Extended Holiday Shopping on Roosevelt Island - Today, This Thursday Night

The Roosevelt Island Historiocal Society Visitors Center offers some great holiday shopping options right here without leaving the island. In addition to being open today, Sunday December 14th from Noon through 5:00 pm the Kiosk will be open this coming Thursday, December 18th from 5:00 pm through 9:00 pm.

Holiday Shopping Dec 4 at the Roosevelt Island Visitors Ctr

The Roosevelt Island Historical Society Visitors Center located at the old trolley kiosk is offering holiday shopping on the evenings of December 4th and December 18th from 5pm to 9 pm each evening.

So as you come off the Tram or out of the subway stop on by. A variety of gifts are offered from jewelry, cards, books, calendars and toys. Refreshments will be served..

Merry Christmas from Roosevelt Island

Just to repeat a couple of holiday related pictures that I took over the last month….

Merry Christmas to those that celebrate the holiday !

RI Historical Society Holiday Celebration – Thursday Dec. 6th

The Roosevelt Island Historical Society is hosting a Holiday Celebration & sale this coming Thursday, December 6th from 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm in the Visitors Center Kiosk located at the Tram Plaza on the Island.

The RIHS will be providing free refreshments and holiday gifts will be for sale including holiday cards featuring the above holiday painting of the kiosk painted by Yvonne Smith and photographed by this blog’s author.

Linkage - Roosevelt Island: Good Luck Charms, Neighborhood Adoption, & Cormorants

The following tidbits are simply links I found from individual blogs where the writer has recently visited or happened upon Roosevelt Island.

Nov. 6, 2007

Bearfins in New York in a post titled “Good Luck Charms” mentions that “when I'm blearily heading home from one of many late nights on medicine in a guilty cab and I see the tram, I'm convinced tomorrow will be a good day.”

Nov. 5, 2007

Miss Banana visits RI and chronicles her visit in a post tilted “Adopt a Neighborhood”. She recommends visitors stop by the “small history center” [the former trolley kiosk now operating as the RIHS Visitors Center] where you can learn a great deal about the island and its buildings.

Nov. 4, 2007

David Byrne was detoured onto RI when the pedestrian lane of the Queensborough Bridge was closed during the NYC Marathon and he took the opportunity to visit Southpoint and snapped a photo of cormorants resting on one of the rocky islands just South of the island (in addition to a Tram shot of the marathon). A closer picture of cormorants on the same island came be found on Flickr HERE.

Official Opening of RIHS Visitor Center - July 27, 2007

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

On Friday, July 27, 2007, the Roosevelt Island Historical Society officially opened the Visitor’s Center. The 98 year old former Trolley Kiosk was welcomed by a host of officials. Despite the heat the crowd enjoyed the speechmaking which was quite fun.

Ms. Berdy began the ceremonies with a history of how the kiosk came to Roosevelt Island. Stephen Shane, the President of RIOC made it clear that Ms. Berdy is a model of persistence. This was a common theme among each of the speakers. Also in attendance and speaking were NYC Council Member Jessica Lappin (D-District 5), Angela Blocker on behalf of Kate Levin the Commissioner for the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and David Burney, the Commisioner of the NYC Department of Design & Construction.

As Council Member Lappin stated visitors, prior to the installation of the kiosk, would simply take the Tram over, get off look around for a moment, and then get back on to return to Manhattan. Now they will stop into the Visitor’s Center, learn a little about the Island and then perhaps stay to shop or tour the Island.

According to the Opening Ceremony program:

The Visitor’s Center is open daily from 12 Noon to 6 p.m. through the Summer. Measuring only 210 square feet this charming structure with a cast iron exterior, decorated with terra cotta motifs on three sides also includes a Guastivino domed tile interior. The kiosk will get a fresh coat of paint this Autumn and will truly reflect her heritage when she has a forest green and beige exterior, along with restoring the original terra cotta tiles.

Invited guests that were not able to attend included State Senator Jose Serrano whose office is providing funds for future cultural events, Micah Kellner, our newly elected State Assemblyperson was in Albany and Scott Stringer the Manhattan Borough President who sent his regards and congratulations.

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On a personal note when I returned to work after the event I saw that WNBC-TV on their news website page listed under their “Latest from Local Blogs” a link to this blog for my story post regarding the Opening day festivities. Even though I realize it was an automatic feed from www.Outside.in it was still amusing and surprising.