We’re an evolving project of discovery.

Our ideas, our music, our web pages, all in motion.

We’re history lovers, mostly storytellers.


Our thoughts and ideas are the bones we leave behind. 

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obo history blog

We’re learning about the past, our own, America’s, the whole wild wide world.

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The Journey

It’s a long and twisting road. Lots of stories, some discoveries, many mysteries remain.

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October 24, 2023 No Comments

Cruz Alejandrina Archive

A long long time ago when all who loved were still loved in return, a knight named Cruz saved her from the bad dreams, holding her close when danger was near

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February 4, 2025 No Comments

The RTR Archive

an ode to to that funny little building crammed into a hectic new york city street, a little building that seemed so much bigger than it was.

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January 21, 2025 No Comments

obo the project - interviews with ellen

OBO - The Project Playlist

6 Videos

books that inspire us

How The South Won The Civil War
By Heather Cox Richardson
South To America
By Imani Perry
The Color Of Law
A Forgotten History Of How Our Government Segregated America By Richard Rothstein
Doppelganger
A Trip Into The Mirror World By Naomi Klein
A Brief History Of Everyone Who Ever Lived
The Stories In Our Genes By Adam Rutherford
The Grand Surprise
The Journals of Leo Lerman Edited By Stephen Pascal
The Bluebird Of Happiness
The Memoir Of Jan Peerce By Alan Levy
If I Were A Richman
The life of Jan Peerce, Hosted by Isaac Stern
Growing Up At Grossingers
By Tania Grossinger
The Russian Tea Room
A Love Story By Faith Stewart-Gordon
Jackie And Me
A Very Special Friendship Written By Tania Grossinger, Illustrated By Charles George Esperanza
Sapiens
A Brief History Of Human Kind By Yuval Noah Harari
American Nations
A History Of The Eleven Rival Regional Cultures Of North America By Colin Woodard
The Third Reconstruction
America's Struggle For Racial Justice In The Twenty-Firts Century By Peniel E. Joseph
Saxons, Vikings And Celts
The Genetic Roots Of Britain And Ireland By Bryan Sykes
The Warmth Of Other Suns
The Epic Story Of America's Great Migration By Isabel Wilkerson
Life Of A Klansman
A Family History In White Supremacy By Edward Ball
Genghis
Birth Of An Empire A Novel Of Genghis Khan By Conn Iggulden
The Dragons Of Eden
Speculations On The Evolution Of Human Intelligence By Carl Sagan
Shadows Of Our Ancestors
By Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan
Solidarity
By Leah Hunt-Hendrix & Astra Taylor
On Repentance And Repair
Making Amends In An Unapologetic World By Danya Ruttenberg
The Notorious Elizabeth Tuttle
Marriage, Murder And Madness In The Family Of Jonathan Edwards By Ava Chamberlain
Jonathan Edwards
1703 - 1758 By Ola Elizabeth Winslow
Slaves In The Family
By Edward Ball
The Hidden Roots Of White Supremacy
and the Path to a Shared American Future By Robert P. Jones
How The Word Is Passed
A Reckoning With The History Of Slavery Across America By Clint Smith
The Righteous Mind
Why Good People Are Divided By Politics And Religion By Jonathan Haidt
White Too Long
The Legacy Of White Supremacy In American Christianity By Robert P. Jones
Caste
The Origins Of Our Discontent By Isabel Wilkerson
The 1619 Project
A New Origin Story Created By Nicole Hannah -Jones
The Sentence
By Louise Erdich
Bleak House & Great Expectations
By Charles Dickens.
Great Expectations
By Charles Dickens
Bleak House
By Charles Dickens
To The Lighthouse
By Virginia Woolf
A Room Of One's Own
By Virginia Woolf
Orlando
By Virginia Woolf
Great Expectations
By Charles Dickens
Sula
By Toni Morrison
Your Husband's Gone To War
Beloved
By Toni Morrison
Childhood's End
By Arthur C. Clarke
Nowhere In Africa
A Film By Caroline Link

the obo journey slideshow

The Road
1974
A Manhattan Fairy Tale
The song - by Ellen C Kaye, Music by Ethan Fein
Old Bones Odyssey #2
Articles Of Association
Circa 1775. A sample of the Articles of Association signed by Zachariah Burwell, Ellen's 4th great grandfather, and over 1800 others in Dutchess County, New York following the Battles at Lexington and Concord.
Phoenix House
Hart Island, Pelham Bay
A Film By Larry Peerce
"One Potato, Two Potato" was a ground breaking film directed by my cousin Larry Peerce. Barbara Barrie and Bernie Hamilton starred in it. My mother had a part in it. She was a talented actor who had been discovered a few years before in "New Faces Of 1952".
Marriage, Murder, And Madness In The Family Of Jonathan Edwards. By Ava Chamberlin. Ellen's ancestors on the maternal line.
The Journey
All the pieces, the particles, the clues.
The Hart Island Ferry
Pelham Bay, New York
In The Studio
Recording our new album, Old Bones Odyssey. Outlier Inn Recording Studio.
Lloyd Williams Family Sketch
Lloyd Williams was too fabulous too describe easily. He was an original. A talented and successful fashion designer. A black entrepreneur who partnered with Hy Rabin to create a successful clothing line in the 1970's,'80's and 90's. Here's a fun sketch of our whacky family he jotted off one day.
Old Bones Odyssey Live AtHowland Cultural center
May 2023
The RTR
Old Bones Odyssey
A Long Ago Letter
Ellen found this letter inside this beautiful box, undisturbed for sixty years.
Ellen's Missing Persons Poster
1974
The RTR #2
Old Bones Odyssey #3
Ian
Lyrics by Ellen C Kaye, Music by Ethan Fein.
Andrew Hull Tuttle
The Descendants Of William And Elizabeth Tuttle
Burwell Family Record
Old Bones Odyssey #4
William Tuttle History
Bishop Asbury
Burwell WWII Letters
My mother Faith's letters to her father Ernest, and his to her, during the war.
Burwell Family Letters
My grandmother kept my mother's letters in the top box. In the bottom box were all the letters my mother and her father wrote to each other during WWII.
Making Family Albums
George Ernest Burwell Jr. Baby picture. Circa 1898.
Lloyd Williams Fashion Sketch
Lloyd Williams b.1932 d.2020. Fashion designer.
The Living Room - 2020
This was the start of the archiving. Pinky was always in charge.
Family Research
Archiving
Storage space really helps.
WWII Family Sketch
Found this sketch in a letter from my mother Faith to her father Ernest in WWII. She was eight years old when the war started and thirteen when it ended.
Sidney Kalmanowitz - WWII - England
Woman's Best Friend
Bitsy keeping me on course.
Sidney Kalmanowitz WWII Letter
Letter sent from my father Sidney Kalmanowitz during WWII to my Aunt Alice, his sister, and my Uncle Jan.
Lloyd Williams Sketches
- Greenwich Village Fashion
WWII Family Sketch
My mother Faith included this sketch in a letter to her father Ernest during the war.
Sidney Kalmanowitz - WWII
Lloyd Williams Sketch
WWII Letter & Cartoon
Letter from my father Sidney Kalmanowitz to my cousin Susan Peerce during WWII. The cartoon was sketched by a patient at the hospital in England where my father was serving in the war.

the obo story slideshow

The RTR
The Russian Tea Room. Sidney Kaye, Faith Stewart-Gordon, Sidney Poitier, Faith with the RTR team, Ellen Kaye, Dudley Moore, Armand Assante, Natasha Kinski.
Kaye, Peerce, Williams, Oldin, Halpern, Goldberg
Family gathering 1970s.
Hart Island Map
A map detail off the Bronx coast.
Sidney Kaye at The RTR
My father having a photo taken for a Russian Tea Room ad campaign.
George Frederick Tuttle
Author of The Descendants Of William And Elizabeth Tuttle, published 1883. Family genealogist on the Courtney line.
Faith Stewart-Gordon In Front Of The RTR
My mother outside the Russan Tea Room.
Phoenix House
Phoenix House buildings on in decay on Hart Island.
The Descendants Of William And Elizabeth Tuttle
Title page. The Descendants Of William And Elizabeth Tuttle by George Frederick Tuttle. Published 1883. A History of Ellen’s maternal ancestors who emigrated from England to America in 1635 on a ship called the Planter.
Sidney Kaye with Sidney Poitier
My Dad with his good friend, talking, relaxing for a moment in the RTR dining room. Circa 1960s.
The Thermopylae
By Montague Dawson - 1868.
Kim Tsang with John Tsang
Kim being held by his father John. Long Island, NY. Circa 1960.
Potters Field Headstone
Hart Island, New York
Lloyd Williams
b. 1932. d. 2020. Fashion designer.
Sidney Kalmanowitz Kaye
WWII
Ellen Kaye - Missing Persons Poster
1974
The RTR
I always loved the way it looked like it's own odd little foreign embassy. The Russian Tea Room.
Faith Burwell Kaye Stewart-Gordon
The 1950s.
Jan Peerce
Signed photo by Jan Peerce- 1958. b. Jacob Pincus Perelmuth in 1904 in the Lower East Side, Manhattan, New York. d.1984, New Rochelle, New York. Jan was a famous cantor and opera singer, known as Toscanini’s favorite tenor. He starred in “Fiddler on the Roof” on Broadway as Tevye. His recording of “The Bluebird of Happiness”, which was written for him, became his signature tune and became a worldwide hit. He was the first American Jew to sing behind the Iron Curtain in the Soviet Union. He is credited with inspiring the launching of the Soviet Jewry Movement. Ellen's paternal uncle, married to her aunt Alice Kalmanowitz, her father Sidney's sister.
Record Of The Burwell Family
Title page. Published 1908.
Andrew Willet
b.1562 d.1621. He was an English clergyman and controversialist. A prolific writer, he is known for his anti-papal works. His views were Calvinist, conforming and non-separatist, and he appeared as a witness against Edward Dering before the Star-chamber. Ellen’s maternal ancestor.
Sidney Kaye
1950s.
Phoenix House Building.
Decaying Phoenix House buildong. Hart Island, New York.
A Ruble
1898 Czarist currency from the Russian empire. Passed down on the Kalmanovitch-Kalmanowitz-Kaye line.
Thomas Willett
b. 1604 d. 1674 First and third Mayor of New York City. Ellen’s maternal ancestor.
Kim Tsang
Wedding day -1992. Bell Cafe, Spring Street, NYC.
Hart Island
Civil War. 1865.
Cruz Alejandrina Defanti
Cruz Defanti emigrated from Chile to New York City. She raised Ellen till she was seven.
Hart Island
Prisoners burying the dead. Hart Island, New York.
Lloyd Williams Fashion Sketch
Greenwich Village fashion sketches by Lloyd Williams.
Marinus Willett
b. 1740 Jamaica, Queens. d. 1830 Buried in Trinity Church, New York City. Revolutionary Soldier. British America. New York Militia. Continental Army. 1st, 3rd and 5th New York Regiment. 48th Mayor of New York City. Ellen’s maternal ancestor.
One Potato, Two Potato
"One Potato, Two Potato" was a ground breaking film directed by my cousin Larry Peerce. Barbara Barrie and Bernie Hamilton starred in it. My mother had a part in it. She was a talented actor who had been discovered a few years before in "New Faces Of 1952".
Isaak Chertok-Chertoff
A Russian who emigrated via Tokyo to Istanbul to Israel until the beginning of WWII and finally to New York City. He was a Russian intellectual, Japanese scholar, an engineer who helped design the Trans-Siberian Railway, diplomat, artist, taught Russian at the US Naval College during WWII and a translator of Chekhov stories. After designing the Soviet Embassy in Tokyo, Japan, he fled Stalin’s purge, having been warned secretly by a visiting Soviet official not to leave the ship he had just boarded, thus leaving his young Japanese love, and his life in Japan, forever and beginning his circuitous emigration to America. Ellen’s cousin on the paternal line.
Andrew Hull Courtney & Mary "Polly" Bowman Courtney
Andrew: b.1837 and d.1909. Mary: b.1836. d.1926. North Carolina. They married in 1860. Andrew fought for the Confederacy and was wounded at Gettysburg. Before his capture by Union soldiers his leg was amputated. Ellen’s maternal ancestors.
"Tuttle Gathering" By Joseph F. Tuttle
1635 William Tuttle Of New Haven, An Address Delivered At The Tuttle Gathering, New Haven, Conn, Sept. 3rd, 1873, By Joseph Tuttle, President of Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Ind. Title page.
Annie Horowitz Kalmanowitz & Jake Kalmanowitz
Believed to be their wedding photo taken on the Lower East Side, New York City. Married 1906. Ellen’s paternal grandparents.
Map Of Hart Island
City Island Harbor, Long Island Sound, New York. 1884. Hart Island nautical map.
Chertok-Chertoff Family
A mystery photograph. Russia. Ellen's paternal cousins.
Sketch By Lloyd Williams
Male attire by Lloyd Williams. Fashion designer. b.1932 d.2020.
Marinus Willet
b. 1740 Jamaica, Queens. d. 1830 Buried in Trinity Church, New York City. Revolutionary Soldier. British America. New York Militia. Continental Army. 1st, 3rd and 5th New York Regiment. 48th Mayor of New York City. Ellen’s maternal ancestor.
Isaak Chertok-Chertoff
Isaak Chertok-Chertoff building the Soviet Embassy in Tokyo in the 1930's under Stalin's rule. Isaak was the architect. Soon he would be purged and have to flee, starting on a long exodus that eventually brought him to New York City.
Jan Peerce
Jan Peerce photographed by Sidney or Faith Kaye on the terrace of their apartment on top of the Osborne, 57th Street, circa 1960. Ellen's paternal uncle, married to her aunt Alice Kalmanowitz, her father Sidney's sister.
George "Buster" Ernest Burwell III
b.1925, South Carolina, d. 1996. Ellen’s naternal uncle.
Maye Kalmanowitz Oldin
Circa 1960s. Ellen's paternal aunt.
View Of Central Park West
View from the Osborne rooftop. Circa 1950s.
Faith & Sidney Kaye
Circa 1950s. Osborne rooftop.
Marshall Marcus Courtney
b.1852 d.1921. Ellen’s great grandfather.
Susan Peerce
Circa 1961.
First Saturday
July 1st, 1899. Burwell family photograph, North Carolina.
Alice Earnhardt Courtney
b.2 April 1859. d.15 Sep 1930. North Carolina.
Burwell Family - WWII
George Ernest Burwell Jr., Faith Burwell Jr., Faith Burwell Sr., George "Buster" Ernest Burwell III.
Lloyd Williams Coming To New York Sketch
Mystery Woman
Photograph from the Burwell family line.
Sketch By Lloyd Williams
Central Park South Construction
Circa 1950s. View from the Osborne rooftop.