Quantcast
Channel: NYPL Blogs
Viewing all 5325 articles
Browse latest View live

Ep. 39 "Working Together for the Common Good" | Library Stories

0
0

When playwright and documentarian Calvin Alexander Ramsey discovered The Green Books in the collections of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, he was inspired by the way a community of people worked together to offer a lifeline for their peers. The books are a travel guide series for African Americans living in the Jim Crow era with detailed listings about businesses that African Americans could feel safe using while traveling. As he prepares for the release of his documentary on The Green Books, Calvin hopes to share with current and future generations the impact that a small group of people can have when they come together to create a resource for the common good.

Library Stories is a video series from The New York Public Library that shows what the Library means to our users, staff, donors, and communities through moving personal interviews.

Like, share, and watch more Library Stories on Facebook or YouTube.

 


Share Your Summer Reading Spots with #ireadeverywhere

0
0

This summer, we’re celebrating and showcasing all the passionate readers out there with our hashtag #ireadeverywhere. Join authors, librarians, and other readers from around the world in sharing your favorite reading spots, whether it’s someplace comfortable, unusual, or far, far away from NYC. We want to see where you’re reading and we want to inspire others to pick up a book (or e-reader) and start their own adventures.

How to Join In #ireadeverywhere

Just take a photo of yourself reading and share on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr with the hashtag #ireadeverywhere and we’ll repost our favorites throughout the summer! Here are a few examples to get you inspired:

Be sure to follow NYPL on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr to see a few of our favorite #ireadeverywhere photos.

Find Something Great to Read

If you’re having a hard time picking out a book to begin your summer reading journey, try our Staff Picks tool. Our expert staff members pick out a selection of books they love and make them sortable by theme so you can find your next favorite read. Selections are included for children, young adults, and adults.

Not Near the Library? Grab an E-Book with SimplyE!

If you’re traveling and can’t access a library in person, just download our new app, SimplyE, in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. With SimplyE, NYPL cardholders have the ability to browse, borrow, and read more than 300,000 free e-books from the Library, in just a few steps. Download SimplyE, log in with your library card and PIN, and start reading!

For more than 100 years, The New York Public Library has brought the power of books to patrons of all ages, both within our branches and beyond — from book drives and bookmobiles to visits to hospitals, factories, and more. We are excited to continue that mission — join us!

Picture Books for Working Moms

0
0

All moms are working hard all the time, and moms who work outside their homes could sometimes use a hand explaining their jobs to their kids and handling their separation anxiety. These picture books do just that.

mama

When Mama Gets Home by Marisabina Russo
A little girl and her older sister and brother all want their mother's attention when she gets home at the end of the workday. (Also a good story about sibling rivalry and being a single parent of multiple children.)


 

mama goes to work

When Mama Goes to Work by Marsha Skyrpuch
This picture book shows a lovely diversity of working moms in a range of cool jobs and kids in daycare.



 

go to work

When Mommy and Daddy Go to Work by Joanna Cole
Both parents go to off to their jobs in this book—and both of them also share the responsibilities for daycare pickup and dropoff.
 

 

 

 

forget

Don’t Forget I Love You by Miriam Moss
In the crazy rush of the morning routine, Billy and his mom forget something important as they're hurrying to get to preschool and work.

 



 

suitcase

Suitcase Surprise for Mommy by Cat Cora
When Zoran's mom has to go away on a business trip, he chooses something to pack in her suitcase for her to keep their connection while she's traveling.

 


 

 

i love you

The I Love You Book  by Todd Parr
This book isn't specifically about working mothers, but one of the illustrations shows a mom at a desk in an office with the words, "I love you when I am away"—normalizing the idea that moms work.


 

 

working mom

My Working Mom by Peter Glassman
When your mom is a witch, her many witch duties (like brewing potions and riding a broom) keep her very busy.

 

 



 

across the sea

Mama, Across the Sea by Alex Godard
This story, adapted from the French, is about a little girl living with her grandparents on an island because her mother has had to go to the mainland to find work.

 

 


 

 



---

Have trouble reading standard print? Many of these titles are available in formats for patrons with print disabilities.

Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!

Read 20 Minutes a Day? Finish Moby-Dick before Fall

0
0

Twenty minutes a day.

That's all it takes for kids and adults alike to avoid a summer reading slump... and, as it turns out, to read some really amazing books. So, with our Summer Reading Challenge in full swing, we decided to do a little math.

Here’s our #Read20 breakdown:

  • An average adult reader reads 200 words per minute. (Or take our speed-reading quiz and determine your own exact speed!)
  • For argument’s sake, let’s say that children who read more slowly than adults can also read 200 wpm on a page with bigger type and shorter words.
  • A book has about 200-250 words per page, depending on the font and size of the book. (This is just an average; go with us, here.)
  • That averages out to about a page per minute.
  • So, if you read 20 minutes a day for the rest of the summer—about six weeks—that’s 840 minutes and 840 pages.

Twenty minutes per day doesn’t sound like much… but 840 pages does.

Here’s what 840 pages gets you:

  • Six 140-page books
  • Three 280-page books
  • Two 420-page books
  • One really seriously long book

20Mins

So, what does that mean in books?

Dozens upon dozens of picture books

Six Babysitter’s Club or Goosebumps books

Christmas in July! Holidays on Ice (166 pgs.) +A Christmas Carol (102 pgs.) +Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (272 pgs.) +You Better Not Cry (206 pgs.) +A Christmas Memory(107 pgs.)

David Sedaris’ best books: Me Talk Pretty One Day (272 pgs.) +Naked (291 pgs.) +Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (257 pgs.)

Elena Ferrante’s childhood and adolescence (331 pgs.), her twenties (471 pgs.), and a few dozen pages into her middle age

Great new middle-grade fiction you may have missed: It Ain’t So Awful, Falafel(378 pgs.) +The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary (246 pgs.) +Far from Fair (229 pgs.)

Great new YA fiction you may have missed: The Serpent King  (372 pgs.) +Drag Teen (261 pgs.) +The Smell of Other People's Houses (227 pgs.)

Anne of Green Gables(440 pgs.) +Anne of Avonlea (384 pgs.)

A Tale of Two Cities (470 pgs.) +Tales of the City (371 pgs.)

Moby-Dick(599 pgs.) +The Whale: A Love Story (281 pgs.) 

A Murakami sampler: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (607 pgs.) + a little over 200 pages of his short stories

Ron Chernow’s Hamilton (818 pgs.) + the first couple chapters of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: The Revolution

The entire first Game of Thronesbook (835 pgs.) + the first five pages of the sequel

78% of Infinite Jest (1,079 pgs.)

So, go forth and #Read20! You'll be surprised where you end up come September.

---

Have trouble reading standard print? Many of these titles are available in formats for patrons with print disabilities.

Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!

Boys of Summer: 15 YA Romances You'll Totally Fall For

0
0
Boys of Summer
Boys of Summer by Jessica Brody

Every summer I put together a list of my favorite teen romance novels—new and old—to read during those lazy summer days. It always has a theme—last year it was self-actualization level and in 2013 it was road trips, but this year I’m keeping it simple. This year it’s all about the boys. I mean let’s get real here, we read romance to get carried away, to feel the feels for someone in a fictional way that we might never get to in the real world. Would The D.U.F.F. be as good without charming womanizer with a heart of gold Wesley? Would we reread Anna and the French Kiss over and over again without the kind, flirtatious, sophisticated St. Clair? Would The Wrath and the Dawn have the same impact without the handsome and cursed Khalid? Sure the strong, female characters are great but it’s the boys that help make these books keepers.

So with that in mind, I give you 15 books and plenty of charming, perfectly imperfect boys (and all their best traits) to choose from. Which will be ones that you fall for?

gelato

Love & Gelatoby Jenna Evans Welch
After her mother dies, Lina is sent off to Italy to live with the man she's just found out is her father. There she’s given her mother’s journal from years before and now her trip is just as much about rediscovering a mother as it is about discovering herself. Luckily, she has a charming new friend to help her follow in her mother’s footsteps.

The Boy: Ren. Short for Lorenzo. A friendly Italian-American boy who takes you riding around the Italian countryside and the city of Florence on his Vespa (a motor scooter). He’ll take you clubbing, sightseeing, buy you all the gelato you can eat and comfort you when the family drama gets too much to handle.

 

lullaby

This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen
Remy has rules when it comes to dating. 1) Never get serious. She doesn’t believe in complicated love and so she always leaves before it gets complicated. 2) Never date a musician. Ever. Her deadbeat dad is a musician with one hit to his name and she's vowed never to fall for one. Then she meets Dexter, a musician who lives by no rules and loves romance and suddenly, all bets are off.

The Boy: Dexter is a sweet, funny, dorky, unapologetic romantic who will do anything to get you to smile. From writing a ridiculous song, to letting you choose the movie, to making you your favorite meal (using every pot and pan in the kitchen to do it).

 

sloane

Summer of Sloane by Erin L. Schneider
Just before she jets off to Hawaii for the entire summer, Sloane discovers that her boyfriend cheated on her (TWICE!) with her best friend(!!) and then she breaks her arm (!!!). Luckily, there’s three months of lazy beach days in Hawaii to distract her. She vows to leave her troubles and her cheating friends behind in Seattle and concentrate on herself for a change.

The Boy: Finn is handsome, rich and an attentive big brother to his younger sister. He’ll take you hiking to a hidden waterfall for a picnic/ make out session and then curl up with you on a couch for a Netflix marathon while sharing a bag of Doritos. He certainly doesn’t care if your life is complicated because his is too.

 

boys

Boys of Summer by Jessica Brody
Meet the boys of Winlock Harbor. Grayson, the football prodigy, Mike, the local heartthrob and Ian, the handsome musician. Best friends since they were kids, every summer they come together for beachfront barbecues, bonfires and late night swims but this summer their loyalties and bonds of friendship will be tested to their limits.

The Boys: Three to choose from! There’s Grayson, everyone’s perfect golden boy athlete but he’s tired of all the hoopla and needs someone to help him break out of the perfect box he’s stuck in. Mike, a hopeless romantic with a broken heart who takes care of everyone but himself when he clearly needs someone to take care of him. Ian who is dealing with a deep loss but talking about it is more than he can handle so he needs someone willing to distract him and listen to him.

unexpected

The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson
Perfectionist Andie ALWAYS has a plan and this summer is no different but when her father’s political scandal derails her life Andie must find her plan B. With her summer medical program no longer in the picture, she finds an unexpected job and an unexpected boy. Suddenly, her plan B summer may not be so bad after all.

The Boy: Clark is the super hot nerd of your dreams. He’s sweet, easy going, he’s got six pack abs, he’s a little awkward and weird, loves dogs and is a New York Times best selling fantasy author—at the age of 19. Get ready for in-depth nerdy discussions over midnight pancake feasts at the local diner.

 

summer

The Summer I Turned Pretty series by Jenny Han
Belly and her family spend every summer at the beach house owned by a family friend but the summer she turns 16 she feels her life changing. That summer the sons of the house’s owner are treating her differently. Her whole life they’ve been like her brothers, her friends and her crushes but that summer is the beginning of them being something more. Follow the ups and downs of Belly’s love life through 3 books!

The Boys: Jeremiah and Conrad. Oof how to choose between them? It’s an impossible choice. Jeremiah, the younger brother, easy to talk to and joke with. He’ll bring you magazines and chicken soup when you’re sick and kiss you until your toes curl. Conrad, on the other hand, is flirtatious and brooding and never lets you know how he’s feeling but when he does... watch out! He’s frustrating and exhilarating all at the same time.

walk of shame

The Way to Game the Walk of Shame by Jenn P. Nguyen
Taylor is up for valedictorian and is known as the school's Ice Queen so when she wakes up in bed (mostly clothed) with Evan, the school’s hook-up artist, after a night of partying—some damage control is in order. She proposes to Evan that he pretend to be her boyfriend and help repair her reputation and, to the surprise of both of them, he agrees.

The Boy: Evan is the ultimate womanizing, bad boy surfer with a golden heart. He’s just as adept at making you crazy with his sexy, lopsided grin as he is at playing dress-up with your little sister. He never seems to take anything seriously but then he’ll look at you with his soulful eyes, brush the hair out of your face and, and, and... ummm... where was I again…?

 

two summers

Two Summers by Aimee Friedman
When Summer doesn’t answer her phone at the airport her summer splits into two different parallel universes. In one, she doesn’t answer it and heads to Provence, France anyway and discovers the joy of French boys and fresh, chocolate croissants. In the other, she stays home takes a photography class and finally talks to her crush. In both, she must deal with a terrible family secret.

The Boys: Jacques is French, flirtatious and fun. He takes you the French Rivera, shows you fields of sunflowers and lavender and tells you that you’re beautiful in two languages. Hugh is smart, gorgeous and shy but you’ll feel rewarded when he finally opens up to you. He’ll take you to all his favorite places and always remember your Starbucks order.

wandering

Wandering Wild by Jessica Taylor
Tal and her traveler family live by hustling, conning and running scams. She calls a trailer her home—it’s all she and her brother have ever known and ever will know. But one night in a small Southern town changes all that. That’s the night she tries to hustle town golden boy Spencer Sway during a game of pool and suddenly nothing is the same.

The Boy: Spencer is confident, cocky, smart and unafraid of a bad girl with baggage (in fact he probably prefers it). He’ll sneak you into his bedroom and lend you a shirt to sleep in. And he’s got dreams, big dreams. He wants to take you traveling the world with no itinerary and no looking back.

 

walk

A Walk in the Sun by Michelle Zink
Rose never dreamed of a future working her family farm but when her mother dies and her father descends into a deep depression it’s up to her to keep things going. Then her Aunt hires someone to help her for the summer and the new farmhand begins to help her with more than just the chores.

The Boy: Bodhi is independent, a gentleman, gorgeous (but he doesn’t know it) and has a big, open heart. He’s good with birthing calves and with skittish girls afraid of opening up to someone new. He’s calm in a crisis and is always up for a midnight swim under a full moon.

 

rites

Rites of Passage by Joy N. Hensley
Sam decides to attend the boys-only Denmark Military Academy on a dare from her older brother. As the only daughter in a military family it's in her blood after all. Now she’s one of six girls, attending the school for the first time. They will have to prove themselves equal to the boys in all things and fight against a secret society that wants them out!

The Boy: Drill Sergeant Stamm is on your side but he can’t show it. He’ll stare at you with his ice blue eyes and silently root for you as you prove just how tough you are. You’ll have content yourself with surreptitious touches, stolen kisses and hidden notes.

 

even if

Even if the Sky Falls by Mia Garcia
In New Orleans with a church youth group to build houses, Julie is desperate for a change. She wants to pretend to be someone else, pretend she doesn’t have any problems and just live in the moment. She does all this and more at a mid-summer parade as her night takes one unexpected turn after another.

The Boy: His name isMiles...or at least that’s what you call him. An anonymous night of pretending to be someone else calls for anonymity. With his blue-tipped hair and caramel skin he’s like a creature from an enchanted forest who’s emerged just for you. You’ll trade Shakespeare quotes, eat beignets, share secrets and dance in the rain.

 

wanderlost

Wanderlost by Jen Malone
Aubree is known as a “walking disaster” so it’s a big deal when she agrees to take her perfectionist sister’s place as a tour guide to a group of senior citizens on a bus tour of Europe. She’s literally going to pretend to be Elizabeth for a month—what could go wrong? Well, she immediately loses her phone along with the big binder of info her sister made her and now she has the tour company’s son on the trip with her. So, a lot as it turns out.

The Boy: Sam is a fast talking charmer who enjoys flirty phone conversations, is attentive to his grandmother and makes everything fun. He makes you laugh until it hurts, is up for crazy cuisine, knows Broadway show tunes and kisses you in the moonlight.

 

one day

Just One Day /Just One Year /Just One Night by Gayle Foreman
Ally usually never leaves anything to chance and that includes her bus tour of Europe. However, when Willem, a handsome stranger, offers to take her to Paris for the day she decides to accept. It’s a whirlwind 24 hours but it’s when she wakes up the next morning to find that he’s vanished that really changes everything. In Just One Year, you get Willem’s side of the story. In Just One Night, their stories finally come back together.

The Boy: Willem is brash, handsome, spontaneous and has you doing things you never thought you’d do. One look and suddenly you’re flirting with a stranger like a pro, sneaking into art galleries after closing and seeing Paris from the back of a bicycle. He’ll have you drinking wine at a sidewalk cafe, gobbling down a baguette smothered in paté and believing in fate.

summer days

Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories ed. by Stephanie Perkins
Twelve of your favorite YA authors have teamed up for this summer romance extravaganza. It has a little bit of everything: true love, complicated love, magical love, tragic love... you get the idea. There’s a story for every mood and taste whether you’re a romantic or a cynic. Includes authors: Libba Bray, Leigh Bardugo, Veronica Roth, Cassandra Clare, Nina LaCour, Jennifer E. Smith, Stephanie Perkins, Tim Federle and more…

The Boys: Take your pick—it’s really reader’s choice. A small sample: the hot, socially awkward boy who doesn’t back down from a challenge ("A Thousand Ways this Could All Go Wrong"); the funny guy who makes you go up a mountain to win his heart ("In Ninety Minutes, Turn North"); the shy boy who shows up every summer in your lakeside town ("Head, Scales, Tongue, Tail"); the best friend who knows you better than you know yourself ("Inertia") and the annoying ex who still manages to make you melt into a puddle ("Souvenirs").

Hollywood on the Hudson: "Made in NY" Production Assistant Training Program

0
0

The  filmed entertainment industry is  blooming in New York City with at least $9  billion is now spent every year on television and movie production.  Officials are trying to make sure it benefits all New Yorkers by setting up programs to help low-income residents break into the industry.   These programs include the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, which is an affordable CUNY film-school to train a new generation of filmmakers and the "Made in NY" Production Assistant training  program. "Hollywood on the Hudson" segment on NY1.

paa

The "Made in NY" Production Assistant (PA) training program is a collaboration between Brooklyn  Workforce Innovations (BWI) and the New York City Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting.  BWI's mission is to give unemployed and low-income New Yorkers the chance to work on New York sets and build careers in this dynamic field.

Since the program’s launch in February 2006, BWI has trained over 500 New Yorkers and placed highly-qualified PAs on more than 2,000 productions. Graduates have moved into advanced positions including Assistant Production Office Coordinator, Camera Assistant, Assistant Locations Manager, Grip, Field Producer, Set Decorator, Technical Operator and Unit PAs in sound, wardrobe and more. See who is hiring the graduates.

“Made in NY” PAs are selected through a competitive admissions process and complete an intensive five-week skills training program taught by NY industry professionals. Hands-on training includes workshops at top vendors and studios, as well as the permitting office of Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME). Before certification, trainees prove their skills by working on actual productions. After certification, BWI provides two years of job placement and career advancement support. 

Contact BWI with questions about this program.

Staten Island Historical Newspapers Now Online

0
0

The New York Public Library just posted more than 9,000 pages from The Richmond County Advance online, covering the years 1886 to 1910. Find them atnypl.org/sinewspapers. This "NYPL Innovation Project" began with the scanning of the Advance from the collections of Historic Richmond Town. It is the largest batch of historical Staten Island papers ever posted to the Web — and it is changing the way we explore the Island’s past. The Advance joins the Richmond County Mirror online, which was previously posted by the New York Public Library.

In the past, if the date of an article was unknown, researchers could spend days or even weeks hunting for it on microfilm. Now, it is only a matter of seconds. Historical newspapers can be useful to all different kinds of people:

  • Genealogists seeking information about ancestors will find a treasure trove of information about the Island’s early residents. 
  • Students and teachers can learn about how national and global events affected their own communities.
  • Scientists seeking to model changes in the climate can easily trace local weather events back to the 1800s.
  • Historians can follow the development of Island social and political issues across the decades. Very often these newspapers are the only record left of significant historical events.

Who knows what other new and exciting uses we can expect from this sizable resource? The articles in our digital newspapers can be supplemented with thousands of historical Staten Island images and maps in the NYPL Digital Collectionsoral histories, and Historic Richmond Town’s Online Collections, to give us a more complete picture of the past.

Our work is just getting started. Soon the online Advance and Mirror will be joined by many more papers from our new partner, the Staten Island Musem. Find links to these newspapers, and Island papers uploaded by other institutions, at nypl.org/sinewspapers. Additional papers soon to be uploaded include: the Staten Island World, The Richmond County Free Press, more issues of the Richmond County Advance, The Daily Advance, early issues of The Staten Island Advance, The Staten Island Gazette, The Sepoy, The News Letter, Richmond County Sentinel, Richmond County Democrat, Staten Island Independent, Staten Island Transcript ...

 

Richmond County Advance  Daily Advance

Staten Island IndependentRichmond County Gazette

Richmond County Free PressThe Sepoy 

Richmond County Sentinel Richmond County Mirror

Richmond County DemocratStaten Island World

NYPL, the Staten Island Museum and Historic Richmond Town have long-held these historical papers on microfilm and each has many more titles in their on-site collections.  A complete guide to Staten Island newspapers on microfilm (and in their original paper format) can be found here.  It is our goal to make all of our papers digital and easily accessible to everyone.

The most recent years of the modern Staten Island Advance are available at the paper’s own website, silive.com.

What will you discover at nypl.org/sinewspapers?

Advance Building Sea View Hospital

Ferry Service

Funding for the digitization of Staten Island newspapers was provided through The New York Public Library's Innovation Project, which is made possible by a generous grant from the Charles H. Revson Foundation.

One Bad Podcast: The Librarian Is In, Ep. 17

0
0

Welcome to The Librarian Is In, the New York Public Library's podcast about books, culture, and what to read next.

Subscribe on iTunes!


Gwen can barely contain herself this week when she and Frank are joined by Biz Ellis, one of the hosts of the One Bad Mother podcast, to talk kids and parents and books. Plus, Biz's 6-year-old daughter makes a book recommendation of her own!

biz
It's Biz!

 

What We're Reading Now

Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art by Virginia Heffernan

Camille Paglia's books and essays, and the Salon.com article on Trump

Instagram

filters
Fun with filters...

"In the Depths of the Digital Age" in The New York Review of Books by Edward Mendelson

Three's Company

A Little Life by Hanya Yanigahara and the story of the cover photo by Peter Hujar

little lfie
Quite a photo.

The History of Great Thingsby Elizabeth Crane

Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton

Rain Schoolby James Rumsford

Hot Topix

How to put a book on hold

NYPL's new SimplyE app

Guest Star

Elizabeth Ellis, comedian and co-host of the One Bad Mother podcast, and One Bad Mother on Facebook and Twitter

Gwen's interview on One Bad Mother

I Am a Bunnyby Ole Risom

bunny
My name is Nicolas! I live in a hollow tree!

American Housewife by Biz's sister, Helen Ellis

DC Comics, cozy mysteries, and Lee Child's Jack Reacher series

The Monkey's Raincoat by Robert Crais

Suspect by Robert Crais (this is the book Biz recommended about the military dog!)

The amazing work of Mo Willems:

The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak

Katy Belle's recommendation: Warriors: The Sun Trailby Erin Hunter

warriors
These cats mean business.

Also, the Seekers series (bears) and the Survivors series (dogs) by Erin Hunter

Anything but Books

Biz: Tumble Leaf

Gwen: The Okee Dokee Brothers' Can You Canoe?

---

Thanks for listening! Have you rated us on iTunes yet? Would you consider doing it now?

Find us online @NYPLRecommends, the Bibliofile blog, and nypl.org. Or email us at recommendations@nypl.org!


Introducing SimplyE: 300,000 E-Books to Browse, Borrow, and Read

0
0

SimplyE

The New York Public Library just released SimplyE, a new app that gives NYPL cardholders the ability to browse, borrow, and read more than 300,000 e-books from the Library’s collections in just a few easy steps.

It is now easier than ever to take the Library with you, whether you're at home, on your commute, or enjoying the summer at the beach. You can download the the initial release of SimplyE for iPhone/iPad or Android, log in with your NYPL card barcode and PIN, and start reading.

App StoreGoogle Play

If you're not sure what to read next, SimplyE features recommendations curated by librarians, making it easy to find books that you can access immediately. We're working to add additional features for the app in the near future, including a Kindle Fire version, a desktop reader, an mp3 audiobook format, as well as page bookmarking and text annotations.

You'll need a New York Public Library card to use SimplyE. Residents of New York City can apply in person for a New York Public Library card or renew at an NYPL location near you, and residents of New York State who live outside New York City can apply by mail. Learn more about applying for a card.

If you need help using the app, go to More / Help in the app or visit gethelp.nypl.org to get help from our staff or find answers to your questions, such as resetting your PIN. We also invite you to provide feedback via the app under More / Help / Report an Issue in the app, which sends a message to Library staff for follow-up.

Learn more at our resource page about e-books.    

Free Summer Meals | 免费暑假餐点 | Comidas de verano gratis

0
0

免费暑假餐点 | Comidas de verano gratis

Free Summer Meals

Hey, New Yorkers! School's out for the summer! You know what that means—two test-free and homework-less months for kids to hang with friends and play in the sunshine.

But summertime also means no meals provided by the school, and families have to stretch their budget to accommodate this absence. Luckily, the Department of Education provides free summer meals for all New York City’s children and teens. Anyone 18 years and younger who approaches participating summer meal sites will receive breakfast and lunch—no questions asked!

Summer meals begin June 29 and run until September 2 at participating schools, parks,  community pool centers, libraries,  NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority) locations, and other locations around the city. Children and teens aged 18 and younger do not need to register or provide any sort of documentations or IDs to receive their free breakfast or lunch. They also do not need to be enroll in summer school to participate. Parents can just bring their children to a summer meal site without fear of having to fill out any paperwork.  Additionally, many of the participating locations offer activities and events for children so they enjoy themselves after their meal.

To see what locations near you are providing summer meals, visit schoolfoodnyc.org

Not near a computer but have a smartphone? Download the SchoolFood app from the iTunes or Google Play store to also find a location near you.

You can also call 311, visit nyc.gov/311, text NYCmeals to 877-877, visit nokidhungry.org, or visit the Parks Department website at nycgovparks.org for particpating locations.

Four food trucks will also be serving summer meals at different locations throughout the city. You can find them in:

  • Bronx: Roberto Clemente Park              
  • Manhattan: Sara D. Roosevelt Park (Rivington Park)
  • Queens: Corona Park Zoo (Parking Lot at 111 St) and Corona Plaza (Roosevelt Avenue & 103rd St)

All food served at summer sites adheres to USDA nutrition guidelines.  Parents and teens can preuse the various summer menus in multiple languages here or on the SchoolFood app.

Summer meal flyers in different languages.

Enjoy the summer and happy eating!


你好,纽约人。学校放暑假了。你知道那代表什么 -- 两个月没有考试,没有作业,孩子们在阳光下与同伴游玩。

暑假也代表学校不供应午餐了,各个家庭要增加孩子们的午餐开支。 市政府的教育部门提供免费午餐给所有纽约市的小孩及青少年。任何年龄在18岁以下的人只要接触参与暑期餐点供应的机构,不用回答任何问题,都可以得到免费的早午餐。

暑假餐点从6月9号开始,一直供应到9月2号,在参与的学校,公园,社区泳池中心,纽约市住宅管理局以及其他地点派发。18岁以下的孩童或青少年不用注册或出示任何证件,也不需要报名任何暑期班,即可获得免费早午餐。家长们只需要带领孩童前往派发早午餐的地点,不需填写任何表格。 有的地点甚至除了供应早午餐之外,还给孩子们提供餐后的不同的活动,

请参考下列网址,找出离你家最近的暑假餐点供应处:http://www.schoolfoodnyc.org/sch_search/summermeals.aspx

如果电脑不在身边,但有智慧手机,请从你的app store中或google play store下载ShoolFood  app 去寻找离你最近的供应处。

你也可以打311或上网www.nyc.gov/311查询,或送文字讯息到877-877询问NYCmeals。造访http://newyourkcity.nokidhungry.org/free-summer-meals , 或造访公园局的网站:https://www.nycgovparks.org/programs/summer-meals查询。

四辆食物卡车停靠在下列不同地点,供应暑假餐点:

布朗士区 Roberto Clemente 公园

曼哈顿区 Sara D. Roosevelt 公园 (Rivington  公园)

皇后区 可乐娜公园动物园 (在111街停车场)可乐娜广场(罗斯福大道跟103街交口)

所有在不同地点提供的食物完全遵守美国农业部(USDA)的营养准则。你可以在这个网站查看中文版的暑期菜单.

这是中文版的暑假餐点的中文宣传单.

预祝暑假快乐,吃得高兴。


¡Jóvenes neoyorquinos! Ya llegaron las vacaciones de verano. ¿Sabes lo que eso significa? Dos meses sin exámenes, ni deberes, y tiempo libre para pasar con tus amigos.

Pero el verano también significa que las escuelas no ofrecen comidas y las familias tienen que estirar su presupuesto para acomodar esta ausencia. Afortunadamente, el Departamento de Educación proporciona comidas gratis durante el verano para todos los niños y adolescentes de la ciudad de Nueva York. Cualquier niño(a) o joven de hasta 18 años que se acerque a los sitios que participan del programa Comidas de Verano, recibirá desayuno y almuerzo gratis - ¡sin preguntas!

Las Comidas de Verano comienzan el 29 de junio y duran hasta el 2 de septiembre en ciertas escuelas, parques, piscinas comunitarias, bibliotecas, centros de NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority) y otros lugares alrededor de la ciudad que participen. Los niños y adolescentes de hasta 18 años de edad no tienen que registrarse ni presentar ningún tipo de documentación para recibir desayuno o almuerzo gratis. Asimismo, no es necesario inscribirse en la escuela de verano para participar. Los padres pueden traer a sus hijos a un sitio de Comida de Verano sin temor a rellenar papeles. Además, muchos de los locales que participan ofrecen actividades y eventos para niños de los cuales puedan disfrutar después de la comida.

Para encontrar los sitios de Comidas de Verano más cercanos a tu vivienda, haz clic aquí: http://www.schoolfoodnyc.org/sch_search/summermeals.aspx

¿Tienes un smartphone? Descarga el app SchoolFood desde la Apple Store o el Google Play Store para encontrar el local más cercano a ti.

También puedes llamar al 311, o visitar el sitio web  www.nyc.gov/311.  De igual manera puedes enviar el texto NYCmeals al 877-877, o visitar el sitio web .  El Departamento de Parques también ofrece información en su sitio  para encontrar los locales que ofrecen Comidas de Verano.

Cuatro camiones de alimentos también servirán comidas este verano en diferentes lugares de la ciudad. Puedes encontrarlos en:

  • Bronx: Roberto Clemente Park
  • Manhattan: Sara D. Roosevelt Park (Rivington Park)
  • Queens: Corona Park (Parking Lot at 111th St) or Corona Plaza (Roosevelt Avenue & 103rd St)

Puedes encontrar el menú de las Comidas de Verano en español aquí:

E-Book Recommendations to Read in SimplyE

0
0

Now that SimplyE is here, if you have a smart phone there's no excuse not to be reading everywhere you go! If you're not sure what to pick from the 300,000 titles available, let our staff offer some suggestions.

Follow the links below to check out immediately or place holds in the catalog, but don't download until you are inside the app. Get the free app now from the App Store or Google Play; all you need is your NYPL library card and PIN.

Unseen City

It's summer, which means spending all your time outside. While you're there, take a few minutes to appreciate your surroundings and the plants and animals you share space with—because there are a lot of them, even in the middle of New York City. Let yourself be inspired byUnseen City: The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails, & Other Wonders of the Urban Wilderness. Kay Menick, Digital Curatorial Assistant

Emily Giffin is back with yet another summer hit. First Comes Love explores the difficult relationship between two sisters, who are very different. This is an engaging read, with relatable yet flawed characters that gives a detailed look into realistic family conflict and drama. —Morgan O'Reilly, Young Adult Librarian, Aguilar

I just finished reading The Girls by Emma Cline, released on June 14 of this year. It's inspired by the Charles Manson killings and focuses on a fourteen year-old girl who gets swept up in a Manson-esque group. Cline explores what it means to be a girl in our world and how the need to be loved, accepted, and seen can lead to terrible consequences. —Jessica Maldoff, Children's Librarian, 115th Street

I just finished The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson, her retelling of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale (available to keep in SimplyE). Retold in a contemporary setting, the book has her signature lyricism and nuance, with a fair smattering of mystery and violence. —Jennifer Craft, Library Manager, Mulberry Street

Two thumbs way up for debut author Alwyn Hamilton's Rebel of the Sands. Amani is from back country, the only life she knows is gun slinging and the desert. Determined to break away, she disguises herself as a man participates in a marksman contest. Trapt between an unhappy future and escape, she takes a chance by escaping with a mysterious foreigner named Jin. The two embark on a caravan through the desert only to get caught up in the kingdom's rebellion. It might sound cheesy, but this is a real page turned. With fantastic mythology and great characters, you'll find yourself caught up waiting for "a new dawn, a new desert!" —Chantalle Uzan, Young Adult Librarian, Francis Martin

Beauty is a Wound

Beauty is a Wound is a lush book of extremes: equal parts satire and epic, it is at once marvelous and horrifying. Kurniawan's novel illustrates the history of Indonesia in the twentieth century through the eyes of Dewi Ayu, a beautiful, brilliant prostitute with a can-do attitude. If you're into ghosts, magical realism, folklore, and historical fiction, this book is a must-read. You probably have heard that 2016 is the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, but did you know that this year also marks the 400th year since Shakespeare's contemporary and literary peer, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra shuffled off this mortal coil? Cervantes' Don Quixote (some translations available to keep in SimplyE) is an endlessly entertaining novel that contains just as much wisdom, humor, tragedy, and insight as Shakespeare's collected plays. Read Edith Grossman's translation for the truest and most vibrant experience of this great work in English. —Nancy Aravecz, Adult Librarian Trainee, Jefferson Market

LaRose by Louise Erdrich is a multilayered story of grief, family and community. It has a rich sense of place and the female teenage friendships are refreshingly supportive while also feeling very real. The novel itself is quite optimistic despite being built around the accidental death of a child. It makes me want to read all of her back list immediately. —Alexis Walker, Senior Librarian, Epiphany

I'm using the New York Public Library SimplyE reader app and making my way through the detective novels of Peter Lovesey. Though I must say that I prefer a bound volume for reading at the beach or at night, the SimplyE reader is a great tool when you need instant gratification. I hope that we have enough e-copies of the novels once this post goes live—I wouldn't want to have to wait for my next installment of Superintendent Peter Diamond's adventures in Bath, England and environs with the Avon and Somerset Constabulary. Every time he discusses a case with his colleagues in the Manvers Street station canteen, or a pub, or tea shop I need to fix a snack. Diamond does enjoy his food. —Virginia L. Bartow, Senior Rare Book Cataloger and Special Formats Cataloging Instruction Coordinator, Special Formats Processing

In Camille Perri's The Assistants, what starts as a clerical error-cum-windfall quickly turns into a company-wide embezzlement scheme run by the assistants to the powerful directors of a media conglomerate. What the Nanny Saw by Fiona Neill is about a powerful British family's undoing during the mid-2000s financial crisis—like an accident, you can see the end coming and you can't look away. —Rebecca Dash Donsky, Manager, 67th Street

Two best friends are in a car accident during a student tour of Italy. The passenger, Simone, is dead and the driver, Jill, claims memory loss of the whole trip. According to social media and the press, it's murder and the Italian detectives certainly have their suspicions. However, Jill loved Simone like a sister and can't believe that she would ever harm her friend intentionally. So was it an accident or murder? Read With Malice and you decide. In Two Summers, Summer is just about to get on a plane to fly to Provence, France to visit her artist father, when she gets a phone call and that's when her life splits in two. In one summer, she doesn't answer the call and continues on to Provence where she meets a charming French boy and eats lots of chocolate croissants and in the other, she answers the phone, stays home, finally talks to her crush and discovers new sides to herself. Which one is her perfect one? —Anne Rouyer, Mulberry Street

Dream of the Red Chamber

Cao Xueqin's Story of the Stone, otherwise known as Dream of the Red Chamber, is one of the four great works of Chinese literature. The work itself is famous for casting a spell over its reader, rendering this fascinating piece impossible to put down. The romantic tale of the love between the eccentric Bao-yu and the moody Dai-yu, coupled with strange philosophical episodes involving a talking stone, is sure to appeal to a broad readership. —Andrew Fairweather, Library Information Assistant, Seward Park

The Atomic Weight of Love by Elizabeth J. Church is a good beach read. What happens when an aspiring ornithologist falls for an atomic scientist who is twenty years her senior? This novel is chockablock with bird facts and unseen forces of attraction. —Jenny Baum, Supervising Librarian, Jefferson Market

Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna is a poetically written, rich historical novel that I was looking forward to reading so much that I put it off for seven years! It was more than worth the wait. It follows a half-Mexican, half-American gay man from childhood to adulthood, as he finds himself involved with key political situations of the era. From the Depression to Leon Trotsky's exile in Mexico with Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and back to the U.S. for WWII and the McCarthy era, this is a fabulous book that reminded me how beautiful a literary novel can be. —Suzanne Lipkin, Special Collections Reading Room, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

I've been reading Blood, Bones, and Butter, a memoir written by the Chef/Owner of the East Village restaurant Prune. I generally give the side-eye to any memoir written by a person-du-jour (this was written at the height of Prune's, and therefore the author's, popularity), especially if that person is younger than 70, but this book reads like a really good novel—evocative prose, clear-eyed (sometimes painful) observations, and deep truths about the worlds in which this writer moves. I've started reading it more slowly as I get closer to the end, because I don't want it to end. —Melisa Tien, Library Technical Assistant III, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

For whatever reason, all of my reading feels linked to Game of Thrones. I just read She-Wolves: the Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor, for everyone rooting for the women taking charge at the end of the last season. —Judd Karlman

 Mumbai New York Scranton

For fans of armchair travel, I am currently reading and recommend Mumbai New York Scranton: A Memoir by Tamara Shopsin. This is a breezy-turns-serious memoir and visual diary, written and illustrated by Tamara Shopsin (daughter of cheeky restaurateur Kenny Shopsin) with photographs by her husband Jason Fulford. Tamara narrates in a cheerful and quirky manner her trip to India with Jason, an unexpected illness, and the journey home. Shortly clipped sentences come loaded with gems of detail and emotional punch. —Sherri Machlin, Senior Librarian, Mulberry Street

I just finished reading Truthwitch by Susan Dennard. It was such a quick read and I loved it. It is about an epic friendship of Iseult and Safi. Safi is a truthwitch, which are very rare in the witchlands. She is also on the run from a Bloodwitch who is trying to capture her... —Lilian Calix, Library Information Assistant, Hamilton Grange

I just finished reading White Sands: Experiences from the Outside World by Geoff Dyer. It caught my eye since I took my own trip to White Sands National Monument earlier this year. The titular story is less about the place, more about the experience of picking up a hitchhiker nearby. Another essay in the book explores the psychic significance of land art—like The Lightning Field and Spiral Jetty—two places I have since added to my must-see list. The author recently appeared at Books at Noon and the NYPL Podcast. —Lauren Lampasone, Digital Experience

I'm reading The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore. A gripping biography of two young men with many similarities, including having the same name and growing up fatherless and in close proximity of each other. One gets a life sentence for murder and the other becomes a Rhodes scholar and successful business leader although their paths could have easily been interchanged. —Nicola McDonald, Library Manager, Jerome Park

Finding Fraser

I've just begun Finding Fraser by KC Dyer, a funny tale about a young woman named Emma Sheridan (huge fan of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series) who has just been fired from her Barista job, sold everything she owns, and booked a flight to Scotland with a brand new adventure blog to find her own Jamie Fraser. Along the way, she meets colorful characters, has some incredibly strange and comical experiences, and gains some valuable allies and supporters. It's great in that it is not obsessed with so much of the Outlander tale, but fans of Diana Gabaldon's work will enjoy the tidbits of reference to the novel. —Sherise Pagan, Senior Librarian, Grand Concourse

I'm reading an oldie but goodie, Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay. About an Italy-like fantasy country which two tyrants have split between them. It's about love, and honor, and memory, and freedom, and the concept of home. Nicole Rosenbluth, Senior Librarian, Pelham Bay

If you enjoy dark humor with a healthy mix of fantasy, mythology, and folklore, you will LOVE the American Gods series by Neil Gaiman. I laughed throughout the whole first book and cannot wait for the TV series to come out in 2017. Next on my list is book number 2: Anansi Boys. —Rebecca Martinez, Library Information Assistant, Hudson Park

I just finished tearing through The Passenger by Lisa Lutz. The narrator (I would tell you her name, but I don't know which one is real anymore) changes identities like we change outfits, but she keeps it going for ten years. What a roller coaster! —Jessica DiVisconte, Executive Assistant, Office of the Chief Library Officer

I read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls in about 18 hours straight—couldn't put it down! A memoir about growing up the child of two very dysfunctionally unique parents. Each time people realized her father was a con man, the family would "skeddadle" to a new place to start afresh. They lived in the desert of California, Phoenix, West Virginia, New York... Her parents had her convinced that it was all part of a big adventure, and she loved it—until she didn't. —Erin Arlene Horanzy, Adult Librarian, Francis Martin

The Jazz of Physics

Every summer I tackle my #TBR (to be read) pile—right now I am reading The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music And The Structure Of The Universe by Stephon Alexander (graduate of DeWitt High School X440 in NYC!). Beyond being a fascinating interdisciplinary read tackling physics and music, Alexander poetically shows "...how finding the right analogies can help us break new ground and traverse the hidden quantum world to the vast superstructure of our universe." Wow. —Amie Wright, Program Manager, MyLibraryNYC

Mary Roach has done it again with Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War. Boldly going where many civilians have not gone before, Roach infiltrated the military to ask the questions we didn't even know we had. Be like me and happily read aloud to everyone in ear shot about diarrhea, shark attacks, and stink bombs. —Kate Fais, Young Adult Librarian, Bloomingdale

Summer is often rereading time for me-currently rereading The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, an old favorite I haven't read in years. Clearing the name of Richard III! —Danita Nichols, Library Manager, Inwood

I'm currently (re)reading The Spiritwalker Trilogy by Kate Elliott on NYPL's SimplyE app. It's a diverse steampunk adventure, taking place in an alternate Victorian era, featuring a strong female protagonist. I just started the second book, Cold Fire. —Nanyamkah M. Mars, Young Adult Library Trainee, Westchester Square

LA Woman by Eve Babitz clocks in at just 160 pages, there’s no good reason not to read this fictional memoir at the beach this summer. Don’t let the novel’s slim size fool you; Eve Babitz’s raw, funny prose cuts deep as she describes the heady days of growing up, getting wasted, and dating artists and rockers in bohemian Los Angeles during the 1960s. —Mina Hong, Senior Young Adult Librarian, Epiphany

Lions by Bonnie Nadzam is recommended for fans of writing where the place itself is as much of a character as any of the protagonists. This one is set in a dying small town in rural Colorado, where people are leaving for all of the expected reasons, and also for reasons that seem to touch on something deeper and eerier. Summer heat and stillness, and restlessness, and a current of something else infuse the town of Lions. As in her earlier novel Lamb, Nadzam is a master of making her reader feel slightly uneasy and conflicted, and it's not always easy to pinpoint why, but that's part of the joy and nuance of it. —Emily Pullen, Library Shop

I must mention the book I'm currently reading: Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me by Teffi, a pseudonym for Russian writer Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya. It is hilarious. One of my favorite couple of sentences appears on the first page, "And then what wakes me an hour or two later is Paris itself—dear, elegant, beautiful Paris. Far better than being woken by some bewhiskered old crone of a concierge, with the eyes of a cockroach." Alexis Walker, Senior Librarian, Epiphany

I'm reading two books: The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe and Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts by Susan Cain. Although this version is for teens, I can totally relate to this version. It is definitely a must read for all introverts, like myself! All the time that I'm reading it I'm thinking "How come there wasn't a book like this for me when I was a teenager?" —Tabrizia Jones, Young Adult Senior Librarian, Sedgwick

I'm reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara using the SimplyE app. Now I don't have to lug around the heavy book!
The lives of four college friends are beautifully chronicled over the course of thirty years of good and terrible times. The solace of friendship, the connecting thread. —Maura Muller, Volunteer Manager

The Nightingale

I recently found two books on SimplyE that were popular a while back and I never go to read them so I clicked on GET and READ and enjoyed The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah and The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. Still deciding what to read on vacation at the end of July but August will be taken up with my Book Group's choice for September; 11/22/63 by Stephen King. —Peggy Salwen, Senior Children's Librarian, St. Agnes

Inspired by the "New Nordic Noir" film series that recently screened at the IFC Center, I've started Jussi Adler-Olsen's Department Q series about a dogged Danish cop exiled to a solitary basement office to work cold cases when higher-ups want him out of the way. Currently, I'm reading Fasandræberne (The Absent One), the second in the series. Detective Møerck and his Arab sidekick Assad must prove that a gang of former prep school bullies, now rich and powerful, are guilty of the gruesome murder of two teenagers twenty years previously—although another man has confessed and is serving time for the crime. —Kathie Coblentz, Special Collections/Special Formats Processing

Want more e-book recommendations?

Black Aesthetics in the Digital Collections: Thoughts on Black Portraiture

0
0

In part two of her Black Aesthetics blog series, our Communications Intern, Kiani Ned, examines the representation of the black body in portraiture:

Portraiture is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the art of making portraits”—a portrait being detailed and graphic descriptions, usually of people. If art is a means by which a culture and peoples recognize and define themselves then images, or portraits, greatly influence the way that we perceive ourselves and each other. One could consider black portraiture to be a facet of black aesthetics, in that it centralizes the black image, illustrates a black existence, and thus implies a cultural position.

Over the last decade, the paintings of Kehinde Wiley have gained incredible fame because of his ornate and regal rendering of black men and women. Wiley alludes to Old Master paintings of the Western art tradition. As brown women and men assume the positions of kings and queens in the paintings, his work makes poignant and implied commentary on the black subject in art and society.

Understanding that the black body is inherently diasporic and nuanced, the questions of what it means-- what it looks like, what it sounds like, and what it feels like, to represent black folk in art and images are globally reconciled. The black subject in images is the primary subject of New York University’s Black Portraiture Conference—a series of panels and conversations that have been held around the world—previously New York City, in Florence, Italy in 2015 and this November in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Much of the black narrative revolves around the carving of space for culture, identity, and existence where none exists. In the same way that we are likely to take a selfie to proclaim our “hereness” to the world, so, too, did black people since at least the early twentieth century in photographic portraits. The New York Public Library’s Digital Collections house a number of digitized photographs dating back to the late nineteenth century. A good amount of those photographs are of black people simply posing—using their image to carve some visual space, some identity, some culture for us to find later.

 2006653
Alice Childress, author. Image ID: 2006653
 1216460
W. E. B. Dubois in the office of The Crisis. Image ID: 1216460
 5048929
Portrait of dramatist Lorraine Hansberry, circa 1950s. Image ID: 5048929
 1699953
Langston Hughes. Image ID: 1699953
 1953635
Jack Johnson, the first African American Heavyweight Champion of the World. Image ID: 1953635
 5122427
Dancer Arthur Mitchell in George Balanchine's Agon, 1957 with the New York City Ballet. Image ID: 5122427
 4015352
Augusta Savage, artist. Image ID: 4015352
 psnypl_scg_392
Harriet Tubman, abolitionist. Image ID: psnypl_scg_392
 5148791
Studio portrait of singer and dancer Aida Overton Walker, circa 1910s. Image ID: 5148791
 1225996
Booker T. Washington, educator and founder of Tuskegee Institute, 1911s. Image ID: 1225996

Discover more books on black imaging in our Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division:

Job and Employment Links for the Week of July 24

0
0

U.S. Census Bureau - Ongoing Recruiting on Monday, July 25, 2016, 8 am - 5 pm for Field Representative (100 P/T openings) at the Department of Labor sites across the 5 boroughs. Location, dates, and times will be given upon applying. If you are interested, please contact DOL Recruitment Department at 212-584-3495 or E-mail: new.york.recruit@census.gov

Enrollment Now Open: SAGEWorks Boot Camp Monday, July 25 at 9:30 am -2 pm. This 2 week training takes place Monday - Friday, 7/25/16 - 8/5/16, 9:30 am to 2 pm, at the SAGE Center, 305 7th Avenue, New York, NY 10001. SAGEWorks assists people 40 years and older in learning relevant, cutting-edge job search skills in a LGBT-friendly environment.

Adecco Staffing for Cirque du Soleil will present a recruitment on Wednesday, July 27, 2016, 10 am - 2 pm, for Janitor (5 Short Term openings),  Runner (5 Short Term openings),  Costume Dresser (5  Short Term openings), Box Office Clerk (5 Short Term openings), Usher (5 Short Term openings), Merchandising Clerk (5 Short Term openings), Food & Beverage Clerk (5 Short Term openings), VIP Host (5 Short Term openings), Receptionist (5 Short Term openings), Production Office Assistant (5 Short Term openings), Kitchen Chef (5 Short Term openings),  Dining Room Attendant (5 Short Term openings), Prep Cook (5 Short Term openings), Dishwasher (5 Short Term openings) at Workforce 1 Career Center, 215 West 125 th Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10027. 

HMS Host will present a recruitment on Wednesday, July 27, 2016, 10 am - 3 pm  for Cook (5 openings), Cashier (5 openings), Barista (5 openings),  Utility (5 openings), at Flushing  Workforce 1 Career Center, 138-60 Barclay Avenue, 2nd Floor, Flushing, NY 11355.
 
Thomas Management will present a recruitment on Wednesday, July 27, 2016, 11 am - 2 pm, for Telemarketing Account Rep. (10 openings) at Brooklyn Workforce 1 Career Center, 250 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201.  This is a Work at Home position.
 
SAGEWorks workshop: Career Transition: How To Enjoy and Be  Empowered By The Process of Changing Jobs, on Wednesday, July 27, 2016, 6 - 7:30 pm at The SAGE Center, 305 7th Avenue, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10001.  SAGEWorks is a national employment support program for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people age 40 and older that expands participants' job hunting skills and career options, and connects employers to diverse high-caliber candidates.
 
R.A.I.N. Home Attendant Services, Inc. will present a recruitment on Thursday, July 28, 2016, 10 am - 2 pm for Driver (5 F/T & P/T openings), Home Health Care Aide (5 F/T & P/T openings), Cook/Assistant Cook (5 F/T & P/T openings) at the Bronx Workforce 1 Career Center, 400 E. Fordham Road, Bronx, NY 10458.
 
Speedway LLC will present a recruitment on Thursday, July 28, 2016, 10 am - 3pm, forAssistanat Manager - Retail Sales (5 openings), Customer Services Rep - Retail Sales (5 openings),  Team Lead (Trainee) - Retail Sales (5 openings) at Flushing Workforce 1 Career Center, 138-60 Barclay Avenue, 2nd Floor, Flushing, NY 11355.
 
Spanish Speaking Resume Writing workshop on Thursday, July 28,  2016, 12:30 - 2:30 pm. at Flushing Workforce 1 Career Center, 138-60 Barclay Avenue, 2nd Floor, Flushing, NY 11355.  All interested jobseekers will learn to organize, revise and update resumes.
 
Basic Resume Writing  workshop on Thursday, July 28, 2016, 1:30 - 3 pm at Brooklyn Workforce 1 Career Center, 250 Schermerhorn  Street,  Brooklyn, NY 11201.   Participants will learn the purpose of a resume, chronological and combination resumes and select the appropriate type for their specific needs.
 

Job Postings at New York City Workforce 1.  Job Search Central

Apprenticeship Opportunities in New York City.

Brooklyn Community  Board 14: Available jobs

The New York City Employment and Training Coalition (NYCE&TC) is an association of 200 community-based organizations, educational institutions, and labor unions that annually provide job training and employment services to over 750,000 New Yorkers, including welfare recipients, unemployed workers, low-wage workers, at-risk youth, the formerly incarcerated, immigrants and the mentally and physically disabled. View NYCE&TC Job Listings.

Digital NYC is the official online hub of the New York City startup and technology ecosystem, bringing together every company, startup, investor, event, job, class, blog, video, workplace, accelerator, incubator, resource, and organization in the five boroughs. Search jobs by category on this site.

St. Nicks Alliance Workforce Development provides Free Job Training and Educational Programs in Environmental Response and Remediation Tec (ERRT). Commercial Driver's License, Pest Control Technician Training (PCT), Employment Search and Prep Training and Job Placement, Earn Benefits and Career Path Center. For information and assistance, please visit St. Nicks Alliance Workforce Development or call 718-302-2057 ext. 202.

Brooklyn Workforce Innovations helps jobless and working poor New Yorkers establish careers in sectors that offer good wages and opportunities for advancement. Currently, BWI offers free job training programs in four industries: commercial driving, telecommunications cable installation, TV and film production, and skilled woodworking.

CMP (formerly Chinatown Manpower Project) in lower Manhattan is now recruiting for a free training in Quickbooks, Basic Accounting, and Excel. This training is open to anyone who is receiving food stamps but no cash assistance. Class runs for eight weeks, followed by one-on-one meetings with a job developer. CMP also provides Free Home Health Aide Training for bilingual English/Cantonese speakers who are receiving food stamps but no cash assistance. Training runs Mondays through Fridays for six weeks and includes test prep and taking the HHA certification exam. Students learn about direct care techniques such as taking vital signs and assisting with personal hygiene and nutrition. For more information for the above two training programs, email: info@cmpny.org, call 212-571-1690, or visit. CMP also provides tuition-based healthcare and business trainings free to students who are entitled to ACCESS funding.

Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW) trains women and places them in careers in the skilled construction, utility, and maintenance trades. It helps women achieve economic independence and a secure future. For information call 212-627-6252 or register online.

Grace Institute provides tuition-free, practical job training in a supportive learning community for underserved New York area women of all ages and from many different backgrounds. For information call 212-832-7605.

Please note this page will be revised when more recruitment events for the week of July 24  become available.

#FridayReads Roundup: What Else Can You Do in 20 Minutes?

0
0

Hit us up for a recommendation on Twitter @NYPLRecommends between 10-11 AM EDT on Friday mornings.

Read 20 Minutes a Day? Finish Moby-Dick before Fall

Twenty minutes a day. That's all it takes for kids and adults alike to avoid a summer reading slump... and, as it turns out, to read some really amazing books. So, with our Summer Reading Challenge in full swing, we decided to do a little math.

Picture Books for Working Moms

All moms are working hard all the time, and moms who work outside their homes could sometimes use a hand explaining their jobs to their kids and handling their separation anxiety. These picture books do just that.

New York Times Read Alikes: July 24, 2016

If you are among the many readers who read one of The New York Times top five fiction titles and want more of the same adventure or romance or thrills, we have some suggestions for you.

One Bad Podcast: The Librarian Is In, Ep. 17

Gwen can barely contain herself this week when she and Frank are joined by Biz Ellis, one of the hosts of the One Bad Mother podcast, to talk kids and parents and books. Plus, Biz's 6-year-old daughter makes a book recommendation of her very own!

Lynn is reading Sweetbitterby Stephanie Danler.

Gwen is reading Lumberjanes: Out of Time(and loving it).

---

Have trouble reading standard print? Many of these titles are available in formats for patrons with print disabilities.

Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!

 

Spotted: Pokémon Doppelgängers in our Digital Collections

0
0
We've had a lot of fun over the last two weeks searching around our libraries for Pokémon and playing Pokémon Go with our patrons (some of our branches are even PokéGyms!), and we've noticed something: some of these Pokémon look awfully familiar. Sure enough, there are a bunch of doppelgänger Pokémon hiding in our Digital Collections! We picked out a few of our favorite finds to share with you.
 
Can you find more? Search around the collections and Tweet or Instagram your favorite Pokémon look-alikes! Tag @nypl so we can see your finds. A few starting points for your Digital Collections pokéhunt: comic animals, classic illustrated zoologies, or botanical drawings!

1. Squirtle

Squirtle

815365
Image ID: 815365

2. Butterfree

Butterfree

1196640
Image ID: 1196640

 

3. Vulpix

Vulpix

411050
Image ID: 411050

 

4. Tauros

Tauros

1130006
Image ID: 1130006

 

5. Caterpie

Caterpie

806535
Image ID: 806535

 

6. Charmander

Charmander

1817377
Image ID: 1817377

 

7. Persian

ps_prn_820
Image ID: ps_prn_820

8. Arbok

Arbok

411150
Image ID: 411150

9. Zubat

Zubat

821996
Image ID: 821996

10. Exeggute

Exeggcute

1132646
Image ID: 1132646

NYPL has dozens of Pokémon books on the shelves, but we also wanted to connect the spirit of the game with the spirit of discovery in books! Here are some PokeBooks for Pokémon Go fans, to give you that same feeling of seeing the world around you a bit differently.

All Pokémon images were taken from here.


Cullman Center Recommends: 15 Books for Summer Reading

0
0

Since it opened in 1999, the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers has had seventeen classes of fellows in residence at The New York Public Library. These gifted independent scholars, creative writers, academics, and visual artists have produced more than one hundred books since 1999, and we recommend fifteen of their recent titles for 2016 summer reading.

Chronicle of a Last Summer by Yasmine El Rashidi (June 2016, Tim Duggan Books)
Subtle and strong, this slim first novel draws a portrait of daily life and political struggle in Egypt as seen through the eyes of a young woman over the course of twenty years.

Sudden Deathby Alvaro Enrigue (Riverhead, February 2016)
Tennis balls made from the hair of the beheaded Anne Boleyn rocket across court in a match between the Italian painter Caravaggio and the Spanish poet Quevedo, with a delightful cameo appearance by The New York Public Library.

Little Laborsby Rivka Galchen (New Directions, May 2016)
A gem of a book: witty, unsentimental essays on motherhood, childhood, and literature.

Diane Arbus: Portrait of a Photographerby Arthur Lubow (Ecco, June 2016)
This fascinating, thoughtful biography of one of the most important figures in modern photography takes a far deeper, more searching look at the artist’s life and work than we have had until now. Don’t miss the exhibition of Arbus’s early photographs at New York’s Met Breuer this summer.

Hereby Richard McGuire (Pantheon, 2014)
Time travel without leaving the corner of a room: McGuire’s stunning art book imagines events taking place in a single space over thousands of years.

Strangers Drowning: Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Helpby Larissa MacFarquhar (Penguin Press, 2015)
In her close look at extreme virtue, MacFarquhar profiles people whose altruism and ethical commitments go far beyond what most of us consider normal. What drives them? How should we regard them? Are there dark sides to doing good?

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis (Knopf, 2012)
Mathis’s powerful first novel tells the intimate stories of Hattie, swept up in the Great Migration north from Georgia in 1923, and her descendants over the ensuing decades.

The Sport of Kings by C.E. Morgan (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, May 2016)
Morgan’s ambitious new novel takes in generations of Kentucky history as it follows two families, one black, one white, through dramas of race, racing, poverty, wealth, solitude, prison, lineage, and pain. One critic calls it “a high literary epic of America.”

Black Deutschlandby Darryl Pinckney (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, February 2016)
The lure of Europe for black Americans has a long literary history, and the novel Black Deutschland, set in Berlin and Chicago in the 1980s, places Pinckney in the company of James Baldwin and Richard Wright. An observation of his central character has terrible new resonance in the summer of 2016: “I wanted to live where authority had little interest in black men.”

Thunder and Lightning: Weather Past, Present, Futureby Lauren Redniss (Random House, 2015)
Perhaps best described as a graphic biography of weather, this gorgeous art book tells riveting stories about the physical world we inhabit – most of the time without thinking about it—and which we’re likely to be destroying through climate change

The Other Paris by Luc Sante (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Fall 2015)
A rich and detailed alternate history of Paris, populated by the “boulevardiers, rabble-rousers, and tramps” who are not the usual focus of the city’s history and art.

Children of Paradise: The Struggle for the Soul of Iran by Laura Secor (Riverhead, 2016)
Though Iran is more in the news than ever, it has remained a closed mystery to most of the world since its Islamic Revolution in 1979. Secor takes us deep inside the courageous movements that have resisted theocracy and fought for political and cultural change.

The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 by James Shapiro (Simon & Schuster, 2015)
Four hundred and ten years ago, during a series of tumultuous political changes in England, Shakespeare wrote King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. Adding tremendous depth to our understandings of history and literature, Shapiro brilliantly sets these great plays in context.

The Lost Time Accidentsby John Wray (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, February 2016)
A complex tale of lost love and family secrets, Wray’s novel tours the chaos of the twentieth century with a man who has been “excused from time.”

Multiple Choice by Alejandro Zambra (June 2016, Penguin)
Designed to look like the “blue book” of a standardized test, Zambra’s new novel, at once playful and deeply serious, is a marvel.

George Avakian and Louis Armstrong

0
0
George Avakian with Louis Armstrong during the recording of the album Satch Plays Fats, 1955. Photograph by Guy Gillette.
George Avakian with Louis Armstrong during the recording of the album Satch Plays Fats, 1955.Photograph by Guy Gillette. Image ID: 5640626

George Avakian's lifelong friendship with Louis Armstrong began in 1940 when he, a student at Yale University, was working on the Columbia Records Hot Jazz Classics Series (HJC), which was the first jazz reissue program; it returned to availability many of the important recordings of early jazz of the 1920s. While researching the vaults of Columbia to assemble the series, Avakian discovered a number of unreleased Armstrong sides that would be issued on the first HJC set, King Louis. He eagerly brought a test pressing of one of them, "Chicago Breakdown,” to play for Armstrong, who was performing at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

He was in the Braddock Bar around the corner... I went over and introduced myself. He said, “Sit down,” and I told him about the test pressing and held it up. He said, “Fine, I’ve got a record player in the dressing room, I’ll listen to it.” Louis was very pleased that this had been found. I told him there’s some others of the Hot Five and Seven, and he couldn’t remember the titles at all. He wanted to hear more of them. This is the way our friendship began, through these unreleased masters. Here I was, a college kid, twenty years old at the time—I didn’t expect to be embraced as it were by Louis, but the next time I came into town we got together and had dinner.

 King Louis (Columbia C-28, Hot Jazz Classics set number 1)
King Louis, the first issue of the
Columbia Hot Jazz Classics series, 1940.

Fourteen years later, Avakian convinced Joe Glaser, Armstrong’s manager, to allow the trumpeter to sign a two-year deal with Columbia. Avakian planned to feature core jazz repertoire, as opposed to the more popular material Armstrong had been recording for Decca Records. The recordings Avakian produced are now regarded as some of Armstrong’s best since the 1920s, and include the studio sessions Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy (1954) and Satch Plays Fats (1955); the (mostly) live albums Ambassador Satch (1955) and Satchmo The Great (1956); and the hit single “Mack The Knife" (1955). The first of these, Plays W.C. Handy, turned out to be one of the very best albums of the trumpeter’s career.

Our friendship was a key factor in the development of new kinds of recordings that Louis hadn’t made, because he just kept doing a lot of the standard repertoire, pop tunes and so on. That isn’t what I wanted to do. I felt the time has come for Louis to make some important statements that were really worthy of him. The first idea once we got going was to do the album of W.C. Handy compositions. Louis said, “You pick the tunes, whichever ones you want.” I got the music from Mr. Handy’s office and sent them to Louis, who was out on the road. He prepared some pretty unusual tunes, like “Chantez Les Bas” which was a lovely thing that I don’t know of another record of. We did [the album] in two days in Chicago. The sessions were absolutely wonderful because the band was well-prepared. Louis threw his heart and soul into this and it went rather rapidly.

George Avakian with W.C. Handy and Louis Armstrong, listening to playbacks of Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy, July 1954.
George Avakian with W.C. Handy and Louis Armstrong, listening to playbacks ofthe album Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy, July 1954. Photograph by Guy Gillette. Image ID: 5404616

Featuring Armstrong’s All Stars (comprised at that time of Velma Middleton, vocals; Trummy Young, trombone; Barney Bigard, clarinet; Billy Kyle, piano; Arvell Shaw, bass; and Barrett Deems, drums), the album showcased explosive solo and ensemble performances by all involved, of material close to Armstrong’s heart. Avakian is credited nearly as much as Armstrong for the artistic success of the record. For all of the musicians on the session, it stood out as a career high point; both Armstrong and Trummy Young later said as much in interviews.

Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy, Columbia Records CL 591, 1954.
Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy,
Columbia CL 591, 1954.

In 1955, Avakian produced “Mack The Knife,” one of the best-known of Armstrong’s singles, and a huge pop success. It was the producer’s idea to make a hit out the Kurt Weill song from The Threepenny Opera, but he wasn’t sure who should sing it.

I had no idea of doing it with Louis Armstrong... I suggested it to many people, I suggested it to Dave Brubeck, even the Modern Jazz Quartet. Everybody said, “It’s just too simple, it’s only eight bars over and over again, what can you do with it?” Well, I just kind of gave up on it after a while. Nobody was interested. I’d never thought of Louis.

Avakian’s friend, the trombonist Turk Murphy, had the insight to suggest Armstrong for the song, and even wrote the arrangement the All Stars were to use. Murphy and Avakian visited Armstrong when he was performing in San Francisco.

I had the recording of The Threepenny Opera, original cast, with me, and the music, and Turk had his arrangement with him. We walked in and saw Louis in his dressing room. He always had a record player so we listened to it and he said, “Yeah, that’s great. I’ll do it.”

Avakian used tape overdubbing, a technique he would later use extensively with Miles Davis and other artists, to enable Armstrong to accompany himself on trumpet behind his own vocal; he also recorded a separate version with Weill's widow, Lotte Lenya, in a duet with Armstrong.

Armstrong was the first to make the song a hit, but certainly not the last, as Bobby Darin went on to have massive success with it (essentially copying the Turk Murphy arrangement). It was also recorded by a plethora of other artists, including Ella Fitzgerald, Tito Puente, Tony Bennett, Dave van Ronk, and Marianne Faithfull.

When Armstrong’ contract came up for renewal in 1956, his manager Joe Glaser's demands were not acceptable to Columbia, killing a project that had already been agreed to in principle: an LP teaming Armstrong with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Avakian knew exactly which tunes he wanted the combined forces to record, all to be arranged, of course, by Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. Instead, Glaser brought the idea of uniting Ellington and Armstrong to Roulette records, which produced an album featuring Ellington with the Armstrong and his All Stars. But Avakian’s more ambitious plan to feature Armstrong with the complete Ellington group never came to fruition.

Avakian remained close friends with the trumpeter until his death in 1971, and long after that he continued to uphold the Armstrong flame. In the 1990s, his scholarly instincts resulted in the discovery of previously unknown, unrecorded Armstrong compositions held by the Library of Congress. Those compositions, as well as previously-unheard music by Bix Beiderbecke, were performed and recorded by musicians under the direction of trumpeter Randy Sandke on the Avakian-produced CD The Re-Discovered Louis and Bix (Nagel-Heyer, 2000). Avakian was also consulted for the reissues of the classic Armstrong albums he produced in the 1950s, and he continues to bear witness to Armstrong’s greatness as a musician and as a human being.

The exhibition "Music For Moderns": The Partnership of George Avakian and Anahid Ajemian, is on view in the Vincent Astor Gallery of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts through September 24.

All quotations are from interviews or oral histories in the George Avakian and Anahid Ajemian papers, JPB 14.28. Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Lectura de verano: "Entra en el juego ¡Lee!"

0
0

Este blog fue escrito por Luz Valdez.

Lo que más queremos en las bibliotecas es que nuestros niños estén continuamente motivados para leer, por eso tenemos el programa de lectura de verano “Entra en el juego ¡Lee!”

Este año la lectura de verano se enfoca en motivar a los niños a leer y a usar los recursos y programas ofrecidos en las bibliotecas. Recomendamos leer al menos 20 minutos por día para lograr que su hija/o mantenga su nivel de lectura durante el verano, Póngase el reto de #Leer20 #Read20 Cada Día.

Algo muy importante que debe saber es que la lectura de verano ¡es para toda la familia! Las bibliotecas nos enfocamos en la familia porque sabemos que la lectura beneficia a todos, desde el más pequeñín hasta el más grande. Así es que además de sugerencias e inscripciones para los niños también pueden inscribirse y encontrar sugerencias de lectura para bebés, para jóvenes y para adultos. En el folleto de lectura puede encontrar sugerencias de libros recomendados para leer este verano. ¡Todo tipo de lectura cuenta!

Si usted le lee a sus hijos eso cuenta como lectura para ellos y lo puede anotar en su registro. Recuerde que pueden participar en el programa de lectura de verano en todas las bibliotecas.

Los niños además tienen una oportunidad de ¡Ganar un viaje a un partido de los Yankees!

Sólo deben escribir una reseña en inglés de cualquier libro sobre béisbol o jugador de béisbol. Deben tener entre 6 y 18 años de edad y vivir en la ciudad de Nueva York. Mande su reseña a:

Youth Programming Department
The New York Public Library
445 Fifth Avenue, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10016

o por correo electrónico a: youthservices@nypl.org

Libbhy Romero and Adriana Blancarte-Hayward also contributed to this blog.

Algunos de los libros en español recomendados:

I Kick the Ball
Los Fantasticos
Tom Gates
Tomando Partido
Fangirl
El Amor Huele a Café
El papa que ama el futbol

I Kick the Ball = Pateo el balón por Zepeda, Gwendolyn, ilustrado Pablo Torrecilla
Toñito hace realidad sus sueños jugando fútbol. Bilingüe

Los Fantásticos Libros Voladores del Sr. Morris Lessmore por de William Joyce, ilustrado por William Joyce y Joe Bluhm
A Morris le encantan las historias, los colores y los libros, pero un tornado lo lleva a un lugar donde solo hay un libro que lo transporta a una biblioteca fascinante.

Tom Gates-Ideas (Casi) Geniales por Liz Pichon Mientras
Tom práctica con su equipo de ensayos para el show de talentos de la escuela, su padre lo sorprende con su nueva rutina de ejercicios.

Tomando Partido por Gary Soto
Después de mudarse de la ciudad a un suburbio, un muchacho extraña su antigua escuela y sus amigos.

Fangirl por Rainbow Rowell
Cath lucha por sobrevivir su primer año de universidad sin su hermana gemela Wren y su serie de televisión favorita.

El Amor Huele a Café por Nieves García Bautista
En una pequeña cafetería varias historias se entrelazan para contar las experiencias de personajes diferentes y complejos.

El Papa que Ama el Fútbol: La Ejemplar Historia del Niño que se Convirtió en el Papa Francisco por Michael Part
El autor explora la infancia del niño Jorge Mario Bergoglio que se convirtió en el papa Francisco.

New York on the Front Line: The Black Tom Island Explosion, July 1916

0
0
Aerial view of the Statue of Liberty, 1912. Black Tom Island can be seen in the background on the right. Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy. Image ID: 731895F

On Sunday morning, July 30, 1916, at 2:08 a.m., one of the worst terrorist attacks in American history took place at Black Tom Island, New Jersey, a shipping facility located in New York Harbor. Under cover of darkness, German agents detonated more than 2 million pounds of ammunition that was awaiting shipment to England. The explosion—the equivalent of an earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale—was felt and heard as far away as Philadelphia and southern Connecticut. Windows were shattered across Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Jersey City, and to this day the torch of the Statue of Liberty remains closed to visitors due to the damage it sustained from flying shrapnel. Amazingly, though dozens of dock workers, fire fighters, and civilians were injured, fewer than 10 people lost their lives in the blast.

Initially, the cause of the explosion was unclear. Almost before the fires were extinguished, however, multiple explanatory theories were put forth, with hypotheses ranging from the spontaneous combustion of unstable munitions to sparks from a passing freight train. Some initial evidence seemed to point to dock workers who, in an effort to ward off the clouds of mosquitoes that swarmed the waterfront, had carelessly lit smoke pots, sparking fires that subsequently ignited the ordnance. Most Americans, though, goaded by sensational stories in the press, soon began to subscribe to a more sinister line of speculation: that is, that German operatives or sympathizers had blown up the ammunition to prevent it from being shipped to, and used by, the Allies.

New York Bay and Harbor: Upper Half, 1914. (Detail.) Office of Coast Survey. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

From the outset, Kaiser Wilhelm II and his government steadfastly denied any involvement in the matter. Nevertheless, the extensive media coverage of the Black Tom incident, coupled with other contemporary reports of espionage and sabotage activities on American soil, helped to further turn public opinion against Germany and her allies. Within a year, angered by a series of real or perceived violations of its sovereignty, the United States declared war on the German Empire.

But this was not the end of the Black Tom Island story.

After the war’s end, the German-American Mixed Claims Commission—the organization charged with assessing war reparations—launched an inquiry into the cause of the blast. Over the next decade and a half, investigators sifted through a mountain of less-than-conclusive evidence, finally ruling in 1939 that Germany had, indeed, supported the attack. By then, however, with another world war looming, the German government under Adolf Hitler was less than inclined to pay the United States $50 million in damages. Ultimately, another 14 years would pass until the two countries agreed that Germany would reconcile all of its outstanding war reparations claims, including those resulting from the Black Tom explosion. The final payment of the settlement was received in 1979, at last bringing the issue to an overdue, official close. Today, the events of July 1916 are commemorated by a memorial at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, New Jersey, which informs visitors that they are “walking on a site which saw one of the worst acts of terrorism in American history.”

For contemporary accounts of the Black Tom Island explosion, New York City newspapers such as The New York Herald Tribune and The New York Times serve as an excellent resource. For more recent treatments of the subject, see journalist Harold Blum’s, Dark Invasion: 1915: Germany's Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America,whichprovides a thorough account of covert German espionage and sabotage operations in the United States during World War I. Other noteworthy treatments of the topic include The Detonators: The Secret Plot to Destroy America and an Epic Hunt for Justice (2006), by Chad Millman, and Jules Whitcover’s 1989 work, Sabotage at Black Tom: Imperial Germany's Secret War in America, 1914-1917.

Little Artists on 53rd Street

0
0

SplatThere must be something in the air around 53rd Street, because ever since the library became MoMA’s new neighbor it has been a hub of creativity and idea sharing.

On Wednesday afternoons, children’s librarian Sam Simoes has led a successful series called Little Artists that encourages kids to be inspired by the work and life stories of master artists, and then create their own process-based art projects.

Past programs have featured Matisse, Michelangelo, and Monet, and we can’t wait to see what they create next.

Unlike many arts and crafts programs, the emphasis here isn't on the end result but on understanding the style, method, and tools that were used to create masterpieces. This has led to big appreciation for the struggles and triumphs of artists from some of our youngest visitors.

On hearing that it took more than four years for the Sistine Chapel to be completed by Michelangelo's team, one four year old library user commented with awe, "I would have been so tired to be him."

Says Simoes “Kids can bring their own ideas to the table! This program is a mingling of the artist’s works and the children’s minds.” And the end results are true to her vision—no two projects look alike.

Matisse-inspired work from our little artists
Matisse-inspired work from one little artist at 53rd St.

Like the sound of Little Artists? You’re in luck, our series will continue, and we have more crafternoons, coloring clubs, and knitting circles scheduled this summer.

Can’t make it into the library, but interested in trying out your own project inspired by the masters? Check out Splat!The Most Exciting Artists of All Time by Mary Richards to boost your creative impulses, or take Simoes’s advice and just step outside your front door for a fresh look at New York.

“I want to introduce kids to art at a young age, especially modern art. We are close to many great sculptures and to MoMA, and I want to encourage kids that visit the library to look at the art that is already all around them in their city."

Learning about Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel
A few brave kids climb under their tables to imagine what it felt like to paint the Sistine Chapel from below
Viewing all 5325 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images