Wednesday, July 5, 2023 – REALIZE WHAT A GREAT PLACE THIS IS BY TALKING TO VISITORS

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

WEDNESDAY , JULY 5, 2023

ISSUE#  1030

A FUN  DAY IN THE

KIOSK

JUDITH BERDY

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Today I spent the day in the kiosk mostly with Barbara Speigel

I love to meet the visitors and chat with them. We had  many countries represented: Britain, Scotland, Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica, New Zealand as well as Toronto and states from Florida to Indiana to Chicago to California.

Most folks were in a great mood and trying to figure out what to do on the island since Southpoint Park was closed.

A visitor from Barcelona told me the city was so expensive after she visited the Empire State Building, top of the Rock, One Vanderbilt and The Edge.

The family from Costa Rica now living in Orlando commented on the number of alligators in Florida, more that in Costa RIca,  

An Austrian architect who was so disappointed he couldn’t visit the FDR Park, I promised him that it would be open tomorrow.

Many people told me of staying in the city for 5 days straight and had to see “everything.”

We only heard compliments about our city and some commented how safe it was after reading about it overseas.

Vintage Poster, Courtesy of Macy’s, Inc.

Macy’s first-ever fireworks show was a celebration of Macy’s 100th Anniversary, rather than America’s birthday. On July 1st, 1958, over the Hudson River, a million people watched the store’s first-ever large-scale pyrotechnics show. It wasn’t until 1976, in partnership with The Walt Disney Company, that Macy’s 4th of July fireworks shot became an annual tradition. That year, the fireworks were set off in honor of America’s bicentennial. The show was first televised in 1991.

This year, Macy’s 47th fireworks show will feature 30 different colors and shapes, 60,000 firework shells, and an arrangement of 2,400 shell effects per minute. Altogether, it takes 50 miles of cabling and 1,600 lines of computer-programmed cues to run the show. This new hi-tech production is quite different from how the show was programmed in the 1970s when computer-generated cues were not nearly as quick or efficient. The fireworks used to be manually launched from the barges by a single person with one metal rod.

TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

A postcard from the 1970’s Operation Sail sailing by Goldwater Hospital an the tram passing by.
Artist Litiitzia Pitigliani for the MTA

MEN OF THE DAY

ARMANDO CORDOVA – TRAM MANAGER
CYRIL OPPERMAN – BUS MANAGER

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM\
JUDITH BERDY

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THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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