Greater Astoria
Historial Society
35-20 Broadway, 4th Floor | L.I.C., NY 11106
718.278.0700 | www.astorialic.org
For more information visit us on the web at
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32 DECEMBER 2018 I LIC COURIER I www.qns.com
THE ARROW OF TIME
As we go about our lives, it seems
we live within some marvelous
clock which invents each mo-ment
that ticks by, inexorably moving
forward to a future where anything can
be possible – save one detail: time never
goes in reverse. Scientists call this the
“arrow of time.” But this does not stop
us at year’s end to take stock of things,
and like the Roman god Janus, for whom
January is named, to look both backward
and forward.
We are leaving the Quinn Building
at the end of the month. The William
Quinn Gallery where so much history
was both made and put on display will
soon be but a chapter of our community’s
history itself.
Here were many memories – the
Queens Borough President debates, Oc-cupy
Wall Street, launching the career of
City Councilman Costa Constantinides,
or giving an opportunity for Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez to talk of our nation’s
future on her path to Congress.
We remember the time 120 people
crammed into our space to hear Titanic
Joe Colletti recreate the sinking of the
Titanic through the eyes of his good
friend, Eva Hart, who, as a 6-year-old,
watched the ship and 1,500 people die.
That evening we hosted film crews from
five countries.
There was the afternoon when a
group of WWII veterans lead by the
late Rocco Moretto, witnesses of Nor-mandy,
Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima and other
moments of unspeakable sacrifice and
bravery, tell their experiences to a group
of students from Precious Blood School
who sat transfixed in spellbound silence.
In this place, collaborating with the
Urban Park Rangers in the late 1990s,
we launched the first waterfront event
in Queens, the East River Festival, held
simultaneously in all East River Parks
from Hunters Point to Astoria, attract-ing
40,000 attendees, and ending with
the largest fireworks display in Astoria
Park’s history.
Here was the Hell Gate Bridge Cen-tennial,
a partnership with Amtrak, which
celebrated a bridge that not only was
a triumph of engineering, but is also
a set piece photo backdrop of just
about every Astoria family. Here we
launched the community’s struggle for
the Steinway Mansion as a performance
space, tourist destination, research and
learning center - a promise that we will
someday fulfill.
In this space we helped Baz
Luhrmann recreate the New York of
the summer of 1923 for The Great
Gatsby earning him an Academy Award
and we film credit as his historical ad-visors.
Here we heard fellow Astorian
and Civil War reenactor, Patrick Falci,
tell of us his contributions to perhaps
the greatest epic to American history,
Ted Turner’s ‘Gettysburg.’
Around tables were quiet, thoughtful
discussions where people from around
the city came to talk over banned books
and topics that define our nation: the
suffragettes, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1984,
Grapes of Wrath, Go Tell It On the Moun-tain
and It Can’t Happen Here.
But it is here, that we find the well-spring
of our community’s DNA. Board
member Deborah Van Cura drew upon
her experiences of attending Bohemi-an
Hall with her grandmother to watch
Czech theater as a little girl, and when
the park was on the block, ready for
development, stood firm and refused to
give up. Twenty years later we are once
again a nation of beer gardens and craft
beer where good friends gather on a hot
night with cold beer.
When a chapter closes, a new one
always opens. Its blank pages beckon.
Legends
Gallery Hours:
Mondays & Wednesdays 2-5 PM
Saturdays 12-5 PM
Exhibits ~ Lectures ~ Documentaries ~ Books
Walking Tours ~ Historical Research
Unique & Creative Content
This image adapted from an invitation to the
Long Island City Athletics 33rd Annual Masque Ball, 1909.
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