Seneca Village was a 19th-century settlement of mostly African American landowners in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, within what would become present-day Central Park.  The settlement was located on about 5 acres (2.0 ha) near the Upper West Side neighborhood, approximately bounded by Central Park West and the paths of 82nd Street, 89th Street and Seventh Avenue, had they been constructed through the park.  Seneca Village was founded in 1825 by free Black Americans, the first such community in the city.  At its peak, the community had 264 residents, three churches, a school, and two cemeteries.  The settlement was later also inhabited by Irish and German immigrants.  Seneca Village existed until 1857, when, through eminent domain, the villagers and other settlers in the area were ordered to leave and their houses were torn down for the construction of Central Park.  The entirety of the village was dispersed except for one congregation that relocated.  Several vestiges of Seneca Village's existence have been found over the years, including two graves and a burial plot.  The settlement was largely forgotten until the publication of Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar's book The Park and the People:  A History of Central Park in 1992.  The Seneca Village Project was formed in 1998 to raise awareness of the village, and several archeological digs have been conducted.  In 2001, a historical plaque was unveiled, commemorating the site where Seneca Village once stood.  Read much more and see graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_Village 

Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan.  It is the fifth-largest park in the city by area, covering 843 acres (3.41 km²). It is the most visited urban park in the United States with an estimated 38 million visitors annually, and is the most filmed location in the world.  Following proposals for a large park in Manhattan during the 1840s, it was approved in 1853 to cover 778 acres (3.15 km²).  In 1857, landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition for the park with their "Greensward Plan".  The park's first areas were opened to the public in late 1858.  Additional land at the northern end of Central Park was purchased in 1859, and the park was completed in 1876.  After a period of decline in the early 20th century, New York City parks commissioner Robert Moses started a program to clean up Central Park in the 1930s.  The Central Park Conservancy, created in 1980 to combat further deterioration in the late 20th century, refurbished many parts of the park starting in the 1980s.  Main attractions include landscapes such as the Ramble and Lake, Hallett Nature Sanctuary, the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, and Sheep Meadow; amusement attractions such as Wollman Rink, Central Park Carousel, and the Central Park Zoo; formal spaces such as the Central Park Mall and Bethesda Terrace; and the Delacorte Theater.  The biologically diverse ecosystem has several hundred species of flora and fauna.  Recreational activities include carriage-horse and bicycle tours, bicycling, sports facilities, and concerts and events such as Shakespeare in the Park.  Central Park is traversed by a system of roads and walkways and is served by public transportation.  Its size and cultural position make it a model for the world's urban parks. Its influence earned Central Park the designations of National Historic Landmark in 1963 and of New York City scenic landmark in 1974.  Central Park is owned by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation but has been managed by the Central Park Conservancy since 1998, under a contract with the municipal government in a public–private partnership.  The Conservancy, a non-profit organization, contributes 75% of Central Park's $65 million annual budget and is responsible for all basic care of the park.  See extensive history and many pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park  The Muser has walked through Central Park from the Guggenheim https://www.guggenheim.org/ on the east side to the Children’s Museum of Manhattan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Museum_of_Manhattan on the west side. 

Explore these 11 museums from around the world--all while sitting on your couch by Michelle Ganley at https://www.clickorlando.com/features/2020/03/15/explore-these-11-museums-from-around-the-world-all-while-sitting-on-your-couch/

A traditional Japanese haiku is a three-line poem with seventeen syllables, written in a 5/7/5 syllable count.  Often focusing on images from nature, haiku emphasizes simplicity, intensity, and directness of expression.  Haiku began in thirteenth-century Japan as the opening phrase of renga, an oral poem, generally a hundred stanzas long, which was also composed syllabically.  The much shorter haiku broke away from renga in the sixteenth century and was mastered a century later by Matsuo Basho, who wrote this classic haiku:  An old pond! A frog jumps in— the sound of water.  As the form has evolved, many of its regular traits—including its famous syllabic pattern—have been routinely broken.  However, the philosophy of haiku has been preserved:  the focus on a brief moment in time; a use of provocative, colorful images; an ability to be read in one breath; and a sense of sudden enlightenment.  This philosophy influenced the American poet Ezra Pound, who noted the power of haiku's brevity and juxtaposed images.  He wrote, "The image itself is speech.  The image is the word beyond formulated language."  The influence of haiku on Pound is most evident in his poem "In a Station of the Metro," which began as a thirty-line poem, but was eventually pared down to two:  The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.  Other examples of haiku include "The light of a candle" by Yosa Buson; "Haiku Ambulance" by Richard Brautigan; and "5 & 7 & 5" by Anselm Hollo.  Also read the essay "The Haiga: Haiku, Calligraphy, and Painting" to learn more about the history of haiku and how it has impacted visual art.  https://poets.org/glossary/haiku 

Hooverette  noun   A simple housedress with robe-style sash and wrap front, worn especially in United States in the 1930s and 1940s, with one section overlapping another; when dirty, the overlap could be reversed so a clean section was on top again, reducing laundry. quotations ▼ Like many things used by impoverished people during the Great Depression (e.g. Hoover hogs, Hoovervilles), the dress was named after Herbert Hoover, US president when the Depression began, +‎ -ette.  (It has also been suggested that the name might not refer to the inexpensiveness but liken the dress's effectiveness as work clothing to Hoover's pre-presidential career as an effective administrator of aid to Europe after the First World War.)  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Hooverette

The Hoover surname is an Anglicized form of the German and Dutch name Huber, meaning "a large measure of land" or "a man who owns a hube (a 30-60 acre parcel of land)," from the Middle High German huober and Middle Dutch huve.  Hoover was typically a status name for a prosperous landowner or farmer whose land holdings were appreciably larger than that of the average peasant.  However, it is also possible the name was used by individuals who only worked on a large property in return for a wage.  Alternate surname spellings:  Hover, Huber, Hober, Houver, Houwer, Hubar, Hubauer, Hubber, Hueber, Hufer, Huver, Obar, Ober, Uber, Aubert.  According to WorldNames public profiler, the Hoover surname is found in the greatest numbers in the United States, with the largest population percentage coming from Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia, Kansas, and Ohio.  It is the next most commonly found in Canada.  Very few individuals named Hoover live in countries outside of North America, although there are scattered individuals with that surname found in New Zealand and a number of European countries.  Famous people with the surname Hoover:  Herbert Hoover:  31st president of the United States, Erna Schneider Hoover:  Inventor of the computerized telephone switching system, and J. Edgar Hoover:  First Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States.  Kimberly Powell  https://www.thoughtco.com/hoover-surname-meaning-and-origin-3862069 

On February 12, 1915 in Washington, D.C., the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial was put into place.  On February 12, 1924, George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue received its premiere in a concert titled "An Experiment in Modern Music", in Aeolian Hall, New York, by Paul Whiteman and his band, with Gershwin playing the piano.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_12 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2325  February 12, 2021