{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/xd0qr4pj80/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Robbie Garrison Oral History"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/010/original/Aviary_QPLlogo_192x192.png?1578574261","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eRobbie Garrison is a member of The Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground Conservancy. In the first video she discusses the history of the site and her work with the Conservancy. In the second video she discusses the contents of a binder that she keeps, containing information related to the Burial Ground and the Conservancy.\u003c/p\u003e (summary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Source Metadata URI"]},"value":{"en":["http://digitalarchives.queenslibrary.org/search/browse/40451"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2020-11-29"]}},{"label":{"en":["Type"]},"value":{"en":["Video"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Robbie Garrison (Interviewee)","Melissa Lino, (Interviewer)","Gabriella Lacza (Interviewer)","Kevin O’Leary (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Source"]},"value":{"en":["This interview was conducted as part of a short documentary about the Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground. The documentary was produced during Dr. Johnathan Thayer’s 790 Public History class in the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies at Queens College in Fall 2020."]}},{"label":{"en":["Coverage"]},"value":{"en":["2006-2020 (temporal)","The Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground, Flushing, Queens, NY (spatial)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eRobbie Garrison is a member of The Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground Conservancy. In the first video she discusses the history of the site and her work with the Conservancy. In the second video she discusses the contents of a binder that she keeps, containing information related to the Burial Ground and the Conservancy.\u003c/p\u003e"]},"provider":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Queens Public Library"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Queens Public Library"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/010/original/Aviary_QPLlogo_192x192.png?1578574261","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/118/922/small/Robbie_Garrison.mp4_1625150221.jpg?1625135828","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 2 - Robbie_Garrison.mp4"]},"duration":2230.69867,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/118/922/small/Robbie_Garrison.mp4_1625150221.jpg?1625135828","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-queenslibrary.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/118/922/original/Robbie_Garrison.mp4?1625135751","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":2230.69867,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Full Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: My name is Robbie Garrison. I have, uh, probably been a part of what, this whole deal, long before there was a Conservancy, because once upon a time there was only Mandingo Tshaka. And when I found out what he was doing, I wanted to be a part of it. So from the initial, uh, introduction to City Council of what we wanted to do here, or what he wanted to do here, I've actually known what he was doing. And a couple of years into me joining him, the rest of the people who know Mandingo came on board, and then later others who did not know him as long as I did and felt that this was a very worthy thing that we were doing. They also joined. And so our Conservancy, uh, peaked at nine people.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=0.0,57.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: It's now down to six, but, uh, for all kinds of reasons. Mandingo is in the nursing home. Uh, one member moved to Rhode Island, uh, others just, we just can't get together, you know, but, uh, luckily Sally [Mehreteab] found this and, uh, she's like our youthful help to continue this job, because most of us are of a certain age, which is why everybody was so skeptical about doing something like this, but still wanted to do something. So from the beginning, prior to the original playground tarp being removed, I've been involved. You may know Senator John Liu now; he was then Councilman John Liu. Uh, by the time I joined, that was who we had to talk to all the time, because the original Councilperson [Julia Harrison] was no longer in office. Uh, and, uh, visiting with his office we found that he was very, uh, amenable and understanding of what we wanted to do in order to preserve this, uh, cemetery pretty much as it is, and not turning it into another park, as has happened in many places in New York.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=57.0,142.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: You know, we were not interested in creating another park. We wanted it memorialized as a cemetery. Uh, it was then called Martin's Field, and he went to work on it. He was, uh, very knowledgeable of the people in the neighborhood. It was his council district, and he had meetings with us and then he had meetings with the other people who were against it, you know, so until he got to a point where there was just this one big meeting that says, we're going to do this, you know. And it finally started to happen so that, uh, all of the original swings and seesaws and concrete that was there that had turned it into a playground in the '30s, it was all removed and made into, uh, what we believed to be a decent memorial in 2006, but not without a lot of work between, in the other years, between the Councilperson and that coming to fruition.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=142.0,210.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: So in 2006, when it was opened, began our most serious fights of all, because now we are now fighting with [the New York City Department of] Parks. We need Parks to do what we want them to do. Parks wants us to do what they want to do, it's their grounds and so forth and so on. And that's when we started to bring the other politicians into it. You know, the senators, uh, the other Council people, the community board, uh, and once we got their ear, and they were all kind of amenable to us preserving this spot and having it respected as a burial ground, why then everything sort of fell into place bit by bit over the years. So that by 2006, we were able to open it as the original memorial for it; the name Martin's Field was still there. We were first known as the Martin's Field Conservancy, which we hated.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=210.0,274.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: We had done some research on the guy Martin that it was named after. And they had done something in those days that you're not supposed to do. They named the place after a living person; that was bad to begin with. And then we found some articles where he had said some pretty bad things. And, uh, that's when we petitioned to try to get the name of the site changed. And when we finally got it changed, with a whole lot of back and forth with what it should be called, and Mandingo's kind of a, I'm a Mandingo, you know, I did this and maybe you should call it Mandingo Park or Mandingo Cemetery or whatever. We're like, no, we're trying to respect everybody that's buried here. Because there were not only Native Americans and African-Americans, there were also Caucasians that died from the various different plagues that had happened in Flushing. Very understandable; because when you have things like that are going on now, and back then not knowing how you could get a disease and how you could not get a disease, uh, and there were only churchyard burials at the time, uh, they didn't want to take chances on burying people who had been this ill from these very contagious diseases in their churchyard. Because you're going to have people coming in to go to church, leaving, coming and going. And so they buried them in the area that had been once known as Potter's Field. Uh, it was also city property. And even though by then, it was called the Colored Cemetery of the Old Town of Flushing, that's where they buried people who had died from those illnesses. So we wanted to respect them as well. And, uh, somehow that we don't really know how, I don't really remember how we arrived at the Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground, but when we did that, when that name came out amongst us, the Conservancy, it just stuck because it didn't pinpoint any particular people. And we thought, this is good. And that's when we had another fight. The first fight, at the change of the name, from Martin's Field to Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground. That worked, but we were still fighting for those four headstones. The original borough president [Helen Marshall] that got interested in what we were doing gave us $100,000 towards that.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=274.0,426.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: And this was after, I don't know if you all know about the burial ground [African Burial Ground] in downtown Manhattan? Uh, when they were returning the caissons that they had to do all of their research from Washington, D.C., to back to downtown burial ground, they stopped at various different places, and our burial ground was one of the places that they brought the caissons. So we have pictures from the day that they showed up and brought them there. And uh, it was just an additional, uh, fact that somebody respected what we were doing, that they chose our burial ground to stop by. So after that, we had no trouble getting politicians to, uh, jump on board. And we got all kinds of letters of support, people who would work with us, writing Parks, telling us they support us. And that we used to, we used -- we were asking for these four headstones. Helen Marshall was that original borough president that gave us the $100,000. So that $100,000 stayed in place during her whole tenure.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=426.0,499.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: Uh, we were never able to do anything with it. And talking about getting the four headstones, we were introduced by Commissioner [Dorothy] Lewandowski from Parks, uh, the fact of the $100 hammer, which means if we needed a hammer, if it's a city item, that's going to get, uh, bought, you have to do it the way the city wants you to do it. And that's a lot of paperwork. So by the time that $1.79 hammer came to fruition, it had already cost $100. And that's how somewhat way throughout our papers, you find a listing of a hundred-dollar hammer and today. At any rate, that money stayed there, the borough president held onto it until she retired. And when Melinda Katz came on, she wanted to know, well, what is this $100,000 sitting here, because Parks is trying to reapportion it.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=499.0,561.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: And she was like, OK, I gotta find out what it is first. And once she found out what it was, she was like, oh no, we're holding onto it. We're keeping it. And through her tenure, all the eight years, she was meeting with us and meeting with Parks and trying to plan this out and getting other people involved to the point where we got the mayor involved. You know, the original mayor that got involved was [Michael] Bloomberg by making it a \"no dogs\" site. Long fight on that too, with Parks after a while, you know, after a while you have to fight, fight with Parks on everything. Uh, and so, uh, after the mayor got involved, his people and other Council people, and, uh, Senator [Tony] Avella got involved, our fight became a little less hard, but still, you know, no headstones in a park, never, ever, ever, ever no headstones in a park.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=561.0,619.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: Well, it's not a park. That's why we want headstones. It's a cemetery, it's a burial ground. That's why we want headstones. At, at any rate, we need the city to say, you took these four headstones. You now owe us four headstones or some semblance of acknowledgement that these four people, however they had to afford to, however they acquired money to afford, uh, four headstones, we need, they need to be recognized. And that was a part of the whole fight till we got to the point where we could all sit down and really talk about what we wanted. And that meant going through the community board because the site is in Community Board 7 area. And they jumped on board right away. There were very little, uh, no fight with them at all. You know, we've provided them all the information they ever wanted from us.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=619.0,678.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: And what we wanted to do, uh, the borough president felt sometimes that there might be underlying things going on with Parks because they wanted their way, you know, and was just taking an unreasonably long time. But somehow or other between, uh -- John Liu is now gone, OK, and we now have Peter Koo. And Peter Koo was funding Maureen [Regan] and Green Earth Urban Gardens to do many things in the Flushing area. And when she found out about us, she was like, oh yeah, that's for me. And she brought her volunteers out to help clean it up with us. Parks was not doing it. Parks just wasn't doing it.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=678.0,721.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: Our site never looked like this. We could never understand why. We're right down the street. You know, how much work would it be for you to leave here and go there? You know? And then we had to learn all about the districting, which managers had did this and which managers did that. And it's just, just was always a hard fight. So now we have Peter Koo who is funding Maureen to do various different cleanups all throughout Flushing. And she discovers us, and she became a part of our Conservancy. Uh, in addition to being funded for other things by Peter Koo, he jumped on the fact that he needed to fund that particular area more than some other particular, you know, precise areas. And he's been wonderful through the whole period. And we were able to convince Mayor [Bill] de Blasio -- finally he started sending, uh, uh, people to our meetings at [Queens] Borough Hall and that person would take it back to City Hall and to Mayor de Blasio and introduced Mandingo to everybody, when he was still healthy, uh, introduced Mandingo to everybody.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=721.0,794.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: And before he [Mandingo] became sort of incapacitated health-wise, we were able to move into getting this new memorial. He has seen what it's going to be, but he doesn't really, he doesn't really get what it's all about. You know, he knows about all the other names of the people that were found thanks to [Queens College Prof.] Johnathan's [Thayer], uh, first group of students. And he was just so pleased with everything that was going on, as were the rest of us. But it was still one of those things where, you know, whether we were working or just retired folk of a certain age, we still could only do so much. Uh, I don't drive. So for me, getting places meant I had to get on the bus or somebody had to come and pick me up, or I had to go by taxi or whatever. And none of us live near each other.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=794.0,850.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: None of us, none of us live near each other. As it turned out when Sally joined, she was living right down the street from the site. And that was wonderful! But, um, the Eulers [Henry and Aline] live in Bayside, where Mandingo was -- they could walk to each other's house. Um, Erika [Brassoi] lives in Flushing; um, Eddie [Abrams] lives in Flushing. I live in Flushing too, but nobody thinks of it as Flushing, they think of it only as Kew Gardens Hills. Um, who did I leave out? Uh, but we didn't live anywhere near each other, but you know, with the telephone and computer, we were able to stay in touch. Uh, computer doesn't come easy to us after a certain age, if you haven't worked with it for, for your earlier life, it doesn't come easy. So I'm OK with emails [laughs]. I'm OK with emails, but not with too much else.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=850.0,905.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: She's my help. She and Maureen and Nancy, that's who I left out, Nancy Tognan also lives in Bayside. She's also wonderful with computers. She's the one that created that OneDrive thing. So that's where a lot of the information is, uh, in addition to me dragging paper around all these years, you know. I never did run across my original book. So the book that you're going to see is the second book. I have no idea what happened to the original. I had to get them, Nancy, to print out some of the original OneDrive papers that she had done, uh, for Mandingo, to give me some of that old information, but...some of the typed letters and handwritten letters and something like that from people. I don't have that. And that's my story. And I'm going to stick to it. I did submit my hand-drawn thumb with the etchings of the four headstones to Parks and they worked with that to come up with the, uh, design for the memorial that we're going to have.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=905.0,976.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nMelissa Lino: So I noticed you mentioned that the Parks Department obviously had a different vision for what they wanted to do with the site. And previously we interviewed Mary French, who is an archivist who is interested in New York City cemeteries. And she mentioned -- 'cause we asked her about the site, too -- she mentioned how, you know, for the Parks Department, their vision has always been like more utilitarian. Like obviously if previously it was a burial ground, the goal is to make it a site for people to use as a park. So, um, in your discussions with them, like, how did you guys go about trying to convince them that this is a memorial site?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=976.0,1010.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: What Mandingo did had not been done with any other site that was turned into a park. It was like New York City growing. It was New York City growing. You may have a cemetery here, but this is no longer going to be a cemetery. And it's our land and we're taking over and they just made it into a park. All of New York City is like that, a lot of the Bronx, all of the places that were previously cemeteries, they didn't have a Mandingo fighting for them. Mandingo was -- after he discovered, going to a funeral at Flushing Cemetery -- I have that original book to show you that the people at Flushing Cemetery gave him. After he discovered that there was actually a cemetery under that playground, he got to work. And that was his passion. Well, he was an activist anyway, uh, he, even in the area where he lived.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1010.0,1065.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: The street that he lived on had no sidewalks when he grew up as a boy. He was instrumental in getting sidewalks on that street. You know? So once he got to work on it, it was just, no, he was relentless with everybody that he worked with. No park, no, no, no to \"park,\" no. The neighbors wanted a park. The people who lived on 165th street were adamant. They were very mean people in terms of it being anything else, other than a park, something that would, according to them, uh, increase their property, uh, values more. And our site, our vision at that point was anything that gets done here is going to increase your property value more than what is here now. So why not? Let's work on making it a well-preserved place, let it be a cemetery. It could still be Parks Department if the land belongs to the Parks Department. So it's all in what you talk about, it's all in what you call it, it's all in how you treat it. If you let it be treated as a park, everybody's going to think of it as a park. We didn't want it treated as a park. We wanted it treated as a cemetery and a sort of a peaceful site to come and sit; not to play, come and read, sit and read, not to play. This is a cemetery. There are people buried here. There are people buried here. The fact that you don't see headstones doesn't mean they're not here. They're here. Uh, we didn't want any more to be unearthed than had been unearthed by Robert Moses in 19-, in the 1930s. So let's leave them where they are. Let's do something else with this property and leave it as you see it. Take up all of this concrete, take up all of these swings, take out all of these things -- they had put in a wading pool.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1065.0,1199.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: We did come to a compromise. At the far end of our site, you will find there's a little playground. It was a little short piece. And when Linda Stone did the survey, there were no people buried there. There were no people buried there. So we were like, why not make that a tot playground? A tot playground, for people who are not walking with their baby carriages, they can come to Kissena Park. They don't need another one here. You know? In the end, everybody loved it. They weren't all respectful of it. We had to chase people out with their dogs because in New York City, you can bring your dogs in every park. You know? Well, we're trying to tell you, this is not a park. We're trying to tell you this is a cemetery. You're not going to take your dog across the street in Flushing Cemetery; we don't want you to take your dog in here. And the mayor has given us \"no dogs\" signs. Parks eventually changed it to \"no pets\" signs. You know, they, they do what they want to do, Parks. You know, we fought that too. We're still fighting it. We don't want \"no pets\" signs. We want \"no dogs.\" You know, so, and, and we're talking about people who have dogs -- you know, Conservancy people who have dogs, you know, but, but the property is, it's what we're talking about. The site is what we're talking about. So there was a continuous, always some kind of thing going on with Parks. As far as the Conservancy is concerned, it still is going on because when they originally decided they were going to do what we wanted to do, they took down the original Olde Towne of Flushing Burial sign, which was large and wonderful, and put up a little tiny sign that said the exact same thing.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1199.0,1306.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: But before they did that, they brought in their Parks sign. With all the rules and the name \"Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground.\" Well, you know, that was not going to sit well with us. Didn't, didn't, didn't. And the fight stayed until Dorothy Lewandowski retired, but we finally got a sign back that said \"Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground.\" And, uh, we, we had to go around town, taking pictures of other sites where there may have been a Parks sign at one side of the fence, but there was still another sign that said what this property was. And, you know, they, I guess they thought we'd give up, but that was not a part of our thing to give up.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1306.0,1352.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nMelissa Lino: So, I know the name was changed in 2009 and actually I went to school in Flushing High School. So I used to walk around the area, and I remember, I was a sophomore at the time, me and my family would walk by the site. And when we saw the sign, we would always be like, oh, can we go in? It's like a burial ground. Like, we weren't really sure, like what, like how we should, like, I guess like behave in the site. So we did end up walking in once, but then we were kind of like, I don't know if we're OK, why are we in a burial ground? So how did you guys kind of -- 'cause I remember when you came to class and you guys spoke about like trying to get volunteers to attend the site, how did you guys kind of start? Like, I guess like, 'cause there's the narrative of like, OK, so \"it's not a park, it's a burial ground,\" but how do you get the people to kind of like rethink how they behave in a burial ground instead of making it like someplace scary and kind of make it a place for contemplation?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1352.0,1399.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: It was never going to be easy. It wasn't from the beginning. It still isn't, uh, up until this new vision started, we would still have to chase people out with their dogs. Uh, I was just telling Sally on the way over here, uh, Americans are these special people that believe their rights are to do whatever it is they want to do, whenever they want to do it, wherever they want to do it. You know, we have those Americans; the mask is a prime example. The mask is a prime example. We're trying not to have every American die. And yet half of us are saying, I'm not going to wear this mask.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1399.0,1447.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: Science has said the mask is our best advantage prior to being able to have a vaccination. But you're going to find that -- I mean, I bet you, if you walk around in this park, you will find people who are not wearing a mask. But getting them to come to realize that it's a cemetery or a burial ground, it's just -- look at the name. Just look at the name. Yes, there are people buried here. There are benches here because you are supposed to come in and sit down. But that doesn't mean you come in and play soccer. It doesn't mean you come in and play golf or baseball or any other kind of sports activity, you know, it's -- you respect it as it is. Whatever you wouldn't do across the street [in Flushing Cemetery] is whatever you don't do here.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1447.0,1498.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nMelissa Lino: We actually spoke with Mary French about how it's like, I know you mentioned earlier, the burial ground was like, it was for like people like for maybe like, uh, African-Americans and Native Americans or people who couldn't afford like being buried in like the one across the street, which was like affiliated with the church. How do you think...like, 'cause like over time, obviously, technically that's like a private, uh, private cemetery. So it has like its own money and its own funding, with the church. But how do you think the fact that the burial ground was originally meant for people who are obviously like marginalized? How do you think that relates to this current treatment of the park, kind of still refusing to be like, OK, yes, this is a burial ground instead of kind of treating it as just like, well, this is just land that we can use for the, like, for the public use?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1498.0,1544.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: It's still there for the public use. I don't mean to make you think that it's not.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1544.0,1550.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nMelissa Lino: Oh no. I just mean how the park, like you were saying, that they -- like how they want to treat it. Like the way their ideal is instead of considering what it means to like to the community as like a historical site and where people were once buried [inaudible].\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1550.0,1567.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: How do I feel about that? Is that what you're asking me? I think it's terrible. I think they all ought to feel like I feel, but then they think I ought to feel like they feel, you know, and I don't know how to make people believe something they don't want to believe. I don't know how to do that. That's Johnathan's job as professor over at the college. I don't know how to make people feel differently than they do. I can only present my case and say to you, read the signs that say what this is; read the signs that say once, once upon a time there were Quakers who believed that there ought to be a burial ground for Native Americans and African-Americans. Read the signs that tell you the history of the site and be respectful of the site for what it is. I can only tell you that. I can only say that to you. I'm not going to preach it. I'm not going to preach it. But if I see you doing something that is directly opposed to what we are thinking of, what we want, we will say something, which is no, you can't walk your dog here. It's a fight. It's a fight. But you know, we're not -- I don't know how to get people to think the way that I think. I can just keep trying.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1567.0,1642.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nMelissa Lino: So now the site is closed and you mentioned earlier how you guys were like not necessarily involved in the final planning of the memorial that is like, I guess meant to be unveiled next year. But how do you envision --\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1642.0,1655.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: Oh yeah. We were, we were involved in the final planning of it because they took my drawing and made the memorial from that, you know? It was finally something that we could all agree on and maybe it wasn't just something that we could all agree on. Maybe it was how the designer looked at it to be able to present it to the commissioner. And maybe it was the commissioner saying, oh, that's so beautiful. Maybe it was the commissioner saying, I'm going to retire in 20 minutes, so whatever you do after this is fine. You know, it could have been any of that. You know, uh, I suspect that any of us that are left around is gonna want and think the signs should be living proof of how this site should be treated. And I suspect at the same time, people will read the signs and pay it no attention because \"I am who I am\" and \"this is America\" and \"parks are for this\" and never call it a burial ground, never respect it as a cemetery. And, uh, you know, to contradict Mary French a little bit, I do not believe that every cemetery should be, uh, made into a park. I don't. I think sometimes respecting the dead is not such a bad thing.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1655.0,1748.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nMelissa Lino: And I want to talk to you because you mentioned how Mandingo has always been an activist, but prior to your work with the burial ground, were you involved in any activism in your younger days? Like, what spurred your interest in like preserving local sites?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1748.0,1758.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: No, I worked in publishing. I worked in publishing. So there wasn't a lot of activism going on in publishing, except that I always felt that books by, about and for African-Americans, black people, whatever you wanted to call us, should be available. And I always preached that at the publishing house where I worked, which was the official publishing house for the Episcopal Church, right? So we only, we were able to do that through the children's department, uh, and children's books, but not necessarily the adult books. And it stayed that way pretty much until the company -- the church decided they didn't want to have a publishing company anymore and it was sold. However, uh, after it was sold, uh, one of the women and myself, we began a remainder dealer. Do you know what a remainder is, dealer is? A remainder dealer is, is a person who goes to the publishers and say, OK, this part of your inventory is dead, I'm going to take it for 10 cents on the dollar. And you take it and you sell it instead of for $15.95, you sell it for $5.95 and then people buy it. But the access has to be there. And that was the whole thing about books by, about and for African-American people. The access wasn't there. Harper and Row is not going to publish one book, every publishing season -- which there are two -- every publishing season and go into a black neighborhood to the one black bookstore to sell one black book. They just weren't going to do that. And everybody knew that, although there might've been these little black bookstores, they had, they had to fend for themselves.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1758.0,1853.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: So once we started this remainder dealership, uh, she actually lived in Binghamton, New York, and I lived in Queens. Uh, but we shared like an office space in Manhattan. And we were able to show people the books that we went to the various different publishers and collected, because we only collected those books, the books by, about and for African-American people, cookbooks and children's books. And we had our own little catalog. That was as activist as I got. And it worked out very well until somebody came along and discovered selling books on the street. They too went to the publishers and said, these are the only books I want to buy. So they could put them on the street and sell it for $15.95 where we were only trying to sell it for $5.95. So it sort of used up the inventory and we finally decided, OK, it's time to kick the bucket. And we, uh, we did very well when we were closing down, we got more money for our list of bookstores than we did for the inventory that we had left in the warehouse. You know, so that's as activist as I got, never got any more active than that. Raising three children and being married to a musician, that was pretty activist.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1853.0,1936.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nMelissa Lino: [To Gabriella] Uh, do you want to start looking at the book?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1936.0,1936.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nGabriella Lacza: Um, maybe we should give her a break and [film Sally] because it's already set up.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1936.0,1940.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nMelissa Lino: Yeah, OK.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1940.0,1940.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nGabriella Lacza: Are you good with questions?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1940.0,1940.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nMelissa Lino: Yeah.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1940.0,1943.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nKevin O'Leary: Can I ask one more? Yeah, I was thinking, uh, you mentioned, uh, Johnathan's job was to convince people. Just to, off of that, um, I guess idea, can you just like, sort of give us a, your reaction --\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1943.0,1955.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: Yeah I can! I mean, you know, when you come up with doing a project, like he has come up with doing with students, and getting them interested in public history, that's no easy task. You know, and when he zeroed in on the Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground as one of those things, 'cause it is actually public history, he had to get people interested in, for lack of a better term, dead people, you know, dead people they didn't know. Dead people that died a hundred years ago, you know? So yeah, you have to be that kind of professor that can say, if you're interested in public history, if you're interested in history, if you're interested in doing a course that I set forth, this is what I want to do. This is what I think would be a good idea. And he had to convince students to sign up for that. And to go at it a second time, for me, in a very different way, involves being a creative professor. So it presented, you're presenting some of the same information to be worked on in a different way. So instead of it being just the Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground, public history became a great part of it. And the public history will bring in people like Mary French, who will have me say to her, every burial ground should not be a park, should not have been in the past, should not be in the future. Those that are left there, no matter who owns them, no matter who claims them, whether they're private or whether they're owned by the city, they should not be parks.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=1955.0,2064.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nKevin O'Leary: One last thing. Can you say something about Rudy's [Hartmann], um, work.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=2064.0,2071.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: Oh God, he's my hero! He is my hero. I mean, if you could have seen the stacks of papers that he brought from downtown. Uh, the [New York Municipal] archives that tell you the burials, the names of the people who died, the reason they died, how long it took for them to live. If you could have seen the stacks of papers that he went through to find all those names, it was unbelievable. He was so onto it. And he was just our hero. Because I assure you, as a Conservancy and as interested as we was in making sure that the name of the site respected all of those who are buried there, there is not one of us that would have done what Rudy did.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=2071.0,2131.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nMelissa Lino: I'm sorry, just one more question, sorry. Because Flushing has so many other, like the Bowne House and other historical sites, has there ever been a discussion on sort of like including the burial ground in this sort of like historic Flushing? Especially considering how those sites are considered so important because of the contrast between the current Flushing demographic, but yet you have the burial ground, which is just like as important in terms of the, I guess you could say the, just the general demographic history of Flushing, but has there ever been any discussion in including --\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=2131.0,2158.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922/transcript/30497/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: Yes, there was, a number of times, but I guess having somebody as on the tour of sites in Flushing that are memorable, the burial ground was not one of those things that the people who run the show were particularly interested in at the time. Over time, it has become more interesting because we keep reminding them. Those very same people that you're talking about, they were the Quakers that purchased the land to begin with to make this all happen. So over time, I guess it'll be on the list. They watched us travel to Albany to get the state registry and the national registry after that. They watched us do all of that. So we have become, we are at least on their radar to be a part of that visit. And once this memorial is in, with all those names of people and those dates of people, I think it will be one of those sites that people will want to get on the bus to see.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118922#t=2158.0,2230.69867"}]}]},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 2 of 2 - Robbie_Garrison-binder.mp4"]},"duration":1460.864,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/118/923/small/Robbie_Garrison-binder.mp4_1625150275.jpg?1625135983","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/content/2/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-queenslibrary.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/118/923/original/Robbie_Garrison-binder.mp4?1625135808","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":1460.864,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Full Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nKevin O'Leary: Do you need me to be your assistant? I'll hold stuff for you.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=14.0,14.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: No, I just want to show the book. That was the original reason Mandingo started.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=14.0,21.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nMelissa Lino: Yeah. You can start now, yeah.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=21.0,27.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: This is the book that was originally given to Mandingo Tshaka. When he discovered that there was actually a cemetery across the street, what it looked at the time, an old dilapidated playground, and it was once a cemetery. And this is the book that was given to Mandingo Tshaka by the Flushing Cemetery people. It was printed in 1919, and there's a list of all the private and family cemeteries in the borough of Queens. Our, our cemetery is listed in there as the Old Towne of Flushing, I'm sorry, the Colored Cemetery of the Olde Town of Flushing. That's how it's listed. This is the playground that Mandingo found across the street. Uh, once he started to look into what was going on. It was no longer being used. It was put there in the 1930s.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=27.0,99.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: Once he started to work on it, he did the work of looking at all of the cemeteries that were there with the names in it and discovered that there had actually been four headstones there, four with the names of Bunn -- three with the names of Bunn, one with the name of Curry.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=99.0,121.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: Oh, they're all in the -- it's just one of them, the others are in the package, you know. So that's also just a copy of the page inside that book. So there had been many letters that Sally spoke of, so did I, back and forth between the city and the people of Queens to turn this into a playground. And much of this information in this book includes that these are the four names of our cemetery. That's a picture of the cemetery that we found inside the book. These are some of the articles, that talked about the spot as it was found, uh, it was called Martin's Field. This is the information that was given for what the site was at the time. Uh, once it was called, once it was made into a playground. I'm not sure of every one of these articles upside down, but these are the pages that show the cemetery that was being complained about before it was made into a playground. It was never well taken care of. It was always public land. Uh, you need permission to bury somebody there, but nobody took care of it after that, unless somebody came in from the family and tried to take care of it. Um, these are old newspaper articles. And as you can see here, a lot of the graves were sunken because the, the ground just gave way. It was soft.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=121.0,225.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: Uh, at one time -- that's an old picture of the Flushing Cemetery house there that when you enter the gate of Flushing Cemetery, I found that very nice at any rate. Uh, what else have I got to show you? But you can see the four headstones here that Sally mentioned, and you could see that there were others there, but the only ones mentioned in our report is four that were marble and endured the time. Here's another picture of, another picture of what was there, at the time never taken care of, even though it was the town ground. These are some more of the letters that would have been between us. And when I say \"us,\" most of the time I'm talking about Mandingo and the earlier period, you know? Uh, this was Linda Stone's version of how, uh, the age of the various different people that were buried there. As you can see, there's a legend at the bottle -- bottom -- with the color blue being two years or younger, uh, the color orange being, uh...\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=225.0,306.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nMelissa Lino: 2 to 20?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=306.0,308.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: 2 to 20; the color yellow being 6 and over. And then the other one here, I guess, are the older people. They got a grey color. This is John Liu's first letter that had my name on it, so I put that in the book. Uh, much of the book is, is just information. This is one of the, uh, articles that we found that the guy Martin wrote about Black folk, which made us immediately want to have the name changed. He didn't say very nice things about Black people. Again, this is a picture of what the, uh, playground looked like prior to the first removals.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=308.0,378.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: It's another article by uh, by uh, the guy Martin. Beverly said she looked into that a lot and that she approached people about it. They decided that it was not really named after Martin. It was named after a bird that is martin. And you could get away with that because of Flushing being what it was; Flushing was once the nursery capital of America. It was all farmland and all nurseries, anybody in Pennsylvania that wanted to buy shrubberies and, uh, uh, trees and things like that -- they had to come to Flushing.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=378.0,426.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: And this is one of our first flyers that we were going to be in public talking about. And it was presented by the library in Flushing, and Mandingo did a whole story on the cemetery, and Linda Stone, the woman who did the survey, spoke on the survey. That happened at the library. We always want to keep it in people's heads that it's a cemetery. So you'll find these things like this throughout. And it's just that we've been unable to identify who actually did this originally, or actually where it came from. We just built on it. This is one of the first proposals that Parks sent when we were just talking about four headstones, and the guy that worked there then in the, uh, what would be the art department, I guess, this was his vision of what could happen. And it was shot down right away by the commissioner. She says no headstones, no headstones, you know. But we did get, from time to time, various other drawings with nice, beautiful trees, some with an obelisk, some with other versions of what could be a memorial. And those were things that we didn't like. So then, uh, with the original, uh, version of everything, uh, being done, we had these kind of benches around for people to sit on and others around the circle in the middle. You see, we did that. This is a cemetery on this flyer. We capitalized on that whenever we could.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=426.0,531.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: These are some statements from Parks on what they were doing. They were very good in stating what they were doing. That was wonderful. All the time. More pictures of the site inside. These are the Matinecock words, Matinecock words of north, east, south and west. We hope that some of that is being preserved. This was Parks' idea of a memorial at the beginning. Those, those are still there. These loose stones that could be taken away and moved and folded and thrown any way they wanted to, that was their idea of an original thing. You had to hunt for the names that they had put in the slates. And after a while, it started to wear away. That was Parks' original idea of a memorial. And of course we didn't accept it. There you can see what it looks like really, right here, these two. That was their idea of the original memorial. I don't know what this is. It's not memorized, so I don't know what this page is. I think this may be a picture of --\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=531.0,623.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nMelissa Lino: Oh, the original class [in 2016].\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=623.0,635.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: The original class, yes, right there. They put us on the map. This is a picture of John Liu and Mandingo. This is a picture of Chief Little Fox and Mandingo with some of the signs that were up at the time. This is the circle, the thing that's in the middle that we hope is being preserved. The little bit of the history just moved to another part of the site. There's some more pictures of, uh, when the first dedication, this is Helen Marshall, she's the borough president that gave us the original $100,000. Um, there she is with Mandingo and Chief Little Fox in this picture. My original book was much heavier and much bigger. This is when, uh, the burial ground downtown came back. No, that's not it. This is just some of the drummers that showed up for our participation. But you will see pictures in here somewhere of when they brought the caissons back from there. This is Tony Avella [former New York City Council member and New York State senator]; he was instrumental in helping any way that he could.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=635.0,719.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: This is just another article that Parks put out to show that they were doing the right thing by Martin's Field. Uh, this is Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg, the letter to Mayor Bloomberg. After it, Mandingo sang at the funeral of one of the 9/11, um, funerals. They had him sitting next to Mayor Bloomberg. And of course, given the opportunity, the only thing Mayor Bloomberg needed to hear from Mandingo was about the cemetery. And he told him about it and that's when he put out the, edict for no, no dogs. (Turn it around, can you turn it all the way around?) Parks -- (no the, the picture against your, no)\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=719.0,767.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nMelissa Lino: Sorry!\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=767.0,773.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: (This one.) You see where, that's what Parks turned it into. Instead of having the sign that said \"no dogs,\" yeah, instead of having the sign that said, \"no dogs,\" Parks put it as \"no pets.\" It originally went up as \"no dogs,\" but Parks took it down and made it \"no pets.\"\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=773.0,797.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: And, and, and again, this would just be more, uh, at this point, of the information and letters that I've been able to recoup as a result of the other, um, book not being around, but I believe, you have OneDrive on your computer? You have OneDrive on your computer? That has a lot of the original documents in it if you ever needed to get any information from it, maybe, maybe she could share it with you or Nancy could share it with you. I'm sure Rudy had access to it. That's the original group again.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=797.0,851.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: This would be a letter from Johnathan [Thayer] I believe. \"To whom it concerns...\" A lot of stuff in here from Queens College. This is a part of Rudy's original list. Just a part of it, just a part of it. The original list is quite big. This was my version of what, uh, I offered them as a, uh, a thing instead of the four headstones. This is after Rudy's work; all these little lines, all the names of the people that he found, but I etched in the headstones and handed it into Parks. And that's when they came up with the, uh, memorial that we're going to be getting. And when we did the, uh, with the mayor and all the politicians, when we did that, I let them know that it was my original idea, not Parks. Um, these are just some more pictures of some of the celebrations. Mandingo was always in full regalia. Even in winter, he was in full regalia. We had drummers, the Matinecock people came out. On one of our celebrations, I think it was the 10 years, that's when -- the 10-year celebration. That's when they brought a whole bus of people in. They're out in Long Island.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=851.0,945.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: This is when the, uh, caissons came back from Washington, D.C., after all of the experimenting in, uh, um, historical looks at the burials from downtown in Manhattan. And this shows the caissons when they brought them by where we were. It's Mandingo in the picture there. This is what the caissons look like.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=945.0,979.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: They were reinterred in downtown Manhattan. Oh, that's just another picture of the layout. And also a picture of the little playground up in the corner. This is the memorial after they, uh, took mine and looked at it and they had all the names from Rudy and everything. This is what they came up with. These are the headstones and etched in there would be the names of all of the people. So they said. And this was, is this when the mayor came out? Yeah. This is a picture from when the mayor [Bill de Blasio] came out to, for the big reveal.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=979.0,1033.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: And so that would be all the rest of these pictures would be pretty much the same thing. Because the Conservancy is all in there. I gave everybody good -- there's another picture of it with, uh, from Parks. This is another picture of the memorial from Parks. I gave everybody accolades for their hard work. When the mayor came out, just like all of the politicians, gave all of the Queens politicians that have worked with us the whole time, we gave them the accolades that they should have. I did not give any accolades to [Mitchell] Silver, who's like, the commissioner in Manhattan, because he was the least involved. And he never responded to any of our mail. Governor Cuomo didn't ever respond either. Um, we did get a response from, uh, Letitia James and other council people and other senators and people. Yeah. And these are just more pictures from that celebration when they were revealing the memorial, the plans for the memorial. We don't know exactly what it's going to look like, but we're hoping that it's going to be wonderful. And that's that.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=1033.0,1117.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nMelissa Lino: It seems like they were, like you said, they say, they suggested an obelisk. So the idea of memorialization for them was like, not to be like explicit about it being a burial ground, but just to like have this sort of like aesthetic flourish --\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=1117.0,1129.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: Yeah, they gave us quite a few things that we shot down. And one of them was the thing with an obelisk, you know, uh, as the memorial, you know, but it would not mention, it would not have anything on it for these four people. So we rejected that one, but then when they did one to give us, that had headstones in it, the people at Parks rejected that, you know, and they, that was their offering. That was their artists offering that. But the higher-up people, they rejected that. They said no, no headstones, that's it. You know? So in the end, if we do this memorial, I can say we got headstones. I can say we got headstones. I can say that these four people got recognized.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=1129.0,1178.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: Now, I have some individual things over here, that uh, probably, in some ways more interesting than -- yeah. I just, I also want to put this picture in there. I also want to put this picture in there of the original crew that met with Professor Thayer. That was the original group of the Conservancy that met with Professor Thayer. I think that's important. Um...\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=1178.0,1217.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: This is, as a result of Rudy's work, we were asked to come into, uh, the city and present at CUNY, CUNY [Graduate Center], uh, when they did preservation, uh that's somehow how my book got lost between doing that and uh, that -- it was wonderful, but we presented all the information from the cemetery and we were asked to come in and do that there. That was wonderful. This is the sign that is currently up on the fence for the new memorial. This is the sign that's currently up on the fence for the new memorial.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=1217.0,1261.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: One of our first celebrations after the original memorial in 2006. Uh, I'm showing you this picture because it currently has, uh, the, it has the current assemblymen in that area at the time. The assemblymen now -- you know, when we did the presentation, I stood at the podium and I said, my right foot is in Assemblyman [Ron] Kim's territory and my left foot is in Assemblyman [Edward] Braunstein's, uh, area, because it goes right down the middle of the, uh, the assembly goes right down the middle of the cemetery. And so the, and I show you this one because the first assemblyman was Rory Lancman, who's now leaving his Council job to work for the governor who never responded to it [inaudible]. At any rate, uh, in here...I'm always carrying various different things around with me, for people who may want to see something that we have, and this is the Eulers and Mandingo. And then there's more things on updates.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=1261.0,1362.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: More pictures from my version of the memorial. This is a10th anniversary celebration flyer. And here is the original papers that we had. But did I leave it there? I think I did. When we filed for, uh, state registry and national registry. It was, uh, papers like this. I'm like, oh my God, I'm never going to be able to do this. You know, but it just got thicker. The more I, and the more, the more I gave them, the more questions that they gave me, so it just got thicker, but we persevered. And then we were invited. We gave them all the information they wanted and then we were invited to Albany. And this was that original paper.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=1362.0,1420.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nMelissa Lino: How long did it take from the start to filling out the papers to actually, uh, having the --\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=1420.0,1423.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: Once we made the presentation?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=1423.0,1426.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nMelissa Lino: Yeah.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=1426.0,1426.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: I don't know, I guess maybe within the month they got back to us and said, you've been accepted. You'll be notified when to come to Albany for the presentation. And that was wonderful. And somewhere in all of my stuff, I do actually have pictures of all of us at that presentation. Nancy, uh, Nancy provided me with those pictures, but I just, you know, I couldn't pull it all together for you guys today.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=1426.0,1452.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nGabriella Lacza: This has been great!\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=1452.0,1454.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nMelissa Lino: Yeah, you've already shown us a lot.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=1454.0,1458.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923/transcript/30496/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\nRobbie Garrison: I think that's it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/21/collection_resources/45821/file/118923#t=1458.0,1460.864"}]}]}]}