Today, Sunday, May 19, 2019
Audio Podcast is Twenty Minutes
Sunday, May 19, 2019-Bob Cudmore’s guest on Magic 590’s Talk of the Town is Patricia Walsh Chadwick, author of “Little Sister,” the story of her childhood in a Roman Catholic commune.
Bob Cudmore will speak to the Charleston Historical Society at 2 p.m. today, Sunday, May 19, 2019 at the old Baptist Church, 390 Polin Road in Charleston, N.Y., just off Route 30A. Among Bob’s stories will be an account of a recent visit to Amsterdam N.Y. by a documentary filmmaker from the Czech Republic. The program is free and open to the public.
Andrea Culkova discussing Amsterdam’s past with Elwood Museum Director Ann Peconie
Last week filmmaker Andrea Culkova from Prague in the Czech Republic spent a day filming remnants of Amsterdam, N.Y.’s carpet industry. Culkova is working on a documentary for HBO/Europe called The Magic Carpet. She is chronicling the history of the Ginskey company, a rug making firm located in the Czech Republic but operated by Germans. Through an online version of one of my Daily Gazette columns, Culkova concluded both Ginskey and Amsterdam’s Mohawk Carpet produced similar carpet versions of Louis Rigal’s mosaic Wheel of Life for the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.
Mohawk Valley Weather, Sunday, May 19, 2019-A chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 3pm. Some of the storms could produce gusty winds. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 79.
Focus on History in the Daily Gazette-Czech filmmaker Andrea Culkova is working on a film about a carpet manufacturer in the Czech Republic. Culkova’s research took her to Amsterdam, N.Y., this month to record interviews regarding the years when Amsterdam was the Carpet City.
In different decades, Mohawk Carpet, formerly in Amsterdam, and a factory that used to be in a Czech city each produced a version of an elaborate carpet called the Wheel of Life for the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City.
This month Prague filmmaker Andrea Culkova spent a day in Amsterdam shooting video and doing interviews on this story.
Best known for her film Sugar Blues on the perils of eating sugar, Culkova is working on a documentary called The Magic Carpet for HBO/Europe. The film should be released within two years.
Culkova is taking a look at the 200-year history of the Ginskey carpet factory, dominated by Germans but located inside the Czech Republic. The municipality was called Maffersdorf by the Germans but named Vratislavice nad Nisou by the Czechs.
In the 1920s the company produced both the world’s largest rug and a carpet version of Wheel of Life, a mosaic work of art by Frenchman Louis Regal, for the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
In 1938 Mohawk Carpet in Amsterdam produced another Wheel of Life rug for the Waldorf-Astoria. Culkova had read my Daily Gazette column on the Amsterdam-made Wheel of Life online which mentioned that a glass mosaic of the piece has been installed on Amsterdam’s pedestrian bridge, the Mohawk Valley Gateway Overlook.
Sculptor Patrick Morelli oversaw the project, working with mosaic artist Stephen Miott and a counterpart in Italy.
When Culkova got to the Amsterdam pedestrian bridge she said, “I was really moved to see the Wheel of Life.”
Joining Culkova on the bridge were Historic Amsterdam League co-founder Jerry Snyder, who has done extensive research on Amsterdam industries, and John Daly, representing his sister, historian Jacqueline Daly Murphy, who could not attend. The Daly family trucking company, Amsterdam Despatch, had taken the Wheel of Life carpet to New York City on board a long trailer also used to transport telephone poles.
Later Culkova interviewed director Ann Peconie at the Walter Elwood Museum on Church Street on Amsterdam’s carpet-making history.
It took 16 Amsterdam weavers eight months in the late 1930s to create its chenille rug version of Wheel of Life for the Waldorf Astoria. The carpet was 49 by 47 feet. The wheel in the center was 18 feet in diameter.
The center design features graphic scenes showing the progress of life from birth through death in six picture groups.
Chenille carpets, made from velvety yarn, were manufactured in intricate patterns and a variety of colors. Mohawk’s chenille carpets were made in the firm’s Upper Mill, formerly located at Lyon Street and Forest Avenue.
In the 1970s during the Communist era in Czechoslovakia, the Waldorf Astoria ordered a new version of the Wheel of Life carpet from the Czech company. However, this third Wheel of Life carpet was never made,
Mohawk Carpet stopped making rugs in Amsterdam by the late 1960s. The Czech carpet company went out of business in the late 1990s.
Culkova said her visit to Amsterdam “was a really deep experience.” She added, ‘When I walk through your city and see the feeling and the emotion of the past, which is gone, but it is great to see there are still people who are really interested in the history and keep trying to preserve it…
“And there are also people (in the Czech Republic) who are trying to keep the same for the next generation, and so the next generation also will have the chance to learn something from our past.”
Culkova said, “We all have our dreams and these big carpets and projects were kind of the child of these big dreams.”
Bob Cudmore with Stories from The Mohawk Valley
Jason Subik Show Jason Subik Mid-Morning Program WCSS Radio Amsterdam 106.9FM and 1490AM Thursday, May 16, 2019 The Mid-Morning Show with Jason Subik on WCSS 1490 AM 106.9 FM. Phone #518-843-2500. Special thanks to my guests Greater Amsterdam School Board candidates JoMarie DiTata and Curtis Peninger. Next Live Facebook Feed, Monday, May 20, 2019 Amsterdam News and Talk https://www.facebook.com/jason.subik
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