Before she was an international fashion icon and a member of the TIME 100, Diane von Furstenberg was a young girl growing up with parents who had just survived the […]

Book launch. Through striking and humorous figurative drawings, the iconic artist and musician David Byrne depicts daily life in intriguing ways. His illustrations, created while under quarantine, expand on the dingbat, a typographic ornament used to illuminate or break up blocks of text, to explore the nuances of life under lockdown and evoke the complex, […]

Launch. In these two newly published plays, Andy Bragen examines the intimacies and shadows that exist between parent and child. The evening will include readings of excerpts from both plays, followed by a Q&A with Andy and Playco’s Founding Producer Kate Loewald, and a book signing with Andy. The excerpts will feature performers from the […]

In June 1943, thirteen-year-old Thomas Geve and his mother were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Separated upon arrival, he was left to fend for himself in the men’s camp of Auschwitz I. During 22 harsh months in Auschwitz, Gross-Rosen, and Buchenwald, Thomas experienced the worst of Nazi cruelty—but he never gave up the will to live. Immediately […]

Twenty-two years after the original New York: An Illustrated History – first published in 1999 as a companion volume to the acclaimed 17 ½-hour PBS series New York: A Documentary Film, directed by Ric Burns and co-written with James Sanders – the dynamic duo is back. James Sanders will describe the project to revise and […]

First day of a poetry reading, online. Laure-Anne Bosselaar—award-winning poet, translator, and educator—reads Poets House Executive Director Emerita Lee Briccetti’s “Distance,” from Blue Guide, and her own poem “On a Bench by the Hudson,” from her collection A New Hunger.

Ernest Glaser was born Ernst Adolf Berthold Glaser on March 2, 1924 in Berlin. In 1939, his family left Germany to escape the Nazis and attempted to immigrate to the United ​States, but the family ended up in Shanghai, China. The Glasers thought that they would only be in Shanghai for a year at most, […]

Join Roger McCormack, Director of Education at The Bronx County Historical Society, to explore the significance of the Bronx in the American Revolution. This lecture will highlight the Battle of Pell’s Point, the impact of the war on ordinary Bronx farmers and inhabitants, and the general history of the war in the Bronx. This lecture […]

Written by the Chinese sage Lao Zi around 400 BC, Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) is the most important scripture in Chinese culture. All the major schools of thoughts and religions in China, such as Confucianism, Taoism and Legalism, can trace their head-streams to the classic. According to UNESCO, Dao De Jing is the […]

In the century between 1847 and 1947, a handful of men and women changed the world. Many of them are well known—Marx, Freud, Proust, Einstein, Kafka. Others have vanished from collective memory despite their enduring importance in our daily lives. Without Rosalind Franklin, for example, genetic science would look very different. Without Fritz Haber, there […]

Book launch.From the host of NPR’s Planet Money, the deeply-investigated story of how one visionary, dogged investor changed American finance forever. Before Bill Gross was known among investors as the Bond King, he was a gambler. In 1966, a fresh college grad, he went to Vegas armed with his net worth ($200) and a knack […]

Chicago and New York offered a handful of very different preconditions that influenced the way skyscrapers were designed and built in the two cities. Chicago’s murky soil forced engineers to carefully parse their structures into point supports and broad, snowshoe-like pads, which suggested structures above could be thought of as more skeletal frames than continuous […]

Led by Ben Wang, CI’s Senior Lecturer in Language and Humanities, this free virtual workshop is designed for K-12 educators (though we welcome all to attend) to help advance a deeper understanding of the uniqueness of Chinese classical poetry. In addition, by sharing his personal collection of the rare original couplet in calligraphy, Mr. Wang […]

A legendary historical figure in the Three Kingdom period (220-280), Zhuge Liang (181-234) is recognized as the most accomplished and admired military strategist of his era, first as the chancellor to Emperor Liu Bei of the state of Shu and later as the regent of the Kingdom. As a recognition of his contributions to Shu, […]

The second session of the Construction History series concentrates on Frames and the evolution of metal-cage construction in each city. Chicago has claimed the “invention” of steel-skeleton construction, which historians often call “the Chicago frame.” In New York, building codes and concerns about fire discouraged the use of skeleton frames until after 1892, so alternative, […]

Virtual event. Beatrice Nasi, who would come to be known as Doña Gracia, one of the richest women in the world, was born in 1510 in Portugal, where her forcibly-baptized, Crypto Jewish family fled from the nearby Spanish Inquisition. She worked to find a safe place for Jews, setting up an underground network to help […]

Book launch. During the coronavirus pandemic, a queer disabled woman bikes through a locked-down NYC for the ex-girlfriend who broke her heart. In pandemic-era NYC, Orpheus just manages to buy a bike before they sell out across the city. She takes to the streets looking for Eurydice, the first woman she fell in love with, […]

Moisés Ville was the epicenter of Argentine Jewish life during the 20th century. It was the first of many agricultural colonies founded by Jews who fled the Russian Empire’s persecution especially. When Javier Sinay discovered an article recounting twenty-two murders in Moisés Ville, written by his great-grandfather, a book was born. The discovery sent Sinay […]

April’s Stories Survive program features Ann Kliger Axelrod. Ann was born Elizabeth Benedikt on August 25, 1929 in Budapest, Hungary. On March 18, 1944, when Ann was 14 years old, the Nazis invaded Hungary and forced Jews to obey the degrading laws that were already in place in Germany. On April 5, the photo of […]

What was the biggest obstacle to China’s modernization as the Qing Dynasty collapsed? The Chinese language, according to Yale University Professor Jing Tsu. Back then, literacy was reserved for the elite few, and the system of calligraphy was far too complicated for the technological revolution that was sweeping the world. Join Professor Tsu as she […]

Military histories often focus on battles campaigns, overlooking the soldiers who fought them. Who were the red-coated soldiers who formed the ranks of the British army in the 1770s? In this talk, Don N. Hagist will investigate where British soldiers were from, what they did before joining the army, what motivated them to enlist, how […]

Audrey Schulman, author of Theory of Bastards, and Samantha Hunt, author of The Seas, will come together to discuss their new genre-bending works of literature as part of McNally Jackson and Europa Editions' series of conversations on literature from around the globe, Here & Away.

Do we need bookstores in the twenty-first century? If so, what makes a good one? In this beautifully written book, Jeff Deutsch--the director of Chicago's Seminary Co-op Bookstores, one of the finest bookstores in the world--pays loving tribute to one of our most important and endangered civic institutions. He considers how qualities like space, time, […]

A prominent writer of the 20th-century China, Ling Shuhua was active between the 1920s and the 1950s with a host of influential publications of short stories, essays, translations, and a memoir that firmly established her foremost position in modern Chinese literature. Since most of her short stories were first published in Western journals, her fame […]

More than 80% of Greek Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Among them were the father, sister, mother, and baby brother of Solomon Kofinas, a survivor from Athens and a leader of Kehilah Kedosha Janina (KKJ), New York’s Greek synagogue. Kofinas was born in 1936 in Athens. After the Nazi invasion of Greece in 1941, […]

Webinar. Is there an ideal portfolio of investment assets, one that perfectly balances risk and reward? In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio examines this question by profiling and interviewing ten of the most prominent figures in the finance world―Jack Bogle, Charley Ellis, Gene Fama, Marty Leibowitz, Harry Markowitz, Bob Merton, Myron Scholes, Bill Sharpe, Bob […]

The third session of the Construction History series focuses on Facades. Steel frames freed exterior walls from structural duties, allowing architects new freedom to develop facades that could respond to changing functional and aesthetic criteria. Developers' desire for efficiency and natural daylight led to thinner, lighter walls – "veneers" in the dismissive language of early […]

In a genre-defying book hailed as “exquisite” (The New York Times) and “spectacular” (The Times Literary Supplement), the best-selling memoirist and critic Daniel Mendelsohn explores the mysterious links between the randomness of the lives we lead and the artfulness of the stories we tell. Combining memoir, biography, history, and literary criticism, Three Rings weaves together […]

The fourth session of the Construction History series will examine the various dimensions in which the threat of fire affected skyscraper development. Claims of "fireproof building" were regularly disproved, often in cataclysmic fashion. Iron promised improvements over timber, but Chicago's Great Fire in 1871 revealed its vulnerability to collapse. Brick remained the only truly fireproof […]

Germany entered World War I on August 1, 1914 when the country declared war on Russia. 11 million German soldiers were mobilized, 100,000 of whom were Jewish. A number of these Jewish soldiers were honored for their service with the Iron Cross. In addition, many German Jews supported the war effort at home along with […]

Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢), one of China’s four great classic novels, tells the story of the rise and decline a wealthy imperial Chinese family, and by extension, the rise and decline of the Qing dynasty itself. The novel was adapted as an English-language Opera composed by Bright Sheng with libretto by Sheng and […]

In this lecture, Thomas Balcerski will discuss New York City as the capital of the nation, beginning in 1785 under the Articles of Confederation Congress. Despite debates over whether the capital should be relocated, the first Congress determined to meet there in March 1789, and the first inauguration of an American President happened there in […]

Every year, at the Annual Gathering of Remembrance, the Museum brings thousands together to say with one collective voice: we will never forget. Rooted in a city with one of the world’s largest communities of Holocaust survivors, this Yom HaShoah tribute has power that echoes across generations.

Join the Museum for a special conversation with Congressman Ritchie Torres, Museum President & CEO Jack Kliger, and Rabbi Joseph Potasnik. With some special guests, our speakers will discuss contemporary antisemitism and hate across the range of American politics, the country’s political divides, the Congressman’s connection to Israel, and immigration policy, among other topics.

On October 1, 1937, Wolfgang Jung purchased 178 acres of land in Southbury, Connecticut for the German-American Bund to build a Nazi camp. The residents of Southbury fought back against this Nazi invasion of their town. Organized by the Reverend M.E.N. Lindsay, the Reverend Felix Manley, and town leaders, the townspeople established a zoning commission […]

In a coda to the four-part Construction History series led by Thomas Leslie and Donald Friedman, the Museum adds a special lecture by ALEXANDER WOOD that will focus on George. B. Post's Mills Building, completed in 1882. One of the earliest and largest office blocks in the Wall Street financial district, the 10-story Mills Building, […]

On an autumn morning in 1849, Henry David Thoreau stepped out his front door to walk the beaches of Cape Cod. Over a century and a half later, Ben Shattuck does the same. With little more than a loaf of bread, brick of cheese, and a notebook, Shattuck sets out to retrace Thoreau’s path through […]

Webinar. Lunchtime talk with renowned journalist and master storyteller Roger Lowenstein, as he discusses his revelatory financial investigation into how Lincoln and his administration used the funding of the Civil War as the catalyst to centralize the government and accomplish the most far-reaching reform in the country’s history.

Chinese literature can offer readers an extraordinary window into China, but for newcomers to this rich and complex world, where does one begin? On Wednesday, April 27, China Institute joins Paper Republic to celebrate the publication of their Guide to Contemporary Chinese Literature, a distillation of the knowledge and experience of the Paper Republic team, […]

Webinar. In what the New York Times review calls a "marvelous new biography," journalist Richard K. Rein chronicles the life of William H. Whyte, one of the most influential writers and analysts of American cities and society in the second half of the twentieth century. From his bestselling, seminal book The Organization Man of 1956, […]

Many people became rich or richer off the detestable actions of the Third Reich during WWII through the use of Jewish slave labor, seizing Jewish businesses, and equipping the German military. Some of these families are still prominent today, such as the Quandts, who owned BMW. None have acknowledged the dark histories behind their fortunes. […]

Webinar. Join us for a discussion about the lives of New York City Jews in the colonial era. We’ll look at community spaces such as the Sephardic Mill Street Synagogue, now known as Shearith Israel and the oldest synagogue in America. We’ll examine the influence of the Gomez and Judah families, the scandal of the […]

Virtual, interactive workshop. Learn the three techniques neuroscientists have identified as critical to storytelling for business.

Dr. Julius G. Mendel was born on August 17, 1931 to a Jewish family in Germany. His father, Dr. Herbert Mendel, served in the German military during WWI and later became a doctor. Herbert ran a successful medical practice, where Julius’ mother Ilse worked as a laboratory technician. In October 1938, Herbert was forced to […]

The first two volumes of the eagerly anticipated first complete edition of Auden's poems--including some that have never been published before.

Online lunchtime talk with the host of NPR’s Planet Money, as she uncovers the deeply-investigated story of how one visionary, dogged investor changed American finance forever. Before Bill Gross was known among investors as the Bond King, he was a gambler. In 1966, a fresh college grad, he went to Vegas armed with his net […]

In fifteen masterful stories, Frederic Tuten entertains questions of existential magnitude, pervasive yearning, and the creative impulse. A wealthy older woman reflects on her relationship with her drowned husband, a painter, as she awaits her own watery demise. An exhausted artist, feeling stuck, reads a book of criticism about allegory and symbolism before tossing her […]

Online lecture. To celebrate the Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, the Renwen Society presents a lecture on May 14 on American writers of Chinese descent by UCLA Professor King-Kok Cheung, a renowned scholar of English and Asian American Studies. These writers grapple with issues of gender, racial, national and generational stereotypes within the […]

Webinar. Amid severe digital disruption, economic upheaval and political flux, how can we make sense of the world? Leaders today typically look for answers in economic models, Big Data or […]

Focusing on four global cities – London, New York, Hong Kong, and Singapore – architect, urban designer, and TED Resident Stefan Al examines rise of global supertalls and the factors […]

Virtual, interactive workshop. Learn how to ramp up your voice, value or visibility to create career outcomes you deserve—without being an extrovert or overworking.

The Museum’s exhibition, Boris Lurie: Nothing To Do But To Try centers around the “War Series” of the artist and Holocaust survivor Boris Lurie. However, Lurie is not the only […]

Zoom lecture. In this lecture, Mary Sarah Bilder looks to the 1780s, the Age of the Constitution, to investigate the rise of a radical new idea in the English-speaking world: […]

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of Summer and a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 at The Millions, LitHub, and The Rumpus. Sharp, heartfelt, and cathartic, The Year of the Horses […]