Brooklyn HS Program - Museum of Slavery program

Thursday, October 15, 6 pm

$10/$5 for BHS Members

John Cummings spent 15 years and $8 million of his own fortune to open the first museum of slavery on the site of a former Louisiana plantation. The Whotney Plantation has been chronicled by The New York Times Magazine and The Atlantic, and now John Cummings and Dr. Ibrahima Seck, Director of Research at the Whitney Plantation, sit down with Jelani Cobb, who regularly writes about race and history forThe New Yorker and The New York Times, to share his story and discuss the vital importance of a slavery museum for our country's historical consciousness. 

SAVE OUR SEAPORT WEEK'S EVENTS

The Pier 17 shopping mall closes after today, with demolition to follow.

The SOS Seaport Watch continues… more hands are needed!

Tuesday, September 10th (that's tomorrow!) at 1:30pm, meet outside Key Food at 55 Fulton Street, from there we’ll move on to The Blue School on Water Street, for an hour or two of leaflets, talking with our neighbors, and bringing people on board for the fight to Save Our Seaport!

The next evening, Wednesday, September 11th at 6:30pm we will have a Save Our Seaport public meeting in the meeting room at St. Margaret’s Center (Map).

At our last meeting, we resolved to increase our activity in the District, plan regular SOS meetings, announce a “Seaport Watch” to take part in (see above), and a rally at the end of the month.

There is much to talk about. We will certainly discuss the disturbing information in this Downtown Express article.

Important meeting dates:

• Our next SOS meeting, September 11, 6:30pm, St. Margaret’s (Map).
• Community Board 1 Seaport meeting on September 17 (Details to follow).

Please join us!

P.S. If you don’t already follow us on Twitter (@SaveOurSeaport) and Like us on Facebook (facebook.com/SaveOurSeaport), please do – these are the best ways to keep up with the latest developments!

SEAPORT NEWS

Lots to say! Here we go…

1. This Thursday, December 8th, will be our next Save Our Seaport meeting. We will meet at 6:30pm in Room 1 at St. Margaret’s.

St. Margaret’s is located at 49 Fulton Street (Map). As always, if you’re lost or need more information, you can email us at saveourseaport@gmail.com or call us at (347)6-PIER16.

2. This past Saturday, we had our first day back at the Museum for winter maintenance. Everybody accomplished so much and had so much fun, that they have scheduled more of the same for the next two weekends! Volunteer Coordinator Beth Childs sent out the following:

Thanks for all your hard work yesterday! We got so much accomplished – cleaning, re-organizing, assessing needs, etc., that we’ve decided to have Museum Volunteer Work Days for the next two Saturdays! Woohoo!!

We will muster in time to begin work promptly at 0900 on Saturday, December 10 AND Saturday, December 17 in front of the work barge. For now, please RSVP your availability ONLY for Saturday, December 10. I’ll ask again for the following week.

We need you and appreciate all you are doing for the vessels and for the Museum. Don’t forget to RSVP for Dec. 10.

This is important: If you did not receive the above email from Beth, and you are, or would like to be, a volunteer, please email Beth atvolunteercoordinator@seany.org. That is also the address to use to RSVP for next Saturday.

SEAPORT NEWS

Lots of news today! Here goes…

1. Here is a message from Waterfront Director Jonathan Boulware, with news about Lettie G. Howard, Pioneer, and volunteering:

Hello All,

Here are some updates from the Waterfront at South Street Seaport Museum.

Getting Pioneer Ready to Sail: An Important Donation
Recognizing that Pioneer needs a trip to the drydock and other repairs and upgrades, Ted Scull stepped up with a very generous gift that will help her to be shipshape in the spring with some new sails, a new transmission and exhaust, and numerous repairs. Everyone here is grateful to Ted as I know you will be, too. This is the kind of response that will make it possible for us to succeed in saving the Seaport Museum and her ships. And here’s the twist: Ted approached us, and not we him. Hats off to Ted!

Lettie G. Howard’s Trip to the Shipyard
Very happily for us, Mystic Seaport Museum is hosting Lettie G. Howard for the winter, where she’ll be able to take advantage of Mystic’s lift dock and warm wooden-vessel hospitality. She’ll be hauled out in January on Mystic’s lift-dock and attended by a team of shipwrights who will make repairs to her keelson and address some USCG requirements. When she returns in the spring, she’ll be ready to sail. A big thanks to the folks who brought her up there: Captain Aaron Singh, Mate Kirsten Johnsrud, Tommy Seda, Tizoc Gomez, Darrell Gilbert, Anne Beaumont, Nelson Chin, Elizabeth Kerr, and Frank Logalbo.

Volunteer Days
Volunteer days are beginning again! Starting this Saturday, Dec 3rd at 0900, we’ll start work on our fleet. All of the vessels are in need of attention so we’ll be busy in lots of places. Come join us! RSVP to Beth Childs, Volunteer Coordinator at volunteercoordinator[at]seany.org.

Jonathan Boulware
Waterfront Director
South Street Seaport Museum

2. Volunteer Coordinator Beth Childs has asked that we put out the word that she might not have email addresses for all the volunteers. If you did NOT receive an email directly from her in the last few days about this Saturday’s volunteer day, and you believe you should have (or wish you had!), please email her atvolunteercoordinator[at]seany.org.

You can read the above mentioned email here.

3. In case Saturday just gets you riled up for more, our friends at PortSide NewYork and the tanker Mary Whalen are having their next maintenance day on Sunday, December 4th, and everyone is invited.

Carolina says:

The weather continues to bless us! Current forecast for Sunday is 52 and partly cloudy.

Please join us for more shipwork Sun 12/4 11am-5pm in the Red Hook Containerport.Remember, photo ID or TWIC card needed to enter!

Supervisors will be Carolina Salguero and Mike Abegg, former Mate of the South Street Seaport’s Lettie G. Howard.

Email Carolina at portsidenewyork[at]gmail.com if you can make it, as they need a list for the front gate.

4. Our next Save Our Seaport meeting is scheduled for Thursday, December 8th at 6:30pm. The location will be announced soon. Please plan to attend!

5. And finally, Clive Burrow of the Lower Manhattan Marketing Association (LOMA) has invited us to their next meeting – which is also on December 8th, but in the morning:

It will be held at the Museum to celebrate its reopening. It will start at 8:45 on the 5th floor on December 8th. Susan Jones will be there, and I have also invited Robert LaValva to give us a quick update on the market’s progress.

Breakfast refreshments will be served.

Please RSVP to jpurtill[at]alonmarketing.com. Badges will be issued at the door.

And that’s it for today!

Save the South Street Seaport Museum

There are lots of opportunities to get involved coming up. Let’s do this chronologically…

• Saturday June 25. Collecting petitions at Brooklyn Bridge Park. We’ll be doing two shifts. Please meet David at the foot of Atlantic Avenue (Pier 6) in Brooklyn at 10:30am or 1:30pm. Call him at 212-864-2069 to let him know you’re available.

• Sunday June 26. Collecting petitions at New Amsterdam Market and Fulton Stall Market. Meet at 10:45am at either location (South St. just north of Fulton, on either side of South). Please email us to let us know your availability.

Alternatively, if you plan to be at the Wooden Boat Show in Mystic this weekend, why not pick up a few (thousand) signatures there? Email us and we’ll get you a clipboard and some supplies!

• Tuesday June 28. Community Board 1 Full Meeting. 6pm at New York Law School, 185 West Broadway (Map). We need to show up in force again to demonstrate our passion and to see how the resolution is coming along.

• Thursday June 30. Save Our Seaport Meeting. We will meet at 6:30pm at the St. Margaret’s Meeting Room, 49 Fulton St. (Map) We have a great deal to discuss and much to plan. Please attend!

• Saturday July 16. City Of Water Day! This will be a big event for us, and a lot of fun. There are several ways to get involved.

We will have tables set up at Liberty State Park and on Governors Island. It would be great to have a lot of help, so we can take shifts and everyone will get a chance to enjoy the day. Please email usyour availability so we can plan ahead.

Also, Maggie Flanagan, Port Captain for the event, needs volunteer dockhands on Governors Island to help with the many ships that will be involved in the event.

Click here to download a flyer with all the details about getting involved.

If you’ve made it this far, you can see we all have a lot on our plates! We need YOU to pitch in any way you can.

Don’t forget that you can download petition pageshere and pass them around your office or your neighborhood. We also now have an online petition that you can sign and share with your friends who are too far away to sign our paper petitions.

Have a great weekend!