Newton: the Apple of the New York Public Library’s Eye
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME
“No closer to the gods can any mortal rise,” astronomer Edmond Halley wrote in a poem he contributed to the first edition of Sir Isaac Newton’s book, “Principia.” This phrase sums up the genius of Newton (1642-1727). His role as innovator and Enlightenment icon is the subject of an exhibition at the New York Public Library that runs from October 8 to February 5.
“Newton became science personified,” said exhibit curator and California Institute of Technology history professor Mordechai Feingold, leading a preview tour yesterday. Preceding the walk-through, NYPL Director Paul LeClerc and H. George Fletcher offered remarks. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. Fletcher began, saying, “Welcome to the world’s most democratically accessible library.”
There were some humorous moments during the tour. “Don’t try it at home,” Mr. Feingold said, pointing to a notebook of Newton’s dating to the 1660s. It lay open to a page – with Newton’s own illustration – of a self experiment where the scientist tried to induce the sensation of colors by placing a dagger-like instrument for making holes called a bodkin “as neare to the backside of my eye as I could.” When he rubbed his eye, Newton found several white, dark, and colored circles appear, but not at times when he pressed the bodkin and kept it still.
The show’s intriguing displays include a section describing Newton’s plagiarism dispute with Gottfried Leibniz. It documents other Newton opponents, such as Goethe (who researched the theory of colors and argued vigorously with Newton’s work) and poet William Blake, who shrugged at rationalism. The exhibit also salutes Newton’s admirers such as Benjamin Franklin, whose portrait features a bust of Newton in the background.
The various materials on display at the library outline how Newton’s ideas have been put in the service of religion and have been taken up by the culture at large.
Just how much is Newton part of our culture? Mr. Feingold said that in a scene in the new movie “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law a copy of Newton’s work is waved about.
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LEARNING TO LEAD
“Can leadership be taught?” This question was posed at an event hosted by Thirteen/WNET New York President William Baker and Wallace Foundation President M. Christine DeVita. The evening featured a preview screening of “A Year of Change: Leadership in the Principal’s Office,” which will premiere this month on October 10 on channel Thirteen.
In the fall of 2003, Thirteen’s local public affairs series, “New York Voices,” began to document the NYC Leadership Academy, which is part of New York City’s effort to transform its public schools. The series follows the experiences of three aspiring principals who undergo the Academy’s 14-month training.
After the audience watched the film showing the ebullient energy of three candidates, Mr. Baker said, in a self-deprecatingly aside, to audience laughter, that all he had to do every day was tie his bow tie.
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BOUNTIFUL BILLBOARDS
A panel of experts gathered indoors at the Municipal Arts Society yesterday morning at breakfast to discuss “Outdoor Advertising: Is There Too Much? – From Sidewalks to Skyscraper, the Effect of Increased Advertising in Gotham.”
On the panel were Municipal Arts Society Streetscape Committee chair Andrew Manshel, community activist and attorney Susan Rosenfeld, Landmark West! Executive Director Kate Wood, Greenberg Traurig attorney Ed Wallace, and Bryant Park Restoration Corporation Executive Director Daniel Biederman. The panel was arranged by Assembly member Scott Stringer and the Municipal Art Society.
The discussion ad dressed issues of franchises and licenses for outdoor advertising found on awnings, canopies, phone booths, bus shelters, trace receptacles, planters, and the like. During a question-and-answer session, Henry Stern, a former Parks Commissioner who wrote his Harvard Law School senior theses in 1957 on billboards in the interstate highway system, asked about the variety of city agencies with consequently “fragmented jurisdiction” over outdoor advertising and its revenues.
Mr. Stringer said the issue is one for the deputy mayor level, and Mr. Biederman said Deputy Mayor Harris has shown a terrific eye and would seem to be the right person to take on an effort like this.
Mr. Biederman added that it did not really fit squarely under any of the following five entities: The Arts Commission has a small staff and a board of volunteers, and is not primarily focused on economic issues; the Department of Transportation tends to focus on the traffic engineering and traffic control aspects of signs on the street; the City Planning Commission focuses more on macro planning for neighborhoods, as opposed to micro issues; the Landmarks Preservation Commission is not quite right because many of these signs are not in land marked areas; and the Department of Buildings, he said, enforces specific written codes.
Mr. Stern later told the Knickerbocker that the Department of Building deals with “load-bearing floors rather than ad-bearing doors” on phone booths.
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KNICK-KNACKS
The Edmund Seergy Republican Club celebrated its 50th anniversary at a dinner Wednesday night…Time Inc. President Ann Moore was among those admiring the 21st floor penthouse at Trump Park Avenue on Wednesday at a party to celebrate the release of Avenue magazine’s October Power Issue. Also in attendance were Pamela Gross, Debbie Bancroft, Jackie Artier, Howard Sobel, and Douglas Hannant.