40 THE QUEENS COURIER • APRIL, 22, 2021 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Queens Public Library salutes its oldest cardholder
BY CARLOTTA MOHAMED
CMOHAMEDSCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
QNS
Marking the 104th day of the year,
Queens Public Library (QPL) celebrated
the borough’s oldest known library card
holder, 104-year-old Kenneth Neilson, on
Wednesday, April 14, for his long-standing
engagement with the library system — fi rst
as an educator and then as an author and
local community leader.
QPL President Dennis Walcott joined
Neilson’s family and friends outside
the centenarian’s home in Hollis for the
celebration. As part of the festivities, the
QPL Mobile Library drove by, bedecked
with a special banner for Neilson, as part
of the bookmobile’s spring mini-tour of
neighborhoods around the borough.
“Th roughout his life, Kenneth Neilson
has shown how one person can make an
enormous diff erence in their community,”
Walcott said. “His devotion to QPL continues
to amaze me. He not only is one of
our most dedicated patrons, but is also
committed to fostering a love of community,
of reading, of writing and of learning.
He continues to enrich the lives of those
around him, and for this, we celebrate him
today.”
Neilson was awed by the attention,
banner and balloons. However, when
asked how he felt about the recognition,
he focused on the role that librarians play
in shaping lives.
“It’s the librarians that make the building,
remember. Th e library is a building, but the
librarians are the people who make it run,”
Neilson said.
With help from his local library branch
in south Hollis, Neilson authored several
books which today appear on the library’s
shelves; led a movement to name P.S. 134 Th e
Langston Hughes School; and organized a
neighborhood block association to force the
city to clean up a derelict public space (which
the association then turned into a garden).
Neilson was born in Brooklyn on Jan. 6,
1917. Raised in Brooklyn, Neilson has lived
in his home in Hollis since 1953. He is the
author of “Th e World of Walt Whitman
Music” (1963), “Th e World of Langston
Hughes Music” (1982), “Th e Littlest Giant”
(1979), “I Love Dandelions” (2007) and
“Langston Hughes” (2009).
Neilson worked as a public school
teacher for 30 years, including as a primary
grade teacher at P.S. 108 in Richmond Hill.
An enthusiastic library user especially in
his retirement years, Neilson has made
countless calls and visits to staff at the
QPL President Dennis Walcott visits Kenneth Neilson at his home in Hollis.
information desk of his local branch in
south Hollis. He has visited the library
numerous times throughout the decades
when doing research for a book or working
Photo courtesy of QPL
on a community project. Neilson holds a
bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College
and a master’s degree from New York
University.
Four artists chosen for residency program in Fort Totten
BY JENNA BAGCAL
JBAGCALSCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
JENNA_BAGCAL
For the fi ft h year in a row, New York City
artists were selected for the Urban Field
Station’s Artist in Residence program,
which will operate virtually out of Fort
Totten in Bayside.
Th e four artists awarded residencies this
year are Cecile Chong, Sharon Heitzenroder,
Nikki Lindt and Kilia Llano, who will
work collaboratively on research, public
outreach and natural resource management
specialists to create works that bring
arts and humanities perspectives to the
city’s parkland.
Since the program’s inception in 2017,
each group of NYC-based artist have created
unique installations refl ecting the
cultural, ecological and build landscape.
Th is year, the residency program supports
artists across the country and internationally,
with plans for further expansion in
the future.
Arts professionals and staff from NYC
Parks, the USDA Forest Service and Th e
Nature of Cities (TNOC) selected the
four artists this year and will continue to
work with them throughout the yearlong
residency.
“NYC Parks is happy to partner with
the USDA Forest Service and Th e Nature
of Cities to support these talented artists
through the Urban Field Station,” said
NYC Parks Senior Public Art Coordinator
Elizabeth Masella. “Since its inception, the
program has provided an innovative space
for artists to explore the cross-sections of
art, science and the urban environment.
We look forward to seeing the contributions
of this year’s international cohort as
they engage with the dynamics between
nature and communities.”
Additionally, the artists will also be
working with resource management
specialists at NYC Parks, the USDA Forest
Service and the state of Hawaii with
teams in New York City, Honolulu, Hawaii,
and Santo Domingo in the Dominican
Republic.
“Th e Artist Residency is representative of
the approach to ‘knowledge co-production’
emblematic of the USDA Forest Service’s
Urban Field Station Network. Art is a
form of inquiry, and encounters between
science and art give us the chance to rediscover
elements of both, yielding results
that neither art nor science could create
on its own. Th ese advances contribute to
the knowledge and practice required to
develop more just, thriving and sustainable
communities,” USDA Forest Service
Network Coordinator Sarah Hines said.
Th e residency group’s project proposals
examine the overlap of art, urban ecology
and community-based design.
Cecile Chong is an Ecuador-born, New
York-based multimedia artist whose
project explores the connection between
city parts and the surrounding immigrant
communities. Her work addresses both
cultural interaction and interpretation
and also commonalities between human
relationships to nature and each other.
Sharon Heitzenroder is a feminist, artist,
activist and educator whose work deals
with issues related to mental health, gender
and disparities due to systems of power.
Her project will document Honolulu’s
environmental changes and lost of green
space over the past 50 to 100 years.
Nikki Lindt is a New York City-based
artist who was born in the Netherlands
and has worked with scientists, philosophers
and sociologists to examine climate
change at the intersection of art, science
and culture. Lindt’s project explores above
and underground sound in New York City
with a focus on the sound gradient of underground
sounds in an urban setting all
the way through a city forest.
Born in Santo Domingo, Dominican
Republic, Kilia Llano is a multimedia artist
whose work is based in identity, how
cultures address nature and how one’s
surrounding shape identity. Her project
“Migrations” will consist of two murals
based in Santo Domingo.
“Th e Nature of Cities was built to explore
what we can learn at the fi zzy boundaries
where diff erent ways of knowing and
modes of action meet. If you want to learn
something new, something unexpected, it
makes sense to put artists together with scientists,
designers, planners and activists,”
said David Maddox, executive director and
publisher of “Th e Nature of Cities.”
Photo courtesy of NYC Parks
The 2021 Urban Field Station’s Artist in Residence program will take place in Fort Totten.
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