Blog Posts by Subject: New York City History

In honor of the many battles faced by Black LGBTQIA+ individuals and communities, we're spotlighting archival materials that document some of the battles won and those that are still being fought for equity, inclusion, and respect.

El legado de Sylvia Rivera: Una latina considerada como una de las madres del movimiento LGBTQ+ moderno. Una mujer transgénero con una feroz e incansable voluntad por defender sus derechos y los de su comunidad.

The NYPL has a bevy of resources to support students and educators on this journey.

Including genealogy, the performing arts, LGBT studies and more.

Some are still standing and some live on only in memory.

By the 1890s, NYC guidebooks reflected the self-consciousness of a supercity exposing itself to the world.

Like the population, NYC guidebooks boomed in the decade preceding the Civil War.

A guidebook is the fuel that might power a researcher’s time machine.

You can honor Earth Day and Arbor Day Every Day.

Missing walking your local streets? Here are some tools that let you explore from the safety of home.

A sampling of publications whose authors relied upon the Library’s archival and rare book collections in their research.

On August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution became official. On paper, every American woman had the right to vote.

Find out what happens when a newly acquired collection - in this case, records from a famed banking house, from 1825 to 1880 - is ready to be digitized and added to the NYPL Digital Collections.

For over 130 years, the Brooklyn Bridge has been an icon of the New York City landscape—longer if you account for the 13 years required to construct it. This beloved connection between boroughs is still in use while many of its contemporaries have been replaced or dismantled worldwide.

Witness the city's expansion as real estate companies promoted lot auctions north of the historical boundary of Canal Street.

From wayward Thanksgiving parade balloons to masked trick-or-treating, here are some New York City Thanksgiving-time traditions we bet you didn't know about.

Autumn in New York City brings the annual celebration of the Big Apple's buildings, Archtober. This year's Building of the Day list includes The New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, among others, and this post invites readers to explore five sites' history and design through NYPL resources.

The influence of the New York City tenement is layered upon the city much like the apartments themselves are layered atop each other. Get a comprehensive look, including tenement history and research sources.

On January 31, Mid-Manhattan Library at 42nd Street hosted its second Community Conversation. Here is an overview of the talk from our guest lecturer, Kevin C. Fitzpatrick. We invite you to join our continuing conversation on the changing media environment ("From Telegrams to Tweets") on February 21.