Blog Posts by Subject: Manhattan

With a Super Blue Blood Moon appearing in the sky on January 31, we look back at an innovative astrophotographer who produced stunning moon photos in 1865.

Archtober is an annual month-long celebration of New York City's built environment, with thirty-one "building of the day" sites. Here are seven locations that archi-lovers can explore any day of the year, using materials at NYPL.

What's Open House New York? It's an invitation to explore the city. Every October, the five boroughs open up for the annual weekend—this year on October 14 and 15, with over 200 buildings and projects. Can't make it? In honor of the festival's fifteenth anniversary, I selected seventeen long-time participants you can explore more through NYPL resources.

The Library has a number of items that highlight the development and presence of synagogues in New York City, including at least one photographic collection wherein Beth Hamedrash Hagodol features prominently. This post pays tribute to the building, with a short history, and a view back to better days.

Collect NYC stories and make history. Volunteers needed in the LES, Chinatown, and Kips Bay.

We’re looking for volunteers to fill a new leadership role in this program and help build local collection efforts by facilitating oral history trainings and assisting the project manager in engaging volunteers through community events and regular communication.

We've got a selection of engaging author talks coming up this month at the Mid-Manhattan Library. Come listen to scholars and other experts discuss their recent non-fiction books on a variety of subjects and ask them questions.

Centered on Washington Street and Rector Street on the west side of Lower Manhattan, was once a neighborhood known as Little Syria. Located near the now-gone Washington Market and just south of the current location of the World Trade Center, it was a vibrant neighborhood characterized by store signs in Arabic, men and women in cultural clothing including veils and fezzes, and food such as Baklava in the cafes.

This past month in New York City, political issues have surrounded the Painted Ladies of Times Square like googly-eyed tourists with cameras on selfie sticks. The uproar fittingly abides the municipal brouhaha over the last 100 years that has possessed the behavioral pressure cooker of Times Square. 'Twas ever thus.

For the reader who just can't get enough of those busy city streets, or is just dying to know where exactly in the five boroughs their favorite characters are inhabiting, here is a list of famous New York City-based novels according to the neighborhood in which they take place—complete with an interactive map of nearby landmarks and attractions!

Drawing as a form of inquiry... groundbreaking graphic designers... The U.S. a safe haven for Nazis... 1,000 years of visualizing the cosmos... a moment-by-moment account of Hurricane Sandy... the era of great American songwriting... the evolution of the painted nail...

Which way to Longacre Square? Now known as Times Square, the area at the intersection of Broadway and Seventh Avenue has long offered both the high life and the underbelly of New York City.

Between 1986 to 1988, Kisseloff traversed the city with a cassette recorder to interview former longshoreman, bootleggers, pickle makers, butchers, community activists, housewives, and writers in an attempt to capture stories of old Manhattan.

Nearly one hundred land auctioneering pamphlets from the 1860s to 1920s and covering the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn were digitized this past year. With their richly designed covers, these promotional brochures provide modern day researchers with a window onto neighborhood development and changing patterns of land use in the city.

Can I tell you how to get to Sesame Street? Well, I can try. You can get to the Sesame Street Subway Stop by the A, B, 1, or 2 trains, which if you check any MTA map, do not intersect at any current station.

Who was Miss Anne in 1920s Harlem? How did George Washington define the American presidency? What is keeping a majority of Americans from eating well? Can the world’s most endangered big cat be saved? How can we improve brain performance at any age? What fascinating stories does Murray Hill have to tell? Find out at Mid-Manhattan this month!

A mystical history of NYC below Chambers Street… the link between our financial and environmental crises… the life and photographs of Ansel Adams… our always-on, simultaneous society… the 

Pearl Street Native/Indigenous

AIR is a Native American and ancient colloquialism for music and voice, as heard upon the earth. Musicians and singers performed at festivals at sacred places like Pearl Street, where shells mounded for centuries, in Lenape tradition, to honor and "give thanks" for the sun, moon, stars, rain, wind and all elements of the air.

New Amsterdam. ca. 1625 - People arrived to the various ceremonies and festivals along the East River shoreline via rafts, canoes and by walking down the main island trail (widened for vehicles in the 

"It had become habit, leaving the Dakota, to walk out and back into the winter of 1882."

Welcome back to the Reader's Den! I hope you enjoyed taking a trip to the New York of 1882 along with Si Morley, the protagonist in Jack Finney's classic 1970 novel, Time and Again. If you've been reading the book, why not share your thoughts with us through the comments form at the end of the post? There are some discussion questions (which include a few spoilers!) that can be used as a starting point, but