Monthly Archives: July 2014

Hornell History Walk — Come Join Us!

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What community has…
*Steuben County’s only synagogue…
*just a couple of blocks from Steuben’s only Carnegie Library?
What community had…
*a subway (though not the kind you think)
*a fair
*and a trolley line?
What community had a tugboat named after it in the Port of New York?
What company made…
*Silk,
*Beer,
*and Ferris wheels,
all at the same time?
What community has…
*an armory,
*a county courthouse,
*a Catholic school,
*and the longest-serving mayor in the history of New York state?
Why, we’re talkin’ ’bout Hornell, of course.
At 4 PM on Friday, August 1, I’m leading a historic walking tour of Hornell, starting on the front steps of the library. This walk is free and open to the public. (So’s the library, for that matter.)
When the county was first organized today’s Hornell was part of Canisteo. Eventually a new town was carved out and named Hornellsville for an early white resident. This town was much bigger than today’s town.
In 1851 the Erie Railroad jolted the whole region out of economic doldrums, completing a main line between Lake Erie and New York City. They sited their main repair shops in the little hamlet of Hornellsville, in the larger town of the same name.
And business boomed. And population boomed. In the late 1800s the community became independent as the City of Hornellsville – now the City of Hornell.
America’s economy ran on railroads, and so did Hornell’s, where the roundhouse had capacity for two dozen cars or engines to be worked on simultaneously. Shattuck Opera House brought in such top-tier performers as Tom Thumb, Maude Adams, John L. Sullivan, James Whitcomb Riley, and Oscar Wilde (not all on the same bill, though that would have been an evening to remember).
Hornell was one of the first area communities to get electricity, and the Erie was soon supplemented by an electric railway – a trolley line working throughout the city and connecting it with Canisteo. This is where the “subway” comes in – the trolley line cut through under Main Street. Arches studded with incandescent lights set off the shopping district.
In the early 1900s Hornell got a huge and attractive post office, fitting for the new imperial power we had decided to become. This is where the lovely beaux-arts library comes in, donated by billionaire ANTI-imperialist Andrew Carnegie once he retired from crushing the workers. A very complex man, to say the least.
Neighborhoods of grand houses grew up in Hornell, stimulated by railroad prosperity. One has its own sundial built into an upper story and readable from the street. Many of these houses have balconies, turrets and gables galore. Folks liked to flaunt their wealth back then, so they festooned their homes with all sorts of accretions and flourishes. The looooong Erie depot also bespeaks the times. So does the fortress-like armory – cousin to many others built in towns where officials were worried about labor unions.
The city’s houses of worship make an interesting study all by themselves. The very modern Baptist church (replacing an earlier model) is only a few steps away from dignified, even austere Temple Beth-El. The steeple at St. Ann’s church is the tallest structure in Hornell. Christ Episcopal Church held the opening service for their new edifice on Christmas Day in 1860. Four months later, the nation was at war.
Anyhow, the city itself has had an interesting life, and its architectural fabric tells tales of its own. Tag along on August 1. We’ll see some sights and spin some stories.
Episcopal Church Hornell

Discovering… Erwin and Painted Post

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A couple of years back Arcadia Publishing asked Corning-Painted Post Historical Society about doing a photo-history book on Erwin, and Sheri Golder suggested that I take the project on. I thought it sounded like fun, but we all agreed that the 1972 Flood book had to come first, because of the anniversary. Once that was done, I turned my thoughts to the Erwin book.
Right away I realized that for sales purposes if nothing else the title had to be Erwin and Painted Post. Painted Post has a good percentage of the town’s population, and it’s also probably more identifiable to many folks than the Erwin name is.
I had already used C-PPHS archives for the Corning book that I did with Chuck Mitchell and for my 1972 Flood book, so I was somewhat familiar with that collection already. Sheri dug out box after box of photos, and my wife Joyce helped me sort through them, keeping records as I did the scanning. Besides materials at the Patterson Inn Museum, we also went through photos at the Town of Erwin/DL&W Depot Museum, which is operated by C-PPHS.
Besides that, I dug up photos from the Steuben County Historical Society archives in Bath at the Magee House, and from the County Historian’s collection. These included pictures from the historian’s friend, the Liquor Control Board. They photograph everyplace with a liquor license, and eventually many of these make their way into archives.
You’d be impressed how many pictures there are of floods, but not necessarily with identifications – you have to guess a range from the clothes people are wearing. And there are some VERY impressive Ingersoll-Rand photos, including one of pouring steel. There’s something very arresting about these black-and-white photos of gargantuan industrial equipment.
Out in the countryside, there was once a host of dairies. Michael Troy had a very elegant delivery wagon back in 1898, but I can’t for the life of me figure out where he actually carried the stuff. It doesn’t have very much space.
I really enjoyed the old pictures of the countryside and rural roads, and I was glad to be able to dig up photos of the C.C.C. (Civilian Conservation Corps) camp, not to mention 1940s shots of Costa’s Field. And, of course, I made sure to have images of Gang Mills and Coopers Plains.
Some pictures I took myself, for instance to document the modern churches. I also got the three Indian monuments, going back to 1824, that precede the current-day statue. They’re all at the Depot Museum, which is remarkable. The first one, a flat-metal piece, earned the artist one cow. Then there’s a nice sequence of putting the current statue into place.
Have you ever thought about how many Erwin folks are in the Steuben County Hall of Fame? Sterling Cole, Ellsworth Cowles, Calvin Smith, E.J. Smith, and Joe Costa have all been honored, and I included photos of them all.
This Saturday (July 26) we’ll be having a book signing at the Barnes & Noble in Big Flats. Besides that Erwin and Painted Post is also available at Corning-Painted Post Historical Society’s Patterson Inn Museum, and at Steuben County Historical Society’s Magee House… and at other cool places in the Erwin, Corning, and Painted Post area.

After World War I, our army made lots of experiments with trucks, including this one in Painted Post at Ingersoll-Rand.

After World War I, our army made lots of experiments with trucks, including this one in Painted Post at Ingersoll-Rand.

Play Time — at the Strong Museum

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Last week in this space we shared a visit to the Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden in Rochester. But that wonderful space is only one small spot in the Strong National Museum of Play.
Some of us can remember the “old” Strong Museum, showcasing the collections of Margaret Woodbury Strong. Not as aggressive as a hoarder, but not as discriminating as a collector, we might call Mrs. Strong a gatherer, or an accumulator. Chests of buttons… apparently not selected by any criteria beyond availability… formed part of the collection. Another was an impressive array of dollhouses, many from the 19th century.
I’d imagine that these dollhouses underlay an extremely fruitful shift of mission – to emphasize and build on the playthings in Mrs. Strong’s collection, and become the Strong Museum of Play.
Mission accomplished. From the museum’s largest artifact (a working 1918 Herschell carousel, built in North Tonawanda) down to the tiniest Star Wars figurine, the Strong celebrates play throughout the ages of time and the stages of childhood.
Some of it is under glass, such as the Star Wars figurines. But you can ride the carousel. You can have lunch in the Skyliner, an original manufactured diner moved into the museum. Kids can “shop” at a miniature Wegman’s supermarket.
You can walk right into Sesame Street. This full-sized reproduction of the TV series set is wildly popular, and at certain spots you can even see yourself, in Sesame Street, on the TV monitor.
Special exhibits come and go. On the Fourth of July Joyce and I turned time backward in its flight at a huge (and busy!) exhibit of pinball machines and beach arcade games. Except for salt air and seagulls, we might have been back in southern New England at Rocky Point or Misquamicut or Ocean Beach. There was even a large sandbox for the kids.
As a lifelong comic-book fan I enjoyed the gallery on American Comic Book Heroes. As a children’s librarian, Joyce explored the Berenstain Bears gallery. While Strong Museum includes many commercial games and playthings, it also emphasizes imaginative play and recreational reading. The Rochester Public Library system even has a mini-branch welcoming children at the Strong.
Strong is home to the National Toy Hall of Fame, which enjoys a large space on the second level. Here you can refresh your acquaintance with proprietary products such as Barbie, G.I. Joe, Monopoly, and the Hula Hoop – but also with jacks, the rubber ball, the stick, and even the cardboard box. While the first level is mostly hands-on, in the second level are also setpiece exhibits reminiscent of the old museum, including glass cases filled with dollhouses, and a space tracking American playthings decade by decade. Find YOUR childhood decade, and see what you remember!
One way to illustrate the impact of Strong Museum is to say that a decade or so back Joyce and I were heading to the Strong to do a story for Touring New York. When our sons heard we were going, they both begged to come. But we told the younger one he had to get to his classes at C.C.C., and the older one that he had to go to work. Even so, we’ve taken them both since.

The amazing Spider-Me... at play in the Strong Museum.

The amazing Spider-Me… at play in the Strong Museum.

800 Butterflies

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All we wanted was the butterflies, but the only way to get them was to buy tickets for the entire museum. Since Joyce was still nursing a broken ankle, we didn’t especially want the whole museum, but we paid our way anyhow. After five minutes with the butterflies, Joyce turned from where she been watching them and said, “This was worth the price of admission.” She was right.
We were in Rochester for the Fourth of July, and we were waiting when they opened the doors at the Strong Museum. We had come specifically for the Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden.
Which of course was at the exact farthest point from admissions, so we figured we’d better trundle over there by wheelchair. I slung the walker over my shoulders, and when we arrived the staff member said, “That’s a GREAT jetpack!” Strong IS the National Museum of Play, after all.
She gathered a handful of us for the day’s first experience, and led us through a sort of airlock into a tropical space… warm, humid, two stories high, bursting with plant life.
And 800 tropical butterflies.
I’ve always adored butterflies, and spent many hours as a barefoot boy in their company. Now with every step I could open my arms and gather in a dozen or two.
Not that I did, of course. Even proverbially they’re delicate, and it isn’t allowed. Love in this case is to leave them alone. But they flit and float all around you, and sometimes – if you’re still – even light on you. Who is more favored than one who is favored by butterflies?
Even though the space is small, the high tropical brush makes each winding trail its separate adventure. Perched on almost every frond are butterflies up close, personal, and patient. They fill the brush, and they fill they air. One rode the shell back of a tortoise. Twenty minutes later it was still there, for all the world like the bird and turtle in the B.C. comics. Besides the turtles, tortoises, and butterflies, the space is home to button quail… tiny birds who dart in and out underfoot, ever on ant patrol.
Some of the butterflies, like the ghost sulphur, would cover my entire open hand, while others are tiny. None of them live more than a few weeks once reaching adulthood, so the population is always refreshed with insects brought along in staggered stages, from egg to pupa to adult, to keep the garden full. When we leave we pass through air jets, and a mirrored hall, to make sure none of them are hitching a ride with us.
While waiting for the museum doors to open we had wandered the outdoor Discovery Garden, which is noted as a monarch migration station. The gorgeous orange-and-black monarch is the first butterfly I learned to recognize, even before starting school and learning to read. At junior-college graduations in Pennsylvania, and at the Curtiss radio-controlled model airplane fun flies in Pleasant Valley, I used to watch these wonderful creatures on their migrations, maybe one a minute, each following the others in line. One unforgettable evening outside Bath, we stood open-mouthed as hundreds passed over at once – and once in a lifetime. What a tragedy that the numbers of these beautiful harmless creatures are sinking. Most of our eastern butterflies winter on just a few acres, all within a short walk, in Mexico. This alone makes them as vulnerable as a species as they are individually, with their wings thinner than paper, and far more fragile.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, not noted for being the cheeriest of souls, wrote “Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” I think he must have been a butterfly boy too, not too many miles from where I was the same.

At the National Cemetery: Emblems Old and New

I was taking a walk at the Bath National Cemetery, and I became intrigued by the symbols on the stones in the newer sections. The most common type was the one we generally expect to see – the Latin cross, with a short horizontal about a fourth of the way down a tall upright. It’s a basic Christian symbol, and in western European cultures (including ours) has come to be a sort of universally-recognized grave marker.
But, of course, not everyone is Christian, and so I’ve also been accustomed to seeing the Star of David from time to time on military grave markers. (For Jewish soldiers, in case you were wondering.)
Nowadays, though, 57 different emblems are in use. Some are denominational symbols within Christianity. There’s the United Methodist cross and flame, for instance. Lutherans have three to chose from… the Lutheran cross with a heart symbol, the Luther rose, and the Missouri Synod cross.
Quite a few of the approved emblems are actually variations on the familiar Latin cross. This goes for the Presbyterian symbol, and for the Presbyterian Church USA symbol, among others. The Armenian emblem, the Serbian Orthodox emblem, and two Celtic crosses fit in with our long experience. Some groups – U.C.C., C.M.A., Christian Reformed – make the cross part of a larger image. Messianic Judaism combines the cross with the Star of David. Russian Orthodoxy uses its own traditional three-bar cross.
But America, and America’s military personnel, are much bigger than that nowadays. Groups or movements with approved emblems for veterans’ cemeteries include Bahai (an eight-pointed star), Buddhism (the Buddhist wheel); the Native American Church (a teepee and other symbols); Mormonism (the familiar angel and trumpet); Hindu; Sikh; and Wiccan.
I had never heard the term Farohar, but correctly figured from the symbol that it was Zoroastrian.
Some groups, such as Eckankar and Sokka Gokkai, I knew only vaguely, while others were new to me entirely, at least by the terms and emblems here. Hammer of Thor is a Neopagan emblem, while Kohen Hands is an alternate Jewish symbol. The Sandhill Crane emblem, if I’ve got it right, symbolizes a close relationship with loved ones, rather than an organized faith. Certainly there’s nothing more out of place than a single sandhill crane. Does the Landing Eagle represent Eagle Spirituality?
Veterans or their loved ones can elect the Humanist symbol (a stylized H that forms a human being reaching high) or the Atheist symbol (the traditional atom depiction, with an A at the nucleus).
There are two symbols for Muslim veterans to choose from – a simple five-pointed star, or the familiar star-and-crescent.
Lest someone go into a swivet and start moaning that this is a CHRISTIAN country, and our traditional values are being destroyed, I dug out my 1959 Boy Scout Handbook. We horribly square Scouts in the Eisenhower years had three Religious Awards for various stripes of Protestant; one for Catholics; one for Jewish; one for Mormon; one for Eastern Orthodox; and one for Buddhist. Not long after publication we added two more: Religion in Life for Liberal Christianity, and In the Name of God, for Islam. Wanting my book to be complete, I sketched each of them in with the others on the religious awards pages.
There’s always been a lot more ethnic and religious variety in this country than many Americans have wanted to admit, even a handful of Muslims at the time of the Constitutional Convention (1787), and some 50 men from China who fought in the Civil War. And the trend has always been for MORE rather than LESS. Every year throughout our long history, we’ve been less homogeneous… or more diverse… than the year before. When someone volunteers for the military service of our country, which includes at least the POSSIBILITY of going in harm’s way, resenting their religious (or philosophical) emblem seems pretty small. We hold THAT truth to be self-evident.

A few of the currently-approved emblems.

A few of the currently-approved emblems.