Community: bloggers@brooklynmuseum

One of the week’s big events was the weather. Saturday, Sunday and Monday were cloudy and cold (mid-50s F, which is cold for Luxor) with an occasional scatter of raindrops. Overnight on Monday, however, it rained more heavily, always a concern in Luxor where rain is uncommon. Tuesday morning we saw the effects of the downpour.

The huge puddles left by the rain made getting out of the hotel grounds and into the van something of a challenge. The van, too, has suffered: it is usually a clean and shiny blue and white. (more…)

A little known fact is that Walt Whitman was the acting librarian in 1835 of the Brooklyn Apprentices’ Library which was the nucleus of the Brooklyn Museum. This year is the 185th anniversary of the founding of the Brooklyn Apprentices’ Library and we are reflecting on Whitman in celebration of the anniversary. The Brooklyn Apprentices’ Library was founded in 1823 as the first free and circulating library in Brooklyn. The Library evolved into the Brooklyn Institute which eventually became the parent of the Brooklyn Museum as well as Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. Spanning 185 years, the Apprentices’ Library has a rich history including the fact that Revolutionary War Hero General Lafayette laid the cornerstone of the library building on his tour of America in 1825. Years later, Walt Whitman recounted witnessing the laying of the cornerstone by General Lafayette. We’ve got a bit more information on Whitman and his association with this institution on our website.

Would Whitman recognize the library today? Maybe since several of the books in the original Library live on the shelves in the Brooklyn Museum Library. Whitman reported that there were 1,200 volumes in 1835 and today there are over 300,000 volumes ranging from antiquity to contemporary art. We now offer so much more including electronic records to what is in the research collections held in the Museum Libraries and Archives as well as specialized databases, and digital images which all serve to document the Museum’s encyclopedic art collection as well as the broader area of art and cultural history. There is a strong intellectual link between the research collection and the Museum’s object collection since the research tools document the object collections. Over the past 185 years the research collection has taken on the role of a storyteller revealing how and why an object was created and where it was before it came into the Museum collection. The research collection is constantly enriched by new purchases, exchanges with other museums and donations. Recent donations include the Wardwell Collection donated by the widow of scholar Allen Wardwell, a scrapbook on Feminist artists and many books on women artists.

Whitman probably did not foresee the challenges – both positive and negative – presented by the Internet. The positive side is the power of the web and the advantage of providing textual and visual information in a timely manner. The negative is the assumption that all these materials will soon be digitized and that we will no longer need the hard copy. Many of these materials have an intrinsic quality all of their own and are very often exhibited. There is active discussion between the two camps of book lovers and online devotees. We plan to discuss this challenge during this anniversary year to emphasize our belief that the library can live on alongside its digital partner. Our first anniversary talk will be a presentation on Walt Whitman and his association with the Apprentices’ Library on February 2nd and we will have books on display that were in the Library collection when Whitman was librarian. For more information send us an email!

Come visit and help us celebrate this special anniversary!

Excavation got underway last Saturday (our work week is Saturday-Thursday), with teams working in Temple A, at the structures north of the Mut Temple’s First Pylon, and in the Taharqa Gate. The restoration of Chapel D is also making rapid progress. Let’s have a look at the week’s work, starting from the east in Temple A.

On the left you are looking west along the north side of Temple A’s Forecourt at the start of the season. The arrow shows the spot where we found the decorated lintel last year, leaning against the precinct’s mud brick enclosure wall. The space between the enclosure wall and the sandstone north wall of the court was completely filled with earth and, in fact, seems to have had a plastered floor that probably dates to the Roman Period. This year we want to find out what lies below this level. (more…)

One of my favorite parts of my job as a museum educator and public programmer is witnessing the conversations that visitors have in the galleries and or during public programs, such as performances and panel discussions. The works of art in Infinite Island have stimulated a lot of discussion, especially around questions of identity, culture, nationality, history and community. We are continuing to highlight these themes with two upcoming public programs that will give Infinite Island a proper send off.

Roger Bonair-Agard in Masquerade. Photo by Peter Dressel

The first is a performance this Saturday, January 19, at 2 p.m. by Brooklyn-based Caribbean members of spoken-word collective louderARTS Project. It is hosted by Def Poetry Jam’s Roger Bonair-Agard, and features poets Hallie Hobson, Rich Villar, and Cheryl Boyce Taylor.

Next weekend, on January 26, we will be collaborating with the organization Domestic Workers United to present their short film “Work and Respect” in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Members of Domestic Workers United, many of whom are from the Caribbean, will talk about the film making process and their experience organizing for their rights as domestic workers in New York City.

I am really looking forward to both these programs which highlight many important voices from our community and, if you join us, we would love to know what you think.

The history of Coney Island from the 1890s and through the first decade of the 20th century is very much the history of three successful amusement parks: Steeplechase, Luna Park, and Dreamland. The Tilyou family had been influential in developing Coney Island ever since Peter Tilyou established one of the area’s first hotels and taverns in the 1860s, and the first of the three important parks was also a Tilyou creation. In 1897, Peter’s son George combined the family’s many sprawling concessions around the Bowery and opened Steeplechase Park on the beach between West Sixteenth and West Nineteenth streets. He was inspired by the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and by an earlier enclosed amusement park at Coney, Paul Boyton’s Sea Lion Park. Tilyou charged admission and provided affordable entertainment (a roller coaster, a scenic railroad, a Ferris wheel, a funhouse, a bathing pavilion, food, and dancing) for a mass audience inside an enclosure that was supposed to keep crime and violence outside. The main attraction was a mechanical horserace that gave the park its name and reflected the popularity of horseracing at Coney, at this time the country’s horse-racing capital. (Racetracks had been built at Brighton Beach, Sheepshead Bay, and Gravesend to serve the wealthy and fashionable clientele in the 1870s and 1880s.) Tilyou rebuilt Steeplechase after a fire in 1907, and many of the rides, from the Earthquake Stairway to the Human Pool Table, were moved indoors to the Pavilion of Fun, a large steel and glass building. The most long-lived and profitable of Coney’s three historical amusement parks, Steeplechase did not close its doors until 1964, and even today, Tilyou’s emblem, the funny face, is considered Coney Island’s mascot. (more…)