Ms. Risoli and the Interact Club teamed up with the Peekskill Garden Club to work on a project that is historically significant, botanically beautiful, and well, kinda dirty. By now, most Peekskillians know that the inspiration for The Wizard of Oz’s Yellow Brick Road was the real yellow brick road that ran from the Hudson River up to The Peekskill Military Academy ( which once stood where PHS is now). In order to pay homage to this legend and make our city a little prettier, the Garden Club is planting a trail of Daffodils along the same path that the yellow brick road was supposed to have run. Armed with shovels and rakes, the Interact Club had to climb out on the hill behind the school to plant the bulbs that will bloom into a road of daffodils in the Spring. It was hard to stay on the hill and dig through the rocks, but as always, it looked like the Interact Club had a good time doing a good deed.
Interact Farmers For a Day were: Caitlin Orhelein, Karen Archila, Priscilla Ayora, Cynthia Vele, Karla Hernandez, Laila Cunningham, Genesis Aldana, Yaritza Sanchez, Andrew Wise, Stephanie Gil, Josue Carresquillo, Mikyla Abdul- Azim,and Ariana Memoli
More on Peekskill’s Yellow Brick Road
Baum.
PEEKSKILL, N.Y.?In “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” the yellow brick road leads
to happiness.
In this Hudson River town, it ends in a parking lot.
For close to a decade, city historian John Curran has been waging an uphill
battle to preserve a collection of crumbling golden bricks tucked near a
commuter railroad station here that he believes inspired the yellow brick road
in L. Frank Baum’s famous children’s novel and in the movie classic based on
it.
He has pored over maps, lectured visitors at the city museum he runs, lobbied
the city council and even contacted the author’s great-grandchildren to convince
the town that the 50-foot stretch of yellow bricks he’s trying to memorialize
isn’t just a figment.
From the Oz-Stravaganza festival in Chittenango, N.Y., to be held June 3, to
a new yellow brick road on Main Street in Wamego, Kan., towns across America
have long laid claim to the Wizard of Oz.
Aberdeen, S.D., where Mr. Baum worked for many years as a newspaperman,
boasts a fantasy park called Storybook Land. Other parks include the Land of Oz
in Liberal, Kan., and Oz Park in Chicago, where Mr. Baum published his story in
1900. Drivers on Interstate 35 through Kansas can’t miss the Oz paraphernalia,
from shot glasses to baby bibs that read “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in
Kansas anymore.”
Not so here in Peekskill, a sleepy spot in Westchester County, where the
young Mr. Baum spent two unhappy years in military school.
“You go to South Dakota, Chicago or Syracuse, and you’ll find yellow brick
roads and sculptures and theme parks commemorating Baum,” said Evan I. Schwartz,
the author of “Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American
Story.” He lives in Boston and has joined Mr. Curran’s band of “Ozites” trying
to preserve the road. “But in Peekskill, some people don’t even know the yellow
brick road exists.”
Figuring out whether it’s the right yellow brick road isn’t easy.
Mr. Baum was born in Chittenango, east of Syracuse, in 1856. At the age of
12, the frail child was sent to the now-defunct Peekskill Military Academy on a
fall day in 1868. That’s all fact.
The lore is what happened next. Mr. Curran believes the 12-year-old took a
steamboat down the Hudson. When he got to the dock, he asked for directions to
the military academy and was told, “Just follow the yellow brick road.”
Maps show the road led from the river up the hill to the academy. Most of the
road has been paved over, but a stretch near the river is still made of the
original brick.
Mr. Baum seems not to have written anything about Peekskill’s yellow brick
road. He did write letters complaining about military school.
In one, he said, “They were about as human as a school of fish. They were
quick to slap a boy in the face or forcibly use a cane or ruler to punish any
student who violated?the strict and often unreasonable rules.”
Mr. Curran believes the ordeal shaped the Wizard of Oz. “Whenever Baum had an
emotional experience, such as his two years at Peekskill Military Academy, it
showed up in the book,” Mr. Curran says during his Oz presentation at the
museum. “Whenever the characters get off the yellow brick road, they get into
trouble.”
In 2005, a Fulbright scholar and artist persuaded John Testa, who was the
mayor of Peekskill at the time, to conduct an authenticity study on the road.
Mr. Curran uncovered maps showing that West Street, which leads from the
steamboat dock up a hill to the military academy, was indeed made of Dutch
pavers, a common yellow-hued brick in the Dutch-settled area.
Models for a proposed memorial.
The maps showed Mr. Baum had to have walked along the road to get to school,
Mr. Curran said.
But Peekskill’s Oz advocates have hit their fair share of roadblocks in
trying to get the city to care.
Last year, Mr. Curran teamed up with Westchester resident Deborah Polhill and
Americana sculptor Richard Masloski. They tried to get the town to finance a
life-size bronze cast of characters, including the Tin Man, Cowardly Lion,
Scarecrow, Toto and Dorothy. The price: $225,000.
At one meeting with town officials, Ms. Polhill sang an Oz song she wrote
called “Anything Can Happen.” But nothing did. City officials decided they
couldn’t afford it. They suggested that the group raise money from private
philanthropists.
“As most municipalities, we’re very tight on budget and we’re trying not to
raise property taxes,” explained Jean Friedman, a city planner. “We think it’s a
good thing to celebrate?but we don’t own the road itself and don’t have the
money.”
Mr. Curran went door to door on his own journey, plastering fliers of the
sculptures around town. “I didn’t get any calls,” he said. Meanwhile, Mr.
Masloski compiled a list of Peekskill Military Academy alumni to hit up for
donations.
“I don’t want to be too pushy, because I’m the artist,” Mr. Masloski said.
“But c’mon, Peekskill, get off your butt and do this, I don’t want history to
die.”
For now, the yellow brick road is being used as a parking lot for people
shopping and working in Peekskill’s quaint downtown. Richard Cerreta, who owns
the parking lot and the adjacent building, known as the “Standard House,” says
he isn’t against commemorating the literary icon but has no intention of footing
the bill.
“It would cost a small fortune to restore; there’s no incentive for me to do
it as a private owner,” he said.
Mr. Cerreta has one concern about maintaining the road and its history for
future generations: “Every time a new person hears about the yellow brick road,
I end up chasing people down the street who come to steal the bricks