In the 1920s, Berlin was home to a thriving transgender community, with trans-focused magazines, famous drag clubs, and Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science, where some trans people went for gender-affirming care. Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 changed everything. In this talk, Laurie Marhoefer (he/they) explores what happened trans people under the Nazi state, […]

Spend the evening in Battery Park City listening to eclectic voices presented by Asian American Writers’ Workshop. This event will be a reading with a conversation with poets on their ruminations and thoughts on love, queer and otherwise. The lineup will feature Wo Chan, Jasmine Reid, Xan Forest Phillips, and Devyn Manibo.

In celebration of Pride month, BPCA presents Drag Story Hour, a fun and fabulous educational experience that celebrates gender diversity and all forms of difference to build empathy and give kids the confidence to express themselves however they feel comfortable.

Yan Phou Lee (李恩富) was the first Chinese American to publish a book in the United States, When I was a Boy in China (1887). He first came to the U.S. at the age of 12, as a member of the Chinese Educational Mission (CEM), which ran from 1873 to 1881. Lee returned to the […]

Lecture. In this lecture, Christopher Minty focuses on the origins of the American Revolution in New York City from the perspective of those who became loyalists. It argues that longstanding political partisanship played a hitherto underappreciated role in determining their allegiance during the Revolution. In person and via Zoom.

Pop up author collaborations.

The elegant Chinese lifestyle is a concept that encompasses a refined way of living that is rooted in traditional Chinese culture and values. It emphasizes simplicity, harmony, balance, and an appreciation for beauty and nature. At its core, the elegant Chinese lifestyle is about cultivating a sense of inner peace and contentment through living in […]

In partnership with McNally Jackson Books—located at 4 Fulton Street, just a few doors down from the Museum entrance—Seaport Museum staff and special guests will stir up lively discussions informed by our shared love of literature, history, and preservation. This month's selection: The Engineer’s Wife: A Novel of the Brooklyn Bridge by Tracey Enerson Wood.

Part architectural guidebook and part critique, Sky-High documents the pencil-thin, supertall towers that are transforming New York City's skyline and streets. A new book by Eric P. Nash, author of Manhattan Skyscrapers, illustrated with stunning photography by Bruce Katz, Sky-High captures the city's penchant for building skyward – from the Woolworth and Chrysler buildings of […]

Calligraphy is deemed the highest expression of Chinese visual art. At this lecture, master calligrapher Cui Xuelu will share his insights into the close relationship between Chinese calligraphy and the […]

Discuss Masks by Fumiko Enchi, translated from Japanese by Juliet Winters Carpenter

Alias Anna: A True Story of Outwitting the Nazis is the moving true story of how young Ukrainian Jewish piano prodigies Zhanna (alias “Anna”) and her sister Frina outplayed their […]

Reading. In The Vegan, Andrew Lipstein challenges our notions of virtue with a brilliant tale of guilt, greed, and how far we’ll go to be good.

One night in New York City’s Chinatown, a woman is at a work reunion dinner when she excuses herself to buy a pack of cigarettes. On her way back, she […]

J Robert Oppenheimer, known as the “father of the atomic bomb,” worked with a team of physicists as part of the Manhattan Project, which created the world’s first-ever nuclear weapon […]

An evening with acclaimed musician Elias B. Rønnenfelt to celebrate the release of his debut book, Sunken Heights.

Join the Seaport Museum and historian and author Claire Bellerjeau for a captivating illustrated presentation that delves into the discovery of a new founding figure named Elizabeth, known as "Liss." […]

Miya Ando, winner of the 2023 Brookfield Place New York Annual Arts Commission, and Ami Vitale, a Nikon Ambassador and National Geographic photographer, will discuss their environmentally focused art exhibitions […]

Peter Beard lived an astonishing life. The artist, wildlife photographer, and bon vivant enthralled and inspired both because of his work and his legendary lifestyle. A scion of American industry […]

Besides the US, perhaps no country is more important to the world’s economy and geopolitics than China. Crucial to understanding and interacting with China is a familiarity with its complex […]

Book talk. During Hitler’s rise to power in the 1930s, tens of thousands of German and Austrian Jews escaped and found refuge in Britain. After war broke out and paranoia […]

Lecture. In this virtual lecture, Major General Jason Bohm explores the origins of the United States Marines. He will explore the parallel stories of the creation and early operations of […]

The Poet­ry Soci­ety of New York invites poet­ry orga­ni­za­tions and col­lec­tives of all shapes and sizes to bring their unique for­mats, aes­thet­ics, and per­son­al­i­ties to this week­end of read­ings, work­shops, […]

In mid-20th century New York, on a landfilled street of lower Manhattan—named after 17th century Dutch settlers—a group of artists changed American art forever. In this compelling book talk celebrating the release of The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever, author Prudence Peiffer will join in conversation with moderator Ada […]

Reading. The sun has disappeared from the sky. No one can explain where it has gone, but one wayward traveler is determined to try. As our unnamed narrator begins his odyssey across the parched landscapes of the American Southwest, he is drawn into a web of illusion and mystery, a shifting astral mindscape that shimmers […]

Reading. Saturday Storytime with Cindy Eagan, author of The Story of Barbie and the Woman Who Invented Her. Cindy will read and personalize books for McNally families, plus she will answer our many questions about this fantastic new book. This festive event will be fun for all genders and all ages. Feel free to wear […]

Part biography, part Holocaust testimonial, and part mystery investigation, “Song Searcher: The Times and Toils of Moyshe Beregovsky” recounts the life of Moyshe Beregovsky, who is responsible for saving and preserving much of Ukraine’s Yiddish musical tradition.

One of Japan's most important and best-selling writers, Mieko Kawakami mixes stylistic inventiveness, wry humor, and riveting emotional depth to tell a story of contemporary womanhood in Japan. Breasts and Eggs recounts the intimate journeys of three women on the path to finding peace and futures they can call their own.

In Hotel Cuba, Aaron Hamburger, whose gift for storytelling has been recognized by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Lambda Literary Awards, tells a story of sisterhood and the immigrant experience. Centered in a 1920s Havana filled with the lush, sensual local sights, sounds, and tastes, this novel was inspired by Hamburger’s […]

Mix and mingle and discuss a new book or an older title worth revisiting. This August the book club is reading Emma Cline's highly anticipated The Guest, the perfect summer read for any New Yorker lusting after an escape to the Hamptons.

Maddy Kramer, producer and editor of The Last Generation, will moderate a live recording of her podcast with Mark Schonwetter, a member of the Museum’s Speakers Bureau, and his family. […]

Cleo Qian presents Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go, in conversation with Katie Kitamura. With precision and provocation, Cleo Qian’s immersive debut jolts us into the reality of lives fragmented by screens, relentless consumer culture, and the flattening pressures of modern society—and asks how we might hold on to tenderness against the impulses within us.

Designed in 1960 and completed in 1965, the CBS corporate headquarters, known as Black Rock, was New York's first concrete office tower. Architect Eero Saarinen envisioned a sober granite-clad monolith – rising from a sunken plaza on a full Midtown block on Sixth Ave. from 52nd to 53rd streets – a form that contradicted the […]

Populated with lovers who leave and return, with ghosts of the Holocaust and messages from the dead, Courtney Sender’s debut collection In Other Lifetimes All I’ve Lost Comes Back to Me speaks in a singular new voice about the longings and loneliness of contemporary love. The world of these fourteen interlocking stories is fiercely real […]

Leo Frank was a pencil factory superintendent in Georgia in April 1913 when his coworker, thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan, was murdered. Her body was found in the factory’s basement, and Frank […]

Completed in 1967, six years before Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House, Australia Square was the first truly modern skyscraper on the continent and, arguably, the world’s tallest lightweight concrete building. The 50-story cylindrical tower once stood alone as the focal point of a full city-block development in Central Sydney and with a popular plaza that […]