History Lessons in NYC, New York

WrestleMania meets Debate Club Your hosts Meg Pierson, Zak Martellucci, and Dustin Growick lead a rotating cast of special guest experts in a battle royale of serious—and not so serious—topics.  Who will come out on top? Dinosaurs or mammals? Biology or physics? Space or oceans? Chock-full of trivia, games, and prizes,...

Dinosaurs! Science! Adventure! Break out your pith helmet as we embark upon a brazen expedition through the halls of New York City's world-famous American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). Join your maverick tour guide as we deftly navigate this massive 27-building, 1.6 million square foot landmark cultural institution. Learn the science...

Start your family history search here! Access billions of names in thousands of genealogical databases including Census and Vital Records, birth, marriage and death notices, and much more. Share search strategies and stories with your classmates and receive assistance from the librarian. Skill prerequisites: Basic internet skills Audience: Adul...

In this talk, we'll first discuss the origins of coffee and coffee houses as a shared communal space. On our world tour, we will sample different coffeehouse experiences throughout history. After that we'll dive into the United States's love affair with coffee shops,particularly in the last century: coffeehouses as a counterculture performance...

Meet the badass Brooklynites who brought us the ballot. Behind the stately facades of Brooklyn Heights’ most gracious brownstones lies the history of firebrand feminism! The wise “women of Brooklyn” were doctors, lawyers, educators and orators who made some of the foremost contributions to the Suffrage movement. Join us for a walk through their...

Same-sex marriage in the United States became legal four years ago, in June 2015. In this class, we’ll celebrate that anniversary with a history of queer couples that goes back much, much further! Throughout history and across the world, queer people have not only existed but found ways to recognize and celebrate their relationships. We’ll talk...

Does it seem like our current culture is the most self-obsessed to date? It has seemed like that for five centuries. If anything, our current mania over self-obsession wielded by the hand-held black mirrors we carry in our pockets is only the latest in the habitual renegotiation of self-fashioning whose roots were planted in the 16th century. Are we...

In order to create a new future, we first need to imagine what it could possibly look and feel like. For the final program in the Museum's Housing Tomorrow's City series, we ask a group of visionary urban thinkers, architects, and artists how New Yorkers might inhabit and experience the city several generations from...

On this walking tour, we’ll discover the life of pirates and prostitutes living in the scrappy Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, long before New York was New York. Step into the wooden shoes of the early settlers and see what life was like being an employee rather than a colonist. Based on exciting new research taking place over the last...

From the debauched slums of Victorian London to dry martinis and fancy cocktail parties,gin has had a remarkable journey, a story that reflects the ever changing moods and sensibilities of society at large. Like many other spirits, it began life in the alchemist’s workshop as a medicinal cure-all, a link it would retain as a mainstay of European...

Compared over the course of her life to Marlene Dietrich, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Rainer Maria Rilke, Arthur Rimbaud, a sphinx, a she-wolf, a “foreigner on earth,” and a hurricane, the Jewish Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector moved in mystery. The author of nine novels and a large body of short stories, journalism, and children’s...

Boston, Philadelphia, Yorktown… these are the places that usually star in the American Revolution, but New York City has a story to tell as well! NYC was burned, abandoned, repopulated, and put under martial law; it became home to pirates, runaway slaves, and smugglers; its churches were turned into hospitals, its warehouses into jails, and its cemeteries...

After King Henry VIII divorced and executed several of his wives, there was an Elizabethan concern in England about resolving marital issues, and anxiety about “shrews” who challenged male authority and the institution of marriage. Enter Katherine, the allegedly “stark mad or wonderful forward” shrew of Shakespeare’s play who Petruchio sets...

Why Your Train is F*cked: A love/hate show about the history of the MTA You know when your train is f*cked – this is the show that tells you WHY. Get on board for a deep dive into the history of the MTA. Whether you love it, hate it, or want to compose more informed rage-tweets about it during your next 20 minute delay – we’ve got you covered....

Over 800,000 New Yorkers are now riding a bicycle regularly (NYC DOT). As the subways falter, transit fares increase and the streets grow ever more congested, cycling offers a more efficient way to get around the city, becoming a key part of the city’s commuting network.  However, cyclists’ attempts to share the streets with cars...