Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum and the City of New York Parks & Recreation will celebrate the 420th anniversary of Anne Hutchinson’s birth with a festival at BPMM on Sunday, June 12 from 12 to 4 p.m. Hutchinson (1591-1643), a Puritan who eventually settled in what is now the Bronx, was an outspoken advocate for freedom of religion and equality of women in religious matters. She was eventually tried for heresy. The festival, which is free and open to the public, is one of a year-long calendar of Bronx events to honor her.
Games, crafts, storytelling, and more will be ongoing throughout the afternoon.

The Bronx Arts Ensemble, under the direction of Bill Scribner, will perform English madrigals of the 17th century, in costume. Quartet members are Kate Smith, soprano; Johanna Brom, mezzo; Joseph Rubinstein, tenor; and Robert Osborne, bass.

Shelley Volk will demonstrate colonial herbs and will discuss herbal medicine during the 17th century.
Visitors will have the opportunity to help plant an Anne Hutchinson herb garden at BPMM.
Maria and Michael Grillo will be performing as a 17th-century elementary school teacher and school master, respectively, and will discuss education and the role of women in Anne Hutchinson’s time. They will have period writing paper, quill pens, and hornbooks on display.

Native American storyteller Bobby Gonzalez will share tales celebrating Lenape Native American culture, including The Origin of Turtle Island, The Boy Who Lived with the Bears, and The First Corn.
Urban Park Rangers will demonstrate colonial games, such as hoops, and colonial crafts, such as corn husk dolls, and children will have the opportunity to participate.

The Festival culminates with a talk on Anne Hutchinson by Bronx resident Tom Vasti at 3:00 p.m.

City Island, The Bronx is the northernmost most point of all the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last bunch of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated. Located north of Manhattan and Queens, and south of Westchester County, the Bronx is the only borough on the US mainland. In 2011, the US Census Bureau estimated the borough's population was 1,400,761. The Bronx covers a land area of 42 square miles (109 km2). This makes the Bronx the fourth-most-populated of the five boroughs, the fourth-largest in land area, and the third-highest in density of population.

The borough is divided by the Bronx River into a hillier section in the west, closer to Manhattan, and the flatter East Bronx, closer to Long Island. The West Bronx was annexed to New York City (then largely confined to Manhattan) in 1874, and the areas east of the Bronx River in 1895. The Bronx first assumed a distinct legal identity when it became a borough of New York in 1898. Bronx County, with the same boundaries as the borough, was separated from New York County (afterwards coextensive with the Borough of Manhattan) as of January 1, 1914. Although the Bronx is the third-most-densely-populated county in the U.S., about a quarter of its area is open space, including Pelham Park, NYC largest, Woodlawn Cemetery, Van Cortlandt Park, the New York Botanical Garden and the Bronx Zoo in the borough's north and center, on land deliberately reserved in the late 19th century as urban development progressed northwards and eastwards from Manhattan with the building of roads, bridges and railways.

CIMAGES wishes to congratulate City Island's Barbara Dolensek, along with 24 other local ladies, who were awarded 2011 Bronx Influential Women. For over thirty years, Barbara has been an active and proud resident of City Island. The local widow is an editor to at the City Island Current, where she is dedicated to this unique community.