Books of the Pandemic
2024-05-18 14:00 (America/New_York)
Poetry reading.

Eleanor Dubinsky
2024-05-18 14:30
Charismatic USA-Argentine duo Eleanor Dubinsky and Dario Acosta Teich perform joyful concerts of jazz, Latin, French and original songs.

Malou Beauvoir
2024-05-18 20:00
Malou Beauvoir is a Haitian-American artist whose music and social activism are deeply rooted in Haitian culture and spirituality. Her most recent album, SPIRITWALKER, blends traditional folk songs with original compositions that address contemporary issues such as politics, climate change, and human rights.

Playscape Performs
2024-05-19 10:30, 2024-05-26 10:30
Family-oriented shows at the ShowBox, the first improv theater in a New York City playground. Show is repeated at 12:30pm.

“Surviving the Survivor” Book Talk
2024-05-19 12:30
Karmela Waldman is an eighty-something psychotherapist and Holocaust survivor. Her son, Joel Waldman, is a successful broadcast journalist. After a discontented Joel chooses to leave his network news job, he gets a crazy idea for the next step in his career: what if he and his elderly mother did a podcast together? Things get off to a bumpy start as the mother-son duo struggle to figure out the art of podcasting, but they master the format and watch as the show becomes a wildly popular true-crime hit. Along the way, the two discover things about each other they never knew. Joel is stunned to learn that Karmela survived World War II by hiding in a boys’ Catholic school. Karmela also sheds light on the emotional struggles she endured when Joel’s older brother died and how she’s struggling with the loss of her husband. Mother and son engage frankly and movingly with each other for the first time as adults, discussing child-rearing, aging, illness, death, and the secrets to enjoying life no matter how complicated it gets.

Witness Theater: WE ARE HERE
2024-05-19 15:00 | Museum of Jewish Heritage
This unique performance is the culmination of seven months of heartfelt collaboration between five Holocaust survivors and sixteen students. It honors and shares the survivors’ stories, celebrates these extraordinary individuals, and highlights the life-changing lessons they have imparted to the students. The performance is created based on the stories told by the Holocaust survivors to the high school students.

Simple Gifts
2024-05-19 16:00 | Trinity Church
Trinity Youth Chorus; Melissa Attebury and Peyton Marion, conductors.

Creative Writing
2024-05-20 14:00 - 15:30
Walk & writing session led by poet Jon Curley. Participants will be encouraged to use observations as a way to enhance their writing styles in any preferred mode. Registration required, please email: registration@bpca.ny.gov.

Cancer and Aging – The Inflammaging Connection
2024-05-20 17:30
In considering why humans get cancer, it is useful to ask an alternative question, “Why have humans been so good at not getting cancer in the first 4-5 decades of life?” There is no singular explanation for why an aging body is more susceptible to cancer. However, many recent studies now show that aging — and more specifically “inflammaging” — can dramatically drive chronic inflammation, leading to tumor initiation and progression, metastasis, and may influence response to therapies. This cutting-edge symposium will provide up-to-date perspectives on the recent advances in understanding of cancer-related inflammaging, including cellular senescence in cancer and associated predictive and prognostic biomarkers.

When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion
2024-05-21 18:00
Award-winning author of The Plaza, Julie Satow looks south on Fifth Avenue and back through the 20th century to examine the golden age of American department stores and of three visionary women who led them. In three chic palaces of consumption – Bonwit Teller, Lord & Taylor, and Henri Bendel – Satow writes, “men owned the buildings, but inside, women ruled.” Her new book, When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion, focuses on three talented business women in different decades: Hortense Odlum, Dorothy Shaver, and Geraldine Stutz. Rich with personal drama and trade secrets, Satow’s book portrays the world of the fashionable department store in all its glitz, decadence, and fun, and showcases the women who ran the show.

“Jewish Sunday Schools” Book Talk
2024-05-21 19:00
The earliest Jewish Sunday schools were female-led, growing from one school in Philadelphia established by Rebecca Gratz in 1838 to an entire system that educated vast numbers of Jewish youth across the country. These schools were modeled on Christian approaches to religious education and aimed to protect Jewish children from Protestant missionaries. But debates soon swirled around the so-called sorry state of “feminized” American Jewish supplemental learning, and the schools were taken over by men within one generation of their creation. It is commonly assumed that the critiques were accurate and that the early Jewish Sunday school was too feminized, saccharine, and dependent on Christian paradigms.

Poetry Reading
2024-05-21 19:00
Poets John Keene and Pamela Sneed read their work.

Figure al Fresco
2024-05-22 10:00 - 12:00, 2024-05-29 10:00 - 12:00
Observe and sketch the human figure in a park setting. Each week a model will strike short and long poses for participants to draw. An artist/ educator will offer constructive suggestions and critique. Drawing materials provided; artists are encouraged to bring their own favorite media.

Elements of Nature Drawing
2024-05-22 14:00 - 16:00, 2024-05-29 14:00 - 16:00
Join our community of artists of all skill levels as we are inspired by our surroundings to create with drawing materials, pastels and watercolors. Embolden your artwork amidst the flower-filled and seasonally evolving palette of BPC’s verdant gardens. An artist/ educator will provide ideas and instruction. Materials provided, and artists are encouraged to bring their own favorite media.

B Hills
2024-05-23 17:30
B Hills – A Queens native whose diverse music selections reflect his eclectic upbringing in NYC. Selections for the evening will be a hypnotic blend of deep, jazzy, and soulful sounds.

I Was a Desert: Songs of the Matriarchs
2024-05-23 18:30 | Museum of Jewish Heritage
Don’t miss this dynamic East Coast premiere of choral songs about Biblical women! Alicia Jo Rabins – a musician, composer and Torah teacher whose work the Atlantic calls “a blessing” – joins sonic forces with 95 singers from the award-winning Camas High School Choir (Washington State), plus a top-tier rock musicians and a string trio, in a powerful concert integrating Biblical women’s stories with song. I Was a Desert: Songs of the Matriarchs is a gorgeous, richly textured multimedia performance that builds upon Rabins’ long-running Girls in Trouble song cycle to celebrate the stories of women in Jewish myth and the hidden places where their lives overlap with ours today.

Strings-On-Hudson: Latin Sounds
2024-05-23 18:30 - 19:30
Special evening featuring Latin Grammy Award-winning cuatro player Jorge Glem. Accompanied by Grammy-nominated Sofia Rei and César Orozco the trio will blend Latin American traditions and futurism into a graceful, elegant, and ever-evolving sound.

Next Stop, New York City! Subway by Christoph Niemann
2024-05-25 10:30
How do you get around your neighborhood? Young learners will be introduced to the many different modes of transportation available in large cities today, including trains, buses, ferries, and bikes. Through a read-aloud of Christopher Niemann’s picture book Subway, kids will learn about one special form of New York City transit, the subway! Afterwards, we will talk about our favorite way to get around the city and make drawings of subway art. All ages welcome.

Lenora Lee Dance: Convergent Waves
2024-05-25 13:00 - 2024-05-27 00:00
Lenora Lee Dance, in collaboration with the South Street Seaport Museum, presents the immersive, site-responsive, multimedia dance performances, “Convergent Waves: NYC.” Come aboard the 1885 tall ship Wavertree, where the contemporary dance performance will unfold against the backdrop of this historic vessel. Choreographed by award-winning dancer-artistic director Lenora Lee and the talented performers, this slate of dance vignettes has been inspired by and created specifically for Wavertree to artfully showcase an interactive journey through different areas of the ship, while delving into the rich history of this international cargo vessel—the last of its kind. Dance will take place in the massive cargo hold, the forecastle where the crew ate and slept, the captain’s saloon, and more. The piece will provide insight into the unseen lives of the laborers who helped to build New York City into the global hub it is today and the unexpected role of the sea as a site for freedom from the racial and gender barriers of the era. The audience will not be seated during the one-hour event and will actively move throughout the ship to witness this site-specific performance to experience intimate and engaging moments with performers that include video projection, recorded original music, and text. Repeated at 3:30pm

iNaturalist + Spotted Lantern Flies: Community Science in Action
2024-05-28 13:00
Join researcher Katherine Poulos, who uses crowd-sourced photos submitted to iNaturalist to explore the relationships between the invasive Spotted Lanternfly and plants in New York City. Learn about her study and venture into the parks to see how you can contribute to this valuable resource.

The Blue Period: Black Writing in the Early Cold War
2024-05-28 18:30
Jesse McCarthy presents The Blue Period: Black Writing in the Early Cold War, in conversation with Vinson Cunningham. From the author of Who Will Pay Reparations on My Soul?, a new book addressing the political and aesthetic evolution of African American literature and its authors during the Cold War, an era McCarthy calls “the Blue Period.”

“Jewish Life in Medieval Spain” Book Talk
2024-05-28 19:00
In Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray explores the Jewish experience in medieval Spain from the dawn of Sephardic society in the ninth century to the expulsion of 1492. An important contribution of the book is the integration of the rise and fall of Jewish life in Muslim al-Andalus into the history of the Jews in medieval Christian Spain. It traces the collapse of Jewish life in Muslim Spain, the emigration of Andalusi Jewry to the lands of Christian Iberia, and the long and difficult confluence of these two distinct Jewish subcultures.

City School of the Arts, Joyful Performances and Presentations!
2024-05-29 14:30
City School of the Arts is Manhattan’s only public charter middle school for the arts. Student presentations.

“Walkers in the City” Book Talk
2024-05-29 19:00
In the middle of the twentieth century, good cameras became smaller and lighter, enabling street photographers to roam alleyways, ride elevated trains and subways, and stroll beaches in the summertime to capture daily life with urgency and intimacy. Deborah Dash Moore’s book Walkers in the City showcases the distinct urban vision that working-class Jewish photographers produced with these new cameras on New York City’s streets and in public spaces.

NOVUS Renewal: Malhaar
2024-05-29 19:00
NOVUS NY and Downtown Voices present the New York premiere of Reena Esmail’s Malhaar: A Requiem for Water, paired with Garth Neustadter’s Memory of Water, which will be performed by The Choir of Trinity Wall Street. A malhar is an Indian raga designed to beckon the rain; Esmail’s A Requiem for Water captures musically the beauty and awe of water while contemplating the fear and despair that surround its loss. As water exists beyond all beginnings and ends, Memory of Water considers the consciousness of water and how it carries in its memory both the splendor and devastation of our world.
