By Haru Dukanac
Eastchester High School
The Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame (LIMEHOF) is hosting a limited-time immersive exhibition on the beloved sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond,” available to see until Labor Day.
“Everybody Loves Raymond” is a comedy series that first aired September 13, 1996, and officially concluded on May 16, 2005, running for nine years. With 210 episodes released throughout nine seasons, the beloved show, which is set in Lynbrook, is celebrating its 30th anniversary.
Visitors do not need to be fans of the show to be fascinated when they walk into this exhibit. Walking in, they are met with multiple displays of iconic costumes and props that were used on the sitcom, quotes from the show on the floor and walls, and the original studio sets of the colorful house of the Barone family. It’s a piece of entertainment history that people can walk into.
Norman Prusslin, a co-founder of the LIMEHOF, gave credit to the curator and designer of the exhibit hall, Kevin O’Callaghan, for the eye-catching interiors that add character to the building.
“I didn’t know what to expect. The Raymond exhibit is like going down a memory lane,” said visitor Diane Ladanza from Jericho. “I found myself laughing and remembering the jokes inside the show.”
Other than the “Everybody Loves Raymond” exhibit, the hall of fame has hosted two past exhibits: an “overview of the venues and the clubs on Long Island that kind of created the Long Island music scene,” as Prusslin described it, and the two-year hit exhibit “Billy Joel – My Life, A Piano Man’s Journey,” which Joel himself cooperated in making.
Upstairs in the LIMEHOF, a room dedicated to Joel’s music career still exists, along with the Hall of Fame Room, where photos of honored music artists, in all kinds of genres like rock and jazz, are displayed on the walls.
The LIMEHOF started from a profound appreciation for music and Long Island’s culture. The initial idea for the hall of fame — which was founded in 2004 originally as a mobile museum bus and opened its Stony Brook building in 2022 — came from a deep-rooted love for music that Prusslin has had since he was young.
“I’ve lived through a lot of decades of all kinds of music … but it’s important to me to stay interested in the current bands that are happening now,” Prusslin said.
His reflection on his passion for music and pride for the music community in Long Island led to his idea for the hall of fame.
“I’ve always had a love for music, and Stony Brook has had a long history, for decades, of bringing bands to perform,” Prusslin said. “I always knew that something needed to be done to celebrate the history of Long Island.”
He and Jeffrey James, a board member of the LIMEHOF, also emphasized the importance of Long Island when it comes to music and how many well-known artists have actually come from Long Island, from Billy Joel to the Blue Öyster Cult.
“A lot of what we do here is introducing people to music that they may not necessarily know,” James explained. “Part of our reason for being here is to bring that information to people and to get them to listen to this music and appreciate it.”
Alexandra Butuc, Christopher Cabrera, and Heily Sandoval contributed to this story.