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The City Reliquary of Williamsburg,
Brooklyn Nestled in the center of Brooklyn lies an old, poor and forgotten neighborhood of immigrants. It has been the refuge and home for Jews from Eastern Europe, Puerto Ricans and Jamaicans from the Caribbean. It was a neighborhood rotting with poverty struggling to stay alive. Well, not any longer, this forgotten neighborhood was recently discovered by the young and struggling Manhattanites who can no long afford their apartments in the Village or for that matter in any part of Manhattan at today’s prices. A quick hop on the subway brings them to this section of Brooklyn known as Williamsburg. Not more than a couple of years ago no one would give this area a tumble; there was nothing there and no reason to settle there. As the real estate in Manhattan doubled and tripled in value people decided to give it a whirl and see what could be done in this area to improve their lifestyle.
They came by the trainloads, young, innocent and talented, looking for affordable housing and a neighborhood with a sense of belonging. Well, they found more than they bargained for and this area has blossomed into one of the major gentrifications of the new city and with it came Dave Herman, definitely a man ahead of his time. Dave Herman is approaching his 30’s. He migrated to New York and to Williamsburg from Florida. Since his youth he has been fascinated by the wonders of New York and that fascination led him to collect some of the strange and unique items that are artifacts of this amazing city. Dave dreams of becoming a New York City Firefighter a dream that has finally come true. He recently received notice that he is on the waiting list for appointment to the Fire Department of the City of New York. However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. We need to go back a bit.
Dave found an apartment with a basement on the corner of Havemeyer and Grand Streets. He knew this was the place he wanted to be. The apartment had large, eye-level windows on both the Grand and the Havemeyer Street sides. It was perfect arrangement because he planned to make a museum out of those windows. To start Dave fitted the windows with shelves, a backdrop curtain, a microphone, speakers, and recorder. Once the windows were ready he started looking for things to show in his museum. He wanted things that called up reminiscences about New York to fill those windows. Every month Dave contacted people with artifacts or collections, raised small sums of money and changed the theme of his museum. Dave’s dream museum was starting to grow. He called his museum the City Reliquary. Joined by his good friend, George Ferrandi, a wonderful statue restoration artist, work on the project was started. Another dear friend of Dave’s, Harvey, a full time teacher, has also helped to form the museum. The group involved in the Reliquary affectionately refers to Harvey as “The Inspector Collector”. People come by everyday and some stopped to rest and to admire the display. Some come to just discuss the contents of the window and others come merely because they had to pass by his windows. Dave showed the neighborhood its past and the neighborhood responded enthusiastically to Dave’s exhibits. He now felt that he should branch out and open the City Reliquary to the whole borough. He sponsored an event to which he invited Brooklyn Borough President, Marty Markowitz. Mr. Markowitz showed up and enjoyed himself so much that he is now a patron of the project, lending his support and enthusiasm to each of the displays. My son, Chris, moved into the neighborhood about three years ago. Dave and Chris became friends. What Dave was doing interested Chris so he was soon lending a hand as needed, though Chris’ two jobs, as graphic director of a public access cable television station, and as a full time book designer for Random House left him little time to work with Dave. Still, Chris told Dave that his parent collect and show fountain pens. Dave had a couple of pens that belonged to his grandfather so the idea of fountain pen collecting intrigued him. He wanted more information. Through Chris, Dave contacted us and asked to see some of our collection. He came to our office to see just what we do at PenStop. Of course there was no problem with that from my viewpoint, but we were a little puzzled at Dave’s interest in seeing the pens. After only a short time with Dave let us know that he was thinking of displaying personal collections relating to Brooklyn. “So, how does our collection fit that profile,” I asked him? He explained that because we were from Brooklyn, born and raised here, anything we did would be of interest. He asked if I would lend him some pens, ink, ephemera and advertising for display in his apartment window. He would handle all of the written materials, labels, explanations and the publicity for the display as well. He needed the items for at least one month, his usual run for interesting displays.
We met again to select a variety of the most interesting items. I had some colorful and interesting Parker ephemera including a wonderful titanium bus ashtray that, though not an official Parker item was made by Parker, it was by an employee in the Parker plant. The display shaped up nicely as we approached the planned April 1, 2005 opening. Dave had scheduled us to be interviewed live on an Internet radio station to introduce the collection as we were preparing the list of display items for Dave. Dave enlisted my son Chris to design and produce the booklets that accompany the exhibit. The booklets were on hand to provide a key to the exhibit items for anyone passing the museum. It was shaping up to be quite an event. Dave knew of our writing contest for the New York City Pen Show
and wanted to incorporate a writing contest into his display. He
arranged with one of the public elementary schools for short student
essays on the theme of “My Collection”. He received
several essays and announced the winners on the morning of the opening
reception. The winners read their essays. Since the City Reliquary
is non-profit, there isn’t any budget for winners’ prizes.
But Dave solicited donations that brought in enough money to buy
prizes for three winners, relating to the collections they wrote
about. For example, one of the winners was a young lady who collected
Snapple caps. The prize was small plastic cases for her bottle caps
and a scrapbook for displays from her collection. The children loved
their prizes and the essays were lots of fun to read. Every month the window museum on the corner of Havemeyer and Grand Streets, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn changes. It’s now well known among the residents, their friends and families. It attracts new people every month and the idea is spreading across the city. Dave has sponsored a bike-a-thon, and some other notable events with great success. The City Reliquary has been written up in Time Out and other magazines. You can have a look at the Time Out article at this link: http://www.timeoutny.com/outthere/426/426.reliquary.html And this link provides pictures of the different exhibits that
have appeared at the City Reliquary, including the pen exhibit:
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