News and Views from the Empire State
Senate House State Historic Site in Kingston has reopened its facilities for tours and museum visitors with health and social distancing guidelines to protect visitors and staff.
The Site’s buildings had been closed to the public since March due to health and safety concerns related to the ongoing pandemic. [Read more…] about Senate House Announces Limited Re-Opening
Like millions this past 4th of July weekend, my family tuned in to Disney’s streaming of Lin Manuel-Miranda’s epic Hamilton.
The performances indeed blew us all away. Our toes tapped under our tray tables to Daveed Diggs’ electric portrayal of Thomas Jefferson and “What Did I Miss?” Our hearts pained over Phillipa Soo’s gorgeously rendered entreaties “Look Around” and “That Would Be Enough.”
But all these indelible lyrics underscored why we will never be satisfied. Despite the brilliance of the script and cast, in dramatizing the life and times of Alexander Hamilton, Miranda left us longing for narratives beyond those of the Founding Fathers and their rarefied circle. Now we want to know what will come next to fill the ever more obvious omissions in our nation’s history. [Read more…] about The Hamilton Musical And History’s Unsung
Old Fort Niagara, is considered the oldest continuously occupied military site in North America. It opened in 1934 as a historic site and public museum. The Fort, originally built to protect the interests of New France in North America, is located near Youngstown, Niagara County, NY, on the eastern bank of the Niagara River at its mouth, on Lake Ontario.
The site has reopened to visitors, following a 15-week closure due to the ongoing pandemic. Daily hours of operation have been shortened slightly from 10 am to 4 pm to allow for extra cleaning before and after hours. [Read more…] about Old Fort Niagara Has Reopened
In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, Stephen Fried, an award-winning journalist and author of Rush: Revolution, Madness, and Benjamin Rush, the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father (Crown, 2018), joins us to explore the life and deeds of one founder we don’t always talk about, Benjamin Rush.
Late in the month of January in 1840, Elnathan Sears returned home to the town of Mamakating, then part of Ulster County, NY, after an exhausting trip to Washington, D.C. There he had presented an impassioned argument to Congress in hopes of procuring the military pension he had earned as an officer in the Revolutionary War.
A few days later, on February 2, he was dead. [Read more…] about Elnathan Sears: Thirteen Months in Hell
An island at the tip of Lower Manhattan provided a stage where a local military community participated in national and international events.
From its military beginnings as a colonial militia in 1755, Governors Island became a major headquarters for the U.S. Army and Coast Guard, making it one of the longest continually operated military installations in the country until its closure in 1996. [Read more…] about A Brief History of Governors Island
Shortly before the City of New Rochelle recently became nationally famous (or infamous ) as an epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, a controversy was developing over the threatened destruction of the Thomas Paine Museum Memorial Building on North Avenue. [Read more…] about A Last Chance To Save The Thomas Paine Museum
During the American Revolution (from July 6 until August 18, 1781), the Odell House in the present Westchester County hamlet of Hartsdale served as the headquarters of Marshal Jean-Baptiste Donatien d e Vimeur (comte de Rochambeau).
Nearby fields and hills in the current Town of Greenburgh accommodated approximately 6,000 soldiers in the French expeditionary forces under his command. [Read more…] about Revolutionary War Farmhouse Will Be Preserved
The Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York, Inc. are set to commemorate the birthday of Frederick Samuel Tallmadge, the second President of the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York, whose generosity enabled the Society to acquire Fraunces Tavern in 1904, at Fraunces Tavern Museum, on Monday, January 27th. [Read more…] about Frederick Tallmadge, Battle of Golden Hill Event in NYC
Following the capture of British forces by the allied armies of France and America, at Yorktown, Virginia, in the fall of 1781, the Continental Northern Army returned to the Hudson Highlands. The destruction of the principal British army in the field in the South broke England’s will to continue the struggle.
In the fall of 1782, near New Windsor, 7,500 Continental Army soldiers built a city of 600 log huts. Along with some of their family members, they braved the winter and kept a wary eye on the 12,000 British troops in New York City, just 60 miles away. [Read more…] about New Windsor Cantonment Celebrating Washington’s Birthday