This and That by JL

Polio was all around me as a kid growing up in Far Rockaway. It was in every whisper, every newspaper, every mother’s nightmare—the idea that the simple act of going to a swimming pool or a movie could cripple you for life. Those were the stark choices we had to make as kids growing up […]

The rhythm filled the Tarrytown Music Hall on a recent Saturday night as the Tom Chapin family took the stage to celebrate the music hall’s 135th birthday. It was a gala occassion, on Zoom of course, and the chat room was spinning. This venerable old theater started life as a venue for classical music. The […]

Dear Friend of ArtsWestchester, We are reaching out to you because you have been a friend to the arts in Westchester and we need your friendship now more than ever. Community support has enabled us to keep the arts alive and vital in Westchester in good times—and in not so good times. Right now is […]

When I was a girl growing up in Far Rockaway, it was wartime. My parents worried that German submarines would be coming across the Atlantic Ocean to our beaches. They would sit for hours in front of the living room radio, hanging on every word from the frontline. Now it is wartime again in America. Only […]

When we asked Entergy whether we could honor them at our 2020 gala, they hesitated. When they finally accepted the tribute, they gave us another gift…They connected us with Wynton Marsalis, Managing and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, who agreed to be the keynote speaker and a performer at the gala. Wynton and […]

“My guest blogger this week is my assistant Megan Thomson Connor. Megan is a gifted writer and arts administrator who has taken the lead on managing and promoting ArtsWestchester’s new Poet Laureate initiative, in partnership with Westchester County government. Her dedication in supporting our creatives and her reverence for both the written and the spoken […]

      The word “creative” used to belong predominantly to the right-brain arts community. Lately however, the word has wandered into the left-brain analytical zone.  Phrases such as “creative economy,” “creative industries” and “creative class” have crept into the business vernacular. So what’s going on here? Have the economists hijacked creativity? Not at all. […]

    The flu epidemic of 1918 was not a story that was taught in every classroom in America. But for me, it was personal. I was named Janet Frances after my father’s mother Frances, my grandmother whom I never met because she died tragically in the flu epidemic of 1918, long before I was born. Perhaps that […]