !

 

Chelsea, Manhattan


 

Corona-East Elmhurst, Queens


 

Hart Island, The Bronx


 

Mott Haven, The Bronx


 

Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn


 

West Harlem, Manhattan


Support for Six to Celebrate is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York City Councilmembers Inez Dickens, Daniel Garodnick, Vincent Gentile, Corey Johnson, Ben Kallos, Mark Levine, and Eric Ulrich.

A Walk Through Audubon Park

Sunday, October 16, 2016

2:00—3:30 p.m.

Audubon Monument, 550 West 155th Street

The distinctive footprint that disrupts Manhattan’s grid west of Broadway between 155th and 158th Streets—the Audubon Park Historic District—did not come about by accident or from the demands of local topography. It unfolded from careful planning and alliances among like-minded property owners, whose social and political connections ensured that when progress swept up Manhattan’s west side, they would benefit.

Join neighborhood historian Matthew Spady for a leisurely walk through the architectural treasures in the Audubon Park Historic District on Sunday, October 16 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. The walk, sponsored by the Historic Districts Council, will begin at the Audubon Monument in Trinity Cemetery (155th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue) and from there wind through the historic district, ending at the historic row of twelve houses that John Leo and John Lilliendahl built on 158th Street between 1896 and 1898. The Historic Districts Council selected this row as one of its Six to Celebrate designations for 2016.

The cost of the walk is $10 for HDC friends, seniors or students, and $20 for non-members.

Participants may also pay at the start of the walk (cash only).

 

Monument to What?

Monument to What? will address the complicated history behind the monument to Dr. J. Marion Sims located in Central Park at 103rd and Fifth Avenue. In recent years calls for its removal have centered on the fact that it ignores how Sims exploited enslaved women for his medical research. Similar disputes are currently underway in cities across the nation in response to 18th, 19th and early 20th century monuments that celebrate slaveholders, racists, Confederate soldiers and corrupt politicians. Click here to learn more.

Monument to What? A Panel Discussion
Friday, October 7th, 2016 from 6:30-8:30 pm
Project: ARTSspace, 156 Fifth Ave. @ 20th St., Suite 308

Speakers:

  • Harriet A. Washington, author of Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
  • Heather Butts, MA, JD, Health Policy Management Department, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
  • Artist and designer Xenobia Baily
  • Laundromat Project 2016 Create Change Fellowship artists Vanessa Cuervo, Autumn Robinson, Rahviance Beme and Terence Trouillot
  • East Harlem Preservation founder, writer, and activist, Marina Ortiz

Monument to What? is organized by the Institute for Wishful Thinking as the final public event for the exhibition Making Progress. Closing celebration to follow panel discussion.