Lincoln Park Conservancy Capital Campaign

 RAISING FUNDS FOR THE LINCOLN PARK CONSERVANCY HISTORY & CULTURE CENTER
The Lincoln Park Conservancy, Inc., a 501c3  community organization in New Rochelle, NY, needs your help in building out the future home of the Lincoln Park Conservancy History & Culture Center space located in a newly-constructed residential complex at 387 Huguenot St., New Rochelle, NY.  The Lincoln Park Conservancy, Inc. is the recipient of a 1,000sf community benefit space in the Cultural Arts District in downtown New Rochelle that will house a gallery, media center and digital archives.  The history and culture center's mission is to document and preserve the incredibly rich history and legacy of the Lincoln Avenue Corridor, which is disappearing, and to promote the connection, both historically and present-day, to the larger community of the City of New Rochelle and beyond.


 

Lincoln Elementary School was built in 1898 and originally called the Winyah Avenue School, named for the street it was on.  The name was changed in 1919 to Lincoln School, when schools were named after presidents and other notable   people.

The Lincoln Park Conservancy History & Culture Center launched in 2020 with three programs – an exhibit entitled A Retrospective of the Lincoln Avenue Corridor - 1900s-1960s at City Hall's Rotunda Gallery; Little Rock of the North, a play by Julienne Hairston, about the Lincoln School Desegregation Case performed at the Remington Boys & Girls Club; and a film screening, Leveling Lincoln, (to be scheduled) focusing on the children and parents in the case and the impact the Lincoln School Case had on them.

January 2021 marks the 60th anniversary of the Lincoln School Desegregation Case and The Lincoln Park Conservancy, Inc. is planning multiple events to commemorate this impactful milestone.  Programming will include: films, presentations, panel discussions, performances and concerts.
 

Ms. Elmore’s Class at Lincoln Elementary School.  The three-story school had 14 classrooms for grammar and primary students. “Many people from around Wykagyl and Quaker Ridge skipped over schools which were closer to their homes to send their children to the Winyah Avenue School,” recalled Amy Ellis Thompson Daniels, who graduated from Winyah Avenue School in 1918. “It was considered to be an excellent school…. It was like a little League of Nations. Practically every nationality and race was represented.” Source:  Voices and Profiles of New Rochelle’s Rich Color-Full History, by Marion Forstall, 1980.

The Lincoln Avenue Corridor is remembered for the infamous Lincoln Elementary School court case filed by the parents of eleven Lincoln School students known as Taylor v. City School District of New Rochelle.  This was the first desegregation case filed and won in the North to apply the 1954 Supreme Court Decision in Brown v Board of Education successfully.  Lincoln Elementary School was 95% African American by the late 1950s and the school board was ordered by the court to desegregate the school, because it was illegal to have segregated public schools after the Brown Decision.  The Board of Education elected not to integrate the school and instead tore the school down in 1963 and bused the Lincoln students to predominantly white elementary schools around New Rochelle.

The historic African American neighborhood has been a hub for generations not only for Black families, but also for Irish, Italian and, now, Latino families who have called the thriving community home.  We want to tell their stories, especially since most of the original neighborhood has been torn down due to urban renewal and the construction of Interstate 95 beginning in 1958.

The Lincoln Park Conservancy History & Culture Center will bridge the historic, cultural, and geographic barriers that separate the Lincoln Avenue Corridor from the rest of New Rochelle.  Many of the city’s residents are unaware of the significance of this historic neighborhood and the people who have lived here and contributed greatly to New Rochelle and the larger world community.  International opera singer Ellabelle Davis was raised on Horton Avenue, Olympic Gold Medalist Lou Jones lived on Winyah Terrace and world-famous actor Richard Roundtree grew up on Remington Terrace. 

The Lincoln Park Conservancy History & Culture Center will include: a digital interactive archive, gallery and exhibit space, performance space, computer lab, a media lab and sustainable living programming and workshops.  There are also plans to create a community radio station utilizing the media center in the facility, where residents and visitors can broadcast and speak about historic events, current-day topics, and other local happenings.  An outdoor Heritage Trail is also envisioned, featuring people and places of historical importance along the Lincoln Avenue Corridor.


Lincoln Park Conservancy History & Culture Center Digital Interactive Archive.


Lincoln Park Conservancy History & Culture Center Media Center

The Lincoln Park Conservancy History & Culture Center is the second program to be initiated under the auspices of The Lincoln Park Conservancy, Inc.  The first program is grow! Lincoln Park Community Garden, a successful 10,000 sq. ft. organic, legacy farm established eight years ago on the campus of Lincoln Elementary School to keep the history of Lincoln School alive and to educate the community about sustainability, food security, food insecurity, organic gardening and how to become stewards of our changing environment.  grow! Lincoln Park Community Garden hosts workshops for students from K-12, college students and adults.  grow! Lincoln Park’s Butterfly & Native Plant Garden is a unique teaching environment and one of very few in Westchester County that is attracting the endangered Monarch butterfly and other beautiful species that support the ecosystem.


Beautiful Butterfly alights on native plant at grow! Lincoln Park Native Plant Butterfly Garden.


Raised beds at grow! Lincoln Park Community Garden.

As the Lincoln Park Conservancy History & Culture Center begins to take shape, first as a programming entity, then as a physical space, your generous donations serve as seed money to launch the initial steps of the Lincoln Park Conservancy History & Culture Center.  By contributing to this great project, your support will help the history of the Lincoln Avenue Corridor survive!  So, please follow us on social media for updates and more information about our progress on the Lincoln Park Conservancy History & Culture Center. 

Thank you for your support!

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