In honor of National Senior Citizens Day, Ellen Hart and fifteen other former beauty queens who reigned over New York City as Miss Subways for 35 years, will crown 91-year-old jazz legend, Marilyn Maye, an Honorary Miss Subways at their first annual “Beauty Is Ageless Brunch” at Ellen’s Stardust Diner. The brunch will celebrate how the spirit behind these contests, that highlighted the outer and inner beauty of these women in their youth, lives on in how they continue to live their best lives as seniors in their 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
Marilyn Maye, Honorary Miss Subways 2019, is a Jazz/Cabaret singer and a musical theatre actress. Ellen Hart, Miss Subways 1959, stated, “Marilyn Maye is 91 years young and is still singing and performing – she is an icon and inspiration to us all.”
From 1941 to 1976, the women on the Miss Subways posters that lined subway cars and buses, represented the diversity of New York City; they were of all ethnicities and backgrounds—college students, secretaries, aspiring actresses and singers, as well as wartime nurses.
Ellen Hart has been hosting reunions for former Miss Subways winners over the past few decades at her diner, where the largest collection of Miss Subways posters hang. For more on the history of Miss Subways, go to www.MissSubwayNYC.com.
The Miss Subways in attendence will be Ellen Hart, owner of Ellen’s Stardust Diner (Miss Subways, March-April 1959); Ayana Scott Lawson (Miss Subways, April-October 1975); Dolores Mitchell Byrne (Miss Subways, January-February 1961); Eileen Ryan (Miss Subways, July-August 1969); Enid Berkowitz Schwarzbaum (Miss Subways, July 1946); Gail Burke Zorpette (Miss Subways, May-June 1959); Heide Hafner (Miss Subways, May-October 1976); Josephine Lazzaro O’Halloran (Miss Subways, December 1975-April 1976); Kathleen McLean Holmes (Miss Subways, November-December 1953); Mary Gardiner Timoney (Miss Subways, May-June 1953); Maureen Walsh Roaldsen (Miss Subways, February-August 1968); Nancy Denison Wagner (Miss Subways, January-February 1958); Peggy Byrne (Miss Subways, March-April 1952); Rosalind Cinclini Catena (Miss Subways, January 1965); Saralee Singer Pincus (Miss Subways, February 1950); Sonia Dominguez (Miss Subways, June-October 1974).
“Marilyn Maye has everything. She can belt and she can sing ballads with the kind of warmth that makes your heart smile. She has a theatrical flair that captivates and enthralls, and jazz-spiced chops that can reach notes most singers a third her age can’t even hit in their dreams. She’s the real deal, the surviving artist of the American popular singer!” says Rex Reed, of New York Observer.
The event takes place on Wednesday, August 21 from 11 am – 1 pm (Press check-in at 10:45am) at Ellen’s Stardust Diner,1650 Broadway (at 51st St) New York, NY
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