Abby Epplett, Historian

On October 24, 2023 at 6:00 p.m., I watched a talk hosted by Skyscraper Museum focused on the book Times Square Remade: The Dynamics of Urban Change by Dr. Lynne Sagalyn , published by MIT Press a few days ago. Sagalyn is a professor emerita and founding director of Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate at Columbia Business School . Her latest book is a sequel to Times Square Roulette: Remaking the City Icon published by MIT Press 20 years ago in 2003. Joining Sagalyn were Carol Willis , the founder and director of the Skyscraper Museum, and Alison Isenberg , a history professor in the Department of History at Princeton University and fellow author who specializes in urban architecture. Willis opened and closed the webinar, while Isenberg acted as a moderator during the conversational second half. Sagalyn began the webinar with a presentation covering the history of Times Square from the 1890s to the present. The area was originally called Longacre Square and served as...

In June 2023, during my trip to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, I walked the Malecón de Santo Domingo , a seaside boardwalk. Running parallel to the coast and the busy highway George Washington Avenue , the Malecón offers picturesque seascape views along with memorials to historical events and people throughout the history of the city. Monumento a la Inmigración Japonés Dedicated to Japonese immigrants who lived in the Dominican Republic during the mid 20 th century , the memorial complex comprised of a statue of a family on a pedastal, an engraved rock, and a large sign. This sign listed some fathers of Japanese families who came to the Dominican Republic, which totalled 249 families in all. The immigration agreement between the two countries lasted only during the final years of the the Trujillo era, beginning in 1956 and ending in 1960. The Dominican government was supposed provided work, land, and housing to Japanese families. In turn, the fami...

I recently finished the book One Goal: A Coach, A Team, and the Game that Brought a Divided Town Together by Amy Bass , published by Hachette Book Group in 2019. Bass is a professor of history and career writer with a special focus in the history of sports. This modern history book covers the state championship winning boy’s Lewiston High School soccer team from Lewiston, Maine . Known both as the location of Bates College and a longtime mill town, Lewiston has more recently become a refugee city for people fleeing from conflict in Somalia and other East African countries. In the book, Bass described the importance of a local kids team in bringing together a town filled with people from different backgrounds. Bass introduced the top players of the soccer team, almost all refugee children with a handful of Mainers. She quickly juxtoposed the family-oriented, East African, Muslim culture of the refugees to community-oriented, French-Canadian, Catholic culture of long-time ...

In June 2023, during my trip to the Dominican Republic, I visited Panteón de la Patria [Pantheon of the Fatherland] in Ciudad Colonial, Santo Domingo. Also called the National Pantheon , this giant mausoleum and sculpture park serves as the final resting place for the founders of the country. While the busts of heroes make the memorial similar to the plazoletas , escaleras , and museo at Monumento a los Héroes de la Restauración [Monument to the Heroes of the Restoration] in Santiago de los Caballeros, the atmospheres of the locations greatly differ. Monumento is a place to go on a date; Panteón is a place to pay respect. Jesuit monks construected the original building between 1715 and 1745 as Convento de San Igancio de Loyola . Their chosen architectural style, with its many decorative elements, make it a Rococo or Late Baroque convent inspired by French cathedrals. This is unique for Dominican buildings, as these are more likely to be Spanish Gothic with Mu...

On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 8:00 p.m. EST, I watched the latest installment of AIA Archaeology Hour, a webinar series hosted by the Archaeological Institute of America . Dr. Anne Austin , who teaches of anthropology and archaeology in the History Department at the University of Missouri—St. Louis and works as a bioarchaeologist at Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale [French Institute of Oriental Archeology], presented her talk Ancient Ink: Discovering the Tattooed Women of Ancient Egypt . Her presentation focused on tattoos on mummies found at Deir el-Medina , a village for workers in Ancient Egypt who built the infamous Valley of the Gods. Dr. Ulrike Krotscheck , who leads the Puget Sound chapter of AIA and works as a professor of archaeology at Evergreen State College , moderated the event. Dr. Austin began the talk by explaining how archaeology is currently in “the golden age for finding evidence of tattooing in archaeological contexts… [with] more pub...

In June 2023, I visited Fortaleza Ozama , a 16 th century Spanish fort located on Calle Las Damas in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The fort gets its name from Río Ozama , the nearby river whose name comes from a Caribbean language, Taíno, and means watery highway. Initially built between 1502 and 1508, once the Spanish had thoroughly investigated the island, the fort is the oldest European style fort in the Americas and is part of Ciudad Colonial, a UNESCO world heritage site . Governor of Hispaniola, Frey Nicolás de Ovando , commissioned the construction of the fort around the same time as Hospital San Nicolás de Bari . This stop joins other forts that I viewed during the trip included nearby Fuertes Invencible y San Diego , along with Fortaleza de San Felipe in Puerto Plata and Fortaleza San Luis in Santiago de los Caballeros . The fort was built of unique construction materials. The walls were not made with rocks but with coral from the Caribbean Sea. Th...