Beating the summer heat with picnics, entertainment, and excursions
I have been enjoying this uncharacteristically cooler summer. My window air conditioning unit is still sitting on the shelf in the closet, and with just two weeks of August left, … Continue reading
Illuminating New York City Through Material Culture
The Museum of the City of New York’s ephemera collections have held a special place in my heart since I took on their custodianship, along with manuscripts, maps, and rare … Continue reading
Cleopatra’s Needle
An obelisk, one of antiquity’s most enduring forms, is celebrating its 133rd year in New York City as the subject of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Later … Continue reading
A visit to Sochi, 1939.
What do the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 1939 New York World’s Fair have in common? The promotion of Sochi, Russia as a tourist destination. As mentioned in a earlier … Continue reading
Festivities of the Gilded Age “Season”
The morning after returning from visiting family for Thanksgiving, I awoke with the thought, “The ball season has again returned, and already the ‘busy hum of preparation’ for its festivities … Continue reading
The Great Bygone Museum Tour
Ladies and Gentleman! Step this way! My dear blog readers, please accompany me on a tour to discover the unique and marvelous history of museums in New York City. Be … Continue reading
“I have seen the future:” Norman Bel Geddes and the General Motors Futurama
Regular followers of this blog will recognize the button featured at the right from one of our earlier posts about the Museum’s New York World’s Fair collections. Visitors to the … Continue reading
Relaxing with a summer cocktail – it wasn’t always so easy.
Just because this August has been cooler than usual (or perhaps it just seems that way after July’s heatwave), doesn’t mean those New Yorkers of legal drinking age are any … Continue reading
Discovering the World’s Fair Collections
Thanks to a generous Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), as Project Archivist, I now have the pleasure of exploring … Continue reading
New York City on Two Wheels
May is National Bicycle Month and is recognized by various local and national bicycle and transportation advocacy groups such as New York’s Transportation Alternatives and the League of American Bicyclists. … Continue reading
Dollar Princesses, or how the American heiress saved Downton Abbey and other estates like it
Perhaps it goes without saying that among the Collections crew here at the Museum there are a number of huge fans of the Masterpiece Classic series Downton Abbey. In the … Continue reading
The Political Campaign
In honor of the 57th inauguration of the President of the United States, I decided to take a look at how campaigning for political office and the democratic process is … Continue reading
Remembering the New York World’s Fair of 1939
“Designing Tomorrow: America’s World Fairs of the 1930’s” opened at the Museum of the City of New York December 5, featuring a core traveling exhibition organized by the National Building … Continue reading
MCNY Blog: New York Stories 