20/5/13 – The Hamptons Day 2 and the Montauk Lighthouse

Breakfast at the Butler’s Manor was sumptuous – freshly squeezed orange juice, compote of fruit, fresh blueberry muffins, french toast and a big pot of strong tea. We met some lovely people from Argentina who had come out here to meet the parents of their daughter’s fiancé and a honeymooning couple from Germany. Peter was in his element speaking German to the newlyweds and talking rugby to the Argentineans. I left him to it and just concentrated on the food, which was delicious.

After breakfast we packed the car and set off into the still thick fog to try to find our way out to Montauk. On the way there we passed through several little villages with divine little houses (all behind white picket fences) but it was only after we took a right off the main road at Lily Pond Lane to go see some of the exclusive homes that we started to see the sort of over the top mansion houses for which the Hamptons are justly famous (or should that be infamous?)

This was some serious real estate! Who would have thought that convicted felon and designer Martha Stewart would still be able to afford such a big house? I was joking with Peter that it seemed appropriate that most of these ‘ginormous’ properties were separated from the road and their neighbours by thick rows of conifers – after all it was the profits from the exploitation of ‘hedge’ funds that had supplied the buckets of money required to build and maintain these palaces.

 

We stopped at Main Beach in east Hampton to see the Atlantic, but unfortunately it was covered in fog! We were hugely amused when we read the sign at the entrance to the beach carpark which informed us that one cannot park at the beach unless one has a parking ticket issued by the village police department (at the cost of $40 for the day and $300 for the summer). But their cost, though steep, is not the real issue. The number of tickets available is strictly limited by the council. Tickets are made available to rate payers first and only if there are some left over after the rate payers have had their pick can ‘visitors’ even apply to buy one. All the tickets usually sell out before the end of January.

What Aussie worth his salt would pay $40 to park at the beach, especially one with no surf and freezing cold water! So after a short walk on the beach (without paying), we continued north-east along the one long road to Montauk (too bad if there was a major incident and the road was closed as the traffic - it would be worse than St Tropez!).

We drove past he famous ‘Lobster Roll’ stall and the nearly famous ‘Shrimp Roll’ stall across the road and, fortunately for us, the fog rolled back just as we arrived in Montauk, affording us memorable view of the most easterly aspect of NY State at the Montauk Lighthouse.  

The Montauk lighthouse has a lot of history. Wikipedia tells me that construction of the lighthouse was authorized by the Second United States Congress, under President George Washington on April 12, 1792. Construction began on June 7, 1796, and was completed on November 5, 1796. It was the first public works project undertaken by the newly formed federal government of the United States of America. Sometime in early April 1797 lighthouse keeper Jacob Hand lit the wicks in the lamps in the tower and the lighthouse began operation. Pirate Captain Kidd was said to have buried treasure at the foot of the lighthouse around 1799 at two ponds which today are called the "Money Ponds."

Camp Wikoff was established at the foot of the lighthouse in 1898 and was used to quarantine 29,000 soldiers, including Theodore Roosevelt and his famous Rough Riders, at the conclusion of the Spanish-American War to prevent the spread of malaria, yellow fever and other tropical diseases. The camp was named in honour of Col. Charles A. Wikoff, commander of the 22d United States Infantry, who was the first officer killed in the Cuban campaign.

In addition to the Rough Riders, other notable units at Camp Wikoff included the all-black troops of the 9th and 10th Cavalry units. These ''Buffalo Soldiers,'' fresh from the Indian wars, had taken part in the attack on San Juan Hill alongside Roosevelt's First United States Voluntary Cavalry Regiment.

Aside from malaria, there were cases of yellow fever, dysentery and other illnesses. Many of the men suffered from general exhaustion and were in poor condition upon returning home, some twenty pounds lighter. Everyone received fresh food and most were nourished back to their normal health.

Although he didn't have to, Roosevelt made a point of staying with his men at Camp Wikoff during their quarantine. He did make occasional visits to his Sagamore Hill home, to see his wife and children. He also made a few trips to New York City to lay the groundwork for his successful run for governor later that year.

 

The lighthouse was operated by civilian keepers until World War II. However during World War II, the lighthouse was taken over by the U.S. Army as part of the Eastern Coastal Defence Shield. The last three civilian lighthouse keepers departed in the spring of 1943. Adjacent to the lighthouse, Camp Hero was opened by the Army in 1942 and was heavily fortified with huge guns during the war. Those gun emplacements and the associated concrete observation bunkers (which are also at nearby Shadmoor State Park) have now fallen into the sea, but their remains are still visible. In 1946 the United States Coast Guard took over maintenance of the lighthouse and manually operated it until the station was automated on February 3, 1987. It was the first lighthouse in New York State, and is the fourth-oldest active lighthouse in the United States.

The tower is 110' 6" high. The current light, installed in July 2001, is equivalent to approximately 290,000 candle power, flashes every 5 seconds and can be seen a distance of 17 nautical miles (31 km). The tower was originally all white. Its single brown stripe was added in 1899. A fourth order fixed red range light was added to the watchdeck of the tower in 1903 to warn of Shagwong Reef, a navigational hazard about 3½ miles northwest of the lighthouse.

It was severely damaged in the hurricane of September 21, 1938 and removed on July 1, 1940 when the lighthouse was electrified. When the tower was first built on Turtle Hill it was 300 feet (90 m) from the edge of the cliff; but erosion since then means that it is now only about 100 feet (30 m) away from the edge.  After World War II the United States Army Corps of Engineers built a seawall at its base, but the erosion continued.

The threat to the lighthouse was so great that the Coast Guard actually considered tearing down the lighthouse in 1967 and replacing it with a steel tower considerably further back from the edge of the bluff. In the wake of protests over the announced dismantling of the tower, Congressman Michael Forbes proposed a bill to the United States Congress to hand over the Lighthouse to the Montauk Historical Society so that it could be preserved. The bill was passed. But how to save the lighthouse?

 

The solution, when it finally appeared, came from a most unlikely source. A short, eccentric but very rich ‘little old lady’! Mrs Giorgina Reid (1908–2001), a textile designer who had saved her Rocky Point, New York cottage from collapse by building a simple set of terraces in the gullies of the bluff, proposed to the Montauk Historical Society that they do the same at Montauk Point. Reid's patented Reed-Trench Terracing System called for building terrace platforms made of various beach debris—notably reeds.

The system (along with further strengthening of the rocks at the bluff toe) appears to have worked and to have stemmed the erosion. Mrs Reid patented the process, wrote an article about it titled it ‘How to Hold up a Bank’ and received a personal letter of thanks and commendation from President Reagan.

The lighthouse was automated on February 3, 1987, and in May of that year the lighthouse museum opened to the public, operated by the Montauk Historical Society, who leased the property from the US Coast Guard for that purpose.

On September 30, 1996 President Bill Clinton signed legislation transferring the lighthouse property over to the Montauk Historical Society. On March 5, 2012 United States Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar officially designated the lighthouse as a National Historic Landmark; only the 13th site on Long Island and the 11th lighthouse in the country to be so named.

On the way home we stopped in at the Montauk fishing boat harbour for a wonderful waterfront lunch of mussels in white wine and garlic which was served with crusty toast. How joyful it was to sit in the sun (the fog having now lifted) after all of the snow and rain we had experienced in the city over the past few months.

19/5/13 – The Hamptons Day 1

Peter collected our hire car at 11am and by noon we were off on yet another exciting ‘expodition’ as Winnie the Pooh would say! Our route, as devised by my iPad, took us over the 59^th Street/Ed Koch/ Queensboro Bridge (I wish they would just give this bridge one name and stick to it), east through suburban Brooklyn and Queens and then out along the Long Island Expressway to the quaint little seaside village of Southampton.

The rumours about the LIE are all true, it can be an absolute carpark, but today we had a smooth run as we rather intelligently travelled on a Sunday! We had heard all the stories and seen all the movies about the Hamptons, but still we weren’t quite sure what to expect. Luckily the summer crowds had not yet arrived (the holidays start next week, with Memorial Day ) and we had a perfectly pleasant time. We arrived in Southampton at 2.30pm and had a late lunch at the Southampton Brewery which, for the record has served 95618 kegs since it opened in 1986.

We were booked to stay at ‘The Butler’s Manor’, an up-scale B&B in the north west section of Southampton, just off the Montauk highway and when we checked in at 5pm we found out the reason for the funny name of this establishment. You see it is run by an English guy who was once a private butler to members of the British aristocracy and his now wife, a hippie ‘California girl’ from the flower power era.

It was great to chat with our hosts and hear the story of how they met and how they came to be in the Hamptons. Our lodgings in the ‘Eton Room’ were luxurious and we had a long hot bath (and read one of the thoughtfully provided waterproof books!) before

dressing for dinner at the Red Bar.

This place is not in the centre of town (where the summer tourists flock) and it is consequently a favourite of the true ‘locals’. There we had the set menu - WS apple and fennel soup, fillet steak with Roquefort and red wine reduction sauce with mash and asparagus, warm pear and blackberry tart and PDS Caesar salad, fillet steak without the cheese but with the sauce with mash and asparagus, bombe Alaska. This was washed down by a delightful local drop – a 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon from the Lenz vineyard on the north fork of Long Island.  By the time we fell into our huge, soft and luxurious appointed ‘extra king size’ bed at midnight we were two very ‘happy campers’ indeed.

18/5/13 – Kinky Boots

This morning we set about the mundane tasks of washing and generally preparing for our next adventure, which starts tomorrow. I had, some weeks ago, been invited by Dr David Payton (a retired NY Schools Superintendent who is now the CEO of the NY Schools ‘Schools to Watch Program’) to attend a training program for ‘Schools to Watch’ assessors. The program is to be held at Longwood Middle School on Long Island This most interesting of innovations uses an essential elements rubric developed by Dr Payton by which middle schools in NY can review their practices and, if successful in meeting the standards as judged by a visiting panel of assessors, can become a listed ‘School to Watch’. This ‘status’ is now a federal project, with federal funding attached, and some three hundred schools across the country have been awarded membership.

But before I do the training to become an assessor, Peter and thought we may as well take a short holiday break in the Hamptons, the famous summer playground of the NY rich and famous. Before we left, however, we thought we’d treat ourselves to ‘Kinky Boots’ – a true story from the UK where a struggling shoe business decided to think out of the box and designed boots for ‘trannies’. Brilliant story, great show and the music by Cyndi Lauper was sensational!  

17/5/13 – Harvard Day 3

This morning we looked at the leadership of change. We were treated to a presentation by a ‘panel of experts’, Anthony Bent (Superintendent Shrewsbury, Mass., and president of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents), Ken Kay (CEO of EdLeader21) and Temba Mequbela (new Head of Groton School Mass.).

It was a productive session with a frank exchange of ideas – be warned these three guys don’t mince their words when answering questions about what it means to be an effective leader of change. At the end of my time at Harvard, I got a cool certificate and Peter got a Harvard Rugby cap and t-shirt! My mind is still processing the information, which bits are useful to Wesley and to me, and how this global education program can be useful to the young men we teach. 

I got back to our hostel at 3.30 and, after collecting our stuff from the hostel, we took a walk through town to pick up the Limoliner bus from outside at the Hilton Hotel in Dalton Street. Boston is a nice town that recently had something horrible happen to it. The people here were genuinely hurt that someone would detonate a bomb at one of their sporting events, particularly an event where the world was invited.

They are passionate about the Marathon and their baseball team (Red Sox) immensely proud of Fenway Park (the ancient and characterful ball park where the team plays (it is, reputedly, ‘America’s favourite ball park) and very proud of their ice hockey team (The Bruins). They dress rather conservatively, make great coffee, have interesting little restaurants and speak with a somewhat gentrified accent. All in all, our visit here has been an interesting, informative and most enjoyable.

Even though we had enjoyed our time here both Peter and I were keen to be heading back to NYC. But as things turned out, getting back to the City was to prove to be no easy task. As we were waiting to board the bus we learned that two trains had collided on the track somewhere between Boston and NYC and that the line had been closed for an indefinite period while the wreck was cleared an investigation was carried out. We felt very lucky to have taken the bus rather than the train, but the subsequent traffic snarl caused by all those commuters who had had to take to the roads when the train line shut down saw crawl into town two hours behind schedule at 11.30pm.

16/5/13 – Harvard Day 2

After some initial difficulties (I took the wrong train), I eventually managed to find my way back to the Graduate School of Education this morning and was greeted by our cheerful professor Fernando Reimers (Ford Foundation Professor of International Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education).

Today we looked at curriculum policy and program development. There is a wealth of information available on this topic, so it was great to have some real ‘experts’ there to help us identify the ‘key’ information, organisations and ‘must tag’ websites. In the session before lunch there was a provocative presentation on ‘Unequal United States’ by Natasha Kumar Warikoo (Assistant Professor of Education).

 After lunch we reviewed ‘Girl Rising’ – a documentary about the poor educational status of girls in undeveloped and developing countries. This screening was followed by a discussion on this all too prevalent form of ‘human rights abuse’ and ideas for change. All in all a big day – my head is full of information, my emotions run high on topics such as justice and equality and I ponder the possibilities available for those with the power to make a difference – including my role and what can be in the future.

By the time I left Cambridge that evening my mind was swimming with (sometimes conflicting) thoughts and ideas so, to clear my head, Peter and I decided to visit the local restaurant quarter and after walking up and down the street checking the menus we selected a restaurant, not because of the menu but because of its profusion of fairy lights and the availability, on this warm Spring evening, of outdoor dining. And what a great choice it was – we sat in the garden on a balmy Boston night, discussing my day’s adventures, sipping wine and munching on some superb local fare.  

Did you know that the largest number of 'Dunkin' Donut' franchises are in Boston!

15/5/13 – Harvard Day 1

We were up early this morning and managed to get out of the hostel and down to the Back Bay subway station before 9am. Caught the two trains to Harvard Square and arrived in sufficient time for us to take the 10 am ‘Crimson Key’ walking tour of Harvard Yard before heading off to the Harvard Graduate School of Education for Day 1 of the Professional Education Program on Global Education. 

The tour of Harvard Yard was fascinating. We discovered that Harvard University was established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. It is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the country’s first chartered corporation (officially called ‘The President and Fellows of Harvard College’).

Its history, influence, and wealth have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world. It was named after its first benefactor, John Harvard. Although never formally affiliated with a church, the college original primary role was the training of Congregationalist and Unitarian clergy. However the curriculum and students gradually became secular throughout the 18th century and by the 19th century the College had emerged as the central cultural establishment among Boston elites.

Following the American Civil War, President Charles W. Eliot's forty-year tenure (1869–1909) transformed the college and affiliated professional schools into a centralized research university, and Harvard became a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900.

James Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II and began to reform the curriculum and liberalize admissions after the war. The undergraduate college became co-educational after its 1977 merger with Radcliffe College. Drew Gilpin Faust was elected Harvard’s 28th President in 2007 and is the first woman to lead the university. Harvard has the largest financial endowment of any academic institution in the world, standing at $32 billion as of September 2011.

 

The university comprises eleven separate academic units—ten faculties and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study—with campuses throughout the Boston metropolitan area. Harvard's 210-acre main campus is centred on Harvard Yard in Cambridge, approximately 3.4 miles northwest of downtown Boston. The business school and athletics facilities, including Harvard Stadium, are located across the Charles River in the Allston neighbourhood of Boston and the medical, dental, and public health schools are located in the Longwood Medical Area.

 

Eight U.S. presidents have been graduates, and 75 Nobel Laureates have been student, faculty, or staff affiliates. Harvard is also the alma mater of sixty-two living billionaires, the most in the country. The Harvard University Library is the largest academic library in the United States, and one of the largest in the world.

In the course of our walking tour of Harvard Yard we visited the original building Massachusetts Hall. It is the oldest surviving building at Harvard and the second oldest academic building in the United States, after the Wren Building at the College of William & Mary. As such, it possesses great significance not only in the history of American education but also in the story of the developing English Colonies of the 18th century.

Massachusetts Hall was designed by Harvard Presidents John Leverett and his successor Benjamin Wadsworth. It was erected between 1718 and 1720 in Harvard Yard.

It was originally a dormitory containing 32 chambers and 64 small private studies for the 64 students it was designed to house. During the siege of Boston, 640 American soldiers took quarters in the hall. Interestingly, this military occupation caused Harvard, after the War of Independence was over, to be the first entity ever to sue the newly formed US Government.

Apparently the Continental Army was so short of ammunition during the early stages of War of Independence that it collected and melted down the brass door knobs from Massachusetts Hall to make bullets. Harvard gave the door knobs uncomplainingly but, after the war the Washington government never replaced or paid for them, so Harvard (who didn’t have a Law Faculty at the time) successfully sued to recover the cost of the replacements!

Another amusing tale involved student Ephraim Briggs who is praised for having been the means by which the sole extant book from the extensive collection given to the College by John Harvard was preserved. Briggs, a senior, had checked the book out of the library and had failed to return it (although it was long overdue) when the great fire of 1764 destroyed the second Harvard Hall. A third one has since been rebuilt on the site but it is used as a dorm not as a library. Which is a good thing because the university’s collection is now so vast that there are now over 70 libraries at Harvard with a collection of over 15 million books (second only to the Library of Congress in Washington).

There are 5 million books just in the main campus library (The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library) alone. This library has a great bequest story. Harry Widener was a keen student who loved books but who unfortunately drowned on the Titanic in 1912 before he could graduate. His mother lost both her son and her husband in this disaster and so she decided to endow a memorial library in their honour. But the gift came with conditions.





First she insisted that the library have an anteroom set up as a replica of her son’s bedroom and that this room be supplied with fresh red carnations (his favourite flower) delivered daily. Additionally she decreed that all Harvard dining rooms had to serve ice cream (his favourite food) at every meal and (so that no Harvard student would ever again drown at sea) she decreed that all undergraduate students should be taught to swim.

This last condition was dropped when federal legislation barring discrimination against the physically and intellectually challenged came into force in the late 1970’s. Mrs Widener’s Deed of Gift to the university further stipulated that, if any of these arrangements were not fulfilled, or if the physical fabric of the library was altered in any way, the building and all the books contained in it would revert to and become the sole property of the City of Cambridge. 

Graduation ceremonies at Harvard (and most other American universities) take place in the last week in May and there is sure to have a huge crowd of ‘Harvard Moms’ and ‘Harvard Dads’ at this year’s ceremonies since Oprah Winfrey will be delivering the ‘Commencement’ address!

Our final stop on the walking tour was at the famous statue of John Harvard. Here we hear about its ‘three lies’. Firstly – it is not a statue of John Harvard. As there is no known likeness of the man they used the nephew of a former President of the university. Secondly - Harvard was not the university’s founder (despite the ‘Our Founder’ inscription at the base of the statue) he was merely its first significant benefactor. And finally, the University was not established in 1638 as the inscription claims. It was formally created by Act of the Massachusetts colonial legislature in 1636. 1638 was simply the year when it took in its first students. For more info on Harvard and its fascinating past see:

http://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Guide-g60745-i4295-Boston_Massachusetts.html

After the tour concluded I rushed off to the Graduate School of Education for the introductory session of their program on Global Education - looks promising. Today we looked at the definition of Global Education and some curriculum policy documents from local sources and around the globe. Glad to see Australia’s Curriculum Framework was held up as an example of best practice. Our final session was on promoting religious literacy for global competency. I found the presentation by Diane Moore (Senior Lecturer on Religion and Education, and Director of the Program in Religion and Secondary Education at Harvard Divinity School) quite challenging and as a result of her wisdom, I shall now have to re-think how we introduce the boys at Wesley to world religions.

I have been interested in the topic of Global Education for some time and hope to learn lots and make some useful contacts (there were 100 people in my class). At the cocktail party afterwards I met people not only from many states in the US but from Mexico, Qatar, China, Hong Kong, Jordan, Singapore, Argentina, Japan, Canada, Columbia, Switzerland, Taiwan, The Bahamas and Melbourne! It was a good night.