The Stony Brook Post Office is one of the stops on the Stony Brook Village Audio Experience. Photo courtesy of Sean Mills
Stony Brook Village has announced that the Stony Brook Village Audio Experience is now available and can be enjoyed on your own time and at your own pace! The experience is free to the public and will allow all visitors of Stony Brook Village to immerse themselves in the quirky history and stories of the lifestyle center and some of its surrounding properties. The audio experience is obtained by scanning QR codes throughout the village and is also available at audio.stonybrookvillage.com.
Currently, the experience has ten stops, and covers the history and the stories from the Three Village Inn’s original residents to the entire development of Stony Brook Village Center. It is recommended that participants of the experience begin at the Three Village Inn. Additional stories about the Country House (c.1710), the Stony Brook Grist Mill (c.1751) — including the first vineyard on Long Island, and T. Bayles Minuse Mill Pond Park will be added soon.
To learn more about events and activities in Stony Brook Village Center, visit stonybrookvillage.com.
At the April 12th general meeting of the Suffolk County Legislature, Legislator Stephanie Bontempi (Centerport) sponsored legislation that secured much-needed funding for critical repairs and improvements at the historic Vanderbilt Mansion, Museum and Planetarium.
“We are so lucky to have this cultural and educational resource in Suffolk County. The Vanderbilt is frequented by countless schoolchildren each year and tourists of all ages from near and far. Keeping up with the maintenance ensures that we can continue to deliver its wonderful programs, while simultaneously avoiding greater costs down the road,” said Bontempi.
Soon after being elected, Bontempi learned of the specific needs of the facility when she met on site with its executive director, Elizabeth Wayland-Morgan. Although the grounds were an impressive sight to behold, it was clear that its components were showing their age. The funding, sponsored by Bontempi, addresses new seating, carpeting and kiosks at the planetarium, improvements to thwart water intrusion affecting numerous buildings, and a new boiler for the mansion.
“Like many tourist attractions during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Vanderbilt felt the economic pinch,” said Bontempi. “These improvements will play an important role in the museum’s recovery and future.”
'The House Wren' by Karen Kemp will be on view at the exhibit.
'The Journey Awaits' by Renee Caine will be on view at Deepwells Mansion from April 10 to 30.
By Melissa Arnold
Over the past few generations, hardworking and determined women from all walks of life have fought to be heard and seen. Their efforts laid the groundwork for today’s women to break all sorts of glass ceilings.
In the late 19th century, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe was the richest woman around thanks to her family’s inheritance of the famed Lorillard Tobacco Company. Wolfe was generous with her fortune, doing whatever she could to support education, the arts and museums.
Portrait of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, 1876, by Alexandre Cabanel
One major recipient of that generosity was Grace Church on Broadway in New York, where Wolfe was a parishioner. Among her final wishes was a request that the church use her financial gift for some sort of “women’s work.”
In response, the church founded the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club (CLWAC) in 1896 to provide counsel and support for female art students in the city. This year, the club is marking its 125th anniversary with a series of special exhibits around the tri-state area, including a juried satellite exhibit at Deepwells Mansion in Saint James. from April 10 to 30, and will culminate with a national juried exhibition at the Salmagundi Club in Manhattan from June 20 to July 1.
“The goal was always to support women artists in particular. Cooper Union [a college focused on arts, architecture and engineering] was in the area, so there were plenty of women who needed a place to go to relax, have lunch, and exhibit their work,” said Karene Infranco, president of the CLWAC.
The club has boasted a number of famous artists in its lifetime, including sculptors Anna Hyatt Huntington and Harriet Whitney Frishmuth, to name a few. By paying modest dues, any woman can become an Associate Member and participate in select shows and events, but the requirements for full membership are rigorous.
“In order to become a Juried Member, you have to be selected to exhibit your work in at least two of our open shows within a five-year period — shows that are just for Associates don’t count, as the competition for the open shows is on a much higher level, with many more people entering,” Infranco explained.
Entrants can exhibit in five categories: pastel, oil and acrylic, watercolor, graphics (pencil and printmaking), and sculpture. Selections are made by a committee of five artists, and then each competition is judged for prizes by a three-person jury of curators, critics and fellow artists that are well-known in their field. A computerized system allows jurors to score each piece by objective criteria. Those who make the cut twice are then invited to join the club as a full, lifetime member.
Member artists range in age from their 20s to their 80s, with wide-ranging careers and art interests. Infranco owned a healthcare advertising agency and, in 2013, decided to sharpen her skills in drawing and painting by taking classes at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. She eventually began exhibiting her work at the national level with numerous groups, including CLWAC, and currently serves as a docent for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan.
“When the Met was incorporated in 1870, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe contributed $2500 of her funds and became the only woman founder,” Infranco said. “The club stands out to me because of its long history, that unique relationship with the museum, and the fact that it caters specifically to women. While there are other women-focused organizations out there, Catharine was such a savvy, interesting and influential person with spot-on taste for art and the ability to carve her own path in life. That’s a big attraction for all of us.”
Catharine Lorillard Wolfe ultimately bequeathed her personal collection of 140 paintings, along with an endowment for its maintenance, to the Met. Her endowment was the Museum’s first, and her donated paintings formed the beginning of the museum’s European painting collection.
Today, the club still meets in person at Grace Church, and its ranks are growing with 410 club members located throughout the country. There is a sizable Long Island contingent in the group, and many of the local women have known each other for years.
Flo Kemp of Setauket and Eleanor Meier of Centerport became friends after spending time together at many of the area’s drawing clubs and classes. Kemp has devoted herself to marketing her oil paintings and etchings for years, and Meier pursued her own art style after a long career as a high school art teacher.
“I entered shows with CLWAC intermittently over the years until I was eventually invited to become a member,” Kemp said. “It’s a great encouragement and inspiration to be around so many excellent artists through the club. It has deep roots, and it’s an honor to be a part of that history.”
While she works with oils, Kemp specializes in soft ground etchings that have a “painterly” effect. Her inspirations are land and sea scapes which she enjoys for the calming, serene way they draw the viewer in, she said. Her submissions for the exhibit are two etchings: one of Flax Pond, and another of West Meadow Beach.
Meier first heard about the club at a luncheon for the National League of American Pen Women, a professional organization for female writers, artists and composers. She was intrigued by the club’s mission as well as the opportunity to learn from others, and was invited to join them around 1990.
“Being a member of the club has given me an opportunity to meet artists from all over, people I never would have met otherwise, which is always exciting,” she said.
Meier prefers to focus on detailed still life drawings of simple items she finds around the house, saying that they’re easy to set up and fun to create. Her two submissions to the exhibit are watercolor paintings: one of stacked cups, and the other of a Mason jar filled with hydrangeas.
“For all the years I was teaching, the art projects that I did were for the classroom. It wasn’t until after retirement that I had the chance to work on and develop my own personal style,” Meier said. “I’ve been showing at Deepwells with [a local group] for several years now … it’s a classic building and Suffolk County has put a lot of work into it. There’s so much history and gravitas there.”
Indeed, Deepwells Mansion, located at 2 Taylor Lane in St. James, is the perfect venue for such a prestigious show. Dating back to 1845, it is in the Greek revival style built for Joel L.G. Smith — one of the family for whom the Smithtown Township is named. Its most famous owner was W.J. Gaynor, mayor of New York City from 1910 to 1913. In 1989 the house became the property of the Town of Smithtown and is now managed by the Deepwells Farm Historical Society.
The Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club exhibit will be on display at Deepwells from April 10 to 30. Gallery hours are from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday (closed April 17).
The exhibit will feature 45 works of art from 41 artists, including a small collection of oil and pastel pieces by the late Jeanette Dick of Belle Terre, a past president of the CLWAC who passed away in January of this year. Many of the included artists will act as docents for the exhibit, guiding guests through the gallery and sharing their personal insights.All artwork on display is available for sale. An awards ceremony will be held on April 30 at 2 p.m. For more information about the CLWAC, visit www.clwac.org.
Tour guide Kayla Cheshire in front of the Stony Brook Grist Mill during the March 25 tour. Photo by Cayla Rosenhagen
The entrance to the Stony Brook Grist Mill. Photo by Cayla Rosenhagen
A stop on the tour at the Stony Brook Duck Pond. Photo by Cayla Rosenhagen
All Souls Episcopal Church. Photo by Cayla Rosenhagen
Participants of the walking tour in front of the Three Village Inn. Photo by Cayla Rosenhagen
By Cayla Rosenhagen
Cayla Rosenhagen
For centuries, the Three Village area has been home to fearless and heroic women who were ahead of their time. During the Ward Melville Heritage Organization’s(WMHO) Women’s History Walking Tour: “Against the Grain”on March 25, eager listeners heard tales of these courageous ladies, spanning from colonial times to the 20th century.
When I arrived in Stony Brook Village for the 3:50 tour, blooming daffodils and crocuses were sprouting up across the town, celebrating the recent arrival of spring. Our group met at the historic Grist Mill, where I met the other participants and our guide, Kayla Cheshire. Kayla has worked as the WMHO’s education and outreach manager for about three years and is a passionate and knowledgeable history buff.
The event attracted history enthusiasts from all over, however, many of the participants were locals. We were even fortunate to have descendants of a local historic figure, suffragette, conservationist, and town founder Jennie Melville among us.
We gathered around Kayla as she told us about the history of the area, including how it was home to conductors of the Underground Railroad in the mid-1800s. According to legend, conductors would use coded quilts to help enslaved people, who were escaping from the still-legal slave trade in the South, along their way to freedom. Details of the quilts, including morningstar and hourglass symbols would indicate the time and type of planned journeys to the next stations, bringing them one step closer to Canada. For instance, a squiggly emblem called the “Drunkard’s Path” implied the path they had to take was a difficult, zigzagged one, possibly through rough terrain and rivers, so they wouldn’t be tracked by bounty hunters.
The tour proceeded to All Souls Episcopal Church on Main Street, then to the Stony Brook Village Center, just in time to see the majestic eagle atop the Post Office flap its wings at 4 p.m. Here we learned of philanthropist and town matriarch Dorothy Melville, wife of Ward Melville, who was known as Stony Brook’s “fairy godmother.” She was a crucial contributor to the Stony Brook Community Fund and the Museums at Stony Brook and is credited with making the village handicap accessible.
Our next stop was The Jazz Loft. Its rich history included being utilized as a fire department in the early 1900s. In 1935, the building was transformed into a museum by the Melville family and prominent local Dr. Winifred Curtis, among others. Over time, the museum changed locations, and is now called the Long Island Museum on Route 25A.
The tour came to a close at the fascinatingly historic Three Village Inn. We learned about the inn’s former owners including Richard Hallock, Jonas Smith, and Jennie Melville, and its former uses as a private residence, tea room, and finally an inn. After the last story was told, Kayla offered us all free desserts with the purchase of an entrée at the Inn and told us about some of the upcoming happenings around town.
On Saturday, April 23rd, the entire village will honor spring with Spring Appreciation Day, which entails live music, a car show, a scavenger hunt, and a petting zoo. Admission is free and the events will take place between 1:30 and 3:30 PM.
The Women’s History Walking Tour is now available by request for private groups. Additionally, the WMHO offers “Secrets of Stony Brook Village” to the public throughout the season, with completely unique and newly uncovered stories and legends about the town. The tours will be held on April 7 and 21, as well as on June 2 and 16. There are two sessions each on these days, one at 11:50 a.m. and another at 3:50 p.m. The tours are $10 per person and the WMHO asks you to please call ahead to make a reservation at 631-751-2244.
Visitors can learn even more about the stories of Stony Brook by taking a tour of the 300-year-old Grist Mill. The historic, working mill will open again on April 16th, and Sunday tours will be available all season long, from April 24 through October.
The Ward Melville Historical Organization plays a crucial role in supporting local history. You, too, can do your part by supporting them. The WMHO suggests you can help by making general fund donations, purchasing a memorial plaque, or by sponsoring an event or historic property. The organization also has several volunteer opportunities. Please visit wmho.org/support-wmho/ for more information on how to get involved.
Richard Mayhew, Clamdiggers, n.d., oil on board. Courtesy of the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art. (c) 2022 Richard Mayhew; Courtesy ACA Galleries, New York
The Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington will host a virtual panel on Environmental Justice on Long Island on Tuesday, April 5 at 5:30 pm.
The panel is presented in coordination with Richard Mayhew: Reinventing Landscape now on view at The Heckscher Museum of Art. Mayhew’s luminous landscapes address the historic and spiritual connections between Native Americans, African Americans, and the land.
The panel features Dr. Mark Chambers, Professor of Africana Studies at Stony Brook University, and Jeremy Dennis, a contemporary fine art photographer, tribal member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, and founder of Ma’s House, and is moderated by Justyce Bennett, Curatorial Assistant at the Heckscher Museum of Art. They will discuss the environmental justice movement to address how environmental hazards impact communities of color disproportionately.
Jeremy Dennis is a fine art photographer and a tribal member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation. His photography explores Indigenous identity, cultural assimilation, and the ancestral traditional practices of the Shinnecock Indian Nation. His work is included in the collections of The Heckscher Museum of Art, The Hudson River Museum, the New York State Museum, and others.
Dr. Mark Chambers is a professor in the Africana Studies department at Stony Brook University. His interests include environmental and technological contacts between Indigenous peoples and free and enslaved miners in North America. His recent book, Gray Gold: Lead Mining and Its Impact on the Natural and Cultural Environment, 1720 to 1840, is a cultural history of lead mining in the region that became the state of Missouri.
Justyce Bennett is the Curatorial Assistant at The Heckscher Museum of Art. She completed her master’s degree at the Winterthur Program for American Material Culture at the University of Delaware. She is interested in Black feminist art history and wrote her master’s thesis on the landscape and historic preservation efforts on St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands.
The event is free to the public, with registration at Heckscher.org/mayhewpanel
Former National Public Radio host and New York Times/CNN reporter and Stony Brook University alumna Tanzina Vega (’96) will serve as keynote speaker at the Stony Brook University “Women’s History Month Closing Program” on Monday, March 28, at 4 pm in the Student Activities Center Ballroom A. This will be a hybrid event with in-person seating available on site and accessibility via Zoom. To attend, register here. The event is open to the public.
For more than a decade, Tanzina Vega’s journalism career has centered on inequality in the United States through the lens of race and gender. She’s been a reporter and producer for The New York Times and CNN, where her work spanned print, digital and broadcast television. She most recently spent three years as the first Latina host of “The Takeaway” on WNYC, New York Public Radio.
Vega, who earned a bachelor of arts degree in sociology from Stony Brook, has covered many of the most consequential news events of the past decade, including multiple presidential elections, the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of #BlackLivesMatter, Puerto Rico’s political crisis and the January 6 Capitol insurrection. In 2019, she was awarded the Robert G. McGruder Distinguished Lecture and Award from Kent State University. Prior to that she was a fellow at the Nation Institute and a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. Vega is a distinguished graduate of the Craig Newmark School of Journalism at City University of New York, where she earned a master’s degree in digital journalism.
Women’s History Month (WHM) is an annual celebration of the continuous, significant, vital contributions women have made to society, history and their respective cultures. The WHM Closing Program is presented by the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Women’s History Month Committee.
This year’s theme is #BreakTheBias, adopted from International Women’s Day, which is held annually on the first Tuesday in March.
In honor of Women’s History Month, the Ward Melville Heritage Organization will present a walking tour titled “Against the Grain” featuring newly uncovered stories of Stony Brook Village women on Thursday, March 24 at 10:30 a.m. and again at 3:30 p.m.
Participants in the walking tour will enjoy at least six entirely new stories about the women of Stony Brook Village, spanning thousands of years. This includes indigenous women; the women of the Revolution; a few scandalous wills; the story of Jennie Melville and her role in the suffrage movement; Alida Emmet and the Center for Twilight Sleep; and Dorothy Melville, the Fairy Godmother of Stony Brook.
Tours will leave from the Stony Brook Grist Mill at 100 Harbor Road at 10:30 a.m. and again at 3:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 per person, and includes a dessert (with the purchase of an entrée) at Mirabelle Restaurant and Tavern. To reserve your spot, call 631-751-2244.
The Port Jefferson Documentary Spring Series continues on Monday, April 11 with a screening of “The Automat” at Theatre Three, 412 Main St., Port Jefferson at 7 p.m.
Chock-full of rich archival footage of old Philadelphia and NYC, this everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-automats film is a lighthearted trip through the history of Horn & Hardart’s iconic and innovative eateries. Led by the irrepressible Mel Brooks, the film also features an impressive roster of celebrities (Colin Powell, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Carl Reiner, to name a few) waxing nostalgic on their experiences at the nickel-driven restaurants and their dreamy lemon meringue pie. Automats fed millions throughout the Depression and two World Wars, serving all comers in palaces of marble, silver, and steel.
Good food served cheap, and the enduring thrill of the automat machines themselves wins the Automat a place in our culture and hearts alike. More than just entertainment, THE AUTOMAT is a parable of how we once dined happily together before turning to the isolated and unhappy experience offered by fast food, a bad deal that no amount of advertising can disguise. Running time is 79 minutes.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Director Lisa Hurwitz moderated by Tom Needham, Host of The Sounds of Film at WUSB radio.
Tickets are $10 per person at the door or at www.portjeffdocumentaryseries.com.
A scene from 'I Am Here'. Photo courtesy of @Micha Serraf/ Sanktuary Films
By Jeffrey Sanzel
The opening of Jordy Sank’s documentary I Am Here is a montage of news reports from recent anti-Semitic events. It is a visual and emotional assault, with the ever-present and always disturbing swastika. From this, he cuts to a disc jockey at a Jewish radio station talking about Holocaust survivor Ella Blumenthal’s response to a hateful attack from a Holocaust denier. In Blumenthal’s letter, she offers to meet with the author. She wants to answer hate with a connection.
I Am Here is an account of Blumenthal’s life. Celebrating her 98th birthday in Cape Town, South Africa, surrounded by her children, grandchildren, and friends, she relates her story.
A scene from ‘I Am Here’. Photo courtesy of @Micha Serraf/ Sanktuary Films
Born in Warsaw, she was 18 years old when World War II broke out in 1939. She lost 23 family members—“dear souls”—sent from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka death camp. She, her father, and her niece, Roma, went into hiding, but following the Ghetto uprising, the three were deported to Majdanek. She witnessed her father struck down by a guard—which was the last time she saw him. In 1943, she and Roma were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau (where she was tattooed prisoner 48632) and finally ended in Bergen-Belsen before liberation.
Blumenthal shares her harrowing journey with passion and raw honesty. Speaking of things that she had held inside for years, her details evoke deep pain. She remembers the smell of burning feathers in the destruction of the Ghetto. She tells of the room in which they were held before deportation. At night, guards would come and take young girls and rape them.
The camps’ horrors are told in vivid, clear detail. She relates of nearly being gassed but getting a reprieve because the quota of five hundred exterminations had been filled. She describes the hanging of a prisoner after an escape attempt. At one point, Roma was contemplating suicide by throwing herself on the electrified fence. When they arrived in Bergen-Belsen, the camp had become nothing more than a charnel house, with the dead and dying everywhere. But even in this nightmare, she states: “I never lost hope, even in the darkest times of my life.”
She believes it was neither luck nor chance but God that helped her survive. Even in her tenth decade, she shows joy, light, and appreciation for all she has. She strives to bond with people, making visits, going on Facebook, and talking to her niece, who lives in New York. She believes that we must “make friends and show kindness.”
Her post-war life led her to Paris, then Palestine, where she met her South African husband, Isaac. They wed after only knowing each other for thirteen days. After that, they moved to Johannesburg, where they opened a business and raised a family. Her married life is shown in a wealth of home movies.
A scene from ‘I Am Here’. Photo courtesy of @Micha Serraf/ Sanktuary Films
Juxtaposed with her history are clips of her current life: spending time with family, swimming, walking, and even making the Sabbath challah. References to “no food must be wasted” and “the plate must be cleared,” as well as a certain frugality (the use of one tea bag to make multiple cups), are presented with humor tinged with the shadow of one who went without.
What separates I Am Here from similar documentaries is the 2D animation. Created by Greg Bakker, the rough cartoons enhance the narrative with muted colors and stilted movement. These sections are more effective and affecting than the standard archival photos and stock footage that are employed elsewhere in the film. These moving illustrations create haunting images.
At the behest of her husband’s family, Blumenthal had her tattoo removed, an unusual and disturbing request, essentially eradicating her experience. She claimed the resulting scar was from a freak car accident. For years, she did not tell her children about her suffering “because the open wounds were still bleeding.” And yet, the adult children speak of her waking up screaming from nightmares. Blumenthal said that these terrible dreams were of the Nazis taking her children. Unfortunately, these questions and ramifications are not fully addressed. The letter from the beginning of the film is never mentioned again.
Blumenthal touches on some of the things that still haunt her. When speaking of her lost family, she muses, “Every person has a grave to go to. I have none. Not even ashes.” She admits that she had trouble mixing with people after the War for they did not know what she went through. She had to build a family to find a new world.
I Am Here offers a portrait of survival but a celebration of life. Blumenthal demonstrates gratitude for the family “next to her now” and “who can hear her when she laughs or cries.” People come to her for blessings as they see her as a source of positivity. She fears that what happened could happen again, and “we should not forget.” But her final message is “We must love people around us. Love everybody” — a powerful statement from a remarkable person.
Rated PG-13, I Am Here is now playing in local theaters.
Albert G. Prodell Middle School seventh grade students in the Shoreham-Wading River School District are commemorating Women’s History Month with their studies and a paper quilt that was created to showcase the dynamic and powerful contributions of many women in history.
The project was spearheaded by social studies teacher Corinne Fallon, who is a member of the Women’s History Month committee.
The quilt features black and white cutouts and short profiles of Clara Barton, Amelia Earhart, Anne Frank, Frida Kahlo, Helen Keller, Rosa Parks, Sonia Sotomayor and others. It is a tribute to and reminder of the vital role that they play in America’s past, present and future.
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