Quarry Trip 2016

From Projects: The Cooper Union
Jump to: navigation, search

Day trip to Brownstone Park, Portland, CT on September 11, 2016

The quarry where the brownstone for Cooper's Foundation Building (and many brownstone buildings in New York) was originally sourced from is now a waterpark.

See also: Bidding Farewell to a City’s Precious Stone, The New York Times (Oct. 22, 2012):
After being mined on and off for centuries, the Portland Brownstone Quarries, the very last of a kind, closed down this year, and by the end of this month, the quarry’s final scraps of inventory should be gone.
...
The stone fell out of fashion, and by the 1940s, the Portland quarries, flooded by the Connecticut River in a major storm, were shuttered. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that Mike Meehan, a geologist with a background in coal exploration, reopened the ground at the edge of the quarry, slicing chunks of brownstone off a wall about 20 feet high and 650 feet long.
But most of the area is still filled with water, and Mr. Meehan’s closest neighbor is a recreational water park, where zip lines crisscross an old brownstone quarry.

Photos

📸 More photos (Dropbox 🔒)

Emails

Subject: [Projects: The Cooper Union] First class + pre-class events

Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2016 17:24:53 -0400

Hi projects class,

We're excited to see you all on Monday September 12th at 2pm. After meeting for introductions, we'll be visiting The Cooper Archives and speaking with our wonderful assistant archivist Katie Blumenkrantz.

We also wanted to invite you to a few events coming up before our first class. These are optional but encouraged.

NOTE: please RSVP to us as soon as possible if you are interested in joining us on our Brownstone Park/Quarry excursion (details below), because we need to reserve transportation in advance.

See you soon,

Casey, Victoria, and Walid

- - -

1. Saturday September 3rd

Peter Cooper Block Party

Free + Open to the Public

A bunch of the class is already involved in pulling together this year's Block Party—Emily is doing balloon arches + repping Art Student Council, Jasper and Maja are DJing, Owen is working on design and production, and Jacob is running A/V and helping Risograph some publications. Hope to see the rest of you come through. Please help spread the word! Lots more info on our Website + Facebook Event

Block Party — 12pm - 5pm 

Free + Open to the Public

@ Cooper Union, outside Foundation Building

Peter Cooper Movie Screening — 6pm

@ The Great Hall, 7 East 7th St.

Afterparty — 8:30pm - 11pm

@ 31 Third Ave. (former St. Marks Bookshop/Nonstop Cooper space)

2. Thursday September 8th, 6:30pm-8pm

Post-Democracy Paradise-Lost: Presentation by Casey Gollan and Victoria Sobel

@ The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School, Wollman Hall, 65 West 11th Street, 5th floor

Free + Open to the Public

3. Sunday September 11th, all day

Bus Trip from NYC to Brownstone Park

@ Portland, Connecticut (2 hours north of NYC)

This present-day family-friendly waterpark is the site of the brownstone quarry out of which the Foundation Building was built. We might be swimming, or might just be taking a tour, or walking the perimeter. Let's see! 

Please RSVP if interested, and note that there may be shared costs for transportation and tickets, but don't let that stop you from indicating interest—we can try to work $ out once we have a reservation in place.