NYC Karl Linn Memorial Celebration.

**a*@aol.com**

forwarded by Jane Weissman.

Dear Friends and Colleagues of Karl Linn

Please excuse the late date of this invitation to participate in a 
commemoration of the life of Karl Linn on Saturday, May 21 (Rain 
Date, Sunday, May 22).

We are planning a Phase 2  memorial for Karl later, but the 
opportunity to celebrate his life in the context of the 
extraordinary, surprising  and somewhat magical annual Earth 
Celebrations Pageant, part of the campaign to save the community 
gardens of New York City's Lower East Side, is too synchronous with 
everything Karl stood for to pass up.

Please refer to the end of this email for a description and schedule 
of the Pageant.  The slide show of last year's pageant will give you 
a sense of what to expect: 
http://www.earthcelebrations.com/springslideshow.htm

The commemoration of Karl will take place at the end of the day-long 
annual event which has been ongoing and growing since 1991. The 
pageant invites people to accompany a parade of costumed actors, 
dancers, and musicians as they wend their way from 10 AM to 6 PM 
through 40 Lower East Side Community Gardens  The pageant is not only 
a  paean to New York City's Lower East Side Community Gardens and to 
the tenants who live around each of these gardens whose efforts and 
artistry created them, but also to the spirit that Karl who pioneered 
the concept of neighbors turning trash-strewn lots between their 
tenement buildings into parks.

There are approximately 60 community gardens between Houston St., 
(one block south of 1st Street), and 14th St., between Avenues B and 
D. Each is unique. Each is beautiful. Together they represent a force 
of urban grass roots power and potential that deserves recognition on 
the National and State Register of Historic Places.

When Giuliani was mayor of New York, he tried to confiscate them and 
turn them over to housing  developers, but Bette Midler, through the 
instigation of Joe Pupello, then executive director of her New York 
Restoration Project, bought about two-thirds of them.

Felicia Young, the founder of this annual event, is a master of 
pageantry. I hope you can come early enough to walk through as many 
of the gardens as you can (See list and schedule below). You will be 
in for a fine day. The Earth Celebrations' Pageant is truly a 
celebration of Karl's vision and values.

The commemoration of Karl will be part of the pageant's Grand Finale

at 6 PM
in the Green Oasis Garden
8th Street between Avenues C and D, (closer to D)

    *     *     *     *     *

After the pageant, those of us who have come to pay homage to Karl 
will have an opportunity to relax with one another at a nearby 
restaurant:

No.1 Chinese,
50 Avenue B @ 4th St
212-375-0665
In a lovely and relaxing private dining room

The restaurant offers the option of a 3-course prix-fixe dinner for 
$30. Please let us know if that sounds OK to you.  If not, one can 
simply order from the menu.

This will be an opportunity for us to share memories of Karl, and 
watch short excerpts of two films of and about Karl, which were 
prepared for his memorial service  in California.

*     *     *     *     *

The Films:
1.  a 3-minute tribute to Karl from the director of "A Lot in 
Common," the one hour film on Karl's vision and work building the 
Peralta Community Art Garden in Berkeley, which was shown nationally 
on PBS and is distributed by Bullfrog Films
2. a short overview of Karl's life from "Karl Linn's Journey: Through 
Shattered Dreams Toward a More Caring Society," a digital video 
project by Verona Fonte  

On the new website,
http://www.karllinn.org,
you can see some of Verona's work
http://www.karllinn.org/htmls/MediaLibraryLifeWorkKarlLinn.html

*     *     *     *     *

RSVP
Phyllis Yampolsky
718-383-7467
partage@earthlink.net

Thank you!

Carl Anthony, Shirley Chesney, Phyllis Yampolsky,  Diana Young
Committee for the Karl Linn Commemoration

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