News and events in Lower Manhattan
Volume 6, No. 57, June 24 2022
CONTENTS:

River to River Festival: 'Lenticular Histories' in the South Street Seaport
Bulletin Board: Bowne & Co. reopens: Schooner Apollonia in the Seaport
Calendar: Swedish Midsummer Festival in Battery Park City

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MASTHEAD PHOTO: Dancing at the Swedish Midsummer Festival in Battery Park City (Photo: ©Terese Loeb Kreuzer 2018)

Downtown Post NYC's website (www.DowntownPostNYC.com) is updated daily. That's the place to check for urgent messages, breaking news and reminders of interesting events in and around Lower Manhattan. So be sure to look at the website every day, especially if you want to know about breaking news.

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River to River Festival

ROSE DESIANO'S 'LENTICULAR HISTORIES' IN THE SOUTH STREET SEAPORT CREATE A MELANGE OF PAST AND PRESENT
Rose DeSiano with one of her "Lenticular History" installations. This one is on Front Street between Fulton and John Streets in the South Street Seaport.
(Photos: © Terese Loeb Kreuzer)

Rose DeSiano is both a photographer and a sculptor. As part of this year's River to River Festival sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) three of her "Lenticular Histories" have been installed on Little Water Street between Fulton and Beekman Streets and another three on Front Street between John and Fulton Streets.

What's a "Lenticular History?" you may ask. "Lenticular" means "relating to the lens of the eye" and "history?" Well, you know what that is. It's something that happened in the past. DeSiano's sculptures, consisting of historic photographs and mirrors affixed to accordion-like structures that stand about 10 feet above the Seaport's cobblestoned streets marry the past and the present. The mirrors reflect their surroundings, including people who pass by and maybe pause to have a look at what DeSiano created. Time and history get swirled into a mixture of past and present. In the South Street Seaport, the past is a particularly potent presence. Schermerhorn Row dates from 1811. Other buildings in the Seaport that form a backdrop for DeSiano's work once served as 19th-century warehouses and counting houses.

Many of the historic photographs that DeSiano used to create this work came from the archives of the South Street Seaport Museum.

DeSiano's photo-sculptures are fascinating and provocative. They will be on view through June 29.

— Terese Loeb Kreuzer
One of Rose DeSiano's "Lenticular Histories." This one is on Little Water Street in the South Street Seaport. (Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)

Gifts from Té Company
include

Té Company's snacks, oolong tea and teaware.

The tea room is open Wednesdays to Sundays from noon to 6 p.m.
163 West 10th St.

For tea and snack menu, click here.
First come, first served.

For more information about Té Company, e-mail: hello@tecompanytea.com

Bulletin Board
BOWNE & CO. REOPENS; SCHOONER APOLLONIA RETURNS TO THE SEAPORT WITH A CARGO OF GOODS FROM THE HUDSON VALLEY
Bowne & Co. reopens: Bowne & Co. Stationers at 211 Water St. in the South Street Seaport has just reopened after a pandemic hiatus, its shelves and tables filled as formerly with art supplies, notebooks, greeting cards and stationary printed on the South Street Seaport Museum's antique presses, plus all manner of intriguing curios. If you've been looking for a ship in a bottle or a carved whale, look no further. Notebooks and journals with decorative covers are piled high on the tables next to brightly colored pencil sharpeners and brush pens, crying out to be used.

The shop is housed in a historic 19th-century storefront with brick walls and a beamed ceiling that once served as a warehouse for heating stoves. A painting of Robert Bowne who founded Bowne & Co. in 1775 hangs on the wall. The venerable shop that bears his name is New York’s oldest operating business under the same name.

Bowne & Co. is open from Wednesdays through Sundays between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Entry to visit the Bowne & Co. store is free with no museum admission required. For more information, click here.

For those who are unable to visit Bowne & Co. in person, check out the Bowne & Co. Online Shop which features a selection of offerings from Bowne & Co.: journals, writing paper, books, and house-designed notecards and broadside posters. Totes and other Seaport Museum branded merchandise are also available for purchase. Orders can be shipped anywhere in the United States via UPS Ground and are also available for local pickup. Click here for more information.

Sea Chanteys Aboard Tall Ship Wavertree: The South Street Seaport Museum’s sea-music event, "Sea Chanteys and Maritime Music," continues on Sunday, July 3, at 2pm ET, aboard the museum's 1885 tall ship Wavertree. On the first Sunday of every month, singers of all levels as well as those who just want to listen, can lead or request a song and join in the choruses of traditional maritime work songs and ballads. Before or after the sing, participants can tour the Seaport Museum gallery exhibitions at 12 Fulton St., as well as tour the 1885 tall ship Wavertree and the 1908 lightship Ambrose. Place: Pier 16 in the South Street Seaport. Time: 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Free. For more information and to sign up, click here.

Schooner Apollonia returns this weekend: The Schooner Apollonia will be back in New York City on Saturday, June 25 using wind power supplemented by solar-powered cargo bikes to bring Hudson Valley goods to businesses and individuals in Lower Manhattan as well as elsewhere in New York City. In the South Street Seaport, customers can pick up their orders on Pier 16 where they can chat with the crew and get a tour of the boat! Orders can also be picked up within a week of delivery at the Fulton Stall Market on South Street. On June 25, Coffee with Captains on Pier 16 from 10:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. will offer a chance to watch Apollonia deliver her cargo and then join a rotating selection of ship captains, including Apollonia‘s Capt. Sam Merrett, for coffee brought to shore that morning. (To register for Coffee with Captains, click here.) From 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. that day, products delivered by Apollonia will be available at the Fulton Stall Market on Fulton Street at South Street.

South St. Seaport Museum seeks volunteers: Volunteers work to support every aspect of the South St. Seaport Museum, but are most often involved in working on the waterfront at Pier 16 where crews restore and maintain the Museum’s fleet of historic vessels using traditional maritime skills. Volunteers and interns help the museum staff maintain and interpret the stationary vessels and operate, maintain and interpret the operational vessels. Entry level work includes cleaning and organizing, repairs, painting, polishing, varnishing, and general maintenance. In the spring, the operational vessels are fitted out and re-rigged for the coming season, and in the late fall they’re down-rigged for winter. Most labor can be unskilled. Training is provided. In addition, all ships need carpenters, electricians, ship engineers, riggers, metalworkers and divers from time to time. Requirements: Physical stamina, skills as described above and an ability to work in a team. Volunteers must be 18 or older and have a parent’s or guardian’s permission to sail. In addition, they must go on two training sails which are held most Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 12 noon during the sailing season. Between the first and second training sail, volunteers must take a U.S. Coast Guard mandated drug test. To maintain their active status, they must work as crew on at least four sails a month (during the season). Click here for more information.

Governors Island ferry access: Access to Governors Island is by ferry, with timed ticket reservations required. Ferries run daily from the Battery Maritime Building at 10 South St. in Lower Manhattan. The ferries are always free for kids 12 and under, for seniors 65 and up, for residents of NYCHA housing, for military servicemembers, Governors Island members, and for everyone on weekends before noon. Starting later this year, NYC Ferry will serve Governors Island daily via the South Brooklyn route. A launch date for this expanded service will be announced soon. NYC Ferry's shuttle from Wall Street/Pier 11 to Yankee Pier on Governors Island will continue on weekends until the launch of 7-day/week service along the South Brooklyn route. NYC Ferry riders on any line that makes stops at Wall Street/Pier 11 may transfer to a shuttle service to Governors Island on Saturdays and Sundays. Governors Island weekend ferry service from Brooklyn (Pier 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park and Atlantic Basin in Red Hook) is currently not in service and will return in Spring, 2022. The first ferry to Governors Island from 10 South St. leaves at 7 a.m. The last ferry from Governors Island leaves at 6 p.m. Learn more about Governors Island ferries and book tickets by clicking here.

Lower Manhattan Greenmarkets: There are Lower Manhattan Greenmarkets in Tribeca (at Chambers and Greenwich Streets) and at Bowling Green, City Hall, the Oculus and the Staten Island ferry. GrowNYC asks that shoppers wear a face covering inside the market space and maintain a six-foot distance between themselves, Greenmarket staff, farm stand employees and other customers. Dogs and bicycles should be left at home.

Click here for a list of the fruits and vegetables now in season.
Many of the Downtown Post NYC bulletin board listings are now on the Downtown Post NYC website. To see the bulletin board listings, click here.
To see the events and activities on the Battery Park City Authority's summer calendar, click here. Most events are free. For some, reservations are required.
CALENDAR
Spotlight: Swedish Midsummer Festival
On June 24, the Swedish Midsummer Festival will be back in Wagner Park at the southern end of Battery Park City. (Photos: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)
June 24: Tonight's the night! Thousands of people will converge on Wagner Park in Battery Park City for the annual Swedish Midsummer Festival. Wearing wreaths of flowers in their hair, they will dance around a maypole, listen to traditional Swedish music, eat Swedish food, and watch the sun go down over New York harbor as a crescent moon rises in the east.
The weather is supposed to be great tonight: mostly clear and in the 70's. Too soon, the party will be over. Still wearing their wreaths, the revelers will disperse along the esplanade as the stars come out.

The midsummer festival is one of the most important holidays in Scandinavia. It's a conflation of pre-Christian fertility festivals and a celebration of the birthday of St. John the Baptist. It also celebrates the summer solstice and the longest daylight of the year. Paul Dahlin and fiddlers from the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis provide the music, Ross Sutter, a Scandinavian folklorist, leads the dancing.

The Battery Park City celebration, presented by the Consulate General of Sweden and by the Battery Park City Authority, is the largest midsummer festival in New York City and one of the largest in the United States. This will be its last year in Wagner Park, which will close later in the summer for extensive renovations to make the area more able to cope with flooding from sea level rise and climate change. But the collaboration between the Battery Park City Authority and the Consulate General of Sweden, New York will continue. Next year the Midsummer Festival will take place elsewhere in Battery Park City. — Terese Loeb Kreuzer

Dancing around the Maypole at the Swedish Midsummer Festival in Battery Park City.
(Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)
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Editor: Terese Loeb Kreuzer


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