An exhibit for fans who love The Beatles, yeah, yeah, yeah
The Beatles song “In My Life” includes the line, “There are places I’ll remember.” There’s one new memorable place on Long Island for Beatles fans, at least through Jan. 15, where they can check out “Tomorrow Never Knows: A Beatles Installation” at Industry, a gallery and lounge in Huntington.
“It’ll take you back almost 60 years,” said Ron Seifried, 54, a Beatles memorabilia collector and organizer of the exhibit. “They arrived in America just over two months after the assassination of President Kennedy when the country was in a deep mourning period. The Beatles’ arrival influenced many facets of the American culture that continue to this day.”
Seifried, a web architect, author and Huntington Station resident, turned a 300-square-foot room at Industry into a Beatles fan’s paradise, adorning walls with photos and posters of the Fab Four. He sprinkled the space with Beatles memorabilia, recreating a teenage girl’s room as it evolved over a few years in the mid-1960’s.
Ron Seifried hangs some Beatles artwork. Credit: Howard Simmons
A FAN IS BORN
A 2021 Newsday article about Seifried and his collection spawned the exhibit after readers contacted him. But Seifried’s interest in the band dates back to his childhood.
WHAT “Tomorrow Never Knows: A Beatles Installation”
WHEN | WHERE Through Jan. 15, Industry, 344 New York Ave., Huntington
INFO Free; industrymakers.art
He discovered The Beatles by listening to his older brothers’ records and watching "Yellow Submarine," but his fascination with the band and its impact on society really intensified after John Lennon’s death in 1980, when Seifried was 12.
He used money from mowing lawns to buy records from Titus Oaks Record Exchange in Huntington. Starting with a Beatles lapel button, he soon assembled a collection of Beatles artifacts.
Sharing Seifried's passion for the group was Dana Moriarty, 70, who was still living in Huntington when she saw the story on him. She was getting ready to move to North Carolina and didn't want to take her massive Beatles collection.
“At a certain point, you outgrow those,” Moriarty said of her collection. “I took everything off the walls and saved it. Articles and photographs.”
Still, she couldn’t bear simply abandoning that part of her and the Beatles’ past. “She wanted to give it so somebody who would appreciate and preserve her artifacts,” he said.
Moriarty had grown up in Uniondale, adorning her walls with Beatles clippings and photographs and mementos. "I was very much into their music. Over the years, every time a new album came out, my parents would buy it for me,” she said. “I saved newspaper articles and mounted them on construction paper I wallpapered my room with until all four walls were covered.”
She messaged Seifried before moving, asking if he’d like to take a look at her Beatles belongings. “There was a lot. I said, ‘If you want to take it, take it,” she said. “I kept a couple of magazines for myself, but I gave it all to him.”
A "Yellow Submarine" marquee light box is one of the special items in the Beatles exhibit. Credit: Howard Simmons
Seifried told Mano Cris, curator of Industry, about his find. “I said one woman gave me her entire bedroom,” Seifried said. “He said, ‘You should create an art installation.’”
Cris said the immersive nature of this show fits the venue’s off-the-wall view of art. “The whole idea is artwork shouldn’t just be, ‘Here you go. It’s on a wall, buy it,’” he said. “You’re supposed to interact with it.”
Instead of recreating Moriarty’s room, Seifried sought to show the evolution of a teenage girl from Beatlemania — the early craze and fascination with the band — through “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “Magical Mystery Tour” and their psychedelic period.
“It’s an installation because it’s a complete, unified experience, rather than an exhibit, which is a display of individual artworks,” Seifried said.
Ron Seifried with Dana Moriarty, left, who provided much of the memorabilia in his Beatles exhibit, and his daughter, Julie, who did some of the artwork. Credit: Howard Simmons
ALL IN THE FAMILY
Although much of the exhibit comes from Moriarty, along with a few of Seifried’s Beatles belongings, it’s personal for another reason. Seifried’s daughter, Julia, 17, an aspiring artist and a senior at Walt Whitman High School in Huntington, painted a Beatles-themed piece and provided some other artwork.
A video projector is being set up to loop archival footage of The Beatles, while visitors hear a playlist from 1964 to 1967. A rare double-sided “Yellow Submarine” marquee movie poster from a theater, “A Hard Day’s Night” movie poster, original Richard Avedon prints and an original London Palladium poster are on display.
Throw in a vintage TV, pink rotary telephone, psychedelic light projector, portable record player, lava lamps, mid-20th century furniture and you have the perfect setting for time travel.
The Beatles graced the covers of many magazines that are on display. Credit: Howard Simmons
The exhibit also serves as an innovative lens through which to look at the band through the eyes of a fan, while listening to their music.
“The sound, the music, the style. Their acting, in their movies,” Seifried said of the Beatles’ appeal. “It encompassed so much.”
