For Ed Rutsch in memorabilia

Subject: Re: [Big_Ed] Digest Number 42 To: Big_Ed@yahoogroups.com As an observer, not a participant, though I have worked a three times in the City Commons/African Burial Ground Historic District for others (Grossman & Associates, Inc., Linda Stone, MA., Parsons, Inc.) not directly in the African Burial Ground but twice in regards to the "First Almshouse" burial ground within the confines of City Hall Park I would have to agree that what you say is true based on my serendipitous findings. I was employed by Greenhouse Consultants, Inc. to review "site files" in the New York State Anthropological Services Office in Albany, NY. As the "window" for this is extremely limited (a couple of hours of a weekday, partly due to staff shortages, done with written permission) I found I had some time to visit the State Museum next door, which was was being shut then soon for remodeling. I visited the "longhouse" listened to the grandmother's tale of Ursa Major how the Bear in the Sky got there and wondered at the portrait of former NY State Archaeologist, Arthur C. Parker, (Seneca name "snow snake" actually a winter game of the wide North Country) in "Blazing Saddles" regalia, Plains Indian feather headdress. On exhibit were all the then proposed memorial designs for the African Burial Ground, a block north of the "Tweed Courthouse" since (and not, now the Dept. of Education headquarters, former lab space in the basement there, behind bars) the future home of the "Museum of New York City" which I think was also judged by one in the group an archaeologist I have also worked with in NYC and NJ. Anyway, the winner was a series of columns, that were stratigraphic profiles instead of if you will "fluted" classic columns. Each one represented a circular section through the ground below allowing the visitor to participate in the variations of "horizons" represented in the ground below. The other competitors designs were all displayed in one place. Since the competition was re-let as the results were unacceptable. A counter sculpture arose in the Caribbean and was symbolically buried at sea at the Middle Passage. It was similar in my mind to a whalebone gate that once existed in Brooklyn, NY. Two large ribs if you will standing to create a "framed" gate, the sculpture was similar invoking tusks more like but square arches that did not touch. July 4, 1999 it left A NY State park from the Hudson River for the Middle Passage where it was dumped 1 kilometer for each of the burials removed to Howard University from the burial ground. Miniature copies of the sculpture were also sold. "Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?" - Alexander Pope Do you Yahoo!? vote.yahoo.com - Register online to vote today!