Unicorn to help Medieval Festival celebrate 25 years by Daniel P. Bader A long time ago, in a land not so far away, the elders and wise people of the neighborhood decided there needed to be a festival to celebrate their hilly lands and prove to the rest of this little island that the northern reaches of the fair city were worth visiting. Take away the flowery writing and the 25-year history of the Medieval Festival in Fort Tryon Park still sounds like a fairy tale.  The event, which started in 1983, was modeled after an event held in the 1960s and 1970s by the Cloisters Museum, the Metropolitan Museum’s northern repository for its medieval collection. Washington Heights and Inwood Development Corporation Executive Director Dennis Reeder said local elected officials and community leaders revived the festival to combat the bad reputation the area had acquired.
Abandoned like the rest of the city after the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, Northern Manhattan in the 1980s became a center of the drug trade and the corresponding violence. “We were concerned because the neighborhood was getting a lot of bad press,” Reeder said. “It’s always been one of the safest places in the city. We wanted an event to attract people to the neighborhood to see what it’s like.” Armed with a $30,000 budget, and aided by NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital’s Dr. John Lattimer, a medieval guru, and Dr. Madeline Pelner Cosman, director of the City College Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the first years of the festival had an educational component with local schools, which included creating period banners and clothing. “It was a lot smaller,” Reeder recalled, but added that the first festival attracted several thousand people. “It was a huge hit.” A New York Times story previewed the 1983 festival: “The opening event will be a parade, and dozens of children - who have been working on their colorful tunics and banners all summer - will join the jugglers, horses and armored knights as they march across the green just south of the Cloisters. The day will then be given over to booths lining the park, including a mélange of medieval-style foods, stained-glass makers and a reproduction of an old armor shop as it looked in the days when the fighting classes shopped for armor.” Another parade later in the day marched across the park to herald the heroes of the joust to the field of battle. The festival was held for two more years, and then suffered another setback: the insurance crisis that gripped the state knocked the festival off its horse. “The price of insurance was so high it exceeded the entire budget of the festival,” Reeder said. The festival returned after prices dropped and has continued ever since. It has become the largest annual single day event held in New York City parks, attracting an estimated 60,000 people. In its renaissance, the organized parades and school component have drifted away, as have Lattimer and Cosman, but this year’s festival dips its lance to the original 1983 festival.  For the first time since the early days of the festival, the Cloisters is opening its doors for tours and to play host for lectures about authentic medieval garb by Professor Desiree Koslin of the Fashion Institute of Technology. Reeder said she studied and made the clothing the same way people in medieval times did.
Absent also this year is Stan Michels, the City Council member who represented Northern Manhattan for 25 years and helped get the festival started. He died in 2008, and the event is dedicated to him this year. In his memory the main event grounds where the living chess match and joust are held has been renamed “The Sir Stan Michels Tournament Field of Honour.” The event also remembers Nancy Joan Kueffner the educational director for the Cloisters Museum who helped start the original medieval festival at the museum. One of the biggest draws this year will undoubtedly be the unicorn, the symbol of this year’s festival and a new attraction. “They’re very hard to find,” Reeder said, adding that they represent love, magic and providence. This particular one, named Guy, will prance all the way from Ohio for the festival with his maiden keeper. Ever practically minded, Reeder was quick to clarify: “It’s not a real unicorn. And it doesn’t hurt the horse.” The End. The Manhattan Times is the bilingual newspaper of Washington Heights and Inwood.
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