Latest news with #Colonial-era
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
Tours temporarily halted at Touro Synagogue amid long-standing dispute
NEWPORT, R.I. (WPRI) — Craig and Cathy Bell were saddened to learn that the historic Touro Synagogue has temporarily stopped offering tours. The Bells traveled from Long Island to Newport to celebrate their 46th wedding anniversary and were looking forward to seeing the nation's oldest synagogue, which was built in 1763 and has long stood as a symbol of religious freedom. 'We're not coming back anytime soon,' Craig Bell said. 'So, it's very disappointing.' Newport tour guide and University of Rhode Island professor Art Spivack was also disheartened to learn the building is currently closed to the public. 'It's a sad reflection of this ongoing conflict,' Spivack said. Congregation Jeshuat Israel, which used to worship at the Touro Synagogue, has been embroiled in a legal battle with the New York-based Congregation Shearith Israel for years. Congregation Shearith Israel, which owns the historic building, kicked Congregation Jeshuat Israel out of the synagogue nearly a month ago. The Newport congregation was ousted from the synagogue after the R.I. Supreme Court upheld a 2023 ruling that allowed the New York congregation to do so. The long-standing feud first erupted back in 2012, when the Congregation Jeshuat Israel attempted to sell a pair of Colonial-era Torah bells to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for $7.4 million. Congregation Shearith Israel, which had been leasing the synagogue to Congregation Jeshuat Israel for $1 a year since the early 1900s, objected to the sale and sought to be declared the rightful owner of the bells. The First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals eventually determined that the bells belonged to Congregation Shearith Israel, which stopped the sale from moving forward. Now, Congregation Shearith Israel is accusing Congregation Jeshuat Israel of misappropriating funds set aside for the building's upkeep and failing to make at least $300,000 worth of repairs. The New York congregation filed a lawsuit against the Newport congregation back in April, accusing them of withdrawing $1.6 million from two funds created in the 1800s to cover synagogue maintenance and pay the rabbi's salary. Congregation Shearith Israel also claims Congregation Jeshuat Israel removed Torah scrolls and other religious artifacts from the building without their permission. The Newport congregation has since moved its prayer services to the Levi Gale House, which is across the street from the synagogue. The Touro Synagogue Foundation initially hoped that the New York congregation would allow them to continue offering tours to visitors. But Laura Freedman Pedrick, chair of the Touro Synagogue Foundation, told 12 News she was sadly mistaken. 'Unfortunately, we were unable to come to terms with that congregation to allow us entry,' Freedman Pedrick explained. 'We've been denied access to the building and are no longer able to give tours.' A sign was posted on the door of the Loeb Visitor Center alerting the public that tours are suspended. Lou Solomon, president of Congregation Shearith Israel, told 12 News that there's a reason the Foundation is not allowed in the building. 'The Touro Synagogue Foundation is allied with the former tenant, which took our ritual objects and refuse to return them,' Solomon said. 'I can't let them come in and take more.' For now, Freedman Pedrick told 12 News the Touro Synagogue Foundation is offering historic presentations at the visitor center. She said tour fees will be waived for the presentations, which are offered every half-hour between 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Sunday through Friday. Meanwhile, Solomon stressed that tours of the synagogue will resume this Friday, but not with the Touro Synagogue Foundation. He said Congregation Shearith Israel found someone else to host the tours. 'We're very pleased about that,' Solomon added. Solomon said the reason no tours were offered Monday and Tuesday were due to the Jewish holiday Shavuot. The Bells remain hopeful that the two congregations will resolve their issues in the near future. 'Knock it off. Find a way to make this work,' Craig Bell said. 'We're all on the same team, supposedly, and we all wear the same uniform.' 'It's disappointing that two affiliations want to fight over who has the right to do XYZ, and who suffers? The public,' he continued. 'Let everyone see what a beautiful building this is and stop being a bunch of knuckleheads.' Spivack echoed that sentiment. 'I think [the congregations] should be able to resolve this,' Spivack said. 'It would be to their mutual benefit.' Download the and apps to get breaking news and weather alerts. Watch or with the new . Follow us on social media: Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Boston Globe
15-05-2025
- General
- Boston Globe
For Greater Boston, a different kind of freedom trail
Now the 'People's Guide' is being refigured into a series of maps so everyday explorers might tread a history that's often devalued by the established culture. The first, a Advertisement 'One of our goals in bringing maps like this into our collection is to encourage people to see maps not just as something done to them and their communities,' said Garrett Dash Nelson, cq president and head curator of the Leventhal Center. Rather, he sees the Lawrence map as a visual argument, intimately linked to the changing ways ordinary people think about their place in the world. Maps have long been considered documents of power, often commissioned and funded by history's winners. But technology has democratized cartography and put its tools in the hands of nearly everybody. 'You don't have to be a British naval officer or computer scientist to map your own community,' Nelson said. In fact, the idea of ' 'We started thinking about whose history is commemorated in our public places and whose story is lost,' said Catherine D'Ignazio, cq a professor of urban studies and planning at MIT, who helped create the Cambridge map. Participants named streets in memory of beloved pets, changed the Colonial-era Charles River to the indigenous name Mishaum, cq and suggested 'Scarlet's End' as a more poetic choice for Cambridgepark cq Drive, near the Alewife station — the last Red Line stop. Advertisement Far from mere utilitarian diagrams to get from point A to point B, D'Ignazio said, maps can be powerful narrative tools. 'If we only accept the Google way of mapping we'll have a very impoverished way of seeing our spaces,' she said. Leafing through 'A People's Guide to Greater Boston' brings home another truth: So many of the original places highlighted have been razed or gentrified beyond recognition. Maybe a small sign or bronze plaque marks the place where immigrant workers or antiwar protesters once agitated for their rights. Nevins is OK with this, since cities are naturally dynamic, and he doesn't want to fetishize the past. Still, we save what we value, Nevins said. 'In highlighting what is lost we are trying to offer a cautionary tale and a challenge,' he said. We need to ask, 'Who shapes these decisions? How does change unfold and for whom?' At a time when a revisionist administration in Washington is Advertisement Renée Loth's column appears regularly in the Globe.
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Yahoo
This RI downtown was named one of the most charming in the U.S. by HGTV. It's not Newport
This coastal Rhode Island downtown is one of the best in the U.S., according to HGTV, and it's not Newport. HGTV named Wickford, a village in the town of North Kingstown, Rhode Island as one of the most charming small-town downtown areas in America. "Nothing charms like a small downtown that beckons visitors with historic architecture and boutique shops or local culture and tree-lined streets," HGTV said. Here's what the Home & Garden Television network had to say about this Rhode Island village. When it comes to Wickford, HGTV recommended taking in the architecture and visiting the shops. What HGTV said about it: "Dating back to 1709, historic Wickford Village was originally a fishing village, but today it charms visitors and locals alike with picturesque waterfront streets, pastel-colored Colonial-era homes and nautical views across Wickford Harbor. There are a lot of ways to explore Wickford, too, whether on foot as you stroll the historic village, or by kayak or bike, both of which can be rented by the hour or day. Stop in delightful shops like Different Drummer or Green River Silver Co., explore art galleries and dine at the tempting seafood restaurants along Main Street. For winter fun like snowtubing and skiing, visit nearby Yawgoo Valley. There's a water park there for summer adventures." Rin Velasco is a trending reporter. She can be reached at rvelasco@ This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: HGTV names RI downtown one of the most charming in US
New York Times
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Boston Bets Big on Public Art With a New Triennial
Boston holds an important place in the public imagination for many things: claims to fame include its entrenched Colonial-era stories, like Paul Revere's midnight ride and the Boston Tea Party, and its array of world-class academic and research institutions. But the city has not been known for contemporary art in the way thriving art-world hubs like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami are. A new event, the Boston Public Art Triennial, looks to put the city on the contemporary art map and 'signal who we are as Bostonians in a different way,' said its executive director, Kate Gilbert. On May 22, the opening day of its first iteration, 20 commissioned works will be shown at outdoor and publicly accessible sites across East Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, Downtown Boston and Charlestown, and at five partnering museums. The Triennial is a reboot of Now + There, a nonprofit founded by Gilbert a decade ago that produced dozens of public art projects in more than 20 Boston neighborhoods over the years. But those one-off commissions never had the critical mass to attract a substantial audience, leading Gilbert to create a citywide exhibition that would happen every three years. 'We wanted to concentrate it in a not-to-be-missed, festival-type experience,' Gilbert said. 'We really want to see a more open and equitable city through people having extraordinary art experiences.' The Triennial cost $8 million to produce and will be on view through Oct. 31. 'Boston's a city of experts,' said Pedro Alonzo, the artistic director of this year's exhibition, titled 'The Exchange.' 'The idea of the Triennial is to give artists access to this amazing pool of talent we have to develop projects that hopefully the public can get behind.' Alonzo and the curator Tess Lukey selected artists including Cannupa Hanska Luger, Swoon, Ekene Ijeoma and Stephen Hamilton who collaborated with local experts on works about Indigenous identity, health and recovery, climate and our shared humanity. Patrick Martinez, an artist known for his neon signs who lives and works in Los Angeles, partnered with Breaktime, an organization helping young people experiencing homelessness. He worked with youths to come up with phrases such as 'People Over Property' and 'One Paycheck Away From Being Homeless' to turn into vibrant neon pieces. They will be installed on abandoned storefronts in the Downtown Crossing district, where Breaktime has its headquarters. In collaboration with the conservation nonprofit Mass Audubon, the Brazilian artist Laura Lima is making sculptures to surround and hang from trees, which urban wildlife can interact with at the Boston Nature Center & Wildlife Sanctuary in Mattapan. She's 'thinking about how we behave on the planet and our relationships with other species,' Alonzo said. The artist Julian Charrière, who lives and works in Berlin, is also engaging with the environment. Working with climate scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he will present a live video feed from the Amazon jungle on a large screen on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston. A speaker in the forest will be linked to a phone booth adjacent to the screen so that people can speak directly to nature. (Boston has a significant Brazilian population.) The curators are making clusters in their treasure hunt across the city. On a trip to East Boston, viewers can visit a storefront where the artist Gabriel Sosa will be producing zines and posters with his community press and then head to the ICA Watershed, a seasonal space run by the city's Institute of Contemporary Art, with an immersive installation by Chiharu Shiota. In the Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood, Yu-Wen Wu's monumental image of transient flowers will grace the facade of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum near Alan Michelson's sculptures of two contemporary Indigenous figures, who appear to be addressing the public from plinths outside the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. At Evans Way Park, a triangle between the museums, Nicholas Galanin, a Lingit and Unangax artist who lives and works in Alaska, will present the sculpture 'I Think a Monument Goes Like This.' Based on a knockoff of an Indigenous totem pole produced for tourists that the artist chopped like firewood and cast in bronze, the stooped figurative piece appears in the process of reassembling itself from pieces on the ground as an act of self-determination. 'This work references the idea of picking yourself up in a world that has discarded you and having to navigate that,' Galanin said. The piece received $100,000 in funding from the 'Un-monument' initiative led by the Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture to create temporary projects that expand the range of who and what is commemorated in public space. The multiyear program, funded by a $3 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, awarded money for research and development to more than 30 projects last year, according to Karin Goodfellow, who oversees the initiative in the Mayor's Office and considers the Triennial a curatorial partner. 'We've been doing this work somewhat quietly, as a city,' but are now getting to a place where those efforts can be shared, Goodfellow said. An augmented reality project by Roberto Mighty that seeks to revive lost African American stories tied to Copp's Hill Burying Grounds in Boston's North End will be started by 'Un-monument' in tandem with the Triennial in May. 'It's been a multiyear journey to make sure we can tell the fuller story of who we have been and who we are today,' said Mayor Michelle Wu, whose office has supported the Triennial with an additional $500,000. The goal of 'The Exchange,' she said, 'is to create an experience that cuts across barriers in the city — geographic, generational, cultural — to really draw everyone in.' Leading the charge for contemporary art in the city for the last 27 years has been Jill Medvedow, who stepped down last month as director of the ICA Boston. 'I recognize, having both done public art here and built two buildings now, that building visibility, building critical mass, building audiences takes time,' she said. 'Whether the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,' she added, 'both in terms of what the artists and the Triennial produce separately and together, it's a great wait-and-see moment.'
Boston Globe
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Echoes of rebellion and tyranny from the 18th century in 250th anniversary celebrations today
Advertisement Lexington resident Lena Singh was one of the few protesters, sitting astride the yellow metal fencing, holding a sign that read 'Patriots don't tolerate tyranny.' Singh, in her mid 50s, said she wanted to remind people why the country was founded. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'The first order of business is for people, the citizenry, to get the message that power is with the people,' she said. 'The president, our elected representatives, they all answer to the people. Citizens need to realize their own power.' Governor Maura Healey made the connection even more directly in a speech at the reenactment in nearby Concord. 'We live in a moment when our freedoms are once again under attack from the highest office in the land,' Healey said, without mentioning President Trump by name. 'We see things that would be familiar to our revolutionary predecessors: the silencing of critics, the disappearing of people from our streets, demands for unquestioning fealty.' Advertisement The current president, as well as the living former presidents, were invited to Lexington on Saturday, but none attended. That the governor and residents of deep blue Massachusetts made a connection between Colonial-era controversies and the current situation under a Republican president may not be surprising. But, as 250th anniversary celebrations to mark events later in the Revolutionary War shift the focus to Southern states and rural areas, pro-Trump crowds may emphasize other aspects of liberties regained. Crowd boos British troops as they march into Lexington for 250th anniversary Share Lexington officials estimated that 20,000 to 25,000 people came to watch the reenactment of the battle that sparked the American Revolution. ( Produced by Jenna Perlman/Globe staff ) But historians of the revolution also heard echoes of the conflict in recent times. Retired Northeastern history professor William Fowler saw a parallel to Colonial times amid the constant stream of threats from the central government in Washington D.C., and the defiance from those officials out in the hinterlands. 'There is some similarity,' said Fowler, who also was the director of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 'It's certainly not as serious as 1775. We, with our Constitution, do have the mechanism to adjust and to accommodate disputes amongst our citizens and government.' Indeed, just hours after the reenactment, thousands of protesters were exercising those rights in a series of organized demonstrations around Massachusetts and across the country against the Trump administration that featured signs such as 'USA, no kings.' Hiller Zobel, a former associate justice of the Superior Court of Massachusetts and author of several books on the American Revolution, said he had been thinking about Trump's tariffs and the British taxes imposed on the colonies that contributed to the original protests against the crown. Advertisement 'There isn't any question that a tariff is a tax,' the 93-year-old retired jurist said. In both eras, the duties may raise funds needed to pay off debts. But Zobel said he did not see tariffs improving trade practices, and, as important then as now, unifying the populace, either. 'Tariffs are not the way to do it,' he said. The reenactment in Lexington Saturday included a pre-battle escape with confidential papers of John Hancock, who was present the night before conflict and would go on to preside over the Continental Congress and sign the Declaration of Independence enumerating King George's offenses against the colony. Trump has The declaration charges the king with obstructing immigration and naturalizations, cutting off trade and imposing tariffs, depriving the right of trial by jury, and 'transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences,' Pestana noted. 'The declaration's list of accusations resonates,' she said. That resonance may have carried over to some of the judges assessing Trump's actions, particularly in the language some used to assess the current state of constitutional liberties. For example, there were echoes of the sonorous tones of the framers in the decision Thursday from a federal appeals court panel reaffirming the Trump administration must Advertisement Where the Declaration of Independence proclaimed the truth that all men are created equal was 'self evident,' Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson in the appeals court decision appealed to 'the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.' But, while the elevated language in the Declaration concluded with a pledge of unity to the ideals behind the founding document, Wilkinson warned of the risk of continued division. 'The Executive may succeed for a time in weakening the courts, but over time history will script the tragic gap between what was and all that might have been, and law in time will sign its epitaph.' He then concluded his seven-page decision: 'We yet cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos. This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time. At the old North Bridge in Concord on Saturday morning, Conan Walter, a 65-year-old retiree, was holding a sign that read 'Stop fascism now' and 'We the people.' His shirt had another message: 'No one votes for Elon Musk.' One woman approached and him and said, 'Fascism stopped on Jan. 20.' 'You think so?' replied Walter. 'I do.' 'Well, we have a difference of opinion, and that's what I'm fighting to keep,' said Walter. Minutes later, a different woman approached Walter and his sign on that bridge, fist-bumped him and said 'Hell yeah, brother.' Walter shrugged. 'Every interaction is going to be different,' he said. Fowler, the historian, was a park ranger at Minute Man National Historical Park in the 1960s and values the reenactments as an opportunity to meditate on conflict and disagreement. Advertisement 'It is a moment of meditation for many people to really think, really think for a minute, that people actually died here,' he said. 'And before this was over, many thousands of people would die. That's something to meditate about. That is something to think about.' Sean Cotter and Danny McDonald of the Globe staff contributed to this story. Aaron Pressman can be reached at
