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Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum Fall 2012 Newsletter

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Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum Fall 2012 Newsletter BARTOW-PELL MANSION MUSEUM FALL 2012 NEWSLETTER BPMM SHINES AS A PARTNER IN PRESERVATION We did it! In May, Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum finished All the sites were required to host an open house the 4th out of 40 historic sites in the New York City Partners first weekend in May, and BPMM went all out, kicking off in Preservation (PiP) online voting competition for $3 on Friday evening with a performance by Irish folk singer million in grant funds, and received $155,000 from American Mary Courtney. On Saturday and Sunday, family activities Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation to included garden and mansion tours, docents in costume, restore its Delano & Aldrich-designed formal garden, the 19th-century toys and games, Urban Park Ranger hikes, a 18th-century Pell family cemetery, and the horse chestnut banjo and washboard duo, birds of prey and other wildlife, allée that leads to it. The plus the Bronx Seaside Trolley— competition ranged from very offered in partnership with the City small, all-volunteer operations Island Nautical Museum—all free. to large, internationally known On Saturday evening, BPMM held institutions with multi-million its traditional spring fund-raiser dollar budgets, such as the celebrating the Kentucky Derby Guggenheim Museum and the with mint juleps, Southern-style New York Botanical Garden. appetizers, a Dixieland band, hat PiP’s intent is to raise contest, raffle, and, of course, awareness of historic places viewing of the race. and to help them sustain that During the voting, BPMM sent awareness long term, particularly Hu Jane Photo: daily e-mail reminders to more through social media. Our PiP committee, consisting of than 4,000 people who had agreed to help our cause. We board members, staff, and volunteers, executed a plan that gradually saw ourselves creep up to fourth place, which we included developing a logo, a tag line (Beauty in the Bronx), held relatively steadily throughout. Our deepest thanks to all and a special URL for the campaign, along with a full who voted! schedule of Facebook posts, Tweets, blogs, and other forms Now the real work begins. Working very closely with of communication to expand the Historic House Trust of NYC, our reach and make our story Parks Capital Projects, and the New compelling. We also launched York City Landmarks Commission, a new website and created a we have begun our Requests for network of connections that we Proposals. The work is tentatively could tap into during the voting scheduled to begin in spring 2013 period, which ran from April 26 and must be finished by June 2014, through May 21. although we hope to be done by the PiP enabled us to increase end of 2013 in time to launch our our exposure along the way. A 2014 centennial celebration. video was created for YouTube; tttttSpecial thanks to BPMM’s an original Bartow-Pell ballad Warren Richard Photo: hardworking PiP committee, led was performed at WNYC’s Girls in costume at Open House Weekend by Ellen Bruzelius, Laura DeBuys, Greene Space; a NY Cares volunteer garden clean-up day Sherry Donovan, and Catherine Scinta, with the invaluable brought nearly 100 people to work in our gardens; a fashion assistance of Cynthia Brown, Lynn Byrne, Nancy Davis, shoot appeared in Swagger New York; an article on us was Alice Dean, Mary Beth Fisher, John Felicetti, Cherrie published in Untapped Cities, an online magazine; and an Greenhalgh, Norma Landis, Ellen Lasch, Louise Middleton, interview with Ellen Bruzelius was aired on WNYC’s Michelle O’Connor, and Bill Rainford. Thanks also to Tom Brian Lehrer show. Bricker for his design work. FALL 2012 BARTOW-PELL MANSION MUSEUM A New York City Letter from the President and the Executive Director designated landmark listed on the We are all very proud of the Bartow-Pell by Diana Tavares. Inside the mansion we National Register Mansion Museum’s spectacular win as an added to the museum’s collection, reclaimed of Historic Places, online popular vote-getter in the 2012 New the collapsed cloakroom floor and offered Bartow-Pell Mansion York City Partners in Preservation (PiP) numerous programs for all ages. Museum is owned grant. A heartfelt thank-you to all who All this could not have been accomplished by the City of New voted, posted, tweeted, e-mailed, “liked,” without the support and generosity of York Department of and “pinned” us into a winning position. Bartow-Pell Conservancy members and Parks & Recreation History and modern technology coalesced many other individuals, foundations, and and operated by on our behalf as we embraced 21st-century companies, including our newest funding the Bartow-Pell technology to help us renovate the early partners: the Lily Auchincloss Foundation Conservancy. The museum is a member 20th-century formal garden gracing our 19th- (children’s garden); NY Community Trust of the Historic House century mansion situated on land originally through the Historic House Trust (children’s Trust of New York purchased from the Siwanoy Indians in the garden); Elizabeth and Stanley R. Jacobs City. 17th century. Foundation (formal garden); and Cynthia Our success in the PiP social-media Woods Mitchell Fund of the National Trust The site is home campaign is mirrored in a myriad of other for Historic Preservation (shutter workshop). to one of the most achievements this past year. Our fund-raisers Show your support for our Beauty in beautifully situated all had impressive results. Public visitation the Bronx this fall by connecting with us at historic houses in to the site hit new highs. The new Scout facebook.com/BartowPell, following us at New York City. The Day programs, introduced this past winter, @Bartow_Pell, discovering us at bpmm.org, museum welcomes thousands of visitors were almost immediately sold out and are and joining us at the museum for our many each year for guided booked through the fall. Bounty from the exciting programs and fun fund-raisers. and group tours, new children’s garden is being donated to education programs, a food pantry. NY Cares Day volunteers Catherine Campbell Scinta, President garden strolls, trail helped us with many a garden clean-up task. Bartow-Pell Conservancy hikes, and a variety The gardens continue to improve—with new Ellen Bruzelius, Executive Director of special events. beds designed by Luis Marmol and tended Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum The museum is open to the public for guided tours every Wednesday, A SECRET GARDEN IN THE BRONX Saturday, and Sunday Although the mansion at Bartow-Pell dates from from 12 to 4 p.m. the 1840s, its formal garden was conceived and constructed about 1916 by the prominent early 20th-century New York City architectural firm of Delano & Aldrich. Taking advantage of the mansion’s slight elevation, the architects terraced the area immediately behind the mansion and enclosed it with beautiful stone walls on three sides, each with its own elegant wrought- Bartow-Pell iron gate. The effect was a classic geometric Mansion Museum design, which contrasted effectively with the 895 Shore Road surrounding fields and forest and the marshlands 1936 aerial view, International News Photo Bronx, NY 10464 of Long Island Sound beyond. Over the years, the grounds have deviated planted in the formal garden have overgrown 718.885.1461 from the original vision. Many old specimen their space and are out of scale with the size and [email protected] trees have disappeared, and unplanned trees style of its design. Symmetry has disappeared and shrubs have grown in, obscuring views of with key plants gone. www.bpmm.org the Sound and hiding many features that give Today the Bartow-Pell Conservancy has the environment its character. Trees and shrubs taken up the challenge of restoring the formal Continued on page 3 2 FALL 2012 BARTOW-PELL MANSION MUSEUM THE EARLY PELLS: LIFE IN A COLORFUL BPMM STAFF Ellen Bruzelius 17TH-CENTURY WORLD Executive Director BY MARK CAMPISANO Margaret Highland We tend to think of our ancestors—if we miles from Manhattan, signed a treaty with Education Director think of them at all—as living in a world of the Native American tribes living nearby, and and Curator black-and-white photographs, stiff collars, and set up his own English outpost. He purchased Mary Ellen WIlliamson wooden expressions, but the truth is much 9,166 acres of land (today’s northern Bronx Site Manager more colorful. Our ancestors lived in a world and southern Westchester County), and after that pulsed with mortal danger, vivid intrigue, the British drove the Dutch out of New York, Diana Dalmas Karen Lambdin and quickly changing fortunes, a world that can his ownership of the vast estate was confirmed Tour Guides make our own lives seem pretty by a royal decree, and he became bland by comparison. The early known as the “First Lord of the Diana Tavares generations of the Pell family— Manor of Pelham.” Gardener the founders of Pelham and the Loyalists and Rebels For Antonio & Janet Cruz Bartow-Pell Mansion—give most of the Revolutionary War, Caretakers us many examples of that Manhattan was occupied by the colorful world. British, but they could never DOCENTS Ruth and Consequences Why extend their control beyond Brett Bell did the Pells come to America? Manhattan. Pelham and the Pell Tom Berta In 1635 Thomas Pell was family’s manor house stood in Denise Bleidner serving as a gentleman of the “the Neutral Ground,” a 30-mile- bedchamber in the royal court wide no-man’s-land between Barbara Dennis of King Charles I of England. colonists loyal to the British Doug Hearle A comfortable life in the royal and the rebels. Because the Pells Lisa Kiernan court was his for the asking, were Loyalists, however, they Diana Lada but then Thomas met Ruth, one of the queen’s eventually fled to Manhattan seeking protection Nora Mazur ladies-in-waiting who had recently arrived from with the British and abandoned their manor France.
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