The keepers of Floral Park’s history are looking for a new space.
After operating out of the village’s oldest commercial building on South Tyson Avenue for nearly twenty years, the historical society has been told by landlords that it needs to find a new space.
“It’s just a regular situation where it’s necessary for us to move because they have to move on with their building,” said Ann Corbett, president of the Floral Park Historical Society. “We’re looking for a new place to accommodate the museum and the archive.”
The historical society operates as a museum in the front half of its space, displaying photos of the village’s past, memorabilia from the local schools, information on local veterans and performers and seed catalogs from John Lewis Childs, the village’s founder, who gave the village its name through his horticulture business. It also serves as an archive, storing meeting records from the village, schools and clubs and other documents.
The organization was informed that they’d need to move this month, said Corbett, a former mayor who’s worked with the historical society since it was founded in 1999. She said the organization is “exploring options” but is still looking for leads on new spaces.
Corbett said she hopes the move will give the society a bigger space, as it currently must keep many artifacts in a back room or in boxes.
“We’d like to get a little bit bigger space because we’re cramped. People give us things all the time, and it piles up,” Corbett said. “I’m hoping for more wall space so I can put up some maps and things like that, some more pictures. From time to time, we haven’t accepted certain kinds of antiques like furnishings, which maybe we could if the space is larger.”
She said the archival space is most important and hopes the new space will have additional shelves to store materials.
Corbett said she hopes that space is also more accessible and ADA-compliant than the current one. The organization currently goes to great lengths to accommodate those with disabilities, bringing them materials to view at other locations or borrowing other businesses’ ramps.
She said the group also hoped to gain enough space to welcome small school classes, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and other small tour groups as the elementary school offers a unit on local history.
“I’m hoping for some space that would allow us to have school children sit at a table and work on historic projects related to the village…We’d like to do something like that right on site, rather than going to the school,” Corbett said. “They could visit the museum and make something, or do something, related to history that would make them more understanding of the community.”
Corbett said the historical society is essential to supporting the village’s appreciation of history and that it is well-used by the community: She gets a request at least once a week from someone looking to use the archive for research, legal or personal matters, like theses, proving past existence of businesses and looking through yearbooks.
She said the historical society hopes to move into a new home at some point in the fall.
Corbett said anyone who wants to see the society’s current space should contact her or the society.
