Behind the Barrier: Deinstallations & Rotations
The Collections Department loves to take you behind the scenes. We’ve written before about the loans process at the Museum, shared our experiences serving as a guard at evening events, and dug into … Continue reading
One Ton of Ice & Clowns on Skis
To celebrate the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, we searched our collections for past winter sports extravaganzas held in New York City. In December 1936, the Winter Sports … Continue reading
2017 Women’s March: One Year Later
The 2017 Women’s March was a worldwide protest held on January 21, 2017, to advocate legislation and policies related to human rights, women’s rights, immigration and healthcare reform, racial … Continue reading
Gertrude Hoffman and the Dance That Offended Public Decency
The Museum’s ongoing exhibition Activist New York recently debuted a new case study that explores the battle over birth control and obscenity laws that raged in New York at the … Continue reading
The Life Cycle of a Loan
Many museums have an active loan program, borrowing from and lending to other organizations. For example, curators for New York at Its Core scoured collections far and wide to supplement … Continue reading
Posters and Patriotism: Selling World War I in New York
The United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917; three years after the conflict had begun. Although the U.S. was involved in the war for just 18 months, … Continue reading
Muslim in New York: Highlights from the Photography Collection
Muslims have been woven into the fabric of New York since the city’s origins as New Amsterdam, and the Museum is happy to share highlights from our collection which shed … Continue reading
A Courier Trip to Denmark
“You’re going where! In January? Why?” my coworkers and friends exclaimed when I mentioned I’d be going to Denmark. Well, to act as a courier for 27 photographs we had … Continue reading
The Challenges of different types of hanging hardware
Visitors to the Museum may walk through the galleries and imagine that installation of an exhibition isn’t that much different than decorating your own home, just on a larger scale. … Continue reading
In Conversation with Gloria Steinem
“If I stayed home, I’d have to live like everybody else. If I came to New York, I could be myself.” — Gloria Steinem. Since the Museum’s exhibtion New York … Continue reading
My night at the Museum: A look back at the Gotham Groove late shift
A little over three weeks ago, I spent the night at the Museum. Armed with a box of coffee and assorted comfort foods, I clocked in through the employee entrance … Continue reading
Basement Bathhouse, Rooftop Farm, Symphonies and Scandals in Between
What do Stravinsky, the Black Sox, Bette Midler, and a swinger’s club have in common? At one point they were all inside New York City’s Ansonia Hotel. The Ansonia was … Continue reading
Civil Rights in Brooklyn: Behind the Scenes, New York at its Core
In our 21st century world of Twitter feeds, Facebook updates, Snapchat, Instagram, live blogging, and viral videos, it is sometimes hard to remember a time in which we were not … Continue reading
