I am a recent graduate of the public history graduate program at Rutgers University. I currently serve as the digital media coordinator for the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities, where I wrangle bloggers and tackle our social media platforms.
In the last two years I've created an oral history database using StoriesMatter for the Salem County Historical Society, collected data on school group attendance for the education department at Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and I've digitized the Balch Institute Ethnic Images in Advertising Collection at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. I volunteer at the Alice Paul Institute in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey and the Digital Center at HSP.
In my spare time I am often silly and irreverent.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
A Christmas Story House: Cleveland, Ohio
This post comes late, as I made this trip the third weekend in July. I didn’t have to tell you that, but now it’s out here on the internet. No regrets.
What can I say? I only started watching A Christmas Story once it got regular play on TNT during the holidays. It cracked me up, because by the time I saw it, the movie already looked really dated and the premise was absolutely ridiculous. It wasn’t the smartest movie I’ve ever seen, but it is quirky, sarcastic, and just the right kind of cheesy. I tell you this because I wasn’t all that sure if I needed to visit the Christmas Story House. A number of friends gently suggested I would lose valuable body parts should I return to New Jersey without visiting the house.
So I went to the house.
The Christmas Story house is indeed the house used in the exterior shots of the movie. It was purchased in 2004 by Brian Jones, a man whose only tie to the film is his undying love of The Christmas Story. Once inside, you realize that the interiors were by and large filmed on a soundstage; the interior has been recreated meticulously by Jones to match the film. The downside to this is the disappointment that nothing is real. The upside is that you can actually sit in the old man’s chair in the living room. Honestly, hoping for reality on a recreated movie set is probably a bit silly anyway.
The guided tour is really a 30 minute lecture given by one of the docents, after which visitors are turned loose in the house for fifteen minutes. The docent regales the captive audience with the entire story of how Cleveland was chosen as the location for the movie, how the house was selected, and its purchase and renovation in the past few years. I won’t go so far as to say the talk was boring, but I will say that the two young adults sitting next to me on the couch fell asleep, twice.
It was informative, and all the stories were good and told with an enthusiasm I’m sure I couldn’t match, but we sat and sat and sat. That’s boring my friends. One possible solution would be to have a limited number of timed tickets, have one docent upstairs and one downstairs. Start the first part of the tour outside on the covered porch and have the second part inside while moving through the house. I think the “sit here while I talk at you” model probably works really well at Christmas when they are undoubtedly inundated with visitors. It does not work at any other time.
Once visitors are allowed to roam through the house, it becomes clear very quickly that there isn’t much to see. Don’t get me wrong, it is really cool to see Ralphie’s and Randy’s bedroom—each bed draped with a pink bunny costume, the bar of soap on the bathroom sink, the old timey washing machine in the kitchen, or even the push-button light switches. I grew up with those! It is SMALL. That’s all I mean.
When you go, and you really should, park on the street. Do not shell out $15 to park in the neighbor’s yard, there is street parking aplenty in Cleveland. Do visit the museum across the road. They have some great behind the scene snapshots from the filming, the original costumes worn by the waiters at the Chinese restaurant, and a number of promotional movie posters from around the world.
There is one danger spot in the museum, in the toy room. There, stationed by a television screen playing a Christmas Story documentary is Jim Moralevitz who delivered the major award to the old man. He is a perfectly nice man; he was warm and open to questions. He was also very chatty. Sometimes I just want to walk through unmolested. He is a dedicated volunteer however, and soldiered on in his spiel despite an expression on my face that bordered on rude. Might have even tiptoed into rude once or twice, even.
It is worth the admission price—$10/adults, $6/kiddos 7-12, $8/Seniors—so long as you don’t fork over the fifteen clams for parking. It would likely be more exciting as one gets closer to Christmas than it is in the dead of one of the hottest Julys on record. Take that into account.
If you’re going to take kids, make sure they’ve seen the flick, otherwise, it is just another house full of stuff they aren’t supposed to touch. The docent isn’t necessarily going to help make it exciting, so you may have to step up.
The Christmas Story House is open Thursday-Saturday: 10am-5pm and Saturday: 12pm-5pm (Closed major holidays). According to the website tours run every half hour, but I’m almost positive they were running every hour when I was there.
The website is craziness, but jammed full of pictures, clips, blogs and news. If you are a Christmas Story freak you’ve probably already gone there, but if you haven’t do so now.
Bac is billed as the official Chinese restaurant for the Christmas Story House and is open for business just down the street. Finding the Chinese food (and honestly most of the Asian food) in Cleveland a bit disappointing, I skipped it. Go to Melt instead. Besides, Bac isn’t even the Chop Suey Palace. The original Chop Suey Palace and the William G. Harding School scenes were filmed on location in Toronto. Higbee’s was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 as part of the Union Terminal Group, and has since become the Horseshoe Casino Cleveland.
Go. Sit in the old man’s chair. Buy a major award in the museum shop.
Just don’t pay for the parking.
New York Historical Society birthday shenanigans.
We went to see the Santa Claus and Hanukkah exhibits specifically, and while they were not quite what I was expecting (small, less involved than I was hoping), the Society was definitely worth the visit. The Luce Center on the top floor gives visitors an amazing glimpse into the Society’s permanent collection. My only regret is that we didn’t have time to see the Children’s Museum (or store). Next time.
The gung-ho “Hooray New York” movie was as cheesy as expected, but honestly, less ridiculous than the movie at the National Constitution Center.
My favorite part of the museum was probably the opportunities I had to give impromptu “lectures” to my friends about things like slavery, the industrial revolution, and Christmas.
Birthday Wishes: New York Historical Society
Almost two months ago the New York Historical Society reopened their Central Park West location. I haven’t been there since “New York Divided: Slavery and the Civil War,” which ran long before I’d decided my love of museums might translate into real work. I remember enjoying the exhibit overall, but feeling overwhelmed by the oceans of text. Exhibits with too many words tire me out. I’m not ashamed to admit I need short labels that support the material objects. And by objects, I mean things not documents. I’ve developed all-day headaches trying to suss out what a document says.
A month ago, I decided to celebrate my 35th birthday (yes) revisiting the New York Historical Society. Mainly because of the Christmas exhibit connected to that link up there.
I have a real love/hate relationship with Christmas. In 2007, I read Stephen Nissenbaum’s The Battle For Christmas in an undergrad class about material culture. For our final project we each created a museum “exhibit “centered around Nissenbaum’s thesis (or my understanding of said thesis). For a solid month I lived and breathed Christmas and despaired of having gone back to school.
I swore off Christmas scholarship, easy enough to do since I graduated that Spring.
Then I went back to school, signed up for a course in material culture. This time, I was charged with creating a historiography of some aspect of American History, and “doing” a material culture analysis of an artifact. Great, except most of my interests were in China and Chinese History. After I finished my panic attack, I went running back into the comforting arms of St. Nick. Tortured months of reading, analyzing, thematic organization, and writing in fits and starts were exacerbated by the approach of the holiday itself. Everywhere I turned after Halloween… Santa! Wrapping paper! Christmas songs!
Again, I despaired my academic choices, I lost sleep and probably friends… but in the end, I had a pretty good product. Again, I swore off Christmas. (Colleagues asked me if I celebrated this year. The answer? Sort of)
Then this lovely exhibit opens and I can’t help myself but go. 35 years old (almost), and I will never truly hate Christmas. I will always be amazed that it started out as no big deal in Christian circles. That early Christians incorporated symbols of other religions, folk traditions, and paganism into their celebrations. It will always be cool that celebrating Christmas was considered a bad thing by colonial Americans because of the unruliness of the revelers.
Christmas is the perfect case study of how history works. Change over time. Bad things becoming good things and vice versa. The pendulum swing of the secular to the sacred and back again. People in positions of power (parents, bosses, religious leaders, what have you) making up traditions and rules to keep other people in positions of deference.
This is why, after a tasty lunch at Rosa Mexicano, the spousal unit is taking me to the New York Historical Society. Because I have a sickness. And he is my enabler.
At the U.S. Botanic Gardens in Washington D.C.
For a “brief” video on the Season’s Greenings program at the Garden, here’s a nifty video. I watched it, and then cajoled the Spousal Unit into going. Alright, I’m lying, he was really excited to go.
