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Events

  • Downtown Beats Chorus

    Directed by the Church Street School of Music, the Downtown Beats adult chorus is open to all who love to sing. Learn contemporary and classic songs, and perform at community events throughout the year.

    Free
  • Infinite Jest Fest

    Fifth meeting of the Infinite Jest Monthly Read-Along Bash group. Read pages 396-508 (plus relevant endnotes) for this month's gathering. Enjoy free drinks upstairs when you arrive.

    $5
  • 30th Poets House Showcase Reading

    A night of readings features four visionary collections of 2024 and 2025. Ching-In Chen reads from Shiny City (Airlie Press, 2025), jason b. crawford reads from YEET! (Omnidawn, 2025), charles theonia reads from Gay Heaven Is a Dance Floor but I Can’t Relax (Archway Editions, 2024), and Nora Treatbaby reads from Our Air (Nightboat Books, […]

    $10
  • Calligraphy, Music & Mandarin Meetup

    Experience captivating live performances featuring some of China’s most iconic instruments — from the graceful guqin (古琴) to the ethereal, harp-like konghou (箜篌) and the lush, harmonizing sheng (笙)— performed by talented musicians who bring these ancient sounds to life. As music fills the room, slow down and immerse yourself in the serene practice of […]

  • Literature, Wounds, and Renewal: The Life Journey of Lu Xinhua

    Online lecture by Lu Xinhua. In 1978, a short story published in The Wenhui Paper changed the course of contemporary Chinese literature. Lu Xinhua’s Scar exposed the psychic wounds inflicted during the Cultural Revolution through the unforgettable tragedy of a daughter compelled to “draw a line” against her persecuted mother. Its appearance ignited nationwide reflection […]

  • “Children of Chabbanes” Screening and Discussion

    In the spirit of Louis Malle’s Au Revoir les Enfants and Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, the Emmy® Award-winning documentary The Children of Chabannes has been called “a moving record of the unassuming, uncompromising heroism of ordinary people” (New York Times) and “one of the most heartening Holocaust films ever made: splendid, informative and emotionally involving.” […]

    $10
  • Stories Survive: “Irena’s Gift” Book Talk

    A 2025 National Jewish Book Award Finalist that judges described as “reads like a thriller” and winner of Zibby Awards for Best Family Drama & Best Story of Overcoming, Irena’s Gift explores how reckoning with family betrayal, moral complexity, and hidden histories can reframe our identities—and why excavating these truths matters at a time when […]

    $10
  • Downtown Beats Chorus

    Directed by Church Street School of Music, the Downtown Beats adult chorus is open to all who love to sing! Learn contemporary and classic songs and perform at community events throughout the year.

    Free
  • Lunch & Learn: Language City

    Ross Perlin, author of Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York, examines the past, present, and future of the world’s most linguistically diverse city, New York. He will also discuss multilingualism, language policy, and the role technology plays in the evolution and documentation of languages. Today, half of the world’s […]

    Free
  • Scale Boy: An African Childhood

    Patrice Nganang, the acclaimed author of Dog Days, Mount Pleasant, and, most recently, A Trail of Crab Tracks, which was a 2022 New Yorker Book of the Year, writes about his vibrant, animated youth in Cameroon, a period of upheaval and change in the country’s history and in his life. Scale Boy is a memoir […]

    $5
  • “Plunder and Survival” Book Talk

    Writer, art historian, and Holocaust survivor Suzanne Loebl, whose life paralleled much of the events revisited in Plunder and Survival, takes a new look at the Nazis ruthless attack on modern art and at their unprecedented looting of private, mostly Jewish art collections in Austria, Holland, and France. Eighty-five years after the end of the […]

    $10