Untold Colonial History: ‘The Saltwater Frontier’
The Vanderbilt Museum will host Andrew Lipman, Associate Professor of History at Barnard College, for a lecture based on his award-winning book The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast (Yale University Press, 2015) – on Thursday, September 28, at 7:00 pm.
In The Saltwater Frontier, Lipman shares the previously untold story of how the ocean became a “frontier” between colonists and Indians. In a radical reinterpretation of early America, Lipman’s analysis shifts our attention to when the English and Dutch empires both tried to claim the same patch of coast between the Hudson River and Cape Cod, transforming the sea itself into an arena of contact and conflict. During this period of violent European invasions, the region’s Algonquin-speaking Natives were important navigators, boatbuilders, fishermen, pirates, and merchants. Lipman’s study demonstrates how these seafarers became active players in the emergence of the Atlantic World.
Drawing from a wide range of English, Dutch, and archaeological sources, The Saltwater Frontier uncovers a new geography of Native America that incorporates seawater as well as soil. Lipman makes a persuasive case for rethinking our traditional understanding of the period and for appreciating the significance of Long Island’s coastal waters in the early history of colonial America.
The lecture will take place at 7:00 pm in the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum’s Charles and Helen Reichert Planetarium theater. Support for the lecture series is generously provided by a grant from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation.
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Andrew Lipman is a historian of Early America at Barnard College in New York, New York. His research interests include the Atlantic World, early America, Native Americans, violence, technology, and the environment. His first book, The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast, was a finalist for the New England Society Book Award in Nonfiction, the PROSE award in U.S. History, and the winner of the Bancroft Prize in American History.
Lipman’s work has appeared in Common-Place, Early American Studies, Reviews in American History, and the William and Mary Quarterly. He has also contributed pieces to Slate and Time. His research has been supported by the American Philosophical Society, The Huntington Library, The International Seminar in the History of the Atlantic World at Harvard University, and the John Carter Brown Library. He is presently completing a book manuscript titled The Death and Life of Squanto.
Laser Shows Premiere This Weekend: Foo Fighters, The Weeknd
The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum’s Reichert Planetarium will premiere two new laser-light shows from Laser Fantasy, a leading laser entertainment creator: Laser Foo Fighters will open at 9:00 pm on Friday, September 15, and Laser The Weeknd at 9:00 pm on Saturday, September 16.
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Alternative Rock, Post-Grunge, Hard Rock, however you want to categorize them, the Foo Fighters fill arenas and melt faces. Fronted by Dave Grohl, previously known as the powerhouse drummer for Nirvana, Foo Fighters brilliantly combine melody and punk energy to create their award-winning sound. Laser Foo Fighters captures the power and intensity of a concert and pours it onto the dome in spectacular laser light.
Set list: Something From Nothing, Learn to Fly, Times Like These, Wheels, Best of You, Everlong, My Hero, Walk, All My Life, The Pretender. Encores: This is a Call, Monkey Wrench.
Immerse yourself in the sights and sounds of Laser The Weeknd! With a stunning display of choreographed lasers, you’ll be taken on a journey through the chart-topping artist’s most iconic hits. From the Grammy-award winning Blinding Lights to the dance floor anthems Can’t Feel My Face and Starboy, this show will transport you to a world of mind-blowing visuals.
Set list: I Feel It Coming, Save Your Tears, Die For You, Call Out My Name, Can’t Feel My Face, Party Monster, Earned It, Heartless, The Hills, Pray For Me, Starboy. Encores: Blinding Lights, Take My Breath.
‘Thankful Thursdays’: Free Planetarium Show
The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum and Reichert Planetarium are proud to present Thankful Thursdays on several evenings this year. The next Thankful Thursday will be September 21 at 7:00 pm. The evening includes a free planetarium show and night-sky viewing in the Observatory. Presented by BAE Systems.
We invite you to join us for a FREE family-friendly planetarium show – Explore the relationship between the Earth, Moon, and Sun with the help of Coyote, an amusing character adapted from Native American oral traditions, who has many misconceptions about Earth and its most familiar neighbors. Native American stories are used to help distinguish between myths and science. Recommended for ages 7+.
After the show, we will open our observatory – weather permitting – to the public and an astronomy educator will invite you to look through a telescope at the night sky.
‘Morning at the Museum’ for Families With Special Needs
The Vanderbilt Museum will present Morning at the Museum, its annual event exclusively for people with special needs and their families, on Saturday, October 7, from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm. Admission is free, but advance registration is required.
Free Registration
Spend the morning exploring the collections, grounds, gardens, architecture, and the Reichert Planetarium’s “Open Sky.” Activities include a preserved specimen touch table and crafts.
For more information contact Beth Laxer-Limmer at 631-854-5552 or beth@vanderbiltmuseum.org.
Popular Morning, Evening ‘Birdwatch and Architecture Tours’ Resume
The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum once again will offer more morning and evening Birdwatch and Architecture Tours, led by the Museum’s director of curatorial affairs, beginning in early September. Morning: September 2. Evening: September 8.
The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum once again will offer morning and evening Birdwatch and Architecture Tours, led by the Museum’s director of curatorial affairs, beginning in early September.
Participants will enjoy the unique opportunity to view the Vanderbilt estate in the early dawn hours and at dusk, when the grounds are closed but the birds are active.
Tickets are free for members, $12.00 for non-members. Early Registration is Suggested
Sturdy hiking footwear is strongly suggested. Participants are asked to bring their own binoculars.
Morning Birdwatch
Saturdays: September 2, 16, 30 | October 14, 28
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Evening Birdwatch
Fridays: September 8, 22 | October 6, 20 | November 3
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Birdwatches are semi-regular touring events offered during the fall and spring months, when local and migratory bird species are at their most active and visible – during the waves of migration along the Atlantic flyway.
Each Birdwatch will feature aspects of the estate’s architectural history while participants view the Vanderbilt’s resident avian species and hear their calls and songs. Some of the species observed and identified recently at the Vanderbilt Museum include red-tailed hawks, osprey, merlin, brant, northern flickers, great-horned owls, grackle, white-breasted nuthatch, mourning doves, and more.
‘Haunting Menagerie’, Museum’s First Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition
Wendy Klemperer
On Earth Day, April 22, the Vanderbilt Museum debuted Wendy Klemperer: Wrought Taxonomies, the first exhibition of outdoor sculpture at the historic summer estate of William Kissam Vanderbilt II.
Wendy Klemperer’s sculptures—a haunting assemblage of animal forms that span imaginary, endangered, familiar, and exotic species—celebrate natural history and the nonhuman world through evocative interactions with the surrounding environment.
Using materials salvaged from scrapyards, she composes ecological narratives that respond to the history and collections of Suffolk County’s first public park and museum. Her brilliant use of gestural lines captures the spectator’s attention and invites museumgoers to reflect on the relationship between an interest in animal life and the incessant push of human industry.
Wrought Taxonomies is the inaugural exhibition in the Vanderbilt Museum’s outdoor sculpture program and the institution’s second exhibition of contemporary art focused on the relationship between culture and animals.
The Vanderbilt Museum occupies the former Gold Coast estate of William Kissam Vanderbilt II, the great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt and a pioneer of American motorsport. Located in Centerport on the north shore of Long Island, it is renowned for its extensive marine and natural history collections, Spanish revival architecture, and picturesque parklands.
All sculptures are viewable with general admission to the Museum grounds. Educational programs and workshops associated with the themes and content of Wendy Klemperer: Wrought Taxonomies will be offered throughout the exhibition. Special thanks are due to the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, whose generous support made Wrought Taxonomies possible. The exhibition will run through April 22, 2024.
‘Laser Taylor Swift’ Extended to September
Showings of the Vanderbilt Reichert Planetarium’s wildly popular new show, Laser Taylor Swift, have been extended through December 30 – every day at 4:00 pm. If you can’t score tickets to the Eras tour, Laser Taylor Swift is the next best thing!
With more than 200 million records sold, a shelf full of Grammys, and an army of fans, Taylor Swift is an inspiration for generations. This dynamic show takes her biggest hits and brings them to life in dazzling laser light.
Tickets: $18. (Free for Museum members.)
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Setlist: You Need To Calm Down, Love Story, Anti-Hero Exile, Look What You Made Me Do, Willow, Lavender Haze, I Knew You Were Trouble, Blank Space, You Belong With Me, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, Shake It Off.
Linda Trott Dickman” Under the Sea & Poetry
Join local poet Linda Tott Dickman, and write a poem inspired by the amazing creatures in William Vanderbilt’s collections. Sunday, October 15, from 10:00 to 11:30 am.
Guests $20 | Members $18
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Dickman, who has lived most of her life in East Northport, is an award-winning poet whose work has been anthologized locally and internationally. She is the author of four chapbooks and a poetry prompt book for children of all ages. The coordinator of poetry for the Northport Arts Coalition, she also works with poets of all ages at the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association and at local museums and leads a poetry workshop at Samantha’s Li’l Bit O’ Heaven coffee house. Dickman is a retired elementary school librarian.
Vanderbilt Joins Heckscher Museum ‘Draw Out!’
The Vanderbilt Museum is collaborating with The Heckscher Museum of Art in its annual art event, Draw Out!, set for Saturday, September 23, from 12:00 to 5:00 pm. The day will feature watercolor painting, collage, and live music.
A broad array of activities has been designed for all ages, including watercolor painting, collage, and more. Live music on the terrace throughout the day. Docents will be in the galleries to bring the artwork to life. The first 100 attendees will receive free art supplies!
Join us for a FREE day full of art and music in the Museum and Heckscher Park:
Watercolor Painting by the Pond
Sketching from a live model
Docents in galleries
Live music on the Terrace by Jason Dorsa
Create with artist Robyn Cooper of Protégé Art Studio
Traditional songs and dances presented by the Shinnecock
Boys & Girls Club Dance Troupe
In collaboration with: Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum, Huntington Arts Council, TOH Hispanic Task Force, TOH Huntington Asian American Task Force, Huntington Fine Arts, Huntington Historical Society, Huntington Public Library, Shinnecock Boys and Girls Club, and Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum & Reichert Planetarium.
‘Wildman’ Steve Brill: Foraging at the Vanderbilt
Environmental educator and author “Wildman” Steve Brill, who leads wild food and ecology tours, will offer Foraging with the ‘Wildman’ on the estate grounds of the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum on Sunday, October 29, from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm.
“The Vanderbilt Museum grounds—with cultivated areas, fields, thickets, and woods—is a bonanza for wild foods in late fall,” Brill said, “and everything the group will be finding is renewable.”
Brill said wild greens will be thriving in sunny areas and along trail edges. These include chickweed, which tastes like corn on the cob, lemony sheep sorrel, garlicky garlic mustard, spicy hairy bittercress, pungent and field garlic. Roots could include burdock, field garlic, and wild carrots. We could find fruits and berries such as wild raisins, autumn olives, and crab apples.
If there have been days of pouring rain beforehand, gourmet mushrooms such as chicken mushrooms, hen of the woods, oyster mushrooms, various puffball species, and inky caps could be growing in abundance as well, and other habitats will provide many more delicious, renewable edible and medicinal species, he said.
A 60-minute indoor presentation in the Vanderbilt Reichert Planetarium will precede a two-hour foraging tour, followed by a book signing.
Adults and children 10 and older $10, children under 10 free. Members $9.
“Participants should bring plastic bags for veggies and herbs, and paper bags for mushrooms, which spoil in plastic,” he said. “Digging implements such as small hand shovels are recommended, as roots will be in season.”
Everyone should wear closed shoes, long pants, and long sleeves for protection from poison ivy and ticks, plus an extra layer of clothing in case it gets cold. Smoking and vaping are not allowed. Please note that this is the first day of Daylight Savings Time.
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Brill’s books include Foraging in New York (Globe Pequot Press, 2017), on the state’s best edible plants; Foraging with Kids (Brill is author, artist and publisher, 2014), a wild foods guide with science, folklore, history, recipes, games, and activities, for teachers, parents, and grandparents to use with kids; The Wild Vegan Cookbook: A Guide to Preparing Wild (and Not-So-Wild) Foods (Harvard Common Press, 2002).
Also: Shoots and Greens of Early Spring (Brill is author, artist and publisher, 2008), and Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places (Harper-Collins 1994), plus the iOS/Android app Foraging with the Wildman.
Environmental educator Brill is still best known for having been arrested and handcuffed by undercover park rangers for eating a dandelion in Central Park in 1986. (See wildmanstevebrill.com for details, and more.)
CEED Biologist-Ranger to Lead Three Owl Prowls
Biologist and ranger Eric Powers, co-founder of the Center for Environmental Education & Discovery (CEED), has planned three Owl Prowls on the grounds of the Vanderbilt Estate and Museum – at 6:00 pm on Saturday, October 21; Friday, October 27; and Friday, November 17.
After a presentation on the owls of Long Island, Powers will lead a walk on the estate grounds, during which he will attempt to call in nearby owls. Flashlights are not permitted. Sturdy footwear is recommended as the trail is uneven and it will be dark.
Tickets: Members, free; non-Members, $12.
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CEED, based in Brookhaven, Long Island, is a nature center that inspires connections to the joys of nature through education and experience. CEED serves children, youth, and adults through public nature programs and events, school and community-based environmental education, conservation projects, live animal ambassadors, and more.
Lecture: ‘Immigrants and the Evolution of the American Landscape’
Wambui Ippolito, an award-winning landscape designer and author, will give a lecture at the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum on the contributions immigrants have made to the American landscape – on Thursday, November 2, at 7:00 pm in the Reichert Planetarium.
In a relatively short period of time, American landscapes have been altered, reshaped, and diversified by intense immigrant activities. Much like waves of earlier settlement, today’s immigrants continue to change the land through their gardening activities. These individuals introduce plants and practices that are beneficial and problematic to the land, forever transforming the American terrain.
In her lecture “Immigrants and the Evolution of the American Landscape,” Ippolito will take us through various immigrant garden landscapes and histories—from the early Scottish and Irish gardeners at great estates to today’s largely Central American workforces—with hopes of inspiring a new understanding and approach to immigrant land management.
The lecture will take place at 7:00 pm in the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum’s Charles and Helen Reichert Planetarium theater. Support for the lecture series is generously provided by a grant from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation.
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Wambui Ippolito is a horticulturalist, landscape designer, and author based in New York City. She is a graduate of the prestigious New York Botanical Garden’s School of Professional Horticulture, and she has designed gardens for commercial, residential, and public spaces. Her design for the 2021 Philadelphia Flower Show won the competition by unanimous decision.
Ippolito is the author of an upcoming book on the contributions of immigrants to the American landscape. In 2022, she was invited to design a new Exhibition Courtyard for the expansion of the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia. Her commission marks the first time that an African-born female designer has been asked to create a permanent installation for a North American botanical garden.
Seasonal Fun: ‘Mr. Vanderbilt’s Spooky Science Lab’
The Vanderbilt Museum Education Department will offer Mr. Vanderbilt’s Spooky Science Lab, a program for children in grades 2-5 on Friday, October 27, from 4:00 to 6:00 pm.
Join us for some creepy fun! We’ll tour the galleries with flashlights, looking for creatures, and will create a creepy potted cactus that can be used in any spooky Halloween display.
Registration is online only. Cost: $20 / $18 for members. For more information, call 631-854-5552.
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“Kids love exploring the collections in the dark with flashlights,” said Beth Laxer-Limmer, Associate Director of Education. “They notice things they might usually miss – like a hawk’s hooked beak or the spines on a sea urchin.”
Roman Zavada to Perform ‘Résonances Boréales’
Roman Zavada will perform piano compositions inspired by the spectacular aurora borealis in the Reichert Planetarium Theater on Saturday, October 7, at 5:30 and 7:00 pm. He describes the performance – accompanied by stunning video images on the dome – as a dialogue between a single piano and the northern lights.
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With an upright piano anchored to the rock of the Canadian Shield, at the edge of the taiga, Roman Zavada created piano compositions inspired by one of the most spectacular and majestic phenomena on Earth: the aurora borealis of the Northwest Territories.
Acclaimed by critics and audiences alike for its beauty and originality, Résonances Boréales is an exceptional 360-degree dome show featuring Zavada’s piano performance. This immersive experience takes the audience on a journey above the 60th parallel as Zavada translates the spirit of the North in a dialogue between the piano and the pulsing energies of the astonishing northern lights.
Roman Zavada is a self-taught Ukrainian and Québécois-born pianist whose creative direction is based on instinct, spontaneity, and improvisation. His first piano experiences go back to early childhood. As he got older, he quickly developed a passion for showmanship and improvisation while breathing new life into the silver-screen classics of the past and became a silent-film accompanist. He improvised musical narration in real-time, which made the musical notes of the soundtrack seem part of the film. He later returned to his personal compositions with an all-new large-scale project: Résonances Boréales.
Inspired by the Northern vibes and the splendor of the aurora borealis, Roman Zavada continued the composition of nine evocative titles over two years. Each piece, based on twenty hours of improvisation in the middle of Prelude Lake’s boreal forest in the Northwest Territories, reflects deeply the sensibility felt beyond the 60th parallel. Résonances Boréales is an album rich in emotion with a strong pianistic and artistic personality.
Raptor Day: Meet Live, Rescued Birds Up Close
The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum will hold its annual Raptor Day on Saturday, November 11, from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. The event will offer identical sessions – at 10:00 and 11:00 am and at 1:00 and 3:00 pm. Featured: a live exhibit of rescued raptors, with a bald eagle, falcon, golden eagle, owls, and hawks. Ticket prices include general admission to the Museum.
The event will be held on Veterans Day weekend – and the Vanderbilt will offer free admission for veterans and active-duty military and their families.
The event, which will benefit WINORR – Wildlife in Need of Rescue and Rehabilitation – and the Vanderbilt Museum will be held rain or shine in the Vanderbilt Celebration Tent. The event also will support Museum programs. WINORR will do a short presentation and Q &A about its Eurasian owl. A member of the Shinnecock tribe will offer a blessing for a Centerport father eagle that died this year.
WINORR houses the birds and rehabilitates them. This is an opportunity for visitors of all ages to get an up-close look at these magnificent birds that can no longer be released into the wild. Bring your camera!
Activities for children will include an arts and crafts table, plus free face painting, and the showing throughout the day of a short movie, Bald Eagles of Centerport. Vendors will include Westfield Farms (selling their local honey), the Sierra Club, and Huntington-Oyster Bay Audubon Society. A raffle table will feature a raptor created by a local wood carver, as well as pictures donated by Bald Eagles of Centerport photographers.
Tickets: adults $20, children 12 and under $10. Members: adults $10, children $5. All tickets include general admission to the Museum.
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