- [Shirley Min] Here's what's coming up next on You Oughta Know.

From mismatched to magnificent.

See how Jacqueline Kennedy's collaboration with Henry DuPont brought prestige to the White House.

- [Regina Mitchell] You've probably seen the pocket parks around the city.

Learn how these small wonders came to be.

- [Shirley Min] Plus a father's influence turns into a cigar box guitar business for a New Jersey man.

- [Regina Mitchell] And from celebrations to a night out on the town, Brooklyn Bowl may be your next venue for fun.

(electronic music) Thanks for joining us.

I'm Regina Mitchell - And I'm Shirley Min.

We often think of Joe Biden as Delaware's only connection to the White House, but 60 years ago, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy tapped the founder of Winterthur to help redecorate the White House, fundamentally changing how the executive mansion was used.

An exhibition devoted to this lasting legacy is now on full display at the Winterthur Museum.

Take a look.

When you first step into Jackie Kennedy's White House at Winterthur you see it the way most Americans did in 1962, through television cameras.

- [Elaine Rice Bachmann] It's exciting to see it in this setting because it's a black and white television tour and her suit was this vibrant red, which of course you didn't see in the tour, but you see against the backdrop of the East Room photo here.

- [Shirley Min] 80 million people tuned in to see the White House as never before, and hear from one of America's youngest first ladies.

- [Elaine Rice Bachmann] This exhibition is really exploring the time period between 1961 and 1963 when Jacqueline Kennedy, First Lady, called a upon Henry Francis DuPont, the founder of Winterthur, to be the chairman of her Fine Arts Committee.

And together they guided the restoration of the White House.

It transformed the nature of the White House from a house to a museum.

- [Shirley Min] Up until the Kennedy administration, the decor of the White House was a hodgepodge.

- She described the lower floor as sort of looking like a dentist office bomb shelter.

She described rooms as having a very hotel-like feeling, but not the dignity of the President of the United States.

- [Shirley Min] Kennedy wanted the executive mansion to reflect its historical significance, but she didn't have a clear vision.

A friend suggested she reach out to Henry Francis DuPont, a collector and scholar of Americana.

In May of 1961 Kennedy visited DuPont at Winterthur and subsequently asked him to chair the newly created White House Fine Arts Committee - With a person like Henry DuPont chairing the Fine Arts Committee, not only would it bring it sort of this scholarly gravitas that she wanted in order to make it clear that this was going to be a formal project, she knew that by connecting with him, she would have the model of Winterthur to follow, someone with the knowledge of American antiques, but also a network of dealers, auction houses, that could help supply furnishings for the project.

This was really a story that you'll see when you come to the exhibition that is told through letters and telegrams and personal communications.

You have Mrs. Kennedy's very distinctive light blue stationary.

You have her handwritten notes that are always on yellow legal pad.

That's how she wrote all her memos.

You have the wonderful letterheads of the museums throughout the country.

Telegrams, air mail.

- [Shirley Min] Kennedy knew she had an uphill battle with no funds.

So.

Bachmann says, Kennedy looked to museums, with objects associated with past presidents like this mirror, for example.

- This was in George Washington's presidential residence in Philadelphia.

And it's one of the loans that was given to Mrs. Kennedy early in 1961 as well when she was seeking collections that had presidential objects that they might temporarily loan to the White House.

Mrs. Kennedy very early on stuck to the idea of having a guidebook that could be sold from the White House.

And this was really discouraged by her husband's advisors who thought that it was going to be tacky, but she was adamant that it was by having tourists have something to take away of scholarly value that really described what they saw.

So it was then that the White House Historical Association was really formed as a nonprofit that could create this guidebook, take in the donated money, and they sold it at a dollar a copy initially.

And the first 600,000 copies, you know, sold out in in the first few months.

So this really became the revenue stream that could fund these projects within the White House.

- [Shirley Min] The nonprofit still exists today, raising money for upkeep.

- [Elaine Rice Bachmann] And underpinning it all was the creation of legislation that protected the interiors of the White House and its furnishing so that there could be a permanent museum collection.

It's what really sealed Jacqueline Kennedy in the American imagination as the First Lady who brought history and beauty to the White House.

- The Kennedy's also transformed the exterior of the White House, including the Rose Garden, which serves as a backdrop for the President to this day.

- Wow.

She did so much in such a short span of time in White House.

- She sure did and Elaine says that after the restoration tourism skyrocketed between 1961 and '63, like, the numbers doubled and tripled each year.

- Well, I could see that.

I mean, she was so iconic and stylish.

Everybody wanted to go see.

- And the photographs of people leaving, you can see they're all clutching the guidebook.

- I can imagine.

- She had a vision.

- Thank you so much, Shirley, and you can check out the exhibition for yourself through January 8th.

If you build it, they will come.

Once vacant and underutilized lots are turning into green spaces in and around Philadelphia.

(soft music) - [Ken Weinstein] Germantown Avenue is our commercial corridor here in Mt.

Airy, cuts right through our community and is our gathering spot.

It's our place where we go and eat.

It's our place where we shop and do business.

It's a place where Mt.

Airy residents gather.

When we established the Mt.

Airy bid 15 plus years ago, we had a strong commercial corridor but we had a lot of blight.

A lot of vacancies.

- One of our board members had developed a rose garden at the corner of Carpenter Lane and Germantown Avenue.

Someone at the board meeting said, you know, we have that rose garden there.

What about that big park?

That's a lot bigger that's right next to the SEPTA turnaround.

Would somebody be willing to volunteer to do something with that park?

And I raised my hand and said, I would volunteer, if I could get some help with the digging.

- [Ken Weinstein] SEPTA allowed us to use their property to establish our first park.

It really set the tone for the remaining five parks to happen.

Yvonne was our first volunteer who adopted this trolley car park and made it happen.

She gathered local folks who wanted to get their hands dirty, literally, and weed and plant, and they made this park wonderful.

Each of our parks has a unique personality starting on the Southern most part of Germantown Avenue.

We have Freedom Park, which is located near Germantown and Washington Lane next to the Johnson House, which was a stop on the underground railroad.

- It's a wonderful round park where people like to visit and spend time.

At Carpenter Lane we have Carpenter Park.

We have Sedgwick Park.

Pelham Park sits next to Malelani Cafe, and I know a lot of their customers will enjoy coffee or tea sitting on the wall of that park.

And finally, we have what we call Friendship Park, near the corner of Germantown and Mount Pleasant.

As we like to say, Mt.

Airy sits between freedom and friendship.

- What a nice way for city dwellers to enjoy the outdoors.

- We meet a New Jersey man who turned a childhood hobby into a lifelong passion, turning ordinary items like cigar boxes into guitars.

And with the help of his band mates, they crank out some great music.

- Ladies and gentlemen, the Cigar Box Stompers.

(rock music) - My name is John Bernyk, I build cigar box guitars.

It really started when I was a kid.

And I remember my dad telling me that during the depression folks couldn't afford a regular guitar.

So they would take cigar boxes and gas cans, whatever, anything that was hollow and make guitars out of them.

(rock music) And I never really saw one, never really played one, until about 12 years ago I saw one on eBay.

I bought it, started playing it, loved it.

And I was like, you know what, man, I can make this myself.

(rock music) I've made over 600 of them.

They're just a lot of fun to make, a lot of fun to play.

Each one sounds a little different.

They're unique.

I try to make each one a little bit different.

I try not to make them all the same.

Once you put it together, it's got a unique sound.

It's just great.

It definitely has a green aspect to it.

One cigar box at a time, it's, you know, one cigar box that won't end up in the landfill.

And it's definitely upcycling.

It's definitely recycling.

So there is satisfaction in that as well.

My dad was a carpenter and a cabinet maker.

So a lot of the woodworking tips that I use I learned from him.

Unfortunately he passed before I started making them.

But I know he is looking down and is happy.

I wish I had started doing this before he passed but it's been a great experience.

The cigar box guitar lends itself to the blues.

So you start playing all these great blues songs and then you start writing your own songs.

And it just takes off from there.

I started writing, started performing, formed the band, met some great musicians and it's just been great.

I'm thankful that we have a platform, you know, with the help of my band mates, George Bly, Tim Nolan, Donny Haynie.

We're fortunate enough to get gigs and have a platform to play my songs.

Putting the cigar box guitar building aside I'm just thankful to give life to my songs.

If I'm making it for myself, it's playing it for other people, writing songs on it.

There's not a better feeling in the world.

If I'm making it for someone else, knowing the enjoyment they're gonna get out of it.

Guitars I made for other artists have been particularly satisfying, you know, especially if they play it out and, you know, I could say, hey, I made that.

- You can see the Cigar Box Stompers in person on August 27th at the Pennsylvania Cigar Box Guitar Festival in York, PA. For more information on Lazy B Cigar Box Guitars, or the Cigar Box Stoppers, visit their website.

- A south Jersey organization is protecting coastal ecosystems through research, conservation, and education.

- [Devin Griffiths] The Wetlands Institute was founded in 1969 in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, by then the Executive Director of the World Wildlife Foundation, a gentleman named Herbert Mills.

For several years before that, he'd been looking at the land out here, all of the salt marshes that you can see, and recognizing this needed to be protected.

So he arranged for the purchase of 6,000 acres.

That property became the Wetlands Institute.

And since that time there's been about another 22,000 acres protected in this area between what the state's protected and some of the wildlife refuge protections.

The Wetlands Institute focuses on three main areas.

Research, conservation, and education.

And it's all centered around the salt marsh habitat here, the creatures that inhabit it, and connecting people with nature and with the animals and the plants and the ecosystem that's around us.

So some of the things that we do, we have programs that introduce kids to the Diamondback terrapins, to horseshoe crabs, they have animal encounters.

We have an aquarium and teaching and touch tanks so that kids can get up close with some of the native wildlife that's just off the coast here in south Jersey.

we have education programs that will bring the kids out to our boat dock.

They can drag sand nets through the water, see what comes up, learn about the creatures that are in the creeks and in the salt marshes around here.

We have a variety of different research programs.

Most of them are centered around the birds, the terrapins, and the horseshoe crabs.

And we also have research programs that center around the health of the salt marsh itself.

So we monitor the water quality and what we can do to protect the salt marsh from things like climate change and sea level rise.

Diamondback terrapins are specifically an east coast species and they only live in brackish water.

So brackish water is a mix of salt and fresh.

This environment is critical to their survival.

So it's a unique organism in a very specific environment.

Every year from May through August female diamondback terrapins have to come out of the marsh, find high ground, dig nests, lay their eggs, and then go back into the marsh.

High ground here is Stone Harbor Boulevard, but unfortunately there are many terrapins a year that are road killed.

If we can get to them soon enough we can actually take the eggs out of the roadkilled female, we incubate them here in our research facility and then hatch them, we send them out to classrooms, and we send them to places like Stockton University where these terrapins are raised for a full year and then after a year of growth, they come back here and we release them back into the salt marsh.

The Institute does a lot of work with a variety of species of birds.

The ones that you're seeing over my shoulder, these are purple martins.

They're the largest swallow in North America and they are a cavity nesting bird.

In the past they would nest in old woodpecker holes or things like that.

But they take to these gourds really, really well.

And you can see these all up and down the coast.

So what we're doing here with the martins is we're providing them homes and we're keeping track of their numbers and seeing how they breed and things like that.

The other species of bird that you can see is there are these platforms out on the salt marsh..

These are for the ospreys.

Ospreys are one of the largest birds of prey in our area.

They're unique in that their diet is almost entirely fish.

The osprey was one of the birds that was really affected by DDT back in the 1960s and '70s.

The platforms really helped encourage ospreys to come back and nest.

There were no ospreys nesting in New Jersey for quite some time.

The platforms provide them a lot of habitat that was otherwise not available to them.

The salt marsh is a critical environment, not just for the species that rely on this, but salt marshes are like giant sponges and they protect all the communities behind the salt marsh from storm surge and flooding.

These coastal communities get a lot of benefit from the protection from storms that they provide.

- If you'd like to adopt a diamondback terrapin or a horseshoe crab here's a website to contact the Wetlands Institute.

- There are so many options when planning a night out in Philly.

Dinner, a show?

Well, how about bowling?

Well, Brooklyn Bowl Philly offers it all under one roof for date night or some family fun.

- [Chad Peterson] Brooklyn Bowl is happy to be here in the heart of Fishtown.

We just want you to come here and have a good time.

(upbeat music) We have 24 total lanes.

We have 12 on the main floor, and then we have 12 up in the concert venue.

This was born from music and live entertainment.

You're gonna come in.

You're gonna hear music playing.

(upbeat music) We do national touring acts as well as local acts.

We don't offer really just one type of musical act.

We have all genres.

(upbeat music) It's a very relaxing environment, as well as getting full service on all the lanes.

So you're gonna be able to order food there.

You're gonna be able to order drinks there and spend as much time there as you want with your friends.

Making sure that what you want to do with your night is not hopping around from place to place.

You can actually come here and be here for four or five hours.

(upbeat music) Have your dinner, bowl a round or two, go to the concert, bowl after the concert, eat after the concert, come and see a show and just have a nice intimate environment where you can sit, watch, enjoy the band, enjoy dinner, and still, you know, lose a few calories on the back end.

People are always welcome to come in and watch a game.

Sit at the bar and have a drink.

They're welcome to come in and just eat.

You don't have to be going to a show or doing any one of the other various things to be able to come here and enjoy any of the things that we offer here.

- Learn more about their upcoming events on their website.

- Patrick Stoner welcomes a new member to the family.

This week's Flicks explains that.

- You sure have bad luck, Sam Greenfield.

- Take that universe.

I found an actual lucky penny.

- [Patrick Stoner] Jane Fonda is an Oscar winner.

And of course a Hollywood icon.

In luck, she voices a dragon, a very stylish dragon.

But before I talked to her about that, I'd noticed that in another animated series she did, she had the character name of Ms. Stoner.

- I didn't know about Stoner Cats.

Now you may notice the name.

So your character in that is Ms. Stoner, so I would like to welcome you to the family.

- Thank you.

- One of the things you've told younger people is keep learning, keep trying new things, but keep exploring.

To what extent did you have to learn any new techniques in order to do voice work?

- The only thing that was challenging, the director's on Zoom, the sound engineer's behind a couple of glass walls, you're not looking at a film or anything like that.

And so, you know, you just, I think, you have to bring extra imagination to it.

You have to figure out who this character is.

And because I came, you know, kind of early into the process, I could talk with the animator and the director about ideas that I had, you know, like, is she vain?

Maybe she cares about having nice clothes.

Maybe she has long eyelashes.

- Live action film, one of your tools is the ability to play off of somebody.

To what extent could you play off of, say, the assistant director, whoever it was that was working with you?

- Where it's different is you can do a whole scene, but very often I would just do like six lines and I would do them over and over until the director and I felt that we'd gotten what was needed.

So in that sense, it's different, you know, than what I had done before.

As long as I'm clear about who it is I'm talking to and what my relationship with that person is, I don't need that, you know, I can just do it from imagination.

- That is the beauty of it.

Isn't it?

I mean, who was it?

Ed Asner once said, I decided I wanted to become an actor because I could be everybody else in the world.

Jane, Ms. Stoner, if you don't mind, thank you so much for your time.

- It's over, Mr. Stoner?

- They keep sending me these messages, please go away, and I keep ignoring them.

But I think I have to do that, don't I?

- Okay, I hope to see you again.

Thank you, Mr. Stoner.

- The BlackStar Film Festival is underway.

The annual celebration showcases filmed by black, brown, and indigenous people from around the world, and it runs until August 7th.

There are in-person and virtual screenings along with panel discussions and much, much more.

Check out the website below for details.

- BlackStar's been around for more than a decade and the event gets better every year.

- With lots of big names attending.

Well, that's it for tonight.

- We will see you next week.

Have a good week everyone.

Bye.

(rock music) (rock music)