REVOLUTIONARY REENACTMENT SATURDAY IN NEW YORK CITY!

from the film THE BRAVE MAN

I’m just back from a week in my home town of New York, and while it’s pretty far East to be the West by some standards, it all depends on where – and when – you are sitting.  In the time of DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK, the Mohawk River was the West, and the Mohawk is a tributary of the Hudson River, which runs through New York City.

The Old Stone House

Anyway, I was surprised and delighted to learn that August 27^th of 2013 is the 237^th Anniversary of a crucial fight in the War of Independence known as The Battle of Brooklyn, and further, that the anniversary will be marked by several events this week – if you are in or near New York, I urge you to attend! 

The Old Stone House

In the Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope, on 3^rd Street, between 4^th and 5^th Avenues, surrounded by brownstones, sits a one-block park known as Washington Park.  An old house sits in the center, surrounded by playgrounds.  When I was growing up in the 1960s, I knew there was something historical there, but the neighborhood was so tough, and the park so drug-ridden that you didn’t even drive slowly by it.  Now the area in gentrified and welcoming, and the park is clean and attractive, and most importantly, the Old Stone House is accessible.  The Old Stone House was built by a Dutch farmer, and was already nearly a century old when, in 1776, it became a fortified British Army position. 

Map from the Old Stone House website

Shortly after the July 4^th 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence, 32,000 British and Hessian soldiers – German mercenaries – sailed to The Colonies.  In the area of New York they launched a series of lightning attacks on the Americans, and overran their outer defenses, poising the Continental Army on the brink of collapse.  Against the thousands of British troops were 400 American soldiers.  To quote from the Old Stone House pamphlet, “In a feat of sheer heroism, General William Alexander (Lord Stirling) organized several companies of Maryland and Delaware soldiers and attacked the British positions at The Stone House.  This provided a brief window for the Americans caught behind enemy lines to escape across the Gowanus Creek to the safety of the American fortifications in Brooklyn Heights.  Two nights later, under the cover of darkness and fog, General Washington effected his legendary retreat across the East River, saving his army to fight another day.”

The Old Stone House had been allowed to deteriorate and nearly disappear, until it was rebuilt, largely with the original stones, during the 1930s, as a project of the W.P.A.(part of President Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ program, the Works Progress Administration).

Among the activities of the week-long observance, a display of 85 Revolutionary War Flags and their histories will be open now through Sunday, August 25^th, at Green-Wood Cemetery, 5^th Avenue at 25^th Street, in Brooklyn.  On Wednesday, August 21^st, at 6pm, you can ride a canoe in the Gowanus Canal and learn about this infamous escape route for American soldiers (learn more here: www.gowanuscanal.org).  

The Arch at Grand Army Plaza

On Friday, August 25^th, from 5 – 7 pm you can enjoy the Battle of Brooklyn neighborhood walk, led by Hunter College Archeology Prof. William J. Parry.  It starts at the northwest corner of the entrance to Prospect Park at Grand Army Plaza (a beautiful locale, which honors not the American Revolution but the Civil War – Grand Army Plaza as in Grand Army of the Republic).  Wear comfortable shoes and bring twelve bucks – learn more here: 718-768-3195  info@theoldstonehouse.org.  Also on Friday, 8:30 at the Old Stone House Dorothy Fennel and Concrete Timbre perform The Age of Pain(e), based on the writings of Thomas Paine (they perform part two at the same time on Saturday). 

Also on Saturday, at 10 a.m. sharp, a Prison Ships Martyrs Memorial Ceremony will be held at the Martyrs Monument at Fort Green Park.  718-499-7600. From 11am to 3 pm you can Learn To Cook Like a Soldier at the Vander Ende-Onderdonk House (ten bucks, info at 718-456-1776, ridgewoodhistoricalsociety@gmail.com, http://www.onderdonkhouse.org/).  From 11 am to 4 pm witness The Great Escape With Reenactors from General John Glover’s Marblehead Regiment at Main Street/Brooklyn Bridge Park (718-768-3195, www.brooklynbridgepark.org). There’s also a Scavenger Hunt at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, more music and monologues, and from 5 to 9 a Revolutionary War Cocktail Party at the Old Stone House. 

On Sunday, August 5^th from 10 am until after 2 there will be the Battle of Brooklyn Commemoration at the Green-Wood Cemetery, which will include trolley tours (reservations required), lectures, living history, reenactments, period games and period food, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley as guest speaker, and the reading of the names of the Maryland 400.

The Old Stone House is open every Saturday and Sunday from 11 am to 4 pm, and you can learn more at their website, www.theoldstonehouse.org.  You can also enjoy an 8 part audio/video tour about the Battle of Brooklyn, narrated by John Turturro, here: http://theoldstonehouse.org/battle-of-brooklyn/tour/ .

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER HOME LOCATED

I attended NYU Film School in the 1970s, which is in the downtown Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village.  The heart of the Village was 8^th Street, and if you crossed 4^th Avenue, 8^th Street would change its name to St. Mark’s Place for two blocks, before dead-ending at the start of Alphabet City, starting with Avenue A.  I used to pass an old steam- bath called the St. Marks Baths, and on their wall was a plaque identifying the building as the former home of novelist James Fenimore Cooper, who fascinated readers with his Leatherstocking Tales, the most famous of them being LAST OF THE MOHICANS. 

As one of the most popular and influential and talented Western writers of the nineteenth century, I wanted to get a picture of the plaque for the Round-up.  My friend Jonathan and I marched up and down the two-block street, but the plaque was nowhere to be seen.  The Baths is gone, just like Cooper, but I was fairly sure that I knew which building it was, and snapped a picture.  Jon’s research confirmed this – apparently the former Cooper manse is now the Trash & Vaudeville Boutique.  I’ve dropped a line to the James Fenimore Cooper Society website, and perhaps they’ll have more info. 

Pretty sure this was Cooper's home,

but where's the plaque?

THE WRAP-UP

That’s all for this week’s Round-up – as I said, I’ve been out of time, and have some catching up to do.  

Have a great week!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright August 2013 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

‘HELL ON WHEELS 3’ HITS THE BRAKES: NO TRACK!

Season 3 of HELL ON WHEELS is on hold for the moment, because there’s no engineer in the locomotive.  While the show was renewed by AMC for a ten episode third season, the contracts of creators/writers/producers Joe and Tony Gayton have not been renewed.  There is some talk that they may be back to consult. 

 

John Shiban, a writer and producer who made his bones on X-FILES, and this season wrote four HELL ON WHEELS episodes, and exec produced the entire season, was announced as show-runner, but less than a week later bowed out.  AMC notes that all of their series renewals are conditioned on their approval of the show-runner, so the start will be delayed unless and until a suitable replacement is found.  Stand by for details as they become available. 

 

NEWS ON SEMI-WESTERNS BRIGHTER

There are no such problems for the nearly-westerns that have proliferated around the dial.  JUSTIFIED returns to FX with season four on Tuesday, January 17^th.   LONGMIRE will be back on A&E next year for a second season.  COPPER will be coming back to BBC America with an expanded season two – thirteen episodes instead of ten.  There was talk of a possible HATFIELDS & MCCOYS II, but it’s unlikely, since everyone’s dead. 

 

TWO NEW ‘WESTERN INTEREST’ SHOWS ON THE HORIZON

‘GHOST TOWN GOLD’

 

There are two new series heading our way which, while not technically Westerns, should be of interest to many Western fans.  One of them, GHOST TOWN GOLD, actually premiered on Discovery Channel this past Thursday, and will play for five more Thursdays.  It’s a reality show of the Pawn/Storage/Pickers/Diggers variety, following a pair of ‘present-day explorers,’ Brit Eaton and Scott Glaves, as they travel the Old West, hunting through ghost town in search of treasure. 

 

If you’ve watched this genre of show, you know they run the gamut from the highly entertaining to the painfully forced.  My one ‘negative’ about this kind of show is that I’ve known enough people who’ve worked on them to know that when not enough great stuff is found in the storage locker or brought to the hock shop, great stuff is planted.  This often gives the unsophisticated viewer the impression that striking it rich is much easier than it is.  I would hate to see such a show lead to ghost towns being plundered.

 

 

 

‘WASHINGTON’

 

 

NBC is developing a drama about the life of our first president based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times bestseller WASHINGTON: A LIFE, by Ron Chernow.  It’s to be produced by the Oscar-winning director of RAIN MAN, Barry Levinson.  Levinson, who has a long string of impressive film and TV credits, going back to writing the CAROL BURNETT SHOW, is currently exec producer of BBC America’s COPPER. 

 

GEORGE WASHINGTON, as the project is currently titled, is to be scripted by David Seidler, who earned an Oscar last year for his excellent THE KING’S SPEECH screenplay.  Other producers involved are Gareth Neame of DOWNTON ABBEY, Jason Sosnoff and Tom Fontana. 

 

Apparently it’s not going to be about chopping down cherry trees.  Seidler says, "There's George Washington the national icon, gazing out from the dollar bill with his mouthful of supposedly wooden teeth, and then there's the George Washington who had an adulterous affair with his best friend's wife.  The George Washington obsessed with social status, finely tailored clothes, his image. Not an icon, a very human human being, who learned how to lead. That’s the man I want to understand.”

 

Levinson concurs, “What’s so interesting is here was a man who was more instrumental to what our country is today and more famous than any other figure in our history, and yet no one knows anything about him. We know the myth of the man, but the reality was he was a flawed and troubled character who overcame his flaws to become one of the foremost leaders of this nation.”  Recalling the tremendous success of the JOHN ADAMS miniseries a couple of seasons back, this could be a big one.

 

SPOOK SHOWS UTILIZE ‘PIONEER CEMETERY’

 

The Pioneer Cemetery in Sylmar is the second oldest cemetery in the San Fernando Valley.  A victim of neglect and vandalism in the 1960s and 1970s, it’s now managed by the San Fernando Valley Historical Society, and fixing it up has been an on-going project.  (If you didn’t read my piece about the SFVHS last July, you can read it HERE .)

 

Happily, the cemetery has recently been filmed twice for a pair of reality spook shows, MY GHOST STORY, which runs on Biography, and a new series, GHOST GIRLS, which premieres in January.  Amazingly, GHOST GIRLS is a production of the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, which was D. W. Griffith’s old outfit!  The MY GHOST STORY segment will air the day after Thanksgiving, November 23^rd.  They’re running two episodes in a row, and I don’t know which it is, but you may want to check it out on Biography.  

 

6^TH L.A. SKINS FEST AT THE AUTRY

 

Today was the final day of the L.A. Skins Fest, which highlights Native American Filmmakers.  More than 100 films have been featured in their programs since the event began.  A mix of features and shorts, dramas, comedies and documentaries were screened.  Saturday afternoon’s student films program was hosted by Zahn McClarnon, one of the stars of LONGMIRE.  A program later that day featured films from the Skins Film Workshop in Agadir, Morocco by members of the Amazigh, an Indigenous tribe of North Africa.

 

from the Native American in Film program

The program I attended this afternoon featured a wide range of short films.  Among the most effective were a pair of comedies, EAGLE FALLS, directed by Carrie Madariaga, and RUGGED GUY, written and directed by Jason Asenap, about a young filmmaker who wants to collaborate on a film with a favorite writer who is a nightmare to deal with.  Also striking is the black & white RED GIRL’S REASONING, from Elle-Maija Tailfeathers, about a beautiful chopper-riding Indian woman in the revenge business.   It would be very interesting to see what these folks would do with a feature budget.

 

from RED GIRL'S REASONING

 

‘DR. WHO’ WESTERN AIRS MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19^TH

Fort Bravo, in Almeria, Spain, a core of the spaghetti western world, was just the location for the Almeria Western Film Festival. But it also remains a very active shooting location, and this summer the BBC sent their DR. WHO crew to Fort Bravo to shoot A TOWN CALLED MERCY. In this episode, Matt Smith, as Dr. Who, becomes the reluctant sheriff of a Western town which is under siege by a cyborg. It’s airing on BBC America on Monday, November 19^th, check your local time.

TCM FANATIC - WESTERN NOW ONLINE!

And speaking of TCM (okay, nobody was), have I mentioned that the segment I was interviewed for is now viewable here?






 

THE AUTRY NATIONAL CENTER

Built by cowboy actor, singer, baseball and TV entrepreneur Gene Autry, and designed by the Disney Imagineering team, the Autry is a world-class museum housing a fascinating collection of items related to the fact, fiction, film, history and art of the American West. In addition to their permanent galleries (to which new items are frequently added), they have temporary shows. The Autry has many special programs every week -- sometimes several in a day. To check their daily calendar, CLICK HERE. And they always have gold panning for kids every weekend. For directions, hours, admission prices, and all other information, CLICK HERE.



HOLLYWOOD HERITAGE MUSEUM

Across the street from the Hollywood Bowl, this building, once the headquarters of Lasky-Famous Players (later Paramount Pictures) was the original DeMille Barn, where Cecil B. DeMille made the first Hollywoodwestern, The Squaw Man. They have a permanent display of movie props, documents and other items related to early, especially silent, film production. They also have occasional special programs. 2100 Highland Ave., L.A. CA 323-874-2276. Thursday – Sunday 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. $5 for adults, $3 for senior, $1 for children.



WELLSFARGO HISTORY MUSEUM

This small but entertaining museum gives a detailed history of Wells Fargo when the name suggested stage-coaches rather than ATMS. There’s a historically accurate reproduction of an agent’s office, an original Concord Coach, and other historical displays. Open Monday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. Admission is free. 213-253-7166. 333 S. Grand Street, L.A. CA.


WESTERN ALL OVER THE DIAL


INSP’s SADDLE-UP SATURDAY features a block of rarely-seen classics THE VIRGINIAN and HIGH CHAPARRAL, along with BONANZA and THE BIG VALLEY. On weekdays they’re showing LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE, BIG VALLEY, HIGH CHAPARRAL and DR. QUINN, MEDICINE WOMAN.


ME-TV’s Saturday line-up includes BRANDED, THE REBEL and THE GUNS OF WILL SONNETT. On weekdays it’s DANIEL BOONE, GUNSMOKE, BONANZA, BIG VALLEY, WILD WILD WEST, and THE RIFLEMAN.


RFD-TV, the channel whose president bought Trigger and Bullet at auction, have a special love for Roy Rogers. They show an episode of The Roy Rogers Show on Sunday mornings, a Roy Rogers movie on Tuesday mornings, and repeat them during the week.


WHT-TV has a weekday afternoon line-up that’s perfect for kids, featuring LASSIE, THE ROY ROGERS SHOW and THE LONE RANGER.


TV-LAND angered viewers by dropping GUNSMOKE, but now it’s back every weekday, along with BONANZA.

That’s it for another Round-up!  Happy Thanksgiving!  Does anyone know of any good Thanksgiving-themed Westerns?  It seems to me that there must be a few, but I’m coming up empty.  If you can think of any, shoot us a line!

 

Happy Trails, and hope you get a drumstick,

 

Henry

 

All Original Contents Copyright November 2012 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved