“Exploring Long Island’s Lighthouses”

Come to a FREE slide/lecture “Exploring Long Island’s Lighthouses” by historian/photographer Jerry Leeds at the Garden City Public Library on Thursday, May 12, 2005 at 2:30 p.m. Funding for this FREE program is provided by The Friends of the Garden City Public Library. Seating and parking is limited and on a first-come first-served basis. No tickets are required. For directions phone: 516-742-8405. The library is located at 60 Seventh St., Garden City, NY.

Mr. Leeds will share his expert knowledge of Long Island lighthouses as you discover the rich history and the beauty of lighthouse style and design. Learn about famous women keepers, the keeper’s lifestyle, lost and endangered beacons, and amusing tales. You’ll want to visit as many lighthouses as you can this summer!

Mr. Leeds is a retired public school teacher who became involved with historical landmarks of Long Island. He has taken thousands of photographers of windmills, lighthouses, and other historic landmarks on Long Island. His extensive research has expanded to include historic landmarks of the USA, Canada, Great Britain, Denmark, Netherlands, France, and Japan. His work has been used as a resource for the “Newsday” series on Long Island, “Our Story” as well as Allen Oren’s “This Old Town and Long Island Our Story” series on L.I. television. His goal is to create an awareness of our area’s beautiful landmarks and to encourage a public interest in their preservation.

“The Art of Chinese Tea”

A FREE slide/lecture and demonstration “The Art of Chinese Tea” will be presented by tea expert Ellen Lii at 2:30 on Sunday, May 15, 2005 at the Garden City Public Library. Chinese flute music will accompany a Chinese tea ceremony by professional musician Dale Reed. Participants are requested to bring their own tea cup. This program is sponsored by The Friends of the Garden City Public Library. Seating is limited and on a first-come first-served basis. No tickets are required. For directions phone: 516-742-8405. The library is located at 60 Seventh St., Garden City NY.

Ellen Lii, owner of “Ten Ren Tea & Ginseng Company” in Manhattan’s Chinatown, will divulge the secrets of an ancient and beautiful art that is rarely seen by Westerners. The audience will view the growing, processing, special equipment and procedures that are needed to make a “perfect cup.” In the Orient, tea drinking is an art. A tea master must have a license to perform special tea ceremonies, a thorough knowledge of tea, and be a fine connoisseur of Oriental art and music. Ellen has given presentations at many prestigious venues including: Lincoln Center: the Asia Society; the NY, Queens & Staten Island Botanic Gardens; Twin Oaks Mansion in Washington, D.C. (by a Smithsonian Institute invitation); embassies, colleges, and business and civic organizations throughout the NY metropolitan area. The Lii business has received awards including: the Asian-American Business Award from the NYC Mayor’s office in 1992 and the NYC Tourism Industry Service Award in 1993.

“Lights! Camera! Action! Long Island in the Movies”

Come to a FREE multi-media/lecture “Lights! Camera! Action! Long Island in the Movies” presented by Joshua Ruff, History Curator of The Long Island Museum at the Garden City Public Library on Thursday, May 26, 2005 at 2:30 p.m. Funding for this FREE program is provided by The Friends of the Garden City Public Library. Seating and parking is limited and on a first-come first-served basis. No tickets are required. For directions phone: 516-742-8405. The library is located at 60 Seventh St., Garden City, NY.

Want to know more about Hollywood’s connections to Long Island? A long, exciting history of local filmmaking ties this area to the industry, from the earliest silent pictures to recent movies like “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (2004), “The Brothers McMullen” (1995) and more. This lecture will also include video clips taken from some of the more than 90 years of Long Island’s motion picture history and will examine the Astoria studio, the use of Gold Coast mansions in movies, and the suburban genre pictures of the past two decades.

A major exhibition by the same title will be on view at The Long Island Museum of American Art, History & Carriages in Stony Brook from June 11 through October 23, 2005. See film-worn costumes, set designs, vintage camera equipment, old film posters & more, on loan from the Museum of Modern Art, Museum of the Moving Image, Library of Congress, etc.