Bronxville and Scarsdale region

The William E. Cottle School is launching its first school science fair this week for children in kindergarten through fifth grades.

The science fair will take place from Wednesday, May 9 to Friday, May 11. Parents can view the exhibits from 8:45 to 10:45 a.m. on Wednesday and from 1:30 to 2:40 p.m. on the other days. Exhibits also will be open to parents from 3 to 4 p.m. each day.

An award-winning poet and Yale University lecturer will bring poetry to Tuckahoe middle school students on Wednesday, May 9. Poet David Johnson will run a 40-minute workshop where students will read and analyze his work, discuss the musicality of language and  create a musical poem themselves.

Younger students will get a different sort of musical poetry lesson on Monday, May 14, when a group called “Squeaky Clean” will use music from the 1950s and 1960s to teach the cause and effect relationship between activism of young people and social & political change. The program, called “Rave on: The Roots of Rock in Roll,” will be taught to children in grades K-5. Another program, called “Growing Up 60s,” will be taught to middle school students.

The Tuckahoe Middle School Cultural Arts Program is sponsoring the programs.

The Generoso Pope Foundation in Tuckahoe and the Pope family is sponsoring “Fireworks by Grucci,”  a choreographed 17- minute fireworks program on the Hudson River near Pier 86 on Wednesday, May 23. The show will start at 10pm.

The fireworks will coincide with the annual Fleet Week event and the USS Intrepid Museum’s 30^th Anniversary. The program aptly dubbed “A Salute to the Troops-Grucci Style” is in celebration of all US Military members and their families.

VIP viewing of the fireworks is aboard the flight deck of the USS Intrepid which includes food and beverages, exclusive fireworks soundtrack, celebrity guests and other planned events. Tickets are on sale now and may be obtained by calling the USS Intrepid, Sea Air and Space Museum at 212-245-0072 or buying tickets online at www.intrepidmuseum.org.

Image courtesy of calpacbrokers.com.

The Eastchester Town Board will hold its regular meeting tomorrow, May 1, in Town Hall at 8 p.m.

Among the items on the agenda:

• Tax cert settlements for Wilmar Properties, Bonura, D&F and Chem-X-Realty.

• Resolutions for bond issues to replace sidewalks and curbs, resurface streets; to buy a dump truck and pick-up truck; to purchase equipment for the parks and building departments; and to buy and install a parking meter kiosk.

• A special presentation for the town’s 10th annual Traffic Expo Kids Safety Day. Tags: Barnes & Noble, Bonura, Chem-X-Realty, D&F, Town Supervisor Anthony Colavita, Wilmar Properties

The Friends of the Tuckahoe Library will hold a book sale during the upcoming Crestwood Street Fair, set for 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. this Sunday, April 29.

Funds raised will help support library programs.

This just in from the folks who are organizing Eastchester’s celebration of 350 years as a community in 2014:

A committee of local historians is looking for volunteers to help put together a book to mark this milestone.

Possible topics include the Eastchester Covenant of 1665 and its role as a founding American document, the industrial and commercial development in the area in the 1850s, how Anne Hutchinson came to settle on land that eventually became part of Eastchester, separating fact from fiction about Eastchester’s relationship to the Bill of Rights, or Eastchester’s volunteers in the Civil War.

Eastchester Town Historian Richard Forliano intends to write about the ethnic and racial makeup of the community in the early 1900s—including the Italians and African Americans who moved to Tuckahoe, the artists and professionals who settled Lawrence Park, and the Irish who were the largest and most politically active group—a topic that he has been researching for some time.  Bronxville Village Historian Eloise L. Morgan will explore why and where the town borders grew and shrank over the centuries, beginning with purchases from Native Americans and British land grants in the 1600s and continuing through later losses of territory as Mount Vernon incorporated separately, New York City absorbed southern Eastchester into the Bronx, and Bronxville and Tuckahoe each formed separate villages within the larger town.

Other volunteers have expressed interest in researching and writing about why the community came to have three separate public school systems, what happened in Eastchester during the American Revolution, the role of African-Americans in Eastchester before 1900, and the work of private and public charitable organizations in early 20^th century Eastchester. Suggestions for other topics are welcome. The publication committee plans to avoid merely repeating what has already been published and to footnote citations to source materials.

Anyone interested in participating in the preparation of the publication—writing, research, fact checking, editing, collecting illustrations, creating graphics, and the like—is urged to contact Richard Forliano, clancy5@optonline.net or Eloise Morgan, rcmelm@aol.com. The committee will help volunteers identify primary and secondary source materials and provide other assistance. With a publication target of 2014, the group hopes to have drafts of the various articles by mid-2013. “It sounds like a long time,” said Morgan, “but given the amount of work to do, it feels like tomorrow.”

The book is only one of many activities and events planned for the community’s anniversary celebration in 2014, under the auspices of a 350^th Anniversary Committee chaired by Eastchester Town Clerk Linda Doherty and former Bronxville Trustee Robert Riggs. Volunteers interested in participating in, or getting information about, other aspects of the overall festivities may contact the Anniversary Committee at 350thanniversary@eastchester.org. 

The Westchester Italian Cultural Center will host a wine tasting and discussion called “Undiscovered Italy: Ascoli Piceno” on Tuesday, April 24 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Ascoli Piceno is a province in the le Marche region of Italy, which the New York Times recently named as The New Tuscany. The area has ancient Roman ruins, medieval towns, and Renaissance art, mountains, beaches, culture and other amenities.

Guests will go on a virtual tour of the area and sample food and several of Ascoli Piceno’s best white, red and dessert wines, presented by the Piceno Wine Consortium

Tickets are $10 for members and $20 for nonmembers. RSVPs are required. For tickets and more information, go to  http://wiccny.org/ or call Patrizia Calce at (914) 771-8700, ext. 109.

The Tuckahoe Library will celebrate Korean Cultural Day from 11 a.m. to noon April 15.

The free program, which is open to the public, will celebrate Korean culture, art, costume, crafts and food.

An adults’ program will include the documentaries “Fifty Wonders of Korea,” “Korea Today” and “Traditional Korean Wedding.”

Registration is required. Call the library at 914-961-2121 or visit www.tuckahoelibrary.org. The library is at 71 Columbus Ave.

A notice from Tuckahoe schools:

The Tuckahoe Board of Education has scheduled a special meeting on Monday, April 2, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. in the THS-TMS library, 65 Siwanoy Boulevard, Eastchester, NY.

Cottle School principal George Albano will be recognized at an historic benefit dinner set for May 12 at St. Paul’s Church National Historic Site with proceeds to benefit the church’s programs.

The dinner is set for 5 to 9 p.m. Tickets begin at $65. Checks should be payable to Society of the National Shrine of the Bill of Rights, a 501 c3 non-profit that administers St. Paul’s.  Send donations by May 1 to: St. Paul’s Church N.H.S., 897 S. Columbus Ave., Mt. Vernon, NY 10550, attn: Host Committee.

Albano, currently the principal of Cottle Elementary School in Tuckahoe, served for three decades as an innovative, successful and widely respected principal of Lincoln School, Mt. Vernon’s largest elementary school.

The historical theme of the evening will be a commemoration of the centennial of the Presidential election of 1912, the only quadrennial canvass matching three holders of the nation’s highest office.

In that election, the Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson prevailed over the incumbent President William Howard Taft, a Republican, and also defeated the dynamic former President Theodore Roosevelt, who was seeking a return to the White House on the third party Progressive ticket, sometimes called the Bull Moose campaign.  The Socialist party’s Eugene V. Debs ran a strong fourth-place finish, reflecting the country’s political landscape in the early 20^th century.

As part of the benefit program, Professor Duane Tananbaum of Lehman College will talk about that dynamic election 100 years ago.  Dinner will be a 1912-era style meal accompanied by period music.

Event proceeds support public and educational programs at St. Paul’s Church National Historic Site, which are offered free of charge throughout the year.