http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWVNrWGMgt8
At least in part, Chautauqua was a gathering place for the rich social elites from Pittsburgh. Jamestown is on the Erie Lackawanna Railroad, making it a place that became easier to reach when the railroads were built (40 years before the first automobiles and paved roads). The Erie Lackawanna connected Chicago and New York City as well as Pittsburgh.
Knowing the place as I do, there is a significant omission – as you disembark at the dock (which was how people arrived in the early days), there is a scale model of the Holy Land showing the communities and geography of the places where Jesus lived. The place is called “Palestine Park” – a name it has had since 1874 when it was built to teach Sunday School teachers. The name isn’t a political statement – just an inconvenient truth the Institute wishes to ignore.
http://blog.bibleplaces.com/2010/08/palestine-park-chautauqua-new-york.html
In the 1970s the Protestant Chautauqua heirs shirked off their financial commitment to the place and the Jewish money from Cleveland and New York City picked up the yoke. The maintenance of Palestine Park has fluctuated in importance dramatically in the last 40 years. I wonder if Tah-Reza-Ah Heinz Kerry kept the house a chip shot away from the park. It still blows me away that 90% of the Chautauqua summer orchestra is made up of the ‘first chairs’ of other orchestras on break.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B_IfTXDHFo
Wow. That was before Hilary’s listening tours through western New York State. 😉
Because they are not a permanent orchestra and give several performances a week, they typically have only a single rehearsal – so the musicians have to arrive already knowing all the music and the conductor just fine tuning things. Typically, they know the music so well, they aren’t even watching the conductor but just listening to each other.
Having a pipe organ exposed to open air creates special problems. These is nothing to prevent birds from deciding that B flat would make a nice home.
I’ve only been back twice since 1971. It was her place, not mine. The socialist politics of the Christian Left (as voiced by the National Council of Churches) had a lot with why I refused “confirmation” and never joined the church when I reached the age of reason – that said, it didn’t stop me from being in the choir on Sunday morning.
I’m shocked, I tell you – the building that housed the NCC was built in the 1950s with Rockefeller money
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchurch_Center
Nelson was a Republican… other family members Democrat…. but I don’t know anyone that ever accused Nelson of being a conservative. 😉
I seem to have a memory of Tom Synder doing an hour long interview with Nelson Rockefeller. He of course became VP after Spiro Agnew resigned and Gerald Ford took over for Nixon. He seemed like a nice guy, and viewed it that he had stepped in to fill the hole, but wasn’t all that really interested in the job of VP – his real job was more substantive and powerful
The Erie and Lackawanna railroads were actually built in the 1840s, so they were already well established
Art- my dad was a lifelong railroad man. He started working for Erie Lackawanna in the mid 50’s, and stayed with the RR through the changes from E.L. to Conrail, to NJ Transit. He was a structural engineer, Supervisor of Structures was his title, after starting work as a young man on the iron gang.
You may enjoy this, Ed. It is a tour through a century old train station in Easton that used to deliver coal to the NYC area, and also had a passenger service to NYC. Look for the employee job title information discovered in an abandoned office, the Ice Water dispenser, and the ticket / luggage areas. Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi0oA-sIVbQ
BTW- The cameraman has an interesting series of other explorations on youtube.
Very cool. Easton is a cool town if you stick to the right parts. Must have been a great place many moons ago.