Artist donates work to Riverhead schools
A love of history and art has prompted a part-time Greenport resident to donate printed art pieces to the Riverhead School District and 20 3-D sculptures to the Railroad Museum of Long Island in Riverhead.
“I wanted to give back to the community,” said artist Jake Rose, 22. “It was a great gift to the Pulaski Street school.”
This past summer, Mr. Rose published four coloring books focusing on East End locations: Color North Fork, Color Riverhead, Color Sag Harbor and Color Greenport. The books feature local spots such as the Greenport carousel and the Long Island Aquarium, accompanied by facts about their origins. Mr. Rose enlarged the original line drawings from the books and colorized them for an exhibit at the Suffolk County Historical Society that closed Oct. 28.
Nineteen of the 22 pictures from the Riverhead coloring book were blown up for that exhibit.
Because Pulaski Street Elementary School was included in the Riverhead book, Mr. Rose thought that would be a great place to donate the colorized drawings.
“I want the kids to look at them and get an appreciation of their town and its history,” he said.
There are images of Star Confectionery, Vail-Leavitt Music Hall, the Long Island Duck, Tweed’s restaurant and St. Isidore R.C. Church, among others.
“My favorite picture is the Long Island Aquarium, because they took a fairly OK building and made it look incredible,” Mr. Rose said.
The coloring books can be purchased at colorourtown.com and at local shops listed on that website.
Mr. Rose lives in Manhattan and spends weekends in Greenport. He has a degree in history from Drew University, from which he graduated in May.
His father, Ron, at one point had a 3-D modeling company, where Mr. Rose was able to make 3-D models of popular Riverhead sites and museums. Those models will soon be on permanent display at the Long Island Railroad Museum.
Mr. Rose will release three more coloring books within the next few weeks, but these will focus on neighborhoods in Manhattan.
“Those donations made me feel like I was contributing to society,” he said. “It let me make my mark on the world, no matter how small.”
