At Raynham’s new Education Center, virtual reality

Memorial for enslaved in the works at Raynham Hall

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062130LL  Portraits of Samuel and Robert Townsend.
062130LL Portraits of Samuel and Robert Townsend.
ELISA.DRAGOTTO

After a decade of renovations, the Raynham Hall Education Center opened last Sunday. Located in the former Lincoln Market building on Audrey Avenue in Oyster Bay, the center is adjacent to Raynham Hall Museum, once the home of Revolutionary War spy Robert Townsend. It expands the museum’s campus for roughly 10,000 annual visitors — who include some 5,000 fourth-graders who come on field trips to learn about the Revolutionary War.

In 2011, the Town of Oyster Bay purchased the building for the museum’s use, on the condition that the Friends of Raynham Hall Inc., which operates the museum on behalf of the town, raise the funds for the education center.

The upper level of the center now serves as staff headquarters, which will allow the museum to expand to what was once living quarters for Irish servants in the 19th century.


The education center now features 18th-century-style portraits that “come to life.” Samuel Townsend, a prominent merchant who bought Raynham Hall in 1738; his son, Robert, one of George Washington’s Culper spies; a slave named Elizabeth and even the enemy, British Lt. Col. John Simco, all share their stories via a new smartphone enhanced-reality app called Digital Tapestry. Created by 360 XR under the auspices of the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, the app is available to anyone with an iPad or iPhone and can be downloaded at the center.

“RDLGF’s confidence in the educational outreach offered by Raynham Hall is such that we have chosen this site to be the initial offering for our public virtual reality experience, Digital Tapestry,” Kathryn M. Curran, executive director of the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, said. “This exciting and innovative program will be available shortly to bring this and other of our historic sites to life.”

Although this is the first time Digital Tapestry is being used at a museum, there are plans for five additional historical sites on Long Island to utilize it by year’s end.

“We want to link the stories,” Harriet Gerard Clark, Raynham’s executive director, explained. “Visitors will be told that if they want to hear the rest of the story, to go to the next location.”

“What is being done at Raynham is advanced,” said Noel Gish, a volunteer who is helping with the technology, adding that the paintings are just one example of how the augmented reality is being used. “The paintings are an introduction to the characters who will tell the story inside the house museum.”

There are two dioramas in the education center where Digital Tapestry can also be used. One depicts Oyster Bay in 1780. There are figures representing Simco and his Queen’s Rangers leaving the hamlet on horseback, as well as houses, Fort Hill and everyday scenes like a man chopping wood. Laurel Hollow resident Richard Schuster built the 1½-inch figures from kits and then primed, sanded and painted them.

“I researched all of the uniforms and recreated the houses from old portraits and plans,” Schuster said. “Some of the figures were tough to paint, so I used a magnifying glass.”

The other diorama is of the Battle of Brooklyn, one of many that Schuster created for Manhattan’s New York Historical Society. “After the exhibit was over in 2013, I brought the figures home,” he said. “The New York Historical Society donated the case to Raynham Hall.”

Visitors can learn more about the details of the dioramas using a Digital Tapestry menu. “If you click on the apples, for example,” Gish said, “you’ll find out that in early America, they were not eating objects, but a way for people to have something to drink — apple cider. That substituted for water because diseases were rampant in the water.”

Ground was broken last Saturday for a memorial outside the education center that will be dedicated to the enslaved. The hope is that it will be complete by the winter. The details remain secret, but Gerard Clark said that the designer is from the Montgomery, Ala., Equal Justice Initiative, nicknamed the “Museum of Lynching.”

Dean Yoder, of Glen Cove, an interior designer and a member of the Friends of Raynham Hall board, and his husband, Jonathan Grimm, acquired all of the antiques in both buildings. “Some things came from Illinois, Michigan, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Texas, too,” Yoder said. “But I had a vision for this.”

John M. Collins, Friends of Raynham Hall’s board president, said he was proud of what had been accomplished. “We’re trying to be relevant and tell compelling stories,” he said. “There are lots of house museums on Long Island, but we’re the only one accredited by the American Alliance of Museums for the past 20 years. That’s how professional and serious this staff is.”