The Guggenheim joins forces with the Garibaldi for Staten Island walking tour - SILive.com

COURTESY THE
GARIBALDI-MEUCCI MUSEUM

STATEN ISLAND, NY â€" The Rosebank inventor whose discoveries about sound predated Alexander Graham Bell’s will be the centerpiece later this month of a four-weekend “Soundwalk” series, combining the established story of Antonio Meucci (1808-1889) with imaginative flights and mermaid songs.

The project, a collaboration between the Guggenheim Museum and the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum in Rosebank, is a 90-minute walking tour. It will step off at the Staten Island Ferry terminal and wind through nearby residential neighborhoods and industrial areas. Along the way, “Telettrofono,” as the tour, is called, will play an Ipod program of text, songs, underwater sounds and real and “imagined” piano-playing.

Part of a Guggenheim series called Stillspotting NYC, the idea is to get people to consider their pertinent history against the backdrop of the noisy city. According to curator David van der Leer, the series “was launched to subtly address issues around silence and noise in New York...does it always need to be stressful or could we celebrate the quiet moments more?”

“Telettrofono,” has paired poet Matthea Harvey and sound artist Justin Bennett. They visited Garibaldi-Meucci and toured the area last January.

COURTESY THE ARTISTMatthea Harvey

MEUCCI THE MERMAID?

Ms. Harvey, a National Book Award nominee, detected a mermaid theme â€" a favorite of hers â€" in the story of Esterre Meucci, wife of the inventor.

She became interested in the subject some time ago. Her poem, “The Straightforward Mermaid” was published in the New Yorker several years ago. Her interest in mermaid lore took her to a mermaid convention in Las Vegas.

She was surprised to find parallels between mermaid-ology and Mrs. Meucci. For example, for mermaids, the transformation into human form is often painful.

“Esterre suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, and really couldn’t move for the last years of her life,” Ms. Harvey theorizes, “and that also confirmed my suspicions that she might have been a mermaid.”

And then, there’s the matter of the relief on Meucci’s tomb, which is on the grounds of the museum. In the depiction, “Meucci is clearly talking to someone in the water who may or may not have legs,” she said.’

Imaginative riffs are balanced by facts extracted from the historical record. Meucci, who welcomed Italian freedom fighter Giuseppe Garibaldi into his home for a year-long stay in 1850, patented his telephone (telettrofono) many years ahead of Alexander Graham Bell.

Later, he could not afford to renew the patent and Bell, having developed and patented a similar device, reaped all the glory and all the rewards.

Still, it’s worth wondering what might have happened had it been otherwise. “How might phones sound if Meucci had been able to develop his invention?” Bennett wondered last week.

The 90-minute “Telettrofono” soundwalk will be available next weekend, July 14 and 15 and weekends through Aug. 5 from noon to 7 p.m at the “Stillspotting NYC” kiosk in the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. The tour is $12. Soundwalkers will be given maps and Ipods. Photo ID will be required.

For additional information, visit www.Guggenheim.orgstillspotting or www.garibaldimeuccimuseum.org.