Long Island University and Newsday Take Long Island's
Transportation History on the Road
Launching History in Motion, a mobile museum of Long Island's
contribution to the evolution of transportation
March 3, 1998 - As the home of America's first submarine base, the first
American toll road, the nation's first decked ship and the take-off site
of Charles Lindbergh's first transatlantic flight, Long Island has pioneered
every mode of transportation.
To illustrate how the development of planes, trains, automobiles and
ships influenced Long Island's growth from a pristine wilderness to a modern
suburb - and changed America as well - Newsday has created History in Motion,
a mobile museum sponsored by Long Island University. The museum tells the
story of Long Island's contribution to the evolution of transportation
through three centuries. It is a component of Newsday's Long Island: Our
Story project.
History in Motion will be officially launched at Long Island University's
C.W. Post Campus in Brookville on Wednesday, March 11, from 10 a.m. to
2 p.m. Students from local schools, transportation pioneers from Long Island
and special guests from the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston will attend
the launch.
"Working with Long Island University on this exhibit has given
Newsday a new opportunity to bring the history of Long Island to the community,"
says Raymond A. Jansen, president and publisher of Newsday. "We've
incorporated state-of-the-art technology to give visitors a unique, interactive
experience to learn how Long Island influenced the evolution of transportation,"
said Jansen.
Says Long Island University President David J. Steinberg, a historian:
"All of us need to take greater pride in this beautiful island, in
its diversity, in its heritage. Long Island University, its 25,000 students
and its 135,000 alumni, are proud to be a Legacy partner for Long Island:
Our Story and this exciting exhibit. We're very pleased to help bring this
mobile, high-tech classroom to the children of Long Island so that they
can come to love this place and cherish its past."
History in Motion will be staffed by retired school teachers and librarians
and will make scheduled visits to Nassau, Suffolk and Queens schools. On
weekends and during the summer, it will travel to community events. More
than 100,000 people are expected to see it during 1998.
Joshua Stoff, air and space curator at the Cradle of Aviation Museum
in Garden City, serves as curator for History in Motion.
Housed inside a 34-foot converted Winnebago, the mobile exhibit contains
four interactive displays depicting the major methods of transportation
developed on Long Island: cars, the Long Island Rail Road, ships and planes.
Each exhibit is outfitted with authentic working artifacts and sound effects.
Visitors waiting to enter the mobile museum can use three computer kiosks
and watch video monitors.
Long Island and Queens-based firms were involved in developing History
in Motion. Its designs were created by Blumlein & Associates, of Greenvale,
while Structural Display, Inc., of Long Island City in Queens, built the
interior and exterior displays.
Long Island University is the eighth largest private university in the
United States, with more than 25,000 diverse students from the United States
and abroad. A doctoral degree granting institution tracing its roots to
1886, it has campuses in downtown Brooklyn, including the Arnold &
Marie Schwartz College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Brookville (C.W.
Post), Southampton (Southampton College), Brentwood and Rockland and Westchester
counties, as well as the eight overseas academic centers of the Friends
World Program of global education for social change, the SEAmester program
aboard a tall-masted sailing ship, and programs in a number of other countries.
The University offers nearly 400 undergraduate and graduate degree programs
taught by more than 600 full-time faculty members, as well as continuing
education and professional development courses.
Newsday is a subsidiary of Times Mirror, a Los Angeles-based news and
information company, which publishes the Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore
Sun and other newspapers; a wide array of professional information for
the legal, health sciences, aviation and training markets; and consumer
magazines. Newsday is the nation's sixth-largest metropolitan daily paper.
For more information call the C.W. Post Public Relations Office at (516)
299-2333 or e-mail cwpostpr@aurora.liunet.edu
