If you’ve been clicking around the BHS website recently, you’ve probably seen the mentions of this new exhibit, Pages of the Past: The Breukelen Adventures of Jasper Danckaerts. Or if you’ve come into our building lately then you might have noticed that exhibit in the midst of installation. Days ago I was stunned to see the high school student-curators who’ve created this exhibit, painting images of whales and birds onto the walls. The images were straight out of Jasper Danckaerts’ diary, perfectly resembling the sepia drawings throughout his journals. I wonder if in 1679, Danckaerts had any idea that the contents of his diary would be enlarged and recreated on the walls of a venerable institution not far from where he originally stayed in “Breukelen.”

"Pages of the Past" opens June 5 and will be up through January 2010

This exhibit promises to be amazing and I am looking forward to talking to the nineteen student-curators when the exhibit opens on Friday night. I invite everyone to join us for the celebration, which runs from 5:30 -7:30 PM. Reveling in the history of New York’s finest borough is just how you should kick off your weekend. We’ll also be offering behind-the-scenes tours of our AMAZING, interior landmark Othmer Library. The Collections staff will offer tours and a peek at some of the prized items in the BHS Collections (ask Liz about the wax head!). If you’ve never been to the BHS Library, well I couldn’t improve upon the description offered by Francis Morrone in his column in the New York Sun. Suffice to say the Library alone is well worth a trip to BHS. 

In the meantime – got a question for our ace team of high school student-curators? Post them here in the comments section and we’ll have the students reply. See you Friday!