Timeline FlyingFreedoms since Feb 2018

Long distance phone call with Ms. Yasmine Falk, Partner & Senior Consultant, Advance NYC. Yasmine explained many details regarding the fundraising process. Unfortunately Yasmine cannot help any further but we are thankful for the nice conversation.. Susan, thank you for introducing us.

Mr. Matt Catalano, Operations Manager at Roadplates.com LLC, came all the way down from Walpole, Massachusetts. We were discussing issues regarding the counterweights for the flying balloons.

Mr. Patrick Kowalczyk, President of PKPR and Ms. Jenny Chang, Account Director, had us in their offices. We are happy to be assisted by a professional PR team when FlyingFreedoms will happen. David, thank you for the introduction

Ambassador Jürg Lauber, head of the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the UN in New York, had us in his office. We brainstormed about integrating FlyingFreedoms to the 74th Session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 74)

Mr. Dominique Favre, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the United Nations, and Mr. Johann Aeschlimann, former Elections and Media Relations Director of the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the United Nations named several ideas to get political and economic parties highly involved in FlyingFreedoms

Our friend Mr. Bojidar Yanev, former Exec. Director, Bridge Inspection & Management at NYC DOT and Mr. Paul Reichardt intensively studied fixation techniques for the balloons on the top of the 500 feet long walls on both along sides of the Four Freedoms Park. At the end they came up with a brilliant and safe idea.

Ms. Susan G. Rosenthal, President & CEO of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) warmly welcomed us again. We were discussing fundraising issues and ways to get FlyingFreedoms mounted.

We met Mr. David Koren, Founder and Executive Producer of FIGMENT, again. He suggested a dinner in the splendid Fraunces Tavern. Earlier we discussed a pre-exhibition to FlyingFreedoms on June 1 and 2. This exhibition of nine balloons will take place within the FIGMENT – a free, inclusive, participatory art event which, in 2019, for the first-time takes place on Roosevelt Island.

Mr. Greg Nash, National Account Sales Executive at AGP-American Gas Products, visited us again in our hotel. He announced that there is a vast shortage of balloon helium. The prices obviously quadrupled within the last 6 months. We need to rethink the idea of realizing the flying carpet over the lawn in the Four Freedoms Park.

We mounted four monochrome balloons on the top of the wall along side the river. Mr. Howard Axel and Ms. Madeline Grimes kindly help us setting up everything. We first met Ms. Susan G. Rosenthal, President & CEO of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC). A nice picnic and an interesting discussion made us feel that FlyingFreedoms is on its way.

After the meeting with Kendal in February and visiting Roosevelt Island for the first time we discovered the fantastic Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park. The park is maintained by the Four Freedoms Park Conservancy. We googled some further and found
Mr. Howard Axel, CEO and
Ms Madeline Grimes, Director of Strategic Partnerships
A fortunate phone call and we had Howard on the phone. A couple of hours later we personally presented our idea to Howard and Madeline and they obviously liked it. Howard suggested to make a presentation of balloons in the park to convince Susan Rosenthal.

Back again in NYC we had again an appointment with Kendal. And we were informing him that we will focus on Roosevelt Island.

We spontaneously met Mr. Kendal Henry, Director of the Percent for Art Program at NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.
He warmly welcomed us, and we were presenting several ideas. Kendal suggested several new sites to explore. Whereof Roosevelt Island without knowing what impact his idea had!

We briefly introduced our ideas to Ms. Deborah Hrbek, Principal / Senior Attorney, Hrbek Law LLC. In further steps when p.e. contracts need to be signed we hope to intensify our collabortaion with Debbie.

Until now we have been several times in New York and exploring different sites for a big balloon project. DUMBO, Ellis Island and Governors Island were in a closer selection. But none of those sites seemed to be an ideal spot.