Category: Events (Page 12 of 13)

The National Park Service opened the renovated Edison Laboratory Complex at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange, NJ in the fall of 2009. The renovation was a complex project to preserve the historic buildings and the artifact and archival collections at the Laboratory Complex and Glenmont Estate. The original historic furnishings and documents were beginning to deteriorate and were at risk of loss or damage from fire because of old, outdated alarm and sprinkler systems. The vast majority of the artifact collection was inaccessible to visitors and researchers while stored on the upper floors of the historic main laboratory.

The original furnishings have been moved back into many rooms and the unique museum collections are now available to see, hear, and experience. Installation of a new elevator and stair tower adjacent to the main laboratory building allows new public access to the upper floors of the laboratory that now feature new exhibits. The Edison home at the Glenmont Estate has also been renovated. The new Thomas Edison experience offers visitors self-guided audio tours, cell phone tours, films, grounds walks, school workshops and traditional guided programs.

Glenmont is located in Llewellyn Park, West Orange, the first romantically designed, planned residential community in the United States. A Queen Anne style mansion with 29 rooms, Glenmont was designed by the architect Henry Hudson Holly. Edison purchased the Glenmont estate with 13.5 acres including house, barn, greenhouse, and furnishings in January of 1886 for $125,000, half its estimated value.

Due to the limited number of people who have signed-up for the trip thus far we cannot afford to have lunch at Highlawn Pavilion. We can make the trip break -even at the current price and number of sign-ups by substituting a box lunch with wine at the same price. If we get more sign-ups there will be a profit which we plan to distribute back to the participants.

This will be an interesting trip and we encourage you to invite family and friends.Break-even cost is $74 per person with some refund if more people sign-up.

We plan on boarding at 7:45AM and departing by 8AM from the DCA parking lot.

We expect to arrive back before 5PM

On Saturday April 27th, members of the Senior Men’s Association will help clean up the Darien train station parking lot, Mechanic Street, and the berm on the New Haven side of the tracks, as part of the Darien town-wide clean-up project.

Please come to participate as part of SMA’s community service. It usually only takes about 2 hours for us to complete our part of the project.

We will meet in the CVS parking Lot by the UCBC bagel shop between 8 and 9 am. Come there to pick up supplies, and have a free bagel, coffee, tea and/or juice.

The Beautification Commission and Chamber of Commerce will supply the garbage bags, pick-up sticks, and work gloves.

Good cause, good fellowship, and free bagels! What could be better?

We will be visiting the New England Air Museum on March 14^th. This museum consists of three hangars, and an outside area. The aircraft on display include a total 66 airplanes, 26 helicopters, 8 missiles, 7 gliders, 6 balloons, 1 autogyro and 2 lighter-than-air craft. In addition, there are many historical displays. Aircraft on display are from all time periods including a pre-WW-I Bleriot XI

WW I              Fokker DR-1

Golden Years   Stinson Reliant & Gee Bee Thompson Racer

WW II             Chance Vought Cousair & P-51 Mustang

Jet Age            F4D Phantom & MIG-15

We will also tour the Mark Twain house in Hartford. It was the home of our greatest author while he wrote his most important works. An outstanding example of Gothic architecture, it features a grand hall with Victorian decorative arts by Tiffany’s design studio.

Reservation details will be posted in late January.

Our first event of the New Year will be on February 7th, 2013. We will visit the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. The Museum’s core exhibit, Behind The Scenes, is a one-of-a-kind experience that immerses you in the creative and technical process of producing, promoting and presenting films and TV shows Occupying 15,000 square feet, it reveals the skills, material resources and artistic decisions that go into making moving images.

We will have lunch, then tour the FDR Four Freedoms Park. Just opened on October 24th as a spiritual memorial to FDR, it is located along the waterfront of Roosevelt Island. The memorial was conceived in 1973, designed by Louis Kahn just before his death in 1974, and finally funded after the turn of the century.

The tickets are $68 per person. Signup at the Wednesday meeting or call Bill Winship at [enkode text=”– Sorry, Javascript must be enabled to display phone number –“]203.655.3530[/enkode] with your reservation.

Frank Johnson, Chair

Thanks to Bob Smith for this video clip!

The Blue Notes, a group of women who volunteer to bring the joy of music to the community both as a form of entertainment and as a form of therapy. The Blue Notes has been part of the Darien Community Association since 2004. The Blue Notes Group take pride in providing high quality entertainment and enjoyment to audiences and the SMA takes pride in asking them back year after year to sing for us.

Contact: W. Pugh