Schools
Clarkstown North Students Present On New City History
They participated in the Historical Society of Rockland's first ever High School Local History Conference
The Historical Society of Rockland hosted its first ever High School Local History Conference Tuesday at the Comfort Inn in Nanuet.
The conference featured guest speakers, including a keynote address from local author Linda Zimmermann. About 50 students attended in total from Clarkstown High School North, Clarkstown High School South, Nanuet High School, Pearl River High School, Albertus Magnus High School, Ramapo High School, North Rockland High School, Spring Valley High School, Suffern High School and Tappan Zee High School.
The students from each school gave presentations on local history from their own parts of Rockland.
The students from North who presented were Zoe Maisel, Thalia Orphee, Irina Huang and Shivkrish Lingala.
They spoke a lot about Adolph Zukor, the wealthy businessman turned film executive who purchased a large plot of land in New City that is now known as Paramount Country Club. The club is named after Paramount Pictures, which Zukor was an early partner in. He first created the Famous Players Film Company, which eventually merged into Paramount.
The group also presented on the history of aviation in New City, including Christie Airport, which was founded by James Christie in 1929 and operated until 1969. It was located at the intersection of Haverstraw Rd. and Christie Dr. Christie taught a lot of students at the airport, and it provided the county’s first airmail service in the 1930s.
They also talked about Rockland Airport, which was located on Brewery Rd. between Parrot Rd. and Laurel Rd., as well as Miller Airport, which was located where the Palisades Mall is.
