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QC09082016

FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com SEPTEMBER 8, 2016 • THE QUEENS COURIER 17 9/11 15th ANNIVERSARY  Forest Hills ambulance corps sponsors motorcycle run to honor 9/11 victim BY ANTHONY GIUDICE [email protected]/@A_GiudiceReport The Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corps (FHVAC) is honoring one of their own who selfl essly gave his life on Sept. 11, 2001. The FHVAC along with the Punishers Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club (LEMC) will be hosting a 9/11 15th Anniversary Motorcycle Run in memory of Richard Allen Pearlman, a Howard Beach native who served as an EMT with the FHVAC who gave his life on 9/11. At just 18 years old, Pearlman — who worked as a messenger for a law fi rm — was the youngest person to die on the ground in the terrorist attacks. On that fateful day, Pearlman was at One Police Plaza making a delivery for his law fi rm. When he heard of the attacks, he wasted little time and headed to the World Trade Center to help the victims. It was the last time he was seen alive. On Sunday, Sept. 11, the fi rst-ever “Run for Richie” motorcycle run will take place. Check-in and registration for the run will begin at 11:30 a.m. at Resorts World Casino, located at 110-00 Rockaway Blvd. in Ozone Park, with the run getting underway promptly at 1:30 p.m. Riders will head down the Long Island Expressway to the Queensborough Bridge into Manhattan. Once in the city, riders will travel south on the FDR Drive, loop around the Freedom Tower, and will end back in Queens at the FHVAC center at 92-29 Metropolitan Ave. in Forest Hills. The entire ride will have a police escort. The fi rst 411 riders to register for the run will receive a free commemorative challenge coin. The number 411 represents the FDNY, NYPD, Port Authority Police and EMS members who lost their lives on 9/11. Tickets for the run range from $25 for a solo rider, and $35 for a rider with a passenger. The event is rain or shine, and no refunds will be given due to inclement weather. To learn more about the run and to purchase tickets, visit eventbrite.com and search for “9/11 motorcycle run.”  LIC artists pay homage to 9/11 victims with pieces displayed in Memorial Museum BY ANGELA MATUA [email protected] / @AngelaMatua The 9/11 Memorial Museum will debut its fi rst major special exhibition on Sept. 12, and two of the 13 artists hail from Long Island City. “Rendering the Unthinkable: Artists Respond to 9/11” will showcase the New York City-based artists’ reactions to the attacks and will range from paintings to sculptures and videos. Long Island City’s close proximity to Manhattan gave residents an up-close view of the destruction caused by the attack. The Queens artists showcasing their work at the museum struggled to continue creating artwork after witnessing such a shocking event. Pastel artist Donna Levinstone had just fi nished her last round of chemotherapy for breast cancer in August 2001. One month later, as she was working in her studio on 90th Street in Manhattan, two planes struck the World Trade Center. “The next day was very visceral,” Levinstone said. “It was a windy day and the smoke came up and I actually smelled the smoke. That memory of smell and burning and certainly watching the imagery had me going to the drawing board.” It took Levinstone three months to actually put pastel to paper. She was asked to create a piece for the National Arts Club in Washington, D.C., called “True Colors: Meditations on the American Spirit,” which forced her to refl ect on that day. “I was sort of stuck for a few months,” Levinstone said. “I could not draw anything.” Her 9/11 series consists of eight pieces showing the towers as they become consumed by smoke. Titled “Ascending Spirit,” “Eternal Rest,” “In God’s Light” and “Almost Gone,” the pieces are either black and white or black and gold. “Eternal Rest” will be displayed at the museum starting on Sept. 12. It depicts a cloud that formed around these towers protecting and guiding lives to eternal rest. “There is a certain hopeful quality to the way I portray the sky, an openness,” Levinstone said. “When you look up at the sky you think, ‘Everything is going to be OK.’ I’m not a totally religious person but when they talk about exodus and God coming in a cloud of smoke I got that feeling about the disappearance of these people.” An artist for more than 30 years, Levinstone now works from a studio at 43-01 22nd St. in Long Island City. A curator for the 9/11 museum approached Levinstone after seeing her work at the previous gallery and asked if she wanted to be one of the 13 artists to exhibit their work when the museum offi cially opened on Sept. 12. “It is one of the most beautifully designed museums,” Levinstone said. “It’s very touching, very moving to be there.” The artist said she is proud to be able to pay tribute to the families who have lost someone on that day. Sept. 11 not only changed her art but also her outlook on life, she said. “There was such a strong connection from the vulnerability I felt as a cancer survivor,” Levinstone said. “It’s not the same vulnerability, but it was up there — the parallels of being vulnerable and scared. 9/11 came and made me realize that you don’t have a lot of control and in some ways 9/11 made the city stronger. A lot of fear also arose. I feel that way too as a cancer survivor ... in terms of me appreciating my life maybe 10 times more than other people do.” Another artist, Tobi Kahn has worked in Long Island City studios since 1978. He has witnessed the changes in the area fi rsthand and was also on his roof when a plane struck the second tower at the World Trade Center. “I had a meeting with a collector who had offi ces downtown,” Kahn said. “He called me up and said he can’t get there because something happened at the World Trade Center. He said, ‘I think it’s terrorism’ and I said, ‘Don’t be so negative.’ I was wrong and he was right.” Kahn went up to the roof of his studio at 12-23 Jackson Ave. just as the plane hit the second tower. He called the scene “truly shocking” and remembers frantically making arrangements to pick up his three children who were in pre-K, middle school and high school at the time. The event was more personal for him because he knew people who died or lost family members in the attacks and was asked to make a memorial light for a friend. Kahn makes paintings, sculptures and ceremonial objects but found it diffi cult to create any sort of art to commemorate that day. “I just couldn’t bring myself to do it,” Kahn said. Six years ago he was asked to create an installation for the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 for a nonprofi t. The show was “life-changing” and allowed Kahn to fi nally conceptualize what he would create as a tribute to that event and the people who lost their lives that day. He created a fl oor relief made up of thousands of reclaimed wood remnants that is now installed in the 9/11 Memorial Museum. It covers an 80-by-40-inch area and rises 5 inches above the fl oor. When viewers look at the piece, which is painted a light blue, from an elevated perspective, it resembles the view of the skyline from the South Tower’s Top of the World Observatory. It took him nine months to fi nish the piece, titled “M’hal,” and he worked on no other art while he constructed it. “I really wanted to create that feeling of the city being one but also mourning its own,” Kahn said. “Here are all these buildings that were missing these two huge buildings that were part of the city’s makeup.” Donna Levinstone


QC09082016
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