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Citizens is proud to sponsor Holiday Nights in Greenfield Village and to support The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation for all of its unparalleled educational experiences.
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With an eye for oddity, Bobby Green is saving programmatic architecture one barrel bar, bowling alley and hot dog stand at a time
After some scientific sleuthing surrounding the fireplace overmantel in The Henry Ford’s Lovett Hall, a curious origin story about its mirror unfolded. See the story on Page 44 for more on this mystery and many others within The Henry Ford’s collections.
BY TREVOR NAUDThe Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, is an internationally recognized cultural destination that brings the past forward by immersing visitors in the stories of ingenuity, resourcefulness and innovation that helped shape America.
A force for sparking curiosity and inspiring tomorrow’s innovators, inventors and entrepreneurs, The Henry Ford fosters learning from encounters with authentic artifacts. Through its 26 million artifacts, unique venues and resources — Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation®, Greenfield Village®, Ford Rouge Factory Tour, Benson Ford Research Center® and Henry Ford Academy®, as well as online at thf.org, thf.org/inhub and through The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation — The Henry Ford helps all individuals unlock their potential and shape a better future.
The Henry Ford leads the Invention Convention Worldwide community and works to make STEM + Invention + Entrepreneurship (STEMIE) learning accessible to educators and students worldwide. As part of our leadership in invention education, The Henry Ford powers events like Raytheon Technologies Invention Convention U.S. Nationals and curriculum and professional development.
For more information, visit thf.org.
The past few years have produced immense hardship for The Henry Ford and the communities we serve, but we are so thankful that you’ve stood with us during these challenging times. We’ve overcome many obstacles thanks to your generous contributions, but there is still work to be done.
Love The Henry Ford? Please support all that we treasure. Give today at thf.org/donate.
Chairman of the Board
S. Evan Weiner
President and Secretary
Patricia E. Mooradian
Treasurer Lisa A. Payne
Board of Trustees
Linda Apsey
Paul R. Dimond Henry Ford III
William Clay Ford, Jr. William Clay Ford III Alec Gallimore Ralph J. Gerson
Eliza Kontulis Getz Kouhaila Hammer Christopher F. Hamp John W. Ingle III Elizabeth Ford Kontulis Richard A. Manoogian Hendrik Meijer Bruce Meyer Jon Oberheide
Mark L. Reuss Mark Truby Alessandro F. Uzielli Carla Walker-Miller
Life Trustees
George F. Francis III Steven K. Hamp Roger S. Penske
Trustees Emeritus
Lynn Ford Alandt Edsel B. Ford II Sheila Ford Hamp
The Henry Ford Magazine is published twice a year by The Henry Ford, 20900 Oakwood Blvd., Dearborn, MI 48124. Copyright 2023. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.
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Senior Vice President & Chief Advancement Officer 313.982.6016 spencem@thehenryford.org
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Senior Director of Institutional Advancement 313.982.6028 sherrih@thehenryford.org
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The Henry Ford provides unique educational experiences based on authentic objects, stories and lives from America’s traditions of ingenuity, resourcefulness and innovation. Our purpose is to inspire people to learn from these traditions to help shape a better future.
I’ve always loved the story of England after the Battle of Hastings, in which English, French and Latin commingle on a tiny triglossic island, and the English language as we know it today acquires its charming messiness. English borrowed the same French words twice with slight pronunciation differences, and so we have doublets like regard and reward, guarantee and warranty, guile and wile.
Natan Last works in immigration advocacy and policy. His writing has appeared in Narrative, The Atlantic, Los Angeles Review of Books and elsewhere. He writes crossword puzzles for The New Yorker and The New York Times. He is currently writing a nonfiction book about crosswords, titled The Electric Grid, for Pantheon.
Under Construction, Page 18
Since researching material for my first book, California Crazy, I have been fascinated by oddball buildings and their creators, interviewing two of these individuals in person: Tillie Hattrup of Giant Owl/Hoot Hoot I Scream and Arthur Whizzin of the Chili Bowl chain. Both were matter-of-fact about their roadside anomalies and how they came into being. Segue 40 years later, and I meet a guy [Bobby Green] who loves the same types of buildings and ends up buying and restoring these crazy structures that are extant. Now I get to know firsthand his story and what drove him to buck convention and follow his dream.
Jim Heimann is a native of Los Angeles who, in addition to his past career as a graphic designer and illustrator, currently is an educator and author, and serves as the executive editor of Taschen Publishing America LLC based in Cologne, Germany.
Citizen Preservationist, Page 28
I’m a fan of science fiction, and I often think about life on other planets. The evidence of water on Mars is really intriguing to me, as well as newer evidence that proves it may be in liquid form under the south polar cap. I want to be alive when (or if) we discover extraterrestrial life.
Trevor Naud is a Detroit-based artist, photographer and director. His directorial music video work has been featured in Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Paste, Spin and Under the Radar
He is thematically drawn to stories of memory, simulation and repetition. His graphic work has been featured in Juxtapoz Magazine, Ain’t-Bad, 50 Watts and Picture Professional, and has been shown at Whitdel Arts and MOCAD.
As a photographer, he has collaborated with artists such as Guided by Voices, Protomartyr, Vespre, Bonnie Doon, Nolan the Ninja, The Armed and Stef Chura.
Playing Detective, Page 44
2023 is no different.
Whether it’s through our world-class collections, our educational resources and products or our community partnerships, we are working every day to build on programming for ALL audiences.
I am forever grateful to our dedicated staff that puts this mission into action daily, including the team behind The Henry Ford Magazine. It’s chock-full of amazing, informative content, and I’m so proud of everyone involved, especially our Chief Content Curator Kristen Gallerneaux, who spends countless hours executing each and every article.
In this issue, we examine “mysteries hidden within histories,” a motif all too familiar to museums like ours. We introduce you to Bobby Green, renowned Los Angeles business owner and citizen preservationist who has dedicated
himself to successfully restoring architectural icons in his beloved city and unlocking their colorful pasts for next generations to see and enjoy. We also take a look at the crossword constructor community and uncover how it is fighting for more inclusivity in published puzzles. Of course, this issue would not be complete without a story that unveils mysteries from within our own collections — shared through curator accounts about artifacts and stories many people may not know.
I do hope you enjoy reading our magazine as much as we enjoy conceptualizing and creating it for you, our members and friends, who have stood by our side and continue to support all that we set out to achieve. I thank all of you for what you make possible at The Henry Ford.
With deep gratitude,
PATRICIA E. MOORADIAN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, THE HENRY FORD
At the start of each new year, I like to take a moment and reflect on my good fortune to lead an institution truly committed to impacting lives all over the world.
Bank of America recognizes The Henry Ford for its success in bringing the arts to performers and audiences throughout the community. We commend you on creating an opportunity for all to enjoy and share a cultural experience.
Visit us at bankofamerica.com/about.
Sarah Andrus, a librarian at The Henry Ford, encourages a read of the recently published account of a murder at Harvard University that took place in 1969 and remained unsolved for nearly 50 years.
While studying at Harvard, author Becky Cooper heard countless times the legend of a nameless girl, an affair and a murder at the hands of her professor in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. The nameless girl was Jane Britton, and in this part true crime, part memoir, Cooper breaks apart the legend at the seams to tell Jane’s story.
The mix of author obsession and real-life interviews combines to create a captivating picture of the long-gone Britton, the power a storied institution like Harvard holds in its community and the culture of the late 1960s.
We Keep the Dead Close is, at heart, a story of the power of legends and the people who are lost to them.
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Author Don Mitchell, a personal friend of murder victim Jane Britton, wrote a book titled Shibai: Remembering Jane Britton’s Murder, which explores his memories and perceptions of the woman he knew and the crime committed against her.
Prepare for thrills in this captivating novel written by the queen of mystery herself, Agatha Christie. More than a simple case of whodunit, this story introduces 10 allies turned enemies as they fall victim to an unknown source, one by one. Purposeful pauses, an intricate weaving of thoughtprovoking details and descriptive, suspenseful scenes leave the reader desperate for clues. Who, or what, is the guilty party? You’ll need to read to find out.
Black Bird Apple TV+
Based on the true story of Jimmy Keene and Larry Hall, in this television miniseries Keene must befriend the possible serial killer Hall and unweave his web of lies. Paul Walter Hauser’s performance as Hall will make you squirm as he switches effortlessly between harmless and monstrous. I found myself wondering how, or if, I could gain the trust of an unreliable source and complete this near-impossible task.
The archivists and librarians of the Benson Ford Research Center are no strangers to hard-hitting questions. We’re tasked with helping our patrons find everything from answers about historic car parts to textile design patterns. But just like our storied institution, we occasionally get a curveball like: “Why did Henry Ford start collecting?” And sometimes the best answer we have could be an apocryphal one.
Men like Henry Ford don’t exist without leaving a few myths behind, and myths are easy to pass down from generation to generation, registrar to archivist to librarian, over time. Here the story goes: Henry and Clara Ford were sitting outside when they heard the end line of a poem. They recognized the stanza from childhood and determined it must be from a McGuffey Reader. Henry tracked down a McGuffey’s Eclectic Reader, and then another; he found a primer, and so on and so forth, until he had amassed quite the collection of early reading guides. Only he never found the poem. What he did do was start the basis for one of the largest McGuffey Reader collections in the country and the first objects to be sent to the research library for his future museum.
— SARAH ANDRUS, LIBRARIAN, THE HENRY FORDAs Benjamin Franklin once said, only two things in life are certain — death and taxes. Although death is inevitable, the process of how we bury the dead has never been unchangeable. The Henry Ford’s collection documents these changes — both historical and current.
Over the past few decades, more and more Americans have become interested in “green burial” — burial methods that allow a body to naturally decay, unimpeded by vaults, caskets or embalming. This movement is part of a much larger trend of death positivity: a rejection of the way death has been commercialized and a reclamation of death as a normal part of the human condition.
The rise of modern embalming traces its roots back to the Civil War, when bodies of fallen soldiers would be rudimentarily preserved so they could be transported home for burial. At war’s end, embalmers found new ways to market their work, particularly through arguing — falsely — that embalming was more sanitary and better for public health. Death care thus shifted from the home and into the funeral parlor, evolving into an entire industry surrounding death.
Although industrializing death has in many ways allowed and even encouraged us to separate it from our daily lives, there remain communities and cultures whose death-positive traditions have persisted for generations. We need only pull back the veil to see them — and even be inspired by them.
— RACHEL YERKE, CURATORIAL ASSISTANTSecond Line Funeral Parade Honoring Danny Barker, May 3, 1995
In New Orleans, funerary “second lines” are a common sight. Brass bands parade through the streets drawing in crowds to celebrate the life of the deceased, a tradition started by Black fraternal organizations in the 1860s.
Juan Coronel Rivera, Diego Rivera’s Grandson, Prepares an Ofrenda at the Detroit Institute of Arts, 1991 Día de Muertos — a celebration featuring cemetery visits, ofrendas (offerings) and the living communing with the dead — has its roots in the traditions of pre-Hispanic Indigenous Mexicans. Today, it’s celebrated in the United States as well as Mexico.
“Cathedral” Burial Quilt, Made by Quiltmaker Zak Foster, 2019 “I have my own burial quilt already made up, and I can attest to the ways in which it has come to act like a companion from the present all the way to my last day.” — Zak Foster
Fred, Velma, Daphne, Shaggy and, of course, Scooby-Doo are a gang of close friends who find themselves involved in mystery, adventure and excitement week after week. But pop culture offers a lot of other examples of tightknit groups of friends and colleagues who fight evil, explore the universe or just try to make life a little better here on Earth. Check out these stories from our collections.
cOur 1896 Riker Electric Tricycle shares a name with Will Riker of Star Trek: The Next Generation
Each new series of Star Trek features a crew whose mission is to explore the universe. Along the way, they discover new forms of life, encounter amazing technology and natural phenomena, and sometimes battle aggressive alien species. Check out similarities and differences between names of objects in our collections and the characters and ships of the franchise.
FEB. 12-APRIL 9. SEE PAGE 75
Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Mr. Potato Head, Slinky Dog and more are toys fighting for the affection of a young boy named Andy in the movie Toy Story. They eventually find a way to coexist — but not before encountering many setbacks. Learn more about the real toys that inspired the toys of Toy Story
The Muppet Movie tells the story of one frog’s road trip to Hollywood to break into show business. Along the way, he picks up a bunch of characters — Fozzie, the Great Gonzo, Miss Piggy and more — and Kermit becomes not just their leader but their friend. Fozzie’s 1951 Studebaker Commander plays a critical role in the journey — and we have a similar 1951 Studebaker Champion. Learn more about the Studebaker Commander on our blog.
WATCH This video clip from our Digital Collections of best buds Shaggy and Scooby-Doo on the run in a Hallmark ornament, then see the ornament itself in the new Hallmark exhibit in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovationc
Today's students will drive tomorrow's workforce, enrich our communities and build a better future. We support The Henry Ford Museum's programs like Invention Convention Worldwide for fueling their success.
RTX.com
The Henry Ford is committed to ALL audiences and to inspiring the next generation of inventors, entrepreneurs and innovators, regardless of backgrounds or barriers. Our Archive of American Innovation serves as the cornerstone for all of our innovation learning experiences, programs and curricula, which are designed to accelerate the innovative mindsets of all learners from across the globe.
Educators-in-Residence helps like-minded teachers connect and cultivate innovative learning environments
In 2022, The Henry Ford piloted its Educatorsin-Residence program. Designed to connect and empower educators, the program gives 10-12 pre-K-12 educators the chance to come to The Henry Ford, explore ideas with one another, interact with The Henry Ford’s Learning & Engagement team and then go back to their classrooms and implement new techniques and lessons with students. Following an on-site visit, participants attend regular virtual checkins with The Henry Ford. The first cohort kicked off the program in July 2022 and continues through the 2022-23 school year.
Consider these criteria if you are interested in becoming part of the 2023-24 Educators-inResidence cohort.
1 Are you a certified pre-K-12 educator, student teacher, curriculum director, instructional coach or youth services provider in any subject area in the United States?
2 Do you want time and support to assess needs in the classroom and design potential solutions with a dedicated cohort?
3 Are you open to new ideas? Giving and receiving constructive criticism?
4 Are you passionate about exploring primary sources, artifacts and stories to embed in the classroom?
Learn more and apply to be a 2023-24 Educatorin-Residence. Applications open spring 2023.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN GROUPS of educators from all over the United States are given the opportunity to gather together, share ideas and take what they learn back to their classrooms?
It’s a question The Henry Ford’s new Educators-in-Residence program hopes to answer. The hybrid professional development opportunity invites pre-K-12 teachers, instructional coaches and administrators to connect with a cohort of like-minded educators and brainstorm ways to cultivate a culture of innovation and creativity in their classrooms. The program begins each summer — last summer was its first — and continues throughout the approaching school year.
Eleven educators from Michigan, Ohio, Texas and Connecticut launched the inaugural Educators-in-Residence program in 2022, coming on-site to The Henry Ford for a three-day immersion in July. During their visit, they were introduced to their cohort, shared current classroom techniques and worked with The Henry Ford’s Learning & Engagement team and other experts to identify resources that can help them foster creative thinking in their classrooms.
Participants also had the chance to get more familiar with The Henry Ford’s inHub and Model i learning framework and explored other related curriculum and digital assets.
As an Educator-in-Residence and world and American history teacher, Matthew Mutschler appreciated the staff support and the deep dive into all The Henry Ford has to offer. “They walked us through the habits and actions of innovators, showed us the different resources available and challenged us to come up with lessons that would incorporate these ideas,” said Mutschler, a 25-year teaching veteran and metro Detroit native. “Not everyone can physically come to The Henry Ford, so understanding the portfolio, from the digitized assets and YouTube channel to the Innovation Nation television show, etc. They really pushed our thinking and asked us how we could piece together these assets to help students virtually explore common themes of history.”
While on-site, the residents also explored Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and Greenfield Village. At the end of the three-day visit, educators left with defined plans they intended to implement in their classrooms for the 2022-2023 school year.
Educator-in-Residence Tiffany Rhymes, an eighth-grade teacher in southwest Detroit, walked away from the visit with newfound colleagues and a solid approach for her passion project: teaching her students about the evolution of transportation. “I loved the way the visit was set up. The staff was very resourceful, and I was able to use them as a springboard to discuss my passion project and start my lesson plans,” said Rhymes. “And I met Matthew [Mutschler], the history guru. Now I have him as a resource and The Henry Ford as a resource. My toolkit is complete.”
As part of the program, The Henry Ford is holding periodic virtual check-ins with the cohort during the school year so educators can share their progress.
“Going forward, the Learning & Engagement team will bring this cohort together to support each other and share the impact of their ‘innovation journeys’ as they design, optimize and implement new ideas, resources and content to foster innovative thinking among their learners,” said Olivia Marsh, manager, Educator Engagement & Professional Development at The Henry Ford.
— JENNIFER LAFORCE, MANAGING EDITOR, THE HENRY FORD MAGAZINE
Learn more about The Henry Ford’s Educators-in-Residence program.
Learn more about The Henry Ford’s inHub and the Model i learning framework.
dThe Henry Ford’s first Educators-inResidence participants were invited to the campus in July 2022 for a three-day immersion that included guided museum tours (top) and a visit to Greenfield Village, along with plenty of time to explore inHub offerings and share ideas with the cohort.
The Henry Ford’s first group of Educators-inResidence comment on ...
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“As a teacher of over 30 years, I have attended many professional development sessions. This was one of the most rewarding professional development experiences I have had. The Henry Ford staff was well organized, knowledgeable and interesting. The other teachers attending were full of enthusiasm, great ideas and valuable educational insights.” — Dawn Haught
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BY THE HENRY FORD “Wandering about the museum and taking time to think about the collection has given me great ideas. This year, I am teaching ancient civilizations, North American geography and botany, so figuring out how to access the collections really pushed my boundaries, but it was SO worth it.” — Jamie Ewing
“I plan to use more of the videos supplied by inHub in my classroom along with classroom discussions. One element I used was the activity we did in groups while in the program. We were to devise some way to get radioactive materials (balls) into a container after a leak was found in the local nuclear power plant. I used the idea with my seventh- and eighth-graders as a way to introduce the engineering design process as well as to observe how they work in groups to accomplish a task.” — Erica Fulton
“As an icebreaker in my classroom, I asked my kids to identify what an innovator was and pulled characteristics from Model i as a springboard — talking about the habits of an innovator, how they learn from failure and if they had an opportunity to change an invention that didn’t work what would they do. My students loved it.” — Tiffany Rhymes
Along with the collaborative experience and information sharing, Educators-in-Residence receive other benefits, including a one-year premium membership to inHub, a one-year membership to The Henry Ford, a letter of completion (continuing education credits for Michigan teachers) and a monetary stipend.
What to watch, read, do to inspire big thinking
WATCH The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation on Saturday mornings during CBS’ block of education programming called CBS Dream Team, It’s Epic! Check your local listings. See the show’s episode guide for all eight seasonsc
The Henry Ford puts a spotlight on the nation’s most significant vehicles
The Henry Ford has partnered with the Hagerty Drivers Foundation to introduce an exciting new changing exhibit in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation. The exhibit, which debuted last summer, spotlights some of the nation’s most significant automobiles and celebrates their place on the National Historic Vehicle Register.
At magazine press time, a famous car from popular culture is on campus: a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California from the set of the 1980s iconic teen film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, written and directed by John Hughes. Not the one that’s destroyed in the movie, of course. In fact, the vehicle on exhibit (top photo below) is actually a 1985 Modena Spyder California — an authenticlooking replica of the priceless Ferrari built by Modena Design & Development in El Cajon, California. It’s one of three Modena replicas that were used in shooting the movie.
to The
Designed for curious preschoolers, Tinkering for Tots is The Henry Ford’s inspired educational programming that encourages active reading, problem solving, collaboration and a love for all things STEAM — science, technology, engineering, arts and math.
Held the second Tuesday of the month October through May in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, Tinkering for Tots is full of playful activities that focus on building an innovative mindset through storytelling, artifact exploration and take-home STEAM activities. Each month focuses on a habit of an innovator pulled from The Henry Ford’s Model i learning framework, from “collaborate” and “learn from failure” to “stay curious” and “challenge the rules.”
Made possible with support from PNC Foundation.
Learn more about Tinkering for Tots, the habit of the month and program details.
Learn more about The Henry Ford’s Model i learning framework.
Tinkering for Tots activities meet a number of national standards for preschool curriculum as defined by the National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching and Learning, and the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework.
Later this winter, the exhibit is set to feature a 1966 Volkswagen Transporter van or microbus (photo below). In all instances, the vehicles showcased in the new rotating display will have left some mark on American history important enough to earn them a place on the National Historic Vehicle Register.
READ The blog post from Matt Anderson, The Henry Ford’s curator of transportation, for more information about the new rotating exhibit in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and the backstory behind the National Historic Vehicle Registerc
New program offers career opportunities to those underrepresented in the museum world
Visit The Henry Ford’s website and search for its new Diversity and Inclusion Internship Program, and you’ll find a footnote in the first paragraph next to the word “candidate.” That footnote reads: Candidates who have a disability, identify as Black, Native American, Asian, Pacific Islander, Arab, Middle Eastern, Hispanic, Latino/a/x, LGBTQIA+ or who exist at the intersection of these identities, are encouraged to apply.
According to Mydashia Hough, diversity and inclusion manager, Talent and Culture at The Henry Ford, this carefully curated verbiage is a signal to those groups often underrepresented in the museum world that they are welcome. “Such clear, explicit language gives out a signal to these groups that they are desired in this space and that we want them to apply.”
Summer 2022 marked the official launch of the Diversity and Inclusion Internship Program. Funded by the Ford Foundation, it is designed to offer engaging professional development, mentorship and networking opportunities, and introduce emerging professionals to the many business sides of running an organization such as The Henry Ford. A cohort of 11 interns with varying skills and at different points in their career journeys was accepted from the 280 people that applied — with 80% of those being persons of color.
Sanna Sisawo, a student at Lawrence Technological University, interned with the Design team. “I could not have asked for a better first internship to build a foundation for my career,” said Sisawo. “The experience gave me a new sense of professionalism and a better understanding of what it means to be in the professional world, and I was able to improve and build my confidence level. I have gained immeasurable skills and knowledge that I can apply to future positions.”
Camy Smith, an Eastern Michigan University student who interned with the Talent and Culture team, also found the experience eye-opening, injecting a boost of confidence she greatly appreciates. “I was challenged throughout the internship to ask questions, advocate for myself and create opportunities for learning,” said Smith. “There are so many intersecting fields of interest for me at the museum. In addition to experiencing the different aspects of the Talent and Culture department, I was able to work with museum programs, guest services, curatorial and community outreach. My time at the museum was full of intersectionality and growth.”
Managers are excited about the opportunities the internships bring and appreciate Hough’s commitment to include the staff in the program’s scope and candidate selection process. “It’s clear that the Talent and Culture team has put great effort into writing these job postings so that candidates will feel welcomed into a workforce that has historically underserved them,” said Lori Petrelius, museum programs manager. “Mydashia has provided us with guidance as to how to consider equity throughout the entire process, from what questions we should ask to reflecting on our own internal biases and how they might change our perceptions of great applicants. I have learned so much about how to review candidates thoughtfully, and being a part of this internship program has changed how I now handle hiring.”
Learn more about the Diversity and Inclusion Internship Program and how to apply.
All internships through the Diversity and Inclusion Internship Program are paid and last 10-15 weeks. Departments earmarked for interns range from design and culinary management to historical clothing production and IT.
Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation will host free themed 30-minute guided tours daily this winter. In January, the “Museum Highlights” tour offers insider knowledge about popular artifacts. In February, the “Celebrating Black History” tour takes a deeper dive into historical Black figures featured in the museum, while the “Strange & Mysterious” tour, offered in both February and March, showcases odd objects in the collections. March will also feature a “Women’s History” tour that looks at female innovators. See the current events calendar on thf.org for tour dates and times.
A new guard of crossworders is dead set on building culturally inclusive puzzles and taking them mainstream
As a self-described “New Yorker with a mailing address in California who currently lives in Zagreb, Croatia,” his puzzle’s long, marquee answers were phrases about air travel whose first and last two letters were state abbreviations, as though the answers were linking those two states in flight. FLYING TIME, which starts with Florida and ends with Maine, thus was clued as “Duration of air travel from Miami to Bangor?”; VAPOR TRAIL as “What follows a plane going from Richmond to Chicago?”; and so on, out toward the horizon.
This crossword theme was appropriate not just for Mendez’s jet-setting modus vivendi but as a stand-in for the puzzle’s trajectory from inkling to ink. Mendez was the first mentee to be published from the Times’ Diverse Crossword Constructor Fellowship, a program launched in early 2022 with the aim, as the Times’ announcement put it, of “creat[ing] grids that reflect a range of cultural reference points.”
Everdeen Mason, the inaugural editorial director for games at the Times and the brains and bureaucratic brawn behind the fellowship, laid out the cohort’s first-class itinerary for me: Mendez and the other four fellows were matched with Times games editors for oneon-one mentorship, attended Times-produced seminars on subjects like crossword theme development and clue writing, and were ushered into a Slack workspace where they could pepper the editorial team with cruciverbal questions. All five fellows emerged from the three-month process with publication-worthy puzzles on file, and the Times will release one a month until they run out, then, per Mason, do it all over again. In his notes on the Times’ Wordplay blog, Mendez thanked the mentor he happened to be paired with, puzzlemaster and longtime crossword editor Will Shortz.
DID YOU KNOW? /
Arthur Wynne is considered the inventor of the crossword puzzle. He published his first puzzle on Dec. 21, 1913, in the New York World
On Aug. 23, 2022, Trey Mendez had his first crossword puzzle published in The New York Times.
Like many creative types, crossword constructors — cruciverbalists, if you’re feeling dapper and Latinate — tend toward the autobiographical, and the theme of Mendez’s puzzle was no exception.
The Times’ program is one recent attempt to support word lovers on every leg of their journey toward becoming published crossword constructors. As a crossword constructor myself, I can attest it’s often a turbulent ride, from noting a quirk of language — that the word CONTINENTAL, say, is bookended by the abbreviations for Colorado and Alabama — to brainstorming a set of similar examples to building a fillable and varied grid to writing clever and relevant clues pitched to the right difficulty.
And beyond just the daunting task of assembling a salable puzzle, there’s the slings and arrows of cultural discouragement: crosswords that feel at best like they were written for an older, whiter audience and at worst let in insensitive language like slurs or off-key, even inaccurate clues. Propping up those puzzles is a loud minority of solvers that take to online comments sections to whinge about pop culture, tut-tut at the idea that the language in puzzles could carry political baggage and wax nostalgic for when the puzzle felt more like a buttoned-up vocabulary test than a bedazzled time capsule of current usage and slang.
Then there’s pricey, graphically outdated construction software and buyable “wordlists” that boast a ranked set of words to give a grid maximum pizzazz, neither of which are necessarily intuitive for the crossword neophyte.
Happily, alongside efforts like the Times’ fellowship, a supportive and innovative “crossworld” has flowered. Open-source and user-friendlier alternatives to the pay-to-play tools of the trade are starting to circulate, including a project by computational chemist Brooke Husic and data scientist Enrique Henestroza Anguiano called Spread the Word(List), an idea spurred by Husic noticing “free access to a relatively clean wordlist was a major bottleneck for her mentees.”
Erica Hsiung Wojcik, a professor of psychology at Skidmore College, developed the free Expanded Crossword Name Database, tired of the fact that, as she put it, many crosswords “tend to reference a narrow band of cultural knowledge and experiences that speak to a certain type of solver who knows a lot about the history of baseball and Italian food and nothing about popular music from the 2000s or Sichuan cuisine.” If a crossword, by its nature, is going to feature vowel-heavy, stalwart three-letter answers, reasoned Wojcik, why not make those recurring characters novelist YAA Gyasi, for example, rather than Mel OTT or Bobby ORR?
And while the archetypal solving or constructing session might seem like a lonely pursuit, this new generation of puzzle lovers prizes collaboration. On a Discord server dedicated to crosswords, newbies and veterans alike bat theme ideas back and forth and, like a present-day haiku contest, write comments that have either 15 or 21 letters (the standard crossword is 15x15 squares; bigger puzzles like the Times’ Sunday crossword are frequently 21x21). To the new guard, culture is nothing to shy away from, unless it risks alienating solvers: They’ll hunt down the reallife versions of crosswords that appear in film and TV (recently getting to the bottom of what puzzle Tony was solving in an early episode of The Sopranos, a collective effort that even involved phoning an archivist in Newark); they’ll debate whether references to Harry Potter need to disappear given J.K. Rowling’s history of transphobia; they’ll also, in a bid to inject new life into another grid mainstay, add to a crowdsourced spreadsheet listing over 200 clues for the word OREO. Why settle for “Dunkable cookie” when you could go with “Cookie split by Ross and Rachel in the first Friends episode?”
ONLINE Learn more about the 45th annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, the nation’s largest and oldest crossword competition, which will be held March 31-April 2, 2023, in Stamford, Connecticut. Directed by The New York Times Crossword Puzzle Editor Will Shortz, the tournament pits solvers against one another to tackle original crosswords created and edited specifically for this event. crosswordtournament.comc
The constructors in this article are building on many of the innovations introduced by crossword editor Will Shortz (above), who took up the editorship of The New York Times puzzle in 1993. The very first puzzle he edited for the Times, which ran on Sunday, Nov. 21, 1993, featured what are called rebuses — single squares containing full words or multiple letters, in this case colors of the rainbow hidden within longer phrases, as in SH[RED] or SYDNEY [GREEN]STREET. It was also Shortz who opened the grid’s borders to new types of crossword entries, more proper names, slang terms, even brands — not just dictionary definitions and trivia — stacking the puzzle’s foundation with vowel-heavy stalwarts like IKEA, LEGO and OREO.
In fact, before his tenure, this last entry was normally clued as “Mountain: comb. form,” referring to the Greek prefix ὀρεο-, or oreo-, which means mountain. OREO appears 106 times in the Times between 1952 and 1993, clued via the Greek every time except once, in 1992, when it’s given the somewhat winking clue “Mountainous cookie?”
Thirty years later, the “OREO Cluing Project” would come up with over 200 new clues for OREO. Some of my favorites: “Its website says ‘Our site uses cookies. We make them too.’”, “Subject of ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic’s song The White Stuff and “One demolished by a twister?”
Over at Twitch, the video game live-streaming giant, new solvers and tournament-winning speed demons stream themselves polishing off a crossword — some of whom challenge themselves by looking only at the Down clues, ignoring the Acrosses — as digital cheerleaders shout punny encouragement (and occasionally a spoiler, though that’s verboten) in the chat. And a Facebook group called the Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Dictionary, created at the suggestion of Times blogger Deb Amlen and run by two young full-time puzzlers, Erik Agard and Will Nediger, matches would-be constructors from underrepresented groups with mentors.
Accompanying these construction aids and digital agorae or public spaces is a proliferation of alternative and indie crossword venues. There’s The Inkubator, a subscription service that lists among its goals “provid[ing] a venue for women to exhibit and get paid for high-quality puzzles, especially (but not exclusively) puzzles that may not have a chance at mainstream publications due to feminist, political or provocative content.” There’s Queer Qrosswords, the project of constructors “fed up with the heavily cis/straight nature of most mainstream crosswords” and who, in lieu of payment, ask subscribers to make a $10+ donation to an LGBTQ+ charity of their choice; to date, its two puzzle packs have raised over $60,000 for LGBTQ+ organizations. And there’s the revived USA Today puzzle, helmed by Agard, widely recognized as one of the main forces behind these recent strides toward inclusivity.
Agard has a knack for reimagining stale crossword fill for the modern day. In his hands, the common crossword answer ONT — normally clued as the abbreviation for Ontario — is recast as ON T, as in taking testosterone, and so becomes one of the few crossword entries geared toward the trans community. Kameron Austin Collins, a film critic and constructor for The New Yorker, similarly pointed to TOP SURGERY as a quintessential Agard answer: “politically persuasive,” “inferable” (because
solvers who don’t know the phrase should be able to piece it together from its constituent parts) and “powerful” (because solvers who do know the answer might finally feel like the crossword was made for them too).
On the very same day as Trey Mendez’s Times debut, Agard’s crossword in The New Yorker featured DIGITAL BLACKFACE (“Modernday form of minstrelsy”) stacked on top of ANISHINAABEMOWIN (“Language in which ‘boozhoo’ is a greeting”). If the first is a neologic concept or newly coined phrase prominent in modern discourse on online ethics, the second, another word for the Ojibwe language, ought to be much more prominent in contemporary life, including crosswords.
Part of the bid of the inclusive crossword grid is a hope the solver will develop the same broad-based curiosity after solving that the constructor had before the puzzle was in the world, as they were building the grid and writing the clues. Part of the crossword’s power is lucky juxtaposition, seeding connections and semantic rhymes that feel unbidden yet natural when words are placed side-by-side in the black-and-white grid.
As a constructor, it’s those moments of serendipity that give the crossword an almost spiritual linguistic aura. Researching clues is a lot like researching an article, and while sifting across dozens of browser tabs and searches, I googled Trey Mendez, only to find the debut crossword constructor shares his name with the current mayor of Brownsville, Texas. I’d recognized the name, I realized, because he’d been in the news for coming out against Title 42 (immigration expulsion rule) and for gladhanding with billionaire Elon Musk, who located a SpaceX facility in nearby Boca Chica. On the one hand, a creator of a language game and a newsworthy mayor were linked through a trick of homography; on the other, the doubling was a reminder that crosswords have their politics too, however seemingly miniature. There’s work left to be done, but the new guard of crossworders is off to a flying start. l
ONLINE Learn more about the inclusive natures of crossword puzzle platforms The Inkubator and Queer Qrosswords at inkubatorcrosswords.com and queerqrosswords.comc
DID YOU KNOW? / Crossword puzzles flex one particular piece of cognition — the ability to find words, which is also known as fluency. A type of process based on the speech and language centers of the brain, fluency is an essential part of keeping your mind sharp.
PHONOTACTICS
Noun pho·no·tac·tics
Rules governing sound sequences in words
HEURISTICS
Noun heu·ris·tics
Tools enabling people to figure out something themselves
Noun cru· ci· ver· bal· ist
A person skillful in creating or solving crossword puzzles
DID YOU KNOW? / Renowned Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim
“composed” a series of British-style cryptic crosswords for New York Magazine in 1968 and 1969.
Whenever people complain that the crossword is too difficult because they don’t know all the facts asked after in the clues, I advise them to turn their attention to the grid.
Most solvers know to drop in an S if the clue is asking for a plural, but if that S crosses a superlative (“Most sleepy,” say), dropping in an ???????EST might help you get DROWSIEST once another of those letters is revealed. The same is true of comparatives (-ER) or past tense verbs (-ED). (All of these have their exceptions, and tougher puzzles will make use of these expectations to trip you up, but they’re good heuristics nonetheless.)
Similarly, the vast majority of English words begin with consonants, and English phonotactics mean that consonant blends are quite common. That means you’re likely to see words like MIDST or STRIP — 80% consonant — close to the top of the grid. By the same token, look for your vowel-heavy “crosswordese” answers — ARIA, OLIO, ERA, ETUI and so on — directly below those consonant pileups; the second row of a crossword is often full of them.
If a crossword, by its nature, is going to feature vowel-heavy, stalwart three-letter answers, why not make those recurring characters novelist YAA Gyasi, for example, rather than Mel OTT or Bobby ORR?
During World War II, more than 10,000 women served as “code girls,” recruited by the U.S. Army and Navy. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, many were recruited by letter — a letter that asked them two questions: “Are you engaged to be married?” and “Do you like crossword puzzles?” Those recruited said no to the first question and yes to the second.
Plucked from their homes and ordered to live and work in secret spaces, these code breakers used their passion for wordplay and their puzzle-solving skills to decrypt tens of thousands of messages intercepted from Japan and Germany during the war. Cracking the codes was tedious work, a push and pull in search of patterns and then using a grid to translate them into English.
The contributions of these women were instrumental in ending the war, yet they saw little fanfare when they returned to their homes. Their expertise in codebreaking and strategies for safeguarding data helped lay the groundwork for modern-day cybersecurity.
READ
In both World War I and World War II, the U.S. military employed the skills of Native American “code talkers.” The Chahta (Choctaw) were the first Indigenous people to be dispatched as soldiers in World War I, communicating in their tribal language and helping the Allies win key battles in the final weeks of the war. During World War II, the U.S. military worked in a similar fashion with a group of Diné (Navajo) code talkers, whose courage and contributions are celebrated each year on National Code Talkers Day on Aug. 14.
ONLINE Find the Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory, a resource for people from underrepresented groups who are interested in making crossword puzzles, on Facebookc
READ Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can’t Live Without Them by
READ The Curious History of the Crossword: 100 Puzzles from Then and Now by author and crossword constructor Ben Tausigc
Conquering a crossword puzzle in The New York Times may be a healthy way for adults to exercise their minds and play around with words and letters, but understanding the art of the alphabet often starts with toddlers and their toys. Letter blocks appeared as early as 1693 as a way to teach children the alphabet through play. Today, modern-day versions of these letter-laden toys can be found in most preschools, child daycares and home playrooms. They also reside in the collections of The Henry Ford, where an expert set of alphabet blocks and spelling toys helps tell how the versatility and perceived educational value of these playthings make them an enduring childhood classic. See the expert set.
DID YOU KNOW? /
Crosswords have different appearances and variations depending on the country and language system. In North America and Britain, it is considered traditional for crossword grids to have 180-degree rotational symmetry for the patterns of the puzzle to appear the same if the paper is turned upside down. Hebrew crosswords only use consonants, and Japanese crosswords use one syllable per square, instead of one letter.
PHOTO COURTESY OF BOBBY GREEN
By Jim Heimann
With this mentality came developers whose regard for the past was nonexistent. At the century’s halfway mark, awareness of the slow disappearance of the city’s past was still to be realized. Los Angeles, at this point, was still focused on the future, and the building boom was unabated.
The preservation of America’s past has a legacy of being an uphill battle for many urban areas in all 50 states. For those cities that have formalized preservation organizations, the work is ongoing, with successes tempered by the destruction of the large and small. The Los Angeles Conservancy has been at the vanguard of preservation efforts in the LA area for over 40 years. Its ModCom Committee was an indication of the strength of a new generation of citizen preservationists who sought out and identified nontraditional buildings for preserving and designating as landmarks. Among the structures that were the object of their focus were midcentury residential and commercial structures. But they were also seeking the under-theradar movements such as the diminishing Googie style with its striking coffee shops, bowling alleys, car washes, motels and gas stations — objects that Los
Angeles was noted for. These atypical architectural forms rarely caught the eye of mainstream preservation efforts until renewed interest in this area of study was launched by the 1972 publication of Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour’s Learning from Las Vegas. Their observations initiated books and essays that revealed the built environment, including the roadside, and their anonymous creators. Books by John Margolies, John Baeder, Richard Gutman, and my own publication, California Crazy, sparked intensive research and sent many nascent preservationists throughout cities, suburbs and remotely traveled roads, investigating and identifying the postwar and oddball remains of a recent past.
Enter one Bobby Green, a Southern California businessman who is helping reverse the unchecked process of eliminating building types that had once been a defining component of LA’s identity. Investing his passion and purse to save and bring back LA’s past, Green’s tale is a preservation success story with a very nontraditional approach — told here through three of his most challenging restored historic properties to date.
The City of the Future. Los Angeles wore the label for most of the 20th century.
The moniker implied an optimistic destiny for a city whose status as a world capital was predicated on the automobile.CALIFORNIA CRAZY PHOTO COURTESY OF TASCHEN READ Curator of Communications & Information Technology Kristen Gallerneaux’s review of Jim Heimann’s book California Crazyc
c
Historically, the development fever of Los Angeles has not included many individuals who want to keep intact architecturally significant buildings — a search-and-destroy mentality has been the prevalent mindset. Southern California businessman Bobby Green is not of this mindset, investing his time, dollars and heart to save and restore some of LA’s most curious historical structures.
COURTESY OF BOBBY GREEN
“THISPHOTO
THE FIRST OPPORTUNITY TO save a programmatic landmark and create a successful business came to Green by way of Chris Nichols, editor at Los Angeles Magazine and one of the city’s most knowledgeable historians. Nichols, a seasoned preservation activist, was well aware of the Idle Hour, a massive barrel-shaped building in the flatlands of the San Fernando Valley. Built as a taproom and cafe in 1941 by Michael Connolly, a film technician at Universal Studios, the building slipped into the hands of his wife after a divorce. By 1971, it had been sold to a couple that created a flamenco dinner theater called La Caña that closed in 1984. The building languished for years,
its tenuous condition making it ripe for demolition. Nichols took it upon himself to fight to get the building landmarked, which he accomplished in 2010.
Green knew of the building since it was in a neighborhood where he had gone to junior high school. Informed by Nichols that the structure would be auctioned, Green made the purchase a reality in 2011. As he stated at the time, “This is the first time we get to restore history.”
Faced with a landmark that needed a lot of help, the challenge to create not only a viable business but one that honored the architectural integrity of the building proved a daunting task (and one that would ultimately be a $2 million
investment). Part of the process was to validate the idea that the remnants of Los Angeles’ past could be preserved and have a successful secondary life. With this in mind, the restoration began. Rather than having to develop a theme as he had done with previous bars (see sidebar on Page 35), the building came with an affixed history. Green did thorough research, digging for every available photo and interviewing all parties associated with the building.
Fortunately, the structure had retained most of its integrity, but the barrel itself had sustained acute rot, prompting the replacement of all the exterior wood. Stainedglass windows were restored and
hardware matching the original was sourced.
Because the property included room for an outdoor patio, one was erected. As an added bonus, Nichols once again steered Green to a replica of the giant Bulldog Cafe that was housed in the Petersen Automotive Museum.
As part of an upgrading, they were eliminating the set piece but were happy to donate it to whomever would take it off their hands. For Green, it was a no-brainer. The dog was disassembled and carted off to Idle Hour’s patio where it was reconstructed and made into a private dining room. Voila! Two programmatic buildings on the same lot.
DID YOU KNOW? /
Idle Hour is an example of “programmatic architecture,” meaning it was built to look like what it serves — whiskey from a barrel.
DID YOU KNOW? /
In order to conform to California’s earthquake building codes, it was necessary to install vertical I-beams that extended eight feet below the surface as well as horizontal steel beams to stabilize Idle Hour’s barrel-building structure.
When Bobby Green heard the Petersen Automotive Museum was looking for a home for its replica of the Bulldog Cafe, which originally sold tamales and ice cream on Washington Boulevard near downtown LA from 1928 until the mid-1960s (bottom right), he knew right where it belonged. The pipesmoking pup (right) is now a centerpiece of Idle Hour’s outdoor patio that also doubles as a private dining area.
PHOTO AT RIGHT BY WILLIAM BRADFORD; PHOTO BOTTOM RIGHT COURTESY OF 1933 GROUP
DID YOU KNOW? /
The Henry Ford is considered a major home for primary sources in roadside architecture and design in the U.S. after its acquisition in 2019 of the largest collection of diner materials put together by Richard J.S. Gutman. The collection of thousands of 2D and 3D artifacts includes historic photographs, drawings, tableware, clothing and more. Gutman, a leading expert in diner architecture and its cultural footprint, was also instrumental in the reconstruction of The Henry Ford’s Owl Night Lunch Wagon in Greenfield Village and the move and restoration of Lamy’s Diner, which offers an authentic diner experience inside Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation to thousands of visitors each year.
F&T
DINER PAPER CUP,
1945-1959
FROM THE HENRY FORD ARCHIVE OF AMERICAN INNOVATIONThe road that led Bobby Green to Los Angeles started in Enid, Oklahoma, where his father was a stained-glass artist and his mother was intent on investigating careers in the entertainment world for Green and his sister. A trip to the LA area in 1980 to validate their talent didn’t result in a successful audition, but it did impress a 10-year-old Green, who vividly remembered several things: the palm trees, the Hollywood sign and a diner on La Cienega Boulevard that was in the shape of a giant hot dog.
By 18, Green had forgotten acting, was on his own in LA and focused on building an art career. He put together a portfolio while running Cacao, a coffeehouse he purchased in West LA with money he made restoring and selling a vintage Nash Metropolitan. Three years into his coffeehouse proprietorship, he entertained the idea of opening up a bar that would be cool with a quirky theme.
Green put together a concept “look book” that featured a vintage log cabin interior and approached anyone with financial assets to be investors in his venture. It took three years, but the book landed in the hands of clothing manufacturers Dimitri Komarov and Dmitry Liberman. In 1998, the 1933 Group was born when all three partners were 27 years old.
Bigfoot Lodge opened in 1999. What was immediately obvious was the craftsmanship
and attention to detail. This was not your ordinary pub. There was a national park kind of vibe, like you were staring into a museum diorama that was slightly awry. Rocking chairs on a wooden porch shared space with obscure references to Sasquatch. A large animatronic Smokey the Bear statue guarded the entrance. All of it was put together in a very refined way. As his first foray in the bar business, Green knew exactly what he wanted, and through extensive research and flawless execution, the bar became an instant hit.
Bigfoot’s success provided the impetus — and cash — to explore new venues and allowed Green’s creative juices to flow. Lucky Tiki in the San Fernando Valley indulged a South Pacific theme amidst a tiki revival that had a rabid following.
In Culver City, former home to MGM Studios, the sleek ‘60s Vegas-style bar Saints and Sinners came complete with naked lady wallpaper, a fire pit and devil-and-angel tchotchkes liberally distributed on shelves. Near downtown LA, Stinkers, an ode to trucker chic, featured mounted skunk posteriors above the bar that raised their tails and emitted a blast of steam every time a patron bought the bartender a drink. And so on.
With this litany of businesses, Green had honed his skills, creating spaces with an authentic feel that resonated with his customer base (and that succeeded financially). He and his 1933 Group partners were now ready to tackle a new challenge: the restoration of historic properties.
THE FORMOSA CAFE WAS a unique opportunity to rehabilitate and restore a legendary restaurant from Hollywood’s past. Opened in 1939, its proximity to the movie studio across the street made it a convenient watering hole for actors and actresses. It’s smoky atmosphere practically begged gossip scribes to transcribe the goings-on within its Chinesethemed depths, an aesthetic heavily informed by its Hong Kong-born coowner and longtime chef Lem Quon.
Like many fabled places, it was transformed multiple times through the years under the guidance of original owner Jimmy Bernstein, and later with Quon, who became Bernstein’s partner a couple of decades later. By 2011, it was about to be closed, but
developers of the property and the adjoining shopping center were enlightened enough to want to save the restaurant from demolition and regain its former status.
The restaurant’s situation had been closely watched by Green, who was among the bidders asking to restore the restaurant. Based on previous work, the 1933 Group received the commission in January 2017. The restoration effort received an additional boost from the LA Conservancy, which encouraged them to apply for the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Partners in Preservation: Main Streets, which awarded them a $150,000 grant.
Tasked with bringing back the Formosa’s glory years, Green envisioned a revival that would
eclipse even the best of the restaurant’s former days. This included meticulously restoring the Red Car rail line addition from 1939 that clung to the side of the restaurant. Peeling back the layers of the 1902 streetcar required time-consuming patience and a staff of experts. The retention of the famous celebrity photographs that lined the walls also demanded an intense commitment. All the images were removed, cataloged, restored and rehung exactly where they had been. Contemporary light fixtures were replaced with Chinese lanterns that were not part of the original interior but inspired by the set decorations when the movie L.A. Confidential used the bar for location filming. Artifacts used in
the filming of 1937’s The Good Earth were brought from China, used in the movie and sold off. One ornate bar was installed in the Yee Mee Loo restaurant in downtown LA’s Chinatown. Eventually, it ended up in Green’s hands and is now featured in a new section of the Formosa.
When told that legendary LA gangsters Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen frequented the place and ran a bookmaking racket in a back room, Green responded by featuring a section of the restaurant dedicated to the hoodlums. A bonus was discovered when a submerged drop box for Siegel’s money was found while restoring the floor. The safe is now prominently featured at the foot of one of the booths.
Filmmaker John Waters paid the ultimate compliment to the newly restored Formosa Cafe (top left) declaring, “I always thought this is exactly what Hollywood should look like.” Bobby Green’s transformation of the iconic location required a literal and figurative peeling back of layers to discover its original finish, from removing wallpaper on top of wallpaper (top) to looking at stacks and stacks of vintage images for inspiration.
Bobby Green (bottom) committed to not only preserving but celebrating that the Formosa Cafe’s ownership of what is most likely the last surviving 800 series train/trolley car in the world, dating back more than 115 years. He also gave careful consideration to how the cafe would exhibit images and themes about Asians in Hollywood history (below and right) and to highlight its ties to infamous gangsters like Bugsy Siegel.
RIGHT AND BOTTOM PHOTOS COURTESY OF 1933 GROUP; PHOTO BELOW BY T.J. ROQUE
It was inevitable that Bobby Green and I would cross paths. Sharing the same passion for LA made our meeting simpatico. One key element that we had in common was the research both of us utilized in our work. Having collected the paper trail of many of LA’s legacy businesses and buildings — the menus, photographs, programs, match covers and miscellaneous minutiae — has created an image bank of thousands of items for reference. This archive has become the content for my various publications while also being viewed as critical source material when researchers are seeking landmark protection for structures.
In an extended application, they inform the public of a vanished history, establishing a base of appreciation that can foster preservation efforts. For the 1933 Group’s purposes, being able to provide historical material aided the process of restoration and gave their projects a sense of authentic place and time. Often these items have been reproduced for an authentic trip back into time. As these disposable parts of popular culture have come of age, their importance in expanding and defining the narrative of everyday life has made them the indelible links that fill in the broader facts of history.
— JIM HEIMANNc
VELOZ AND YOLANDA, a wellknown Hollywood dance team, named their new 1946 investment Tail o’ the Pup in a humorous nod to the nearby fine-dining establishment Tail o’ the Cock. Located curbside on La Cienega Boulevard, the diner received a movie premiere-style opening and never turned back. A stalwart hot dog stand, it served up red hots that “snapped” at that location until the mid-‘80s, when real estate demands forced the new owners to move several blocks away.
In 2005, the stand once again faced eviction from developers. The owners closed down and pulled
up stakes, transporting the giant wiener to a warehouse. All the while, Green was keeping his eye on the activity and finally made the move to buy the stand and all of the rights to the name in 2018.
Then began the hard work.
The structure was moved to the 1933 Group’s Burbank warehouse where restoration progressed for two years. To accommodate his vision, they had to update virtually every surface while still maintaining the original structure. There was no rush because a location for the Pup was pending. The dog was taken apart and its metal midsection reinforced
Bobby Green purchased the rights to the Tail o’ the Pup moniker and promised to restore Hollywood’s favorite hot dog stand to look and function the way it did for some 60 years prior. Previously hidden away in a storage facility waiting to be saved, the refurbished structure now serves its dogs (aka pups), burgers, fries and milkshakes in style at its new location on Santa Monica Boulevard.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF 1933 GROUP
from the inside. The wood frame and stucco ends of the bun and wiener were refurbished. The door of the hot dog also served as its awning and when opened had to be manually operated. Knowing its weight would be a problem, Green stepped in and devised a motorized apparatus that now opens the door with a flick of a switch. He calls this “common sense engineering,” born from his experience owning his own automotive speed shop.
When a location was finally found on Santa Monica Boulevard, only blocks from its original
placement, the fact that it was part of Route 66 only added to its roadside credentials. Facing the street, the Pup is a stand-alone structure on a plot that housed a former restaurant. Prior to that, it was the 1972 studio for the rock band The Doors, who recorded their final album there.
This area was converted to a full-scale kitchen and indoor dining area with a second-story patio. With its complex complete, Tail o’ The Pup was back in service in pristine condition. Another Los Angeles icon saved and ready to serve.
DID YOU KNOW? /
Tail o’ the Pup has appeared in several movies and television shows throughout the years, from Steve Martin’s L.A. Story and Brian De Palma’s Body Double to The Rockford Files and Columbo
Bobby Green stepped in and devised a motorized apparatus that now opens the door with a flick of a switch. He calls this “common sense engineering,” born from his experience owning his own automotive speed shop.
Even though the cost of restoring buildings is much more expensive than constructing something from scratch, Bobby Green feels the ability to bring back history is worth the price. For Green, knowing that these 1920s and 1930s buildings are extremely rare, with only a handful available, the quest to see them saved and returned to Southern California’s landscape is pressing. His dream project: one of LA’s most iconic programmatic structures, the Brown Derby. “The original hat is now part of a strip mall on Wilshire in Koreatown,” said Green. “I’d love to someday get that hat and find a place to rebuild the Brown Derby.”
After purchasing the 1920s bowling alley building in 2014, Bobby Green spent four months just demoing the structure of previous build-outs. He eventually revealed the original frontage detail with the alley’s lettering intact, and many other elements of the original bowling alley were found in storage throughout the building, including banners and a floorto-ceiling mural. All were refurbished and reinstalled. The restored Highland Park Bowl debuted in Los Angeles in April 2016.
Kristen Gallerneaux • Photos
Trevor Naud (Shot on film, using Kodak Portra 400 stock and a Nikon F camera. Coincidentally, the first 35mm SLR used in lunar orbit.)
She was joined by her husband, Jean, and their pet turtle Fleur de Lys, who incidentally became the first reptile in what can technically be called “space.” There is no historical marker to commemorate this event. There is, however, a photograph of the Piccards taken inside the Menlo Park Laboratory in Greenfield Village with Thomas Edison’s assistant Francis Jehl providing a personal tour.
In 1989, over 50 years later, photographs taken outside Menlo capture the filming of ABC-TV’s World of Discovery – Inventors: Out of Their Minds. One image shows a psychedelic laser light show projecting over the building’s façade; another portrays an actor playing Edison walking into a swirling tunnel of light. Presumably, he is headed into the metaphorical afterworld of innovation.
goings-on,
A more familiar statement made about the Menlo complex in Greenfield Village is so strange, it is difficult not to question whether it is myth or reality: that the buildings sit upon several feet of New Jersey soil transported to Michigan. This story, I assure you, is definitively confirmed as true. But lesser known: For several decades, guests walking
through Edison’s library and office may not have realized that in the basement below their feet, a tree stump was inexplicably stored, along with the shards of beakers and bottles that arrived with the transported New Jersey soil. These items, referred to as “mute relics,” are anything but silent — they practically vibrate with the imprints of their past lives, evidence of seeking solutions to technological problems at Menlo Park.
In just this one tiny footprint of our campus, it is possible to experience histories that unfold and then unfold a little more. Many are ephemeral, many are surprising — none are still. Threaded through our campus and collections, there are myriad examples of interesting events, visitors, object acquisitions, campus mythologies and quite a few strange truths. With the arrival of the traveling exhibition SCOOBY-DOO! Mansion Mayhem (see Page 75), this seemed like the perfect opportunity to speak with staff about their own work in deciphering museum-based collections. In the interviews that follow, I invited curators and archives staff to tell me about their favorite “mysteries hidden within histories” centered in their own collections.
Here are a few things you may not know about The Henry Ford.
In 1934, less than a half-mile from the museum clocktower, Jeannette Piccard became the first woman to reach the stratosphere, rising up in a metal gondola carried by a hydrogenfilled balloon.
Our collections sometimes surprise us at The Henry Ford, as Curator of Decorative Arts Charles Sable has often experienced. Using his expertise about how the stylistic attributes of art historical movements have trickled into home goods — furniture and upholstery textiles especially — Sable has become adept at using different methods to “read” the physical evidence of the objects under his care. Even the imprints of manufacturing can leave essential clues: machine-sawn wood carries marks distinct from wood sawn by hand. Nails, nuts and bolts are similarly telling.
Working closely with conservation staff, Sable has uncovered surprising origin stories and debunked long-held presumptions.
KristencWhat is an example of an especially enigmatic object you’ve dealt with recently?
CharlescThere is an overmantel, a decorative structure over a mantelpiece, located above the fireplace in the Lovett Hall ballroom. In 1968, it was published in a book called The Looking Glass in America, identifying it as a piece made in Salem, Massachusetts, in the Federal period style between 1800 and 1810. This was an incredibly “high-style” example, and this
is also how Henry Ford understood it when he purchased it for Lovett Hall in 1936.
A few years ago, our conservation staff did a wood microanalysis on it, and we discovered that it is two different mirrors put together. And the wood proves it. The microanalysis of the side panels indicates that they are probably English in origin and the central panel is American. There was a decorative eagle on top that was added much later, probably in the 20th century. It’s amazing that it was published in multiple sources in the 1950s, 1960s as a stellar example ...
Kristenc... and no one caught it! It’s a great example of how — especially as conservation science and modern research evolve — those questioning whispers we feel aren’t always something to ignore. The fact that the overmantel wasn’t what we thought it was doesn’t make it any less valid as an object that a museum should own. It makes it livelier, knowing that at some point in the past, someone made this ad hoc decision to create a “Frankenstein” mashup, and now we can understand it as exactly that. Every museum seems to have artifacts like this: the mythologizing of objects and the stories that become engrained as absolute truth.
READ The Henry Ford Magazine’s feature story on Henry Ford’s 18th-century classic violin collection to learn how a collaboration between museum experts, musicians and medical professionals helped reveal secrets about Ford’s fiddles and famed instrument makers Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneric
Strong detective work and conservation science helped The Henry Ford uncover that its rare and highly prized Brewster — a type of chair associated with William Brewster, one of the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony — was a fake. Learn more about what prompted The Henry Ford to investigate the artifact’s authenticity and why the chair, acquired in 1970, still sits on the floor of Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation today.
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Every museum seems to have artifacts like this: the mythologizing of objects and the stories that become engrained as absolute truth.
The onion layers historyofkeep opening.
CharlescThe Lincoln rocker! [Editor’s note: Sable is referring to the rocker used by Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre the night of his assassination.] People often say, “I sat in the Lincoln rocker in the Logan County Courthouse in Greenfield Village.” And I say, “No way. It’s not true.” When the Lincoln rocker was in the Logan County Courthouse, it was always protected in an enclosed glass case. Always. We have photographs. We hold two other rockers that were owned by the Lincolns, and they spent most of their lives in the Logan County Courthouse in Greenfield Village. It was set up as an homage to Abraham Lincoln. So that’s where people sat. That’s the only explanation to that mystery.
KristencThat seems like a reasonable explanation to me, though I’m sure some people who have such strong memories of sitting in the chair will be disappointed to hear this. Another artifact I’m curious about is the desk attributed to Edgar Allan Poe in our Fully Furnished exhibit. Given Poe’s own credit as one of the first people to publish “detective fiction,” it seems fitting that we should talk about it, since we’re talking about mysteries here.
CharlescOf all our furniture collections with a past — with a provenance — that desk is the most unclear. When it was collected, there were signed affidavits from the original sellers that were then legally notarized. We have those affidavits and documentation that show that it went through several hands, and this is what links this object back to Poe. He was known for using this type of portable writing desk. There are also almanac and newspaper pages lining the lid that give a clue to its history and an approximate date. We believe it was the desk he used while a student at the University of Virginia. It wasn’t cheap at the time it was made, and he at one point needed money very badly — so my theory is that he pawned this desk [and this provenance stayed with it, given Poe’s later fame].
cWhile some visitors might recall sitting in the Lincoln rocker in Greenfield Village’s Logan County Courthouse years ago, curator Charles Sable assures that the chair, now located in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, has always been enclosed in glass.
The Henry Ford’s Benson Ford Research Center contains another Edgar Allan Poe-based mystery — an oversized and lushly illustrated edition of The Raven published in 1884 by Harper & Brothers. As Sarah Andrus, a librarian at The Henry Ford, shared, there are several odd things about this book, including how or why it became part of our collection. Since The Henry Ford was founded before the existence of the strict museum standards that we follow today, the documentation records for this book are described with befitting terminology: “skeletal.”
Said Andrus: “When this book was printed, Poe has died in complete poverty, and the illustrator, Gustave Doré, was rich as anything when he dies a few weeks before its publication. The two men knew each other briefly. The fact that this publication existed at all is a little mysterious. It sold for the 2023 equivalent of $250 in 1884 — so what was the intended market? The publishers had to lose money. It is 18.5-inches tall, with gold gilding. And it is a single poem, not a collection of Poe’s works. And the illustrations are stunning — some are even disturbing. There are examples of this book in other institutions’ collections, and those places have come up with the same questions as I am left with.”
“The fact that this publication existed at all is a little mysterious.”
— SARAH ANDRUS, LIBRARIANdThe Henry Ford’s portable desk owned by Edgar Allan Poe (above) harbors multiple clues to its history with the famous writer, from the extensive documentation that links it to Poe to the dated almanac and newspaper pages lining its lid (inset). ONLINE View The Henry Ford’s Desks for Every Need expert set to see how desks have evolved into multipurpose workstations, functional storage solutions and statements of stylec
dFord Motor Company’s plans to celebrate the centennial of its racing program in 2001 with a reenactment of Henry Ford’s 1901 Sweepstakes race prompted a reverse engineering of what The Henry Ford curators and conservation staff thought was their replica of Henry’s race car. The project uncovered that what they knew to be a replica was actually the real deal. Sweepstakes (shown here with Curator of Transportation Matt Anderson) is now a centerpiece of Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation’s Driven to Win: Racing in America exhibition.
At The Henry Ford, we often undertake detective work within our own collections as we seek to deepen our knowledge of objects, their contexts, and reevaluate their histories. Sometimes our investigations leave us with more questions than when we started. But with object-based research, there are very rare and special “eureka” moments that can simultaneously reveal an answer and unsettle everything we thought was true.
A perfect example came with the reevaluation of Henry Ford’s first race car, the Sweepstakes, which is celebrated for its win at a Grosse Pointe, Michigan, racing event held on Oct. 10, 1901. This victory in turn revived Henry Ford’s credibility as a businessman and helped secure the funding that eventually led to the founding of Ford Motor Company in 1903.
Matt Anderson, curator of transportation, enlightened me with the story of how the discovery of a “replica-turned-real” was made.
MattcThis story is about the kind of discovery we could jokingly call a “once-in-100-years” discovery, because that’s what prompted this realization. The Sweepstakes had been on and off display in the museum since we acquired it in the 1930s. There’s virtually no paperwork on it. We always assumed that it was a replica that Henry Ford had built at the Rouge in the mid’30s, because he was known to make replicas of things that he wished he had and didn’t. It came off display in 1987 and into storage, largely because we thought it was a replica.
KristencWhat I’m hearing is that the Sweepstakes was still considered an important collection item, but it wasn’t top of mind for people for many years. What changed that?
MattcIn fall 2000, Ford Motor Company was getting ready for the centennial of its racing program, which was essentially founded on Oct. 10, 1901 — the date of Henry Ford winning the race in Grosse Pointe. The company planned a commemorative event in Greenfield Village, with the centerpiece being a reenactment of the Sweepstakes race on the Activity Field. In order to do it, Ford needed an operating replica of the Sweepstakes, and so they contacted former Curator of Transportation Bob Casey and our conservation department. They began the project by saying, “We’ve got to start by reverse
engineering this replica that you have, so we want to look at it, measure it, take photos of parts, etcetera.” This work proceeded under careful supervision to avoid damage to the artifact. We benefited from this process too, because we felt we could learn more about the replica.
Everyone expected to find the kinds of shortcuts that are common in reconstructed objects — using parts that aren’t era-appropriate (like Model T wheel bearings, for example), “cheating” on parts that are hidden from view. But as they started disassembling the car and pulling it apart, they were finding things that were absolutely correct for 1901. It became clear that what we had, in fact, was the real car.
KristencWas there anything else that helped confirm this?
MattcThis realization prompted our staff to go back to oral histories that were undertaken in the 1950s, and we consulted an interview with Oliver Barthel — one of the original fabricators who worked on the Sweepstakes in 1901. Barthel mentioned in his interview that Henry sold the original car for $2,000 soon after the 1901 race, and like any good innovator, he put those funds into his second race car. Toward the end of his interview, Barthel mentioned how he was asked to examine the Sweepstakes in 1936. In the 1920s, it had been heavily damaged in a fire; the body was basically destroyed, but the running gear, engine and chassis all survived. Barthel then described how he provided information to help put the car back together into the condition that we see it in today.
KristencThat story speaks to how seemingly insignificant asides and details in oral histories might provide essential clues. Without the decision to revisit the Sweepstakes, and that very slight aside by Oliver Barthel, we might have continued to miss the answer that was there all along.
MattcYes, it’s sort of a lesson in making assumptions. At the time, given the documentation we had, it was a reasonable thing to assume the car was a replica. Sometimes that’s all we’ve got — just the artifact itself to work with. And until we start taking it apart and looking closer, we don’t always know what we have. Today, that vehicle is a centerpiece in the Driven to Win exhibit.
dJim Johnson, director of Greenfield Village and
of historic structures and landscapes, and Debra Reid,
of agriculture and the environment, stand in the shadow of Greenfield Village’s oldest tree, an Eastern white oak that took root over 400 years ago. The two are committed to understanding more — and discovering things anew — about the land that The Henry Ford has called home for almost 100 years.
Beyond three-dimensional artifacts at The Henry Ford, there are intriguing narratives that can be divined from the very landscapes on which our campus sits — from Oakwood Boulevard to the Ford Rouge Factory Tour. I sought out Curator of Agriculture and the Environment Debra Reid to discuss some of the highlight stories concerning past uses of these sites.
KristencAs a 94-year-old institution, we have occupied this site for almost a century. But I’ve always been interested in finding ways to be more inclusive of stories about prior uses and past occupants too, especially knowing that the River Rouge oxbow flows through the back of Greenfield Village. This river was an important trade and industry route as well as an important resource for the Indigenous people who used this land before us. How do we “read” storied environments like these to understand them better today?
DebracDownriver from our main campus, we have the Ford Rouge Factory Tour. That site is sometimes described as being an unused “wasteland” before it was developed for the original industrial complex. But there were Indigenous people living in the eluvial bottoms who were foraging in those rich areas — and later, French-owned ribbon farms, general and market garden farms.
In my research with French records and plat maps, there is strong evidence of complex history in the area surrounding what later became the Rouge plant. By 1915 and 1917, plat maps show who owned the land, and in Henry Ford’s correspondence, we can see how he systematically began to purchase land in this area. Eventually, 1,500 acres were identified for the Rouge plant’s site. You can extrapolate
A Rouge River Oxbow Restoration Project, located within Greenfield Village, was started some two decades ago and has restored valuable aquatic and land habitats as well as reestablished wetlands lost because of the river’s channelization in the 1970s.
interesting histories from what happens along the Rouge River, and there is much more research needed.
KristencThere have been so many fascinating stories connected to waterways in the metro Detroit area and across the border into Canada. But the presence of Indigenous people that preceded and coexisted in this area, alongside the founding of Detroit, has often been washed away by the dominating spotlight of industrial histories.
DebracAnd also “washed away” in the sense that when you acquire 1,500 acres on a river, what disappears because of that? There were also ancient mounds and sand dunes near Zug Island, which were taken down by a glass factory across the river in Delray. The sands from mounds became the raw product for the glass plant. [Editor’s note: Zug Island sits at the confluence of the Detroit River and the mouth of the Rouge River. Before European arrival, it was an ancient burial ground but was heavily industrialized in the 1890s.] Their archeological remains were disseminated.
So, if we think of this as a typical approach for the time and we head back upriver to the Rouge plant, what, if anything, remained of an archeological record when construction began there? Images show how soil was removed down to the bedrock to put in pilings, which obliterated the landscape. But even before Ford, in 1889, the Detroit International Exposition & Fair was held not far from this site, which I discovered while researching the Detroit Central Market. There is an article that shows our market building, and it also mentions leveling mounds in preparation for the fair.
Over the years, several “tree walks” have been hosted by staff in Greenfield Village, in honor of Arbor Day and in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service. In his research to learn more about the old-growth vegetation on The Henry Ford’s campus, Jim Johnson, director of Greenfield Village and curator of historic structures and landscapes, has used digital tree calculators such as the Omni Calculator
By inputting species, trunk circumference and diameter, the story of trees in your own backyard can be decoded too. Johnson shares his findings:
“The oldest tree by far in Greenfield Village (and the entire surrounding area) is the Eastern white oak that stands behind the Edison statue. Its trunk circumference is 194 inches, and so we are able to say that this tree began growing over 400 years ago, likely sometime in the mid1500s. This predates the 1701 founding of Detroit. There is also a black walnut near the Green Shed on Walnut Grove that dates to around 1790.”
KristencI know of a street in Delray called Carbon Street and once found an incredible image from the late 19th century of men standing on that street on top of enormous piles of buffalo bones that were going to be rendered down for things like pigments. Once you see these images, it’s hard to forget them.
DebracYes! And those bones were charred — basically obliterated — and found their way into a wide range of consumer products. The buffalo were annihilated on the U.S. Plains after European arrival, and the bones of bison were shipped to places like Detroit. This was a huge stove-making city, and the blacking made from the bones was used to keep stoves black. Pharmaceutical industries also used the bones, and they were processed into bone meal fertilizer and other agricultural byproducts. So the material rendered from the bones in that image impacts farming, consumerism, medicine ...
Kristenc... it was even used as pigment in “bone black” printing ink. Which means that people were literally receiving information and viewing printed images by “reading” buffalo byproducts. The onion layers of history keep opening. It can get quite overwhelming if you think about it too much. l
In my own collection as The Henry Ford’s curator of communications and information technology, there are many objects with lively backstories. The radio collections alone are rife with curiosities: a WWI-era field radio used in a 1924 experiment to “listen” to Mars. Another radio shares similarities with the 1901 Sweepstakes race car — a 1905 Telimco radio created by the eccentric science fiction publisher Hugo Gernsback was once believed to be a replica but is now understood to be an original. Espionage radios too: a muddy-looking lump of clay with a secret homing beacon inside that is meant to look like tiger scat or “dog doo.”
These joke shop antics may seem humorous but quickly reveal an ominous angle as further research determined that these transmitters were used for reconnaissance by the CIA during the Vietnam War.
— KRISTEN GALLERNEAUX, CURATOR OF COMMUNICATIONS & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
aThe Henry Ford’s radio collections hold a variety of strange-looking objects, many with hidden purposes, including (clockwise from left) an espionage radio disguised as tiger scat, an antenna for an acoustic seismic intrusion detector from 1967-1972 and a radio receiver that was used during “space” travelers Jeannette and Jean Piccard’s stratospheric balloon ascension near The Henry Ford in 1934.
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Much-anticipated Hallmark exhibition is now open in museum
BEFORE KEEPSAKE ORNAMENTS CAME along in the 1970s, people connected the name Hallmark with sentimental greeting cards.
Indeed, Hallmark greeting cards have a long history. At a young age, J.C. Hall — Hallmark’s entrepreneurial founder — started a postcard company in his hometown of David City, Nebraska. But opportunities were limited there. In 1920, when Hall was only 19 years old, he crammed two shoeboxes full of postcards and boarded a train for Kansas City, Missouri, where he and his brother opened a stationery store. When a fire wiped out the store’s inventory, the brothers bought an engraving firm — setting the stage for the first Hallmark card designs.
Over time, Hallmark also designed and produced distinctive gift wrap, ribbons and party goods. In 1944, the company adopted one of the most recognized slogans in advertising: “When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best.”
In 1973, Hallmark Cards Inc. — now led by J.C.’s son, Donald J. Hall — introduced a line of Keepsake ornaments. The first ones looked essentially like greeting cards on traditional ball-shaped ornaments. But over time, figural ornaments — that is, ornaments sculpted into three-dimensional shapes — became much more popular.
Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation’s new permanent exhibition, Miniature Moments: A Journey Through Hallmark® Keepsake Ornaments, 1973-2009, features nearly 7,000 ornaments produced by Hallmark Cards during those years. It opened to the public in November 2022. Most of the ornaments in the exhibition were designed to decorate Christmas trees, but their purpose and meaning go well beyond mere decoration. They can reinforce personal identity, connect people with one another and reflect trends in our larger world.
— DONNA BRADEN, SENIOR CURATOR AND CURATOR OF PUBLIC LIFEThe ornaments in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation’s new Miniature Moments: A Journey Through Hallmark® Keepsake Ornaments, 1973-2009 exhibition are arranged by year, starting in 1973. In addition, each case features a selection of ornaments representing different themes that span the entire time period. These themes range from traditional symbols of the season and personal and family milestones to special hobbies and interests.
There are also displays of Keepsake ornament miniatures and ornaments designed for holidays other than Christmas.
WATCH Learn more about the Miniature Moments: A Journey Through Hallmark Ornaments, 1973-2009 exhibitionc
The Henry Ford’s Hallmark Keepsake ornament collection was originally displayed at a Hallmark Gold Crown store called The Party Shop in Warsaw, Indiana.
The 12,000-square-foot independently owned and operated location belonged to the Snyder/Hamrick family. David Hamrick, who amassed the thousands of ornaments, stopped collecting in 2009 — realizing there were just too many to keep up with (almost 400 different designs a year compared with 18 in 1973).
Plus, his family needed the space for their retail operation.
bThe Henry Ford’s new Miniature Moments: A Journey Through Hallmark® Keepsake Ornaments, 1973-2009 exhibition opened in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation last fall. The physical display is complemented by a digital presence. See curatorial selections of the ornaments in these expert sets.
Dramatic programming in Greenfield Village shifts to include more inclusive accounts and share narratives about overcoming adversity
OLD CAR FESTIVAL 2022 in Greenfield Village was a starting point. As visitors enjoyed vehicle displays, parades and ragtime revues, an important story about Black history and women’s suffrage was being shared. A vignette within one of the festival’s parades, inspired by the triumphs of civil rights leaders such as Ida B. Wells, featured a group of Black presenters walking in solidarity and holding a banner that read “Lifting As We Climb.”
“The women’s suffrage movement had segregated associations, with Black women creating their own groups to advocate for everyone’s right to vote,” shared Imani Bonner, The Henry Ford’s new supervisor of dramatic programs and town life. “We wanted to highlight this movement — to tell its story through multiple lenses and showcase the efforts of Black women in this important moment in history.”
For Bonner, the women’s suffrage vignette was a culmination of research and careful planning. It marked the beginnings of a concentrated effort at The Henry Ford to tell more inclusive historical accounts that represent people of color as well as other ethnicities and orientations in Greenfield Village. “We want programming in the village to better reflect Black stories and experiences,” said Bonner, “so we are looking at different ways to reformat, retell and reshape our narratives.”
Bonner is hoping to add a fresher, different perspective going forward. “With our
storytelling, we have the power to impact how someone views and translates history. Our goal is to tell more than a one-sided view, to tell stories that have been told before but have often been told through the realm of stereotypes.”
Rather than tell stories centered on illiteracy and enslavement, for instance, Bonner wants to focus on stories of hope. “Oppressive things have happened in our history,” she said. “How can we find pockets of joy amidst the adversity and tell those stories? The enslaved individuals who could read and were allowed by their overseers to teach their children to read. And how their literacy helped them overcome challenges alongside such disparity.”
Bonner is working with experts, including curators, to make sure new programming is not only historically accurate but inspiring too. She is collaborating with dramaturges (theatrical literary advisers) to help bridge the gap between history and “stage” production, and is building a network of Black playwrights and actors to call upon as needed.
The Henry Ford’s efforts to improve its storytelling were recently reflected in the “living history” programming during last year’s Holiday Nights. As Greenfield Village opens this spring, visitors can also expect to see new programming that is more inclusive, said Bonner.
— JENNIFER LAFORCE, MANAGING EDITOR, THE HENRY FORD MAGAZINEAs Imani Bonner, supervisor of dramatic programs and town life, continues to refine, uncover and reshape stories of diversity and inclusivity that will be told by presenters within Greenfield Village this coming season, another important milestone that helped reshape Greenfield Village’s narrative is taking place: the 20th anniversary of the Village Restoration Project.
Taking nearly three years of planning and nine months of construction, the project, completed in June 2003, was a multimillion-dollar endeavor that addressed a crumbling infrastructure. But more important, it created a revitalized Greenfield Village that told a more cohesive story.
The Greenfield Village of the 1980s and 1990s basically resembled the Greenfield Village of 1929. There was limited access to power, few if any streetlights and water drainage was an issue. Infrastructure improvements brought upgraded sewer and electric and miles of paved road and sidewalks, adding more options for attractions like the Model T rides. To give visitors a more compelling experience and tell more connected stories of living history, curators and structure experts also collaborated to envision seven themed historic districts — which prompted the relocation and refurbishment of many of the village’s historical buildings.
ONLINE For more information, hours and pricing for Greenfield Village, visit thf.org/villagec
DID YOU KNOW? /
The members-only preview for Greenfield Village’s 2023 season is April 14. Opening day for the public is April 15.
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A choreographed vignette during Greenfield Village’s 2022 Old Car Festival showcased how Black women found their voice in the movement for their right to vote.
Such storytelling is part of The Henry Ford’s recent efforts to offer more inclusive historical accounts that represent people of color.
PHOTO BY ANITA STINSONA quick glance above solves an engineering mystery
COLLABORATION, BRAINSTORMING, PROBLEM SOLVING. These are habits and actions of innovation shared with visitors of the Ford Rouge Factory Tour as they take a deep dive into the history of the Ford Rouge Complex and view the final assembly line of the Ford F-150.
In late 2014, the F-150’s launch team had to put their problem-solving skills to the test and do a bit of sleuthing to solve a mystery in the plant. In the midst of prebuilds for the upcoming model launch, a pesky problem with calibrating the F-150’s new 360-degree view camera arose. The high-tech feature uses cameras mounted in the front grille, tailgate handle and sideview mirrors to give drivers a continuous view of everything around them.
At times, calibrating the cameras on the plant floor went just as planned. And then other times, as Don Pijor, F-150 launch manager, said, “It just wouldn’t take, and we couldn’t figure out why.” The vexing issue would come back randomly — sometimes days, sometimes a week later. They quickly deduced that it only occurred during the day shift, but happened with all the different weekday and weekend crews. For about
three months, the launch team went round and round, making tweaks here, there and everywhere, from moving targets on the floor to making multiple micro adjustments to the positioning of lasers. Still the problem persisted.
“One day, the team was down there again just talking and trying to figure out the problem, and someone happened to look up,” said Pijor. “Then they said, ‘It couldn’t be that easy could it?’”
In fact, it could. They discovered that at certain times of the day — only when the sun was out — the light would shine at a particular angle through the plant’s skylights and hit the camera during the calibration, causing a failure. The team covered the skylights with heavy black tarps — problem solved.
Eventually, a large American flag was placed up above to block out the light. And even though the camera calibration operation is no longer done in that area of the plant, the flag remains. “We kept the flag hanging there because it looks cool,” said Pijor.
— JENNIFER LAFORCE, MANAGING EDITOR, THE HENRY FORD MAGAZINEMODEL i
While trying to solve the camera conundrum at the Dearborn Truck Plant, the F-150 launch team demonstrated several elements of the universal language of innovation that The Henry Ford’s Model i learning framework brings together: Actions of Innovation and Habits of an Innovator. Sometimes learning, problem solving and innovating are messy — and that’s OK.
To learn more about Model i and The Henry Ford’s inHub learning platform, visit inhub.thehenryford.org.
bA large American flag hangs high in the Dearborn Truck Plant. It was strategically placed a few years back to help block out sunlight that was hindering a camera calibration test. Even though the camera checkpoint is no longer done in that area of the plant, the cool-looking flag still remains.
PHOTO BY BILL BOWEN
The Henry Ford acquires artifacts that help tell the tale of hip-hop’s birth
ON AUG. 11, 1973, Jamaican immigrant Clive Campbell and his sister Cindy rented their apartment building’s recreation room at 1520 Sedgwick Ave. in the Bronx, New York. They were throwing a party to raise funds for Cindy’s back-to-school wardrobe. By this point, Campbell, better known as DJ Kool Herc, had amassed a loyal following using his father’s sound system to DJ at block, house and basement parties. The two siblings gave out hand-drawn index cards as invitations and packed the room. That night, Herc’s performance techniques coalesced into something new, and by most accounts, hip-hop was born.
Using two turntables, Herc cued and repeated percussion “breaks” in soul and funk music to extend the high-energy moments dancers craved. He called this his “Merry-Go-Round” technique, and with it, he could make the breaks last as long as he wanted. This was the invention of the “breakbeat,” and the crowd went wild. Herc punctuated these beats with a version of the Jamaican dancehall “toasting” of his youth — only now, it was permeated by NYC slang, including terms of his own that would become pervasive in the hip-hop scene, like “b-boys” and “b-girls.” Herc’s spin on toasting paved the way for MCs and, eventually, rappers.
In those early years, hip-hop was a lifestyle more than a music genre, and live performance was king. Herc, for instance, didn’t
record an official album of his own until 2019. Although bootlegs of performances exist, we are reliant on objects and ephemera to properly tell the story of this then-nascent movement that would dominate American culture. Items of clothing and photographs serve as vital traces of the elusive history of the hiphop genre and all that it encompassed.
In September 2022, The Henry Ford acquired two photographs, a wool and leather sweater, and a few pairs of shoes owned by Herc. Some items were worn at the legendary T-Connection club in the Bronx, where iconic bootleg recordings of his DJ sets were captured on tape. In one photo, we see Herc posted up in the club, decked out in that same sweater, purchased at A.J. Lester’s department store, and a pair of PRO-Keds Super “69er” shoes — exactly like the ones included in this acquisition. A must-have in the early hip-hop scene, the “69er” or “Uptowner” was worn by the likes of Herc, Afrika Bambaattaa and KRS-One. Though Herc’s seminal performances were fleeting, they would reverberate across the histories of recording technology, electronic instrumentation, dance, fashion and art. Acquisitions like these can take us back to the T-Connection, back to 1520 Sedgwick. They can help us pinpoint the source of these reverberations, making the history of hip-hop tangible.
— KRISTEN GALLERNEAUX, CURATOR OF COMMUNICATIONS & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGYStories of African American history are told year-round at The Henry Ford through featured exhibitions such as With Liberty and Justice for All in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation. The monthlong national celebration of Black history in February just gives The Henry Ford additional opportunities to showcase stories of adversity, resilience and triumph through special activities and events, from pop-up exhibits and online curator chats to featured artifacts similar to the newly acquired items that help tell the breakout story of DJ Kool Herc and the hip-hop genre’s underground emergence. Learn more about Black History Month at The Henry Ford.
DID YOU KNOW? /
Read The Henry Ford blog and discover why a boombox nicknamed the El Diablo was a must-have accessory for early fans of hip-hopc
Black History Month Feb. 1-28
The Henry Ford’s mobile app, THF Connect, offers a self-guided audio tour titled “Stories of Black Empowerment.” The 25-minute tour has eight designated stops featuring key artifacts in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, including the Rosa Parks Bus. To learn more about THF Connect and how to download the app, visit thf.org/connectapp.
starter to understanding a music genre that morphed into a cultural movement. Last fall, The Henry Ford acquired two photos of Herc from the 1970s, one of which shows him wearing signaturestyle items of the times, including this wool and leather sweater and pair of PRO-Keds Super “69er” shoes. Both objects are now part of The Henry Ford’s collections.
FROM THE HENRY FORD ARCHIVE OF AMERICAN INNOVATION
HALLOWE’EN IN GREENFIELD VILLAGE introduced the Besek family to The Henry Ford more than a decade ago. Son Thomas’ love for all things presidential and daughter Emma’s curiosity about civil rights brought them back again and again to see the Lincoln Chair and Rosa Parks Bus in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation. Husband John has fond memories of all things Greenfield Village. And Tracy, she is fascinated by the miracle of birth, waiting for her day to see a lamb born at Firestone Farm. As the children grow older, the Beseks are finding a newfound family fondness for the village’s Holiday Nights and members-only, end-of-summer Twilight Bike Ride, where Tracy, an avid cyclist, has volunteered her time alongside team members from Bike Dearborn to inflate tires, adjust seats, check gears and so much more.
NAME: Tracy Besek
NUMBER OF YEARS AS A MEMBER:
MUST-DO EVENT: Twilight Bike Ride
“You can’t beat the unlimited access to Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum. Wintertime fun walking the museum with the kids and the rotating special exhibits, from the Titanic and Superheroes to Disney costumes. It’s a great way to spend a freezing cold winter day with or without kids.”
ONLINE thf.org/ membershipc PHOTO COURTESY OF TRACY BESEK
Download THF Connect to transform your visit to Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation with curator-led audio tours, augmented reality experiences, an interactive map and more.
Unlock stories that cross exhibits. Find your way to your favorite objects. Explore our collections and even create your own virtual innovation.
Download the app to access your digital membership card — the best way to activate your membership benefits from any place at any time.
Member Preview: March 24
Open: March 25-Jan. 1, 2024
Spring 2023 marks the debut of a new collections gallery in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation. You can find it behind the Heroes of the Sky exhibit and by the new permanent exhibit, Miniature Moments: A Journey Through Hallmark® Keepsake Ornaments (see story on Page 64). The Henry Ford’s Lillian Schwartz collection is the first to be exhibited in the new space, which is set to host temporary exhibitions of significant collections going forward.
A donation from the Schwartz family in 2021, the material acquired from multimedia artist Lillian Schwartz’s body of work includes thousands of objects, from films and videos to 2D artwork, sculptures, personal papers, computer hardware and film editing equipment.
The approximately 1,800-square-foot gallery will be split into three sections for the Schwartz exhibition, expounding on three core themes, from the artist’s transition from childhood to adulthood, her introduction to the Bell Laboratories in the late ‘60s through early ‘70s and her penchant for pushing the media she worked with to its limits. Expect to see a newly restored kinetic sculpture, Proxima Centauri, that has not been on exhibit for decades, along with rarely shown mixed-media works, Schwartz’s early films and a humorous series about early internet web searches, among many other artifacts.
Member Preview: Feb. 11
Open: Feb. 12-April 9
For over five decades, the members of Mystery Inc. have shown that through courage, teamwork and ingenuity even the toughest mysteries can be solved. They have another mystery on their hands in SCOOBY-DOO!™ Mansion Mayhem!
A jewel-thieving ghost has dodged the police and was last seen in this spooky mansion. Can you meddling kids (and grown-ups, too!) help the gang solve the mystery in this immersive exhibit?
ONLINE To learn more, visit thf.orgc
SCOOBY-DOO and all related characters and elements © & ™ Hanna-Barbera. (s23) SCOOBYDOO! Mansion Mayhem was produced by The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.
All programs and dates are subject to change. For the latest updates and more information on special events and programs, call 313.982.6001 or visit thf.org.
Member Preview: May 19 Open: May 20-Sept. 10
Explore the key ingredients that made Julia Child the iconic woman that she was. This exhibition is a journey through her life, beginning with the moments that ignited her curiosity and passion for French cuisine, inspired her career and later built her enduring legacy.
As the company’s philanthropic arm, Ford Motor Company Fund partners with nonprofit organizations and across the Ford network in the U.S. and around the world to provide resources and opportunities that advance equity and empower people to reach their highest potential.
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SEE AD ON PAGE 85
Imagine an event that could truly change people’s perspectives. One that could open minds and widen eyes as guests stand in awe of the power of unlimited inspiration. Make your event stand out in a place where innovation sets the stage for unforgettable experiences. From awards galas to product launches, we’ll make sure your vision is fully realized and your event is completely inspired.
Book your next big event at:
• Henr y Ford Museum of American Innovation®
• Greenfield Village®
• Lovett Hall
• Ford Rouge Factor y Tour
See why The Henry Ford is the most awarded venue in Michigan. thf.org/privateevents
With ideal comfort and accommodations, we’ll help you craft the ultimate getaway. Located just minutes from the Henry Ford Museum and offering our own Henry Ford Package, you’ll experience a weekend to remember.
Courtyard by Marriott Detroit Dearborn 5200 Mercury Drive Dearborn, MI 48126 313.271.1400 DearbornCourtyard.com
Embark on a seamless trip at Courtyard Detroit Dearborn, where convenient amenities and comfortable accommodations will propel your productivity. Ideally located along I-94, our Dearborn hotel boasts quick access to destinations such as Ford Motor Company World Headquarters, The Henry Ford, Comerica Park and Little Caesars Arena. Unwind in our spacious rooms and suites featuring complimentary high-speed Wi-Fi, plush bedding, mini-refrigerators and ergonomic workspaces. Start your day with a satisfying breakfast and Starbucks® coffee from The Bistro. With our 24-hour fitness center and indoor pool, it’s easy to maintain your gym routine during your stay. If you’re planning a brainstorming session or small seminar, our two flexible event venues boast catering options and AV equipment to inspire innovation. Whether you’re traveling to Michigan for business or leisure, Courtyard Detroit Dearborn will exceed your expectations.
In Dearborn, the possibilities are endless. Products and experiences you won’t find anywhere else. Foods to crave — and more traditions than you can shake a skewer at. People from many different backgrounds coming together to create an unmistakable vibe. Welcome to life in the not-so-big city.
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On the surface, this apprenticeship document shows no relation to Black history, but a careful examination proved otherwise. To start, there’s a name, John Thomson (spelled Thompson at the top of the document); there’s an age, “fourteen years, eight months and twentyseven days”; and there’s a date, September 11, 1794. Other information from the document tells us that Thomson was from Salem, Massachusetts, and was apprenticing to be a “mariner” under Captain Robert Emery on the ship Diana.
Research showed that the Diana was built in 1790 for trade with Europe and that Emery hired racially integrated crews. Free Blacks found occupation as a sailor to be a more assimilated working environment, and in port cities like Salem, these opportunities helped lay the foundation for early Black communities. But threats abounded for Black sailors. They could be taken by the British and made to work in their fleet or be sold back into slavery. Around the mid-1780s, sailors began carrying papers that helped prove their identity. In 1796, Congress began issuing Seamen’s Protection Certificates, which worked as identification papers. An 1809 application for a certificate issued to John Thomson confirmed his 1780 birth in Salem and described him as a “negro, born-free.”
— RYAN JELSO, ASSOCIATE CURATOR, DIGITAL CONTENTcThe notarization of this document by a reputable person like John Keese, who signed the side, would have been vitally important to Black apprentice John Thomson in the 1790s. Keese’s name carried weight, as he was a notary public, attorney and a founding member of the New York Manumission Society — one of the only groups advocating for Black rights.
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Whether it is a race program, a production vehicle, or something for both worlds, the Multimatic team is focused on delivering winning results.
Led by engineering and manufacturing excellence, we develop innovative solutions, from high volume parts to complete vehicles.
We are proud to have earned a place as a dependable and responsive partner in the automotive industry. www.multimatic.com
