Showing posts with label New York City. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York City. Show all posts

January 22 - “Cleopatra's Needle” Installed in NYC's Central Park

   Posted on January 22, 2022


This is an update of my post published on January 22, 2011:




This 68-foot-tall, 224-ton Egyptian obelisk stands in New York City's Central Park, behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Staring up at the huge chunk of stone, we might wonder how it got all the way from Egypt to the U.S.

By ship, of course—but it wasn't easy. Apparently Lt. Commander Henry Honeychurch Gorringe, U.S. Navy, wasn't able to get an Egyptian crew to sign on and sail to America, so he brought in a Serbian “crew” that—it turned out—not only didn't speak a word of English, but also didn't have any experience at sea!

The ship with the monument arrived at Staten Island in July of 1880. It was floated up the Hudson River and unloaded at the 51st Street dock, where 32 horses were hitched to it. The horses slowly pulled the stone to Central Park, where it was finally erected about half a year after its arrival in the U.S., on this date in 1881.





Curiouser and curiouser...

  • Although the obelisk is a genuine Ancient Egyptian monument, it had nothing to do with Cleopatra. As a matter of fact, the “needle” was already about 1,000 years old when she lived! ...Instead, it was carved and erected in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis on orders of the pharaoh Thutmose III, around 1450 BC.


  • The twin of this monument, built at the same time and place and also referred to as “Cleopatra's Needle,” was installed a few years earlier in London, England. A third Egyptian obelisk, which was erected at Ancient Egypt's Luxor Temple under the pharaoh Ramesses II, was installed in Paris earlier in the 1800s.
  • According to Sharon Waxman, author of Loot, “Storms and pollution [in New York City] have erased most of the hieroglyphics on a monument that had survived for some 3,500 years in Egypt without substantial damage.” Present-day Egypt is wisely reluctant to let go of any more of its precious historical and artistic treasures.





Learn more about Ancient Egypt

Try Mr. Donn's website. 

Or King Tut One – which has pictures to color and puzzles to solve!


 



Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

April 20 - Freedom of Religion in New Amsterdam!

Posted on April 20, 2020

I don't ever want to hear this: "They killed Jesus!"

One of the awful and ironic tragedies of the Christian religion is that Jesus's death - even though it was Roman soldiers who carried out the execution - is often blamed on the Jewish leaders who (according to the story) asked that he be put to death. 

And then somehow many Christians blame ALL Jews for his death. Even though Jesus himself was a Jew! Plus, his disciples and supporters were all Jews!


It seems that too many people use any excuse (no matter how unreasonable or counter-factual) to hate other people.

Hatred of Jews is called anti-semitism, and history has seen far too much of it. 



But today's historical anniversary is a little bit of positivity in the story of anti-semitism:

When Portuguese forces conquered Recife, in Brazil, in 1654, the Jewish people of Recife faced oppression. Several Jewish families fled Brazil aboard a ship, but in the Caribbean they either ran into a storm and were stranded in Spanish Jamaica, or their ship was was attacked by a Spanish pirate (I've seen different reports!). Whatever happened, those Jews were fearful of facing the Spanish Inquisition - which was big-time religious bigotry, in which non-Catholics were forced to convert or die. 

The Jews of Recife, Brazil, in the 1600s: various
groups went to Dutch and English colonies in South
America and the Caribbean Sea, one group went to
the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, and the bulk of
the Recife Jews went all the way back to the Netherlands.


The 23 desperate Jews were finally allowed to sail to a Dutch colony in North America. They hoped to find a welcome there - a place where they could worship as Jews, settle and work and become a community.

That Dutch colony - called New Amsterdam - was ruled by Director Peter Stuyvesant, and he did not welcome the Jews. Their perilous journey had resulted in them coming pretty empty handed, and Stuyvesant thought they would become a drain on the colony. 



This logo of the Dutch West India
Company appeared on its flags.
However, under pressure from Jewish folks living in the Netherlands, leaders of the Dutch West India Company ordered that the Jews be given refuge in the colony.



"Refuge" means shelter, a safe place. "Refugees" are people who need shelter because they had to flee their homes to escape harm or death.

The Jewish families settled in New Amsterdam, and their freedom to worship their own religion was safeguarded on this date in 1657.

One of the 23 Jews from Recife, Asser Levy, was the first Jew known to own a home anywhere in North America.

Asser Levy Public Baths, located on Asser Levy Place in
Manhattan, NYC. This facility is named after Asser Levy, one
of the most prominent of New York Cities early Jewish citizens.

In 1664, the British invaded the colony of New Amsterdam.  The Brits took over and renamed the town New York. 




Nowadays New York has grown to be the largest city in the U.S. and one of the most important cities in the world! It's also the city with the most Jewish citizens in America.

Also nowadays: many of us push back whenever we spot anti-semitism.  






Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

October 27 - Happy Birthday, Majora Carter

Posted October 27, 2019

You know that someone has crafted a special, one-of-a-kind life when there is a wide assortment of titles / jobs / accomplishments listed on their Wikipedia article.



In the case of Majora Carter, that list includes:



  • urban renewal strategist
  • real estate developer
  • public radio host
  • economic diversity advocate
  • founder and executive director of a non-profit environmental solutions corporation
  • associate director of a non-profit community development organization
  • grant writer
  • co-founder of a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting poverty through cleaning the environment
  • Olympic torch bearer
  • speaker, including a popular TED talk
  • writer for TV and radio
  • television and documentary host and/or narrator
  • founder and president of a consulting firm
  • co-founder of a tech meet-up
  • innovator, consultant, and prize winner in various tech-economy businesses and contests
  • high-achieving, controversial business woman!

Majora Carter started off her life by being born in the South Bronx in New York City, on this date in 1966. She went from Head Start and public schools to a BA and a MFA (Master's of Fine Arts) in film. 

One day she was walking her dog, and the dog pulled her into a weedy, trash-strewn vacant lot. She was surprised when she discovered that the vacant lot ended on the banks of the Bronx River.



Where others might have concentrated on scolding their dogs and asserting who's the boss when it comes to dog walking...

And still others might have been grossed out by the weeds and the trash and beat it back to known sidewalks and streets...

Carter did neither of those things. Instead, she looked beyond the surface appearance of that lot, and she saw possibilities. She went to work to get a grant to restore the river bank, and then she leveraged that grant to get funding for developing the entire area as a park. And not just any park: that icky vacant lot has been transformed into an award-winning park.
Speaking of awards, Carter has managed in her busy, varied career to win quite a few. Along the way, she has also caused controversy and has garnered criticism. But I think that environmental justice - which touches on many of her accomplishments - is a really important field and will continue to increase in importance in the future. 






Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)