FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.queenscourier.com MAY 7, 2015 • The Queens Courier 3 First Independence Day fireworks show coming to Fort Totten BY LIAM LA GUERE [email protected]/@LiamLaGuerre Bayside residents can skip the Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks this year, because fireworks are coming to Fort Totten. The Bayside Historical Society and Councilman Paul Vallone have organized the first official fireworks show at Fort Totten, which will be on July 1 ahead of Independence Day weekend. The 15-minute pyrotechnic show by Long Island-based Fireworks by Grucci will commence following a three-hour concert by local bands. People will be able to see the colorful explosions from as far as Whitestone, Douglaston and even The Bronx, Vallone said. The entire event is free and will run from 5 to 9 p.m. “My idea is for it to become a really great annual event,” Vallone said. “For me, doing things outside, like we do with the Children’s Holiday Parade, really are the things that start to define how great this community is.” People will be instructed to bring seats and picnic blankets for the show. The fireworks will shoot up from a soccer field at Fort Totten, and guests will be directed to the area near the pool, which will be able to fit more than 2,000 people, according to Vallone. However, there will be other places around Fort Totten for people to view the show. Vallone said they are also expecting to bring tall ships around Fort Totten for children to watch. The Bayside Historical Society is covering the event costs — more than $20,000 for the fireworks — through grant money it received for events from the Department of Cultural Affairs. Advertising for the event will begin around mid-May and maps will be printed so people know where to watch the show and to park their vehicles. The Bayside Historical Society usually holds a concert around the end of June, but after speaking with Vallone, they decided to mesh the two events. Depending on the event’s success, it could become an annual tradition for Independence Day, according to Alison McKay, executive director of the Bayside Historical Society. “We’re so excited to bring this family-friendly event to Bayside,” McKay said. “No pun intended, if it launches well, we’ll do it again.” The Bayside Historical Society and Councilman Paul Vallone have planned the first official Independence Day fireworks show at Fort Totten. Kids to tell senior citizens’ stories through documentaries BY ANGY ALTAMIRANO the project, to step away from their everyday mindset [email protected]/@aaltamirano28 and for a moment take the time to listen. The creative process started on April 30 when the The art of filmmaking is bridging the gap between seniors visited the students at the school located at the generations, as students at one Bayside middle 61-15 Oceania St., and began the conversation. school prepare to tell the real life stories of a group Throughout the morning the seven seniors, who of local senior citizens. were divided into groups with students, shared their Eighth-graders in Jason Spagnuoli’s Moving Image stories, and then narrowed down what they would class at Nathaniel Hawthorne M.S. 74 have begun like their documentaries to focus on. working with members of the CCNS Bayside Senior Story topics included finding a second love after Center to reenact stories told to them by the senior the passing of a husband, traveling abroad, family citizens through documentaries. history, and in one case the dramatic story of making This is the first time students are taking on such a task as the Moving Image class is currently in its first year at the school. “The seniors have lived such a long and valuable life,” Spagnuoli said. “To me we’re empowering these seniors to say, ‘Look, your life does matter.’” Spagnuoli also added that the experience allows the students, who were at first very skeptical about it out of a concentration camp. “It was pretty interesting. I heard a lot of facts and stories from their life and it opened my mind to do things and try new stuff,” said 13-year-old Myles Robinson. For 14-year-old Luljete “Lulu” Mujaj, meeting the seniors opened the door to a new experience. She was paired off with a senior citizen who decided to focus her documentary on the moment she was set free from a concentration camp she was put in for three years during the Holocaust. “It was really touching because all I’ve really known of concentration camps was from a textbook, videos and museums, but when you actually hear someone who lived during that it was really hard,” Mujaj said. Now that the students have their story ideas for the films, they will work with the drama class at the middle school to cast the characters in the documentaries. The senior citizens will then return to the school in a week and be filmed telling their stories. The overall process of creating the documentary, which includes editing the interviews into the reenactments and featuring music picked by the seniors, is expected to take about three to four weeks. According to Spagnuoli, the documentaries are expected to be completed by the end of May with the hope of screening a few of them during the school’s film festival on June 3.
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