The space occupied by the Greater Astoria Historical Society: a one-time mausoleum magnate's family gallery located above a still-operational funeral home, cannot escape a certain implicit irony. Equal parts precious artifact museum, document repository, and lecture hall, it, like its ground-floor neighbor, serves a certain needed civic duty as a salon of reflection, remembrance, and memorial for that which has passed forever to antiquity (in this case, the independent municipality of Long Island City incorporating the villages of Astoria, Ravenswood, Hunter's Point, etc. pre-1898 NYC annexation), never to return. While a somber space for some (read: sympathetic Brooklynites who like to whine over their similar loss of indie cred), a whimsical memory-lane stroll for others, this all-volunteer society, whose membership ($20 yearly) is in the hundreds, has a living agenda. Through monthly lectures, walking tours, book publication (all events are listed on
http://www.astorialic.org), web involvement, and neighborhood site protection, the Society's aim since its formation in 1985 is to bring value to the neighborhood's past to help better define its future. In the face of Fedderization and Ratner-itis (it's only a matter of time, Astorians...) such grassroots civic-mindedness is essential.
