Panel Discussion: \”New Rochelle Voices Through The Ages\”

“New Rochelle Voices Through the Ages” — exploring the history of New Rochelle through personal stories — is the theme for an engaging panel discussion at the New Rochelle Public Library on Monday, August 12 at 5:30 pm.  Sponsored by the New Rochelle Council on the Arts in partnership with the New Rochelle Public Library, the free program will let participants  experience some of the voices that have shaped New Rochelle and learn about the techniques used to record, preserve and share them. The event will feature Monica Genuardi of the Westchester County Historical Society speaking about local first-hand accounts of the Revolutionary War, City Historian Barbara Davis on oral histories describing the early 20th century, and the Humans of New Rochelle team on contemporary voices.

Monica Genuardi is a project archivist at the Westchester County Historical Society, working on organizing and describing the McDonald Papers, a collection of Revolutionary War Era firsthand accounts, in order to make them publicly accessible online. She holds an M.A. in World Heritage Studies and an M.I. in Information Science with a concentration in Archives and Preservation. Monica has worked on a range of projects in archaeology, history, and the digital humanities.

Barbara Davis is the New Rochelle City Historian and the co-director of the Westchester County Historical Society, where she is responsible for the programming, publicity, and other operations of WCHS, the only organization that collects and promotes the countywide history of Westchester. Beginning in 1988, as executive director of the New Rochelle Tricentennial, Barbara has been capturing the stories of New Rochelle residents by recording their oral histories. While in the position of community relations coordinator for the New Rochelle Public Library, from 2004 to 2020, she oversaw several oral history projects and collections.

Annie Gombiner and Veronica Yu have been managing the Humans of New Rochelle (HONR) Instagram account since 2021; “Humans of New Rochelle: The Exhibit” is currently on display at the NRCA Rotunda Gallery in City Hall. Gombiner and Yu are both graduates of the New Rochelle High School Class of 2024 and incoming first-years of the Harvard College Class of 2028. As managers of HONR they have interviewed and photographed an array of New Rochelleans to continue the idea that everyone has an important story.

The panel moderator will be Wenting Yu, who founded Humans of New Rochelle in 2019. Inspired by the popular site Humans of New York, she set out on the streets of New Rochelle to ask strangers for their stories, confirming her philosophy that everyone has a story worth sharing. Since the inception of this project, Wenting has worked with Humans of St. Louis, one of the largest “Humans of…” branches in the world, and met Brandon Stanton, founder of the original Humans of New York.

The panel discussion is co-sponsored by the New Rochelle Council on the Arts and the New Rochelle Public Library. The exhibit and the program are part of Harvard SPARK, an immersive, paid, six-week public service program for incoming first-year students in which they develop a public service project at home while receiving ongoing support from Harvard staff, faculty, and student leaders. “Humans of New Rochelle: The Exhibit” is co-sponsored by the New Rochelle Council on the Arts (NRCA) and the City of New Rochelle Department of Development.