• The next issue of the newsletter, the 2007 annual stake history report, will be published electronically only. Because the issue has taken so long to write and prepare, we are faced with distributing a report a year old.
• We are still attempting to locate the banners from several buildings in the stake. Well-meaning members have apparently moved them in several cases, and it isn’t easy to locate them.
• Committee members were urged to record the initial version of the stop of the downtown walking tour tha they have been assigned.
• Progress continues on the next newsletter, which will cover how LDS parents have raised children in New York City. In the mean time, we are hoping to produce an issue on another subject, perhaps using material from some of the newspaper articles we have located. Kent Larsen will see if we can reprint material from enough articles to fill an issue of the newsletter.
• We will continue to work on various publicity issues, including trying to get information about our activities on the Stake calendar, the blogs of those in the stake, email lists, and get the word out to other stakes in our area.
• We are still looking into the possibility of a stake fireside, now possibly about the time of Stake Conference, to show the New York City LDS History video that Scott Tiffany prepared and to launch the podcast of the walking tour. By this time we hope to have prepared a permanent poster for the walking tour for each building in the stake, indicating both when the next scheduled walking tour will be held and where members can download the walking tour brochure and audio file so that they can take the tour themselves.

The next meeting is planned for February 1st.

• The next issue of the newsletter, the 2007 annual stake history report, should be published soon.
• We will take down the banners from the various buildings in the stake for the holiday season. This will allow us to find some of the missing material, refurbish the stands and review how to place them so that they aren’t abused or disappear.
• We will translate the 57th Street Walking Tour into Spanish and prepare the material on the downtown tour as a podcast. Each stop of the tour will be read by a different guide, and we will ask Richard Bushman to read an introduction.
• We will continue work on the next newsletter, which will cover how LDS parents have raised children in New York City.
• We will continue to work on various publicity issues, including trying to get information about our activities on the Stake calendar, the blogs of those in the stake, email lists, and get the word out to other stakes in our area.
• We will ask the stake for time to hold a fireside in March (tentatively March 16th) to show the New York City LDS History video that Scott Tiffany prepared and to launch the podcast of the walking tour. By this time we hope to have prepared a permanent poster for the walking tour for each building in the stake, indicating both when the next scheduled walking tour will be held and where members can download the walking tour brochure and audio file so that they can take the tour themselves.

The next meeting is planned for December 7th.

While the situation in Harleman Halls is certainly unusual, its probably not unique in New York City. Church members here have always helped each other find housing, and there has been a tradition of passing apartments from one LDS renter to another that goes back at least to the 1960s, and probably farther. In addition, in the Inwood 1st Ward, one apartment complex on Dongan Place has a total of 14 LDS renters, including 10 in one building. I wouldn’t be surprised to see similar concentrations in other places here in New York.

This may be a subject for further research. Housing is an important part of life no matter where you live, and it can be a very significant issue here in the city. It would be fascinating to see how LDS Church members have coped with housing issues over the years, especially if the way they have coped is different from what other New Yorkers face.

Crow joined the LDS Church in England a few years before the Utah War, and emmigrated to the United States in 1856. He arrived in New York City just after the Church closed the mission and the missionaries returned to Utah.

But Crow’s account makes it clear that the branch of the Church here was still operating, despite the lack of missionaries. While Crow and his family lived in New York City, he was ordained an Elder and two children in his family were born.

The story also shows how ironic life an sometimes be. Crow found work in New York City at a saddle manufacturer. The company had a contract to make saddles for the U.S. Army, including for many of the soldiers being sent to Utah to fight the “rebellious” Mormons.

The tour went very well, I thought. The Chinese group took much longer than usual, because of the need to wait for the dialogue to be translated. I also had to switch gears substantially because the group included non-members, and much of our standard dialogue assumes that the audience is LDS.

This is, of course, something we should work on. It would have been nice to have a previously prepared dialogue or notes that help put LDS history in our area in a context that can be understood by those who are not Mormon.

Image via Wikipedia

I came across the 1859 interview of Brigham Young by New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley this week and was able to add it to our site. The interview is quite comprehensive, in terms of the issues of the day, covering slavery and polygamy as well as some of the unusual aspects of Mormonism at the time, such as tithing.

Interestingly, Greeley’s clearest criticism of Mormonism is what he believes to be its treatment of women. Greeley suggests that under Mormonism “woman will soon be confined to the harem, and her appearance in the street with unveiled face will be accounted immodest,” which is probably a simplistic reading of Mormonism at the time.

The article doesn’t really tell us much about the Church in New York City and environs at that time, but it is certainly fascinating none the less.

Further information about the tour can be found in the walking tour page on our website. The page includes a link to the brochure for the tour, and contact information for how to schedule a tour if you can’t make one of the scheduled tours.