Invite for March 2005 Party
MOVIN
ON UP MAGIC
Password is: Beautiful Mount Airy Lodge
Just like the Jeffersons,
the MAGIC GARDEN is movin on up to the East Side. This is an exciting
change, as we've never done a party in this neck of the woods. As a special
treat, we're spicing it up with free
food! Yes, FREE FOOD! So come from work, or from school, or from robbing
the liquor store, and eat, drink and talk about day camp. Same great drink
specials ($3 Rheingold, $4 Staten Island Fairy, Roosevelt
Island Tramp, and Ghetto Blaster), same great DJ (Justin Cheatham, aka
DJ SLY), and same great friggin city.
"Have a summer
of fun in the Poconos. We're your host with the most in the Poconos. Beautiful
Mount Airy Lodge." While we all know Mount Airy Lodge was not in
NYC, the advertising campaign was directed towards us, NYC taxpayers who
might be willing to spend their hard earned money to
wade in a heart shaped tub. How romantical! Mount Airy Lodge closed in
2001, and on March 5 and 6, the owners will be auctioning off the contents
of the resort - http://www.teelauctions.com/Auctions/AuctionDetail.cfm?AuctionID=102
In the 1960s and 70s,
the resort grossed over $50 million a year and sold more liquor than anywhere
else in Pennsylvania. Lots of your favorite entertainers graced its stage,
including Engelbert Humperdinck (who was born Arnold George Dorsey and
later named himself after the German composer, Engelbert Humperdinck,
1854-1921, who wrote the fairytale opera Hansel and Gretel.
I didnt realize you could change your name on a whim like that.
Please start calling me Tammy Faye Baker); Tony Bennett (born Anthony
Dominick Benedetto, the son of an Italian grocer in Astoria, who got his
big break when Bob Hope saw him perform in 1949 in Greenwich Village);
and good ole Bob Hope (born Leslie Townes Hope in England, then moved
to Cleveland when he was four). Bob Hope was a part owner of the Cleveland
Indians in the early 1950s. Poconos is a Native American word meaning
"stream between two mountains" - the Delaware River cuts a gap
between two mountains. By the way, it is expected that the current owner
of the Mount Airy Lodge may open a casino on the premises.
There was once a nightclub
in Central Park called the Casino, near East 66th Street, originally known
as the Ladies Refreshment Salon. When Jimmy Walker was mayor, he had the
club leased to a friend who redesigned it all lavish-like, and then the
new fancy schmancy spot became the hub of the mayors social activity.
After Walkers resignation in 1932, Robert Moses, who was a political
rival of Walkers, had it torn down and replaced with a playground.
We celebrated Central
Parks 150th anniversary in 2003, even though it didnt really
open until 1858. Math is hard. I was going to go into a tirade about the
Gates, but Id rather not expend precious finger to
computer keyboard energy for their sake. It mightve been cool to
do a Gates-like project in the 1850s, when the area that is now home to
Central Park consisted mainly of shantytowns. About 1600 residents were
displaced for the building of Central Park, including inhabitants of Harsenville,
the Piggery District, and the Convent of the Sisters of Charity. These
settlements included schools, churches, cemeteries,
shops, and public hospitals.
But the most significant
community was Seneca Village not a hamlet for the first frozen
apple juice enriched with vitamin C (cmon, you remember the
jingle from the commercials) but a settlement in a rocky area from
81st to 89th Streets between 7th and 8th Avenues. By 1853, Seneca Village
was a thriving community: two thirds African American and one third Irish
and German, and by 1858 there wasnt a trace left.
Seneca Village is
so important because it was probably Manhattan's first prominent community
of African American property owners. Seneca Village indisputably started
after slavery ended in NY in 1827. While
this gave African Americans their long-awaited freedom, it didnt
automatically give them the right to vote. According to the New York State
Constitution of 1821, African American males were allowed to vote only
if they owned $250 in property. And so moving uptown made sense
African Americans could own property that would have been too expensive
downtown. (Never take voting for granted.)
Within a few years,
the community was comprised of about 250 working-class people, with African
Americans owning more than half the property. The Irish potato famine
brought many Irish immigrants to the United States; many moved to Seneca
Village and rented or bought land from African Americans. It became a
fairly peaceable ad harmonious interracial community, with two schools,
three churches, and three cemeteries.
There are many theories
about how Seneca Village got its name: possibly named for the Seneca tribe
of Native Americans, or a distortion of the word Senegal,
where many of the residents may have come from. It also may have been
a code word used by Underground Railroad fugitives, or an homage to Roman
philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4BC-6AD), whose book Senecas
Morals was popular among African American activists.
When the plans to
build Central Park were put into effect, power of eminent domain was used
a 5th Amendment detail allowing the government to take away private
property for public use - to evict the
residents. Those who owned property were modestly compensated. By 1857,
nothing was left of Seneca Village. There was no establishment of a new
community and the villagers scattered throughout the city. But we did
get Central Park. Enjoy your neighborhoods, because Christo may want to
drape and smother them someday.
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