The Hastings Historical Society

22 Oct 2009

Hastings Powers the Atomic Age

October 22, 2009
The Hastings Historical Society
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1950s, Collection

On September 21st we posted an article about Robert Fulton’s submarine called the Nautilus, which he built in Paris in the year 1800. Here is an article about one her descendents, the USS Nautilus, the world’s first operational nuclear-powered submarine, commissioned in 1954. Like Fulton’s ship, the new Nautilus was […]

19 Oct 2009

Meet the Author: Helen Barolini visits the Historical Society on October 25th

October 19, 2009
The Hastings Historical Society
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Society Events

The Palisades in winter, 1947, from the Historical Society collection Ice on the Hudson,frigid winds toss up white gulls,sun sweeps the sky. from Hudson River Haiku by Helen Barolini As our final Hudson River Quadricentennial event, The Hastings Historical Society will open up Draper Observatory Cottage this coming Sunday afternoon, […]

15 Oct 2009

Mystery Photo: First Grade at Hillside, 1965

October 15, 2009
The Hastings Historical Society
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1960s, Mystery Photos

Here is one of our most recent acquisitions, a fabulous photograph loaned to us for copying by Katy Artel Pietrogallo. It shows the bright and shining faces of Margie Kunze’s first grade class at Hillside School in 1965 (described on the letter board as “Year 1”). The girls in the […]

12 Oct 2009

The Historical Society Blog Takes a Holiday

October 12, 2009
The Hastings Historical Society
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1940s, Collection

Our advice to you: Go to the movies! A recent donation from former resident Roy Weldon — a 1942 Hastings Theater flyer.

08 Oct 2009

The New “Hastings Historian” Mails Today!

October 8, 2009
The Hastings Historical Society
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1920s, Collection, Society Events

“Babe” Ruth and Hastings mayor Thomas F. Reynolds Your next issue of the Hastings Historian contains many fascinating articles — articles about how Hastings got its name and about Hastings’ first ambulance, plus a wonderful reminiscence on gym class in the early 1960s. It also contains a plea from Frank […]

05 Oct 2009

Cutting Edge Technology in Hastings: The Phonograph

October 5, 2009
The Hastings Historical Society
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1890s, 1900s, Collection, Mystery Photos

If you are a frequent visitor to this blog, you probably have some sense of how many unidentified photographs we have in our collection. In order to identify a photograph, we have to find the right person with the right knowledge, but sometimes that knowledge is not of names and […]

01 Oct 2009

Mystery Photo: Riverview Manor Hose Company, ca. 1945

October 1, 2009
The Hastings Historical Society
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1940s, Collection, Mystery Photos

Here is a great photograph of the Riverview Manor Hose Company No. 3 filling up at the Gulf station on Main Street. We have a 1947 photograph showing the Gulf station in just this location on Main Street, in the spot that is now the Boulanger Plaza parking lot, before […]

28 Sep 2009

Houdon in Hastings: The Life Mask of George Washington

September 28, 2009
The Hastings Historical Society
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1700s, Collection

As soon as we had finished writing the previous week’s post on Jean-Antoine Houdon’s bust of Robert Fulton in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we realized that that eminent French sculptor is actually represented in Hastings, in our own collection. In our small but select library, in a glass case, […]

24 Sep 2009

Mystery Photo: French Assembly, ca. 1947 – 1954?

September 24, 2009
The Hastings Historical Society
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1940s, 1950s, Collection, Mystery Photos

In 1981 Elizabeth Filkins Gessler, long-time French teacher at the Hastings High School, donated to the Historical Society an album containing dozens of wonderful photographs. The album is dated “1935-1954”, and the photographs show the activities of the French Club, a club which “Madame Gessler” sponsored. The most spectacular pictures […]

21 Sep 2009

Robert Fulton in Paris

September 21, 2009
The Hastings Historical Society
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1800s

Due to technical difficulties, today’s blog post will take a break from extolling the glories of our own collection, and point you instead to one of the many fabulous items to be seen in other New York collections. Painted plaster bust of Robert Fulton by Jean-Antoine Houdon, ca. 1803. The […]