Professor Sarah Stein has spent a decade seeking out people who experienced fascist rule in Vichy-controlled Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, Nazi-controlled Tunisia, and Italian-fascist Libya. The diversity and eloquence of their accounts is staggering: theirs are the voices of oracles, critics, resistance fighters, soldiers, narrators, translators, philanthropists, and religious leaders of all genders, races, classes, […]

For descendants of Holocaust survivors who became researchers and scholars, whether they devoted their professional lives to the Holocaust or to other topics, the Holocaust often accompanies their professional lives like a shadow. The new book Researchers Remember: Research as an Arena of Memory for Descendants of Holocaust Survivors, discusses this phenomenon through the stories […]

Reading. In this haunting and noirish novel by a leading author and critic, an Indian writer travels to Berlin and soon finds himself slipping into a fragmented, fuguelike state.

Reading. So often, Africa has been depicted simplistically as a uniform land of famines and safaris, poverty and strife, stripped of all nuance. In this bold and insightful book, Dipo Faloyin offers a much-needed corrective, weaving a vibrant tapestry of stories that bring to life Africa’s rich diversity, communities, and histories.

Reading. A perfect storm of comedic proportions erupts in a DC bookstore over the course of one soggy summer week--narrated by two very different women and punctuated by political turmoil, a celestial event, and a perpetually broken vacuum cleaner.

Free week­end of read­ings, work­shops, open mics, instal­la­tions, per­for­mances, writ­ing activ­i­ties, book­selling, chil­dren’s pro­gram­ming, a beer gar­den, deli­cious food, and a whole lot of lying around in the grass lis­ten­ing to poetry. By unit­ing the largest com­mu­ni­ty of poets in the coun­try and offer­ing a unique set­ting for lit­er­ary activ­i­ty, the New York City Poet­ry […]

Online lecture. Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322), legendary painter, poet, calligrapher and seal maker of the early Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), is considered as one of the greatest and most influential masters of art and literature in China. His special brand of calligraphic style, with fluidity, strength and grace, earned him the honorific title of the “School of […]

In Freedomland, Annemarie Sammartino tells Co-op City's story from the perspectives of those who built it and of the ordinary people who made their homes in this monument to imperfect liberal ideals of economic and social justice. Located on the grounds of the former Freedomland amusement park on the northeastern edge of the Bronx, Co-op […]

China has been on the spotlight for its rapid urbanization and tremendous economic growth. Big cities form a major theme in the mainstream Chinese film industry. On September 13, we will explore a different China —far from the bright lights of Shanghai and Beijing—with independent film scholar Karen Ma and Columbia University professor Richard Peña […]

Lunchtime talk with UCLA Law Professor James Park, author of the forthcoming book The Valuation Treadmill: How Securities Fraud Threatens the Integrity of Public Companies, who will discuss the history of securities fraud regulation from the 1960s until the present. Public companies now face constant pressure to meet investor expectations. The typical public company must […]

Join us at the Museum for a conversation with photographer Martin Schoeller and Sara Softness, the Museum’s Curator of Special Projects. They will discuss the Museum’s new exhibition, Survivors: Faces of Life After the Holocaust, Martin’s acclaimed work, and what inspired him to create this moving instillation. The exhibition will be on view before and […]

In the face of unfathomable horror, fleeting moments of bravery and generosity remind us of our capacity for courage and compassion, even under the most harrowing of circumstances. Seventy-seven years after the Holocaust, a new animated trilogy from Humanity in Action brings three such histories to life. The three films in the series – Voices […]

Lunchtime talk. A climate catastrophe can be avoided, but only with a rapid and sustained investment in companies and projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To the surprise of many, this has already begun. Investors are abandoning fossil-fuel companies and other polluting industries and financing businesses offering climate solutions. Rising risks, evolving social norms, government […]

Reading. In The Unfolding, A.M. Homes' first novel since the Women’s Prize award-winning May We Be Forgiven, she delivers us back to ourselves in this stunning alternative history that is both terrifyingly prescient, deeply tender, and devastatingly funny, meanwhile, New York Times best-selling author Jill Bialosky weaves an explosive tale of art and myth, desire […]

Lunchtime talk. A climate catastrophe can be avoided, but only with a rapid and sustained investment in coMerger arbitrage, or merger arb, is the investment specialty focused on investing in announced mergers, acquisitions, takeovers and other corporate reorganizations. It is a practice that combines math, judgment and a keen understanding of various legal, regulatory and […]

Online lecture in Chinese. On August 11, 1872, a group of 30 Chinese government-sponsored students departed from Shanghai and embarked on a transpacific journey to study in the United States. They were led by Yung Wing, presumably the first Chinese student to have studied in the U.S. from 1847-1854. This history-making journey has since been […]

New, maritime-themed book club. Literary selections are announced one month in advance, and Seaport Museum staff and special guests will stir up lively discussions, informed by a shared love of literature, history, and preservation. 'Saved at the Seawall' is the definitive history of the largest ever waterborne evacuation. Jessica DuLong reveals the dramatic story of […]

New York City, arguably the world’s Art Deco capital, is well known for its iconic towers. In a new book, New York Art Deco: Birds, Beasts & Blooms, photographer ANDREW GARN and writer ERIC P. NASH illustrate the myriad ways that Art Deco is drawn in steel, stone, terra cotta, brass, and bronze upon the […]

This LGBTQ+ History Month, the Museum is celebrating the release of Dr. Jake Newsome’s new book Pink Triangle Legacies: Coming Out in the Shadow of the Holocaust. In it, Newsome tells the dynamic and inspiring history of the community’s original pride symbol by tracing the transformation of the pink triangle from a Nazi concentration camp […]

From celebrity heartthrob, esteemed host of The Viall Files podcast, and adored member of Bachelor Nation Nick Viall comes Don’t Text Your Ex Happy Birthday—a no-holds-barred dating advice book. Custom cocktails, an interactive Q&A, and more! RSVP required.

Reading. An explosive, deeply reported exposé of McKinsey & Company, the international consulting firm that advises corporations and governments, that highlights the often drastic impact of its work on employees and citizens around the world. RSVP required.

In this lecture, Nancy Rubin Stuart reveals the long-neglected voices of the women Ben loved and lost during his lifelong struggle between passion and prudence. Weaving detailed historical research with emotional intensity and personal testimony, Nancy Rubin Stuart traces the life of Deborah Reed Franklin—Ben’s common-law wife and partner of 44 years— and those of […]

Poet Sharon Olds in conversation with Sarah Ruhl.

Before 2001, homosexuality was considered a psychiatric disorder and needed to be treated in China. In 2009, Shanghai Pride became the first and largest LGBT event in China that drew attention from national and international audience. During that time, gay clubs and community groups began to flourish in big cities. But it didn’t last long […]

Bob Pisani has spent the past 25 years on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. He has been on the front line of finance for all the major events of the last quarter century, including the Asian Financial Crisis, the dot-com bubble and collapse, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the Great Financial […]

Ami Sands Brodoff, Jennifer Steil and Alice Kaltman read from their work during this month's virtual salon. The theme: sexuality.

Novelist Jennifer Egan in conversation with Melissa Maxwell

Featuring new work from Mieko Kawakami, Martín Espada, Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Arthur Sze, Camonghne Felix, and more, the latest installment of the acclaimed literary journal Freeman’s explores the irrevocably intertwined lives of animals and the humans that exist alongside them. RSVP required.

Judith Koeppel Steel was born in Berlin, Germany at the beginning of World War II. Her family escaped Germany in 1939 aboard the MS St. Louis, only to be turned away by both Cuba and the United States and sent back to Europe. Her family disembarked in Belgium, and were later imprisoned in Gurs concentration […]

Fifteen years after the release of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Jewish Book Award winner, The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million is now being reissued. The updated book contains new material developed in conjunction with Ken Burns’s new 3-part documentary, The U.S. and the Holocaust, which features Daniel […]

Lunchtime talk. Entrepreneurs are among the primary shapers of our culture, yet their role in driving progress and influencing society has often been overlooked. As far back as we can trace human history, there have been entrepreneurs. Almost five millennia ago, copper tool manufacturers set up a factory in what today is southwest Spain, profiting […]

New York City, arguably the world’s Art Deco capital, is well known for its iconic towers. In a new book, New York Art Deco: Birds, Beasts & Blooms, photographer ANDREW GARN and writer ERIC P. NASH illustrate the myriad ways that Art Deco is drawn in steel, stone, terra cotta, brass, and bronze upon the […]

Reading. In Dani Shapiro’s first work of fiction in fifteen years, she returns to the form that launched her career, with a riveting, deeply felt novel that examines the ties that bind families together—and the secrets that can break them apart. Signal Fires is a work of haunting beauty by a masterly storyteller. RSVP required.

In a blend of history, fiction, and magical realism, The Vanishing, is a new novel from David Michael Slater. The book traces how one girl, as a result of witnessing a brutal murder, turns invisible to save her best friend from the horror of Nazi Germany. Slater will be joined in conversation by Jay Lender, […]

In this lecture, Keith Beutler will discuss how surviving reported locks of George Washington’s hair in the holdings of more than 100 public archives and historical museums, including Fraunces Tavern Museum, offer clues about influential, but often forgotten performances of patriotic memory in the early United States.

In the wake of the reunification of China, the Nationalist government initiated a comprehensive planning proposal, referred to as “the Capital Plan”, to reconstruct the war-torn city of Nanjing into a modern capital. With the participation of many first-generation architects returning from Europe, the US and Japan, this monumental project brought a brand-new landscape to […]

The global economy is at a crossroads. Can finance fix it? Proponents of environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing say yes. They claim that new financial strategies that consider all stakeholders are essential tools for addressing runaway carbon emissions and stark income inequality, among other ills. ESG-integrated investments already encompass more than $120 trillion in […]

Book presentation. Bits and pieces of the lives led long before the age of skyscrapers are scattered throughout New York City, found in backyards, construction sites, street beds, and parks. Indigenous tools used thousands of years ago; wine jugs from a seventeenth-century tavern; a teapot from Seneca Village, the nineteenth-century Black settlement displaced by Central […]

An explosive and deeply reported look at the systemic racism inside the American financial services industry, from acclaimed New York Times finance reporter Emily Flitter.

Journalist Helen Epstein is the daughter of Holocaust survivor and Olympic Swimmer Kurt Epstein. Helen has created a photography exhibit that will be on view at the Terezin Memorial from September 8 through November 30, 2022. Join the Museum and Helen Epstein for an illustrated talk about the process of designing this documentary exhibit, starting […]

Join Sara Softness, the Museum’s Curator of Special Projects and Elizabeth Miseo, Collections Manager at the Boris Lurie Foundation for a special tour of Boris Lurie: Nothing To Do But […]

Reading. An unexpected, poignant, and personal account of loving and losing pets, exploring the singular bonds we have with our companion animals, and how to grieve them once they’ve passed. […]

As one of the “Four Great Masters of Tsinghua University” and a versatile genius in many fields, Prof. Yuen Ren Chao is known for having unparalleled enthusiasm and achievements in […]

Yaffa Eliach (née Sonenson) was born on May 31, 1935 in Eišiškès, Lithuania. She was just six years old when German soldiers invaded her hometown and massacred the Jewish population. Yaffa and her family survived in hiding, and after WWII Yaffa moved to Israel, where she spent the rest of her childhood and met her […]

Patrick Radden Keefe Presents Empire of Pain in conversation with Ginia Bellafante. The history of the Sackler dynasty is rife with drama—baroque personal lives; bitter disputes over estates; fistfights in boardrooms; glittering art collections; Machiavellian courtroom maneuvers; and the calculated use of money to burnish reputations and crush the less powerful. The Sackler name has […]

Lunchtime talk. In The Business of Personal Finance: How to Improve Financial Wellness, Joseph Calandro, Jr. and co-author John Hoffmire present, in a highly accessible way, how to effectively understand and manage personal finances, avoiding debt and building for the future, and using straightforward tools and techniques developed in conjunction with business economics.

Marriage is the foundation of a Chinese family. As the Chinese saying goes: a harmonious family prospers everything (家和万事兴). It used to be the norm that once people marry, they should never divorce – they should try everything possible to maintain the marriage and make the family “harmonious.” However, as the Chinese society evolves rapidly […]

Diane Zinnia, Anna Malaika Tubbs, Jessica Dulong and Richard Jeffrey Newman read from their work during this month's virtual salon. The theme: trauma.

In this lecture, Adam Van Doren explores well-known and lesser-known historic sites in the 13 original North American colonies, accompanied by his paintings.

Drama and myth frame the life and death of Maya Deren. Born in Kiev in 1917, at the start of the Russian Revolution, she died forty-four years later in New York City. In her brief life, she established herself as a pioneering experimental filmmaker, prolific writer, accomplished photographer, and crusader for a personal and poetic […]

For three decades Josef Mengele, the doctor who performed horrific experiments on Auschwitz prisoners, floated through South America until the day he collapsed in the Brazilian surf in 1979. In his new novel, The Disappearance of Josef Mengele, Olivier Guez traces Mengele’s travels during those years in hiding, as he kept two steps ahead of […]

Join the Seaport Museum as we welcome author Jonathan H. Rees for the release of his new book, Fulton Fish Market: A History. Together, we will hear some of the research that Rees conducted with the help of the South Street Seaport Museum for this comprehensive publication. Slides and stories shared in this presentation will […]

An empowering picture book that invites us to explore and embrace our emotions from Karamo, talk show host and culture expert of Netflix's hit series Queer Eye, and Jason Brown, featuring illustrations by Diobelle Cerna, and expert-vetted resources.

Online lecture.

Book presentation. Cities are central to prosperity: they are hubs of innovation and growth. Yet the economic vitality of wealthy cities is marred by persistent and pervasive inequality. In his new book Unequal Cities, economist Richard McGahey argues that deeply entrenched anti-urban policies and politics limit cities' options to address inequality. Many factors – structural […]

Throughout history, Jews have been accused of using the blood of non-Jews for “rituals.” This accusation, which as come to be called “blood libel,” dates to the second century BCE and continued to grow with the spread of Christianity. In the Middle Ages, the motif made its way into art and literature like Chaucer’s Canterbury […]

Rita Kaplan Lowenstein was born in Warsaw, Poland to Jewish parents Bernard and Rachel Kaplan. Her father owned chemical manufacturing plants around Warsaw, and her mother was a pianist and piano teacher. After the Nazis invaded Poland, the family was forced into the Warsaw ghetto. In August 1942, Rita and her parents escaped the ghetto […]

Reading. As It Turns Out is a family story. Alice Sedgwick Wohl is writing to her brother Bobby, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1965, just before their sister Edie Sedgwick met Andy Warhol. After unexpectedly coming across Edie’s image in a clip from Warhol’s extraordinary film Outer and Inner Space, Wohl was moved […]