History, Natural History & the Arts
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tom Ricks is set to discuss his new book, First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country, in which he offers lessons for our fraught political moment, on February 23rd at 6 pm. [Read more…] about Pulitzer Prize-Winner Thomas E. Ricks (Virtual Event)
The Jay Heritage Center has announced its newest trustee, Lori Fontanes, writer, advocate, and backyard farmer. [Read more…] about Jay Heritage Adds Backyard Farmer & Scholar Lori Fontanes to Board
Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) is offering a studio course this fall semester titled “Radical Re-construction: Materializing Social Justice at the Country Estate of John Jay, a Founder of American Democracy.”
The studio is being led by Jorge Otero-Pailos, the school’s head of historic preservation and a member of JHC’s board of trustees, and Mark Rakatansky, an adjunct associate professor at the school and principal of Mark Rakatansky Studio. [Read more…] about Grad Students Study Jay Heritage Preservation Issues
This summer the 23-acre National Historic Landmark Jay Estate in Rye, NY, broke ground on a major garden. The project is part of an ongoing effort to reclaim and restore its historic landscape, that includes diverse inhabitants going back thousands of years.
Overlooking Long Island Sound, the property was once the family seat of John Jay, negotiator and signatory of the Treaty of Paris, New York State’s second Governor, and the first Chief Justice of the United States (1789–1795), who also helped abolish slavery in New York State. [Read more…] about Jay Heritage Center Breaks Ground For New Gardens
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
In 1849 the Jay Family built a Gothic Revival cottage on Cherry Hill, beside the Jay Mansion in Rye, NY, based on a design by renowned architect Alexander Jackson Davis, who also designed Whitby Castle and Lyndhurst. The cottage closely resembled Station No. 10, an A.J. Davis-designed structure at New York Yacht Club
Time, rotting wood, and carpenter bees eventually took their toll on the 19th-century cottage. With the help of donations from the public and the Gerry Charitable Trust, the Center is making plans to construct a new outdoor classroom on Cherry Hill — a functional learning space that will make visual reference to the historic cottage that preceded it. [Read more…] about Jay Heritage Center Building New Garden Pavilion
Jay Heritage Center on the Old Boston Post Road in Rye, NY, will host a Nieuw Amsterdam Soirée fundraiser this Saturday, October 17.
The evening will celebrate New York’s rich Dutch history with authentic Dutch tastes and treats. There will be dinner and dancing at the Jay Mansion with live music from Hank Lane’s band Octane and food catered by Scarborough Fair. One lucky guest will go home with a Dutch Van Moof bike. [Read more…] about Nieuw Amsterdam Soirée at Jay Heritage Center in Rye
The Board of Trustees of the Jay Heritage Center (JHC) has announced author and historian Kevin Peraino has been hired as Executive Director, effective June 17, 2019.
“Peraino brings the discerning eye and voice of an international journalist to this leadership position,” an announcement by the board noted. “together with a passion for the outdoors and responsible stewardship of our natural resources.” JHC is the non-profit steward of the 23-acre Jay Estate, a National Historic Landmark. [Read more…] about Jay Heritage Center Hires New Director
“Dwellings of the Enslaved and Freed in the City and Town of Rye,” will be the topic of a program at the Jay Heritage Center this Sunday, June 9th, beginning at 2 pm.
Participants can learn more about the places where enslaved men, women and children lived, worked, and died in the City and Town of Rye before and after Emancipation. There will be a focus on the original Jay Estate on the Post Road in Rye, and the recent archaeological discovery of a Dutch brick building on the property by Prof. Eugene Boesch and a group of volunteers.
[Read more…] about Slave Dwellings In Rye Program Set For Sunday
“The Kept Private,” a documentary play based on findings from a survey of an African American burial ground in Rhinebeck, NY will be performed this weekend February 9-10, 2019, at the Jay Heritage Center, in Rye, NY.
The play reveals the real life struggle of a 93-year-old African American man to claim his rightful pension for three years of service in the Revolutionary War, through the Battles of Harlem and White Plains. It is produced by the Storyhorse Documentary Theatre. [Read more…] about Documentary Play Highlights Black Rev War History at Jay Heritage