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My 14 Favorite Quotes from Empire of Storms

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book cover

Empire of Storms is the 5th installment in the Throne of Glass series. Throne of Glass features Celaena a young woman who has been sentenced to work in the Salt Mines for her crimes as an assassin. Celaena is freed from the Salt Mines by Prince Dorian in exchange for her participation in a tournament and in the glass palace her epic journey begins. Throne of Glass has been optioned to be a TV show on Hulu. Below are my 14 favorite quotes from Empire of Storms.

  1. “My Fireheart is one flame in the sea of darkness. But she is willing to fight, Fenrys.” —p.220

  2. “Don’t waste your energy worrying about what could have been.” p. 225

  3. “A queen who plays with fire is not one who makes a solid ally.” p.247

  4. “The world, will be saved and remade by the dreamers, Rolfe.” p.248

  5. “I love you. There is no limit to what I can give to you, no time I need. Even when this world is a forgotten whisper of dust between the stars, I will love you.” p.350

  6. “If you want to survive, you have to have to be willing to do what is necessary.” p.411

  7. “I’d walk into the burning heart of hell itself to find you.” p.422

  8. “She was a bright star in centuries of darkness. I would have followed that star to the ends of the earth, if she let me. But she didn’t, and I respected her wishes to stay away. To never seek her out again. I went to another continent and didn’t let myself look back.” p. 452

  9. “Even with our enemies, there’s a line.”p.456

  10. “I think love should make you happy...It should make you into the best possible version of yourself.” p.490

  11. “A court that wouldn’t just change the world. It would start the world over. A court that could conquer this world-and any other it wished.” p.526

  12. “Do not mistake my silence for lack of feeling. I have good reason to keep my thoughts to myself.” p. 573

  13. “Fear is a death sentence, When you’re out there. Remember that we don’t need to survive. Only put enough of a dent in them  so that when she comes back..she’ll wipe out the rest. ”p. 612

  14. “Aelin would never stop fighting” p. 685

New York Times Read Alikes: October 9, 2016

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Romantic urban fantasy, gritty mysteries, and tales of amateur detectives... three more newcomers on the list this week!

girl on the train

#1 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, more stories told from multiple perspectives:

And Then There Was Oneby Patricia Gussin

Murder on the Orient Expressby Agatha Christie

Fates & Furiesby Lauren Groff

 


 

home

#2 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed Home by Harlan Coben, more mysteries featuring amateur detectives:

The Monkey's Raincoat by Robert Crais

New York Dead by Stuart Woods

The Amazing Harvey by Don Passman

 

 

 

kept woman

#3 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed The Kept Woman by Karin Slaughter, more graphic, gritty mysteries:

Find Her by Lisa Gardner

Gone by Mo Hayder

Two Graves by Douglas Preston and Lee Child

 

 

 

magic binds

#4 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed Magic Binds by Ilona Andrews, more romantic urban fantasy:

Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

Pale Demon by Kim Harrison

Written in Red by Anne Bishop

 

 

 

commonwealth

#5 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed Commonwealth by Ann Patchett, more character-driven family sagas:

The Turner House by Angela Flournoy

The Antelope House by Louise Erdrich

After This by Alice McDermott

 

 

 

Want more? Check out last week's readalikes.

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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!

Researching the Chicago Marathon

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The Bank of America Chicago Marathon is fast approaching. On October 9th, 2016, I’ll not only participate in my fourth marathon, but I’ll also be visiting Chicago for the first time. As a racer, I have pored over the current course map. As a researcher, I wanted to learn more about Chicago and the history of its marathon. The information on the marathon’s website is a great starting point, but the research materials at The New York Public Library have helped me appreciate the city and its race.

Most runners who are interested in or will run the Chicago Marathon have two main resources to read: One is the Chicago Marathon website where runners register, and the other is the World Marathon Majors' website, since the Chicago Marathon is one of the six World Marathon Majors—joining the Tokyo, London, Boston, Berlin, and NYC marathons as one of the largest and most renowned races in the world.

Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division

Research map items from the Map Division.
Research items from the Map Division.

 

I’ve discovered almost every inch of NYC by running 70 miles per week training for the Chicago Marathon; I practically memorized the course map for the NYC marathon. But studying the course map for the Chicago Marathon is difficult because it’s hard to visualize a place I have not been to before. Besides studying the current course map, I was interested to see what maps and places of interest I could find from the time of the first Chicago Marathon. I researched “maps chicago 1970s 1977” in the NYPL catalog since the first Chicago Marathon, known back then as the Mayor Daley Marathon, was held on September 25th, 1977. I limited my search to maps and found the following items in the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division.

Chicago & Vicinity circa 1978
Chicago & Vicinity circa 1978
Call Number 80-3253

The first map I looked at was from Chicago & Vicinity circa 1978. What was exciting about this map was the “What to See in Chicago and Vicinity” section that outline places of interest to visit. There were lots of places to check out back then, such as the McCormick Place-On-The-Lake which, in 1978, was “the city’s new exposition center, which replaces the former building destroyed by fire…”, the Shedd Aquarium, or the Field Museum of Natural History.

What to see In Chicago and Vicinity
What to see in Chicago and Vicinity
Chicago & Vicinity circa 1978
Call Number 80-3253

 

Chicago & Vicinity circa 1978
Chicago & Vicinity circa 1978
Call Number 80-3253

The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), beginning operation in 1974, was still in its early stages during the first Chicago Marathon. This map of the RTA system from 1978 was helpful to see the commuting lines and how marathoners back then commuted back home or the the airport after the marathon. Not much has changed from the current current RTA map.

Map from the Regional Transportation Authority
RTA Chicago circa 1978
Call Number 82-3045

The final resource I discovered was from Cushman & Wakefield, a real estate company, with information about buildings and areas of interest for planning construction. It provided information about the Sears tower and how it would be completed by 1974 (actually completed in 1973), information about the Mid-Continental Plaza, and information on the John Hancock Center. On the back of this item was a map of current, new, and proposed office buildings.

Cushman and Wakefield poster
Cushman & Wakefield in Chicago, 1970
Call Number 95-337
Cushman and Wakefield map
Cushman & Wakefield in Chicago, 1970
Call Number 95-337

Articles & Databases

Articles & Databases offers thousands of research materials. I was interested to see if I could find any newspaper articles about the first Chicago Marathon, or the Mayor Daley Marathon as it was known back then. I checked the Proquest Historical Newspapers database, accessible at NYPL branches, and found “First Daley Marathon Shows a Dash of Politics” by William Robbins from the New York Times. The article was written on September 26th, 1977 and mentioned Dan Cloeter, the 25-year-old winner with a time of 2 hours 17 minutes 52 seconds, and the other 5000 runners who participated in the marathon. The focus, however, was on the political atmosphere in Chicago at the time. Richard J. Daley served as mayor of Chicago for 21 years until his death in office in 1976. Daley’s “unabashed joy and pride in Chicago” was one reason why the first marathon was named the Daley Marathon.

General Research Division

After reading the New York Times article I wanted to learn more about Mayor Richard J. Daley. There are many books about Daley and the Chicago Marathon at NYPL, but the following two items are from the General Research Division.

American Pharaoh
American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley His Battle for Chicago and the Nation by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor
Call Number JFE 00-8182

 

The Chicago Marathon
The Chicago Marathon by Andrew Suozzo
Call Number JFE 06-12551

I got a chance to check out and read a few passages from The Chicago Marathon and found the historic information fascinating: Andrew Suozzo covers the history of the Chicago Marathon starting from its grassroots foundation from local clubs and the initial political obstacle it faced. Later, the focus shifts from Mayor Bilandic honoring the first marathon to the late Mayor Daley, to the stories behind the elite male and female runners who broke world records on the course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Library offers many more resources than what I listed above, and I encourage anyone interested in finding out more information about the Chicago Marathon, or any marathon, to research and talk to librarians. Knowing more about the history of Chicago and the Chicago Marathon gives me a better appreciation for the upcoming race. Afterwards, I’ll make sure to make a stop at one of the Chicago Public Library’s branches as well.

Public Library, Chicago, Ill.
Public Library, Chicago, Ill.
NYPL Digital Collections

 

Works Cited

By WILLIAM ROBBINS Special to The New York Times. "First Daley Marathon shows a Dash of Politics." New York Times (1923-Current file), New York, N.Y., 1977., http://ezproxy.nypl.org/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/123183494?accountid=35635.

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. "Public Library, Chicago, Ill." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1898 - 1931. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-9b5c-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

Ep. 48 "I Can Do It" | Library Stories

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Overcoming a fear of technology wasn't on the course description. But NYPL's Office Readiness Series gave James more than basic computer skills training when he was ready to look for a job. Although the classes were free, James says he considers them "extremely valuable."

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.

James Vasquez, Office Readiness Series graduate

The Rose Main Reading Room Reopens

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Rose Main Reading Room
The Rose Main Reading Room

After being closed for more than two years for important repairs and restoration, The New York Public Library’s historic Rose Main Reading Room and Bill Blass Public Catalog Room reopens to the public this morning at 10 a.m.

“The Library has eagerly anticipated the reopening of these glorious rooms, architectural gems which for over 100 years have been home to scholars, writers, students, and all members of the public who want to access our renowned research collections, learn, and create,” said NYPL President Tony Marx, who led the opening ceremony this morning. 

The rooms are now open during regular library hours; daily tours of the Schwarzman Building at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. include both spaces, which are designated for research and quiet study. Don't miss the final days of the exhibition Preserving a Masterpiece: From Soaring Ceilings to Subterranean Storage, open through October 9, which details the restoration of this iconic room.

If you can't visit the Rose Main Reading Room today, explore the room through the photos and videos below.

Watch a time-lapse video of the books getting reshelved in the Rose Main Reading Room (video: Max Touhey Photography; music: As Colorful As Ever by Broke For Free).

Watch a time-lapse video of the Rose Main Reading Room's reopening day.

View a slideshow of the Rose Main Reading Room's reopening day.

Watch the reopening ceremony with Library President Tony Marx.

See how books travel from state-of-the-art storage below Bryant Park, up to the Rose Main Reading Room.

A group of Instagram users had a sneak preview of the Rose Main Reading Room a day prior to the opening. Browse the photos on Instagram with the hashtag #NYPLreadingroom.

Photos of the Rose Main Reading Room
Photos by @sliceofpai and @ryanfitzgibbon via Instagram

Plan your visit to the Rose Main Reading Room at the Schwarzman Building. Learn more about the renovation at nyplmidtown.org

Magical Book Train: Librarians Summon Books to Rose Main Reading Room

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“They just hurtled through a maze of twisting passages. 
Harry tried to remember, left, right, right, left, middle fork, 
right, left, but it was impossible. The rattling cart 
seemed to know its own way.”
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

As if by magic, books can now be delivered from underground to the Rose Main Reading Room in five minutes flat. 

The Library’s new, $2.6 million “book train” connects theStephen A. Schwarzman Building’s iconic reading room to the Milstein Research Stacks underground. All told, 4 million volumes can be stored in the state-of-the-art facility under Bryant Park—and librarians can conjure them with a touch of a button. While the total wait for a book will vary depending on a number of factors, once the book makes it to the conveyor, it weaves its way upstairs in five minutes.

The system by Teledynamic replaces an outdated conveyor belt that had to run 24/7 to stay operational. In this new system, though, each of the 24 steel cars has its own motor, making it more dependable and efficient. They can be summoned on 350 feet of track to several locations throughout the Schwarzman Building, including the last stop, the Rose Main Reading Room on the third floor.

The room reopened on Oct. 5 after a more than two-year closure for repairs and restorations. The conveyor was installed at the same time as the repair work to ensure the best possible experience for researchers in the space, where any patron with a library card can access the Library’s General Research Division for use in the library (if you want to check out a book, head across the street to the Mid-Manhattan Library on 40th Street and Fifth Avenue).

All one has to do is is consult with a librarian, fill out a call slip, and the magic begins—the request goes to the Milstein Research Stacks, a staffer finds the book, places it on the book train, and in five minutes, it’s upstairs ready to be read.

For more information on how to access the collections, check out the Research Catalog.

We're Cuckoo for Comic Con

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Nerds of all stripes are gearing up for New York Comic Con, which begins Oct. 6 and runs through the weekend. And book nerds — which many of us at NYPL are proud to call ourselves — are especially excited, because the first day of the conference focuses on comic books, graphic novels, and manga. Panels, autographing sessions, debuts of new volumes and series, and meet-and-greets with authors and illustrators are all on the agenda.

Our NYPL book experts picked out the comics they’re most excited about right now, so readers anywhere can enjoy them… even if you can’t make it to the Javits Center this weekend.

comic con 2012
The crowds at Comic Con 2012, by Flickr user The Shared Experience.

 

descender

Descender! I was really surprised by this comic by Dustin Nguyen. The cover reminds me of the movie A.I., and there are hints of it​ in the story, but the world-building is amazing. Can’t wait to get my copy signed by Dustin at Comic Con. —Gregory Huchko, Yorkville

 

 

 

 

 

chew

I’m looking forward to more visibility for John Layman’s Chew, which takes place after an epidemic of avian flu and follows FDA Agent Tony Chu as he uses his psychic tasting powers to uncover corruption and solve mysteries about black-market poultry. This hilarious and disgusting series wraps up in November, so I’m hoping there will be cosplay! Leah Labrecque, 58th Street

 

 

 

 

bitch planet

Bitch Planet is a science fiction dystopian vision of a patriarchy run amok set on a women’s prison planet. It does everything good science-fiction is supposed to do and then some. —Judd Karlman, Pelham Bay

 

 

 

 

 

aaron

One of my favorite overall series this year is Jason Aaron & Jason Latour’s brutal Southern Bastards (and Aaron’s similarly-themed Men of Wrath). Old man Earl Tubb returns to his corrupt hometown in Alabama and decides to take a stand against violent criminal Euless Boss, with unexpected consequences. —Crystal Chen, Muhlenberg

 

 

 

 

 

japan guide

I’m not going to Comic Con, but Cool Japan Guide: Fun in the Land of Manga, Lucky Cats and Ramen just happened to arrive for me this morning. It is billed on the cover as “a comic book writer’s personal tour of Japan.” —David Nochimson, Pelham Parkway-Van Nest

 

 

 

 

chilling

Just in time for Halloween comes the new graphic novel, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Book One: The Crucible. But do not be deceived, this is not the Sabrina the Teenage Witch you thought you knew; this is Satan-worshiping, cannibalistic, dark, twisted witchery like never before. —Morgan O’Reilly, Aguilar

 

 

 

 

momochi

The Demon Prince of the House Momochi, vol. 5 by Aya Shouoto. Himari Momochi inherits the Momochi estate, except upon arrival she soon discovers that the house isn’t as abandoned as she thought. In fact, the house sits on a barrier between the human world and the spiritual one, and it has mysterious guardians. I’m hyped to see what comes next! —Chantalle Uzan, Francis Martin

 

 

 

 

nailbiter

Nailbiter by Joshua Williamson. A small town in Oregon has a knack for producing serial killers, including the eponymous Nailbiter. When a rogue NSA agent is forced to team up with the charmingly macabre Nailbiter to find his missing partner, drama ensues. Dark, funny, and exciting — read it in time for Halloween! —Emily Merlino, Yorkville

 

 

 

 

 

miracleman

There’s a lot of anticipation for Miracleman: The Silver Age, vol. 2 from Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham. (The publishing date was pushed back a few times; it’s now Feb. 22, 2017.) The title originally began as “Marvelman” under other authors, including Alan Moore, and this volume is the latest installation. NYPL has some early Miracleman. —Jenny Baum, Jefferson Market

 

 

 

 

panther

I am excited about Black Panther, vol. 1 by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Monstress by Marjorie Liu. I am looking forward to the panels at Comic Con. —Lilian Calix, Hamilton Grange

 

 

 

 

 

 

tokyo

One of the series I’ve had the most fun with in 2016, and can’t wait to continue onwards with, is Tokyo Ghoul by Sui Ishida. —Joe Pascullo, Grand Central

 

 

 

 

 

Superman

I’m looking forward to checking out New Super-Man by Gene Luen Yang. Clark Kent, the classic Superman, has disappeared and a new super-powered Chinese teenager has taken his place. It’s not out in a collected edition yet, but patrons can read Yang’s story about the retirement of Clark Kent in Superman: Vol. 1, Before Truth. —Benjamin Sapadin, Morris Park

 

 

 

 

 

arrival

I love The Arrival by Shaun Tan.  This wordless graphic novel depicts the moving tale of an immigrant trying to navigate life in a new land.  Gorgeous, moving, and fantastical.—Althea Georges, Mosholu

 

 

 

 

beauty

If I had the foresight to buy my tickets in advance, I would have loved to see Image Comics: Character Presentation with speakers Jason Hurley& Jeremy Haun, the co-creators of The Beauty. It’s a unique story about a new STD with a side effect of turning people beautiful. But what happens when more dire side effects start to manifest and a medical corporation attempts to take advantage of this situation? Stunning artwork that wholeheartedly reflects the dialogue, this graphic novel really takes the concept of attractiveness to another level. —Susen Shi, Mid-Manhattan

 

 

 

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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!

New York Public Library Digitizes 137 Years of New York City Directories

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New York Public Library is digitizing its collection of New York City Directories, 1786 through 1922/3, serving them free through the NYPL Digital Collections portal. The first batch—1849/50 through 1923—have already been scanned, and the 1786–1848/9 directories are right now being scanned. The whole collection will be going online over the coming months. Staff at NYPL are currently teaching computers to read the wobbly typeset, to interpret the strange abbreviations, and the occasionally slightly less than geometric layout of the directories to make the old print text machine readable. The goal is to make the directories text searchable in powerful new ways, in order to build datasets that will inform research in New York City history, genealogy, and beyond. More technical posts on this work will follow.

New York City Directories waiting to be digitized.
New York City Directories waiting to be digitized. 

Why are city directories interesting? I wrote a post about this in 2012, Direct Me NYC 1786: A History of City Directories in the United States and New York City, that described what city directories  are and why they are useful research tools. In summary, city directories record historical information that describes New York City and its history: the names and addresses of its residents, the names and addresses of  churches, businesses, schools, police stations, courts, and other government offices, as well as the names of individuals associated with those institutions, as far back as 1786. David Franks' 1786 directory, for instance, lists important historical figures. On page 63, under Lawyers, we find best friends Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) and Aaron Burr (1756–1836), Brockholst Livingston (1757–1823), who served on the Supreme Court (1807–1823),  and Richard Varick (1753–1831), Mayor of New York City (1788–1789). 

New York Directory, 1786
New York Directory, 1786

City directories contain much more than lists of names and addresses. They record the price of travel and postage, the kinds of occupations undertaken in the city, the layout of streets, and at what time the sun was predicted to rise and set. Not for nothing were the early directories often referred to as almanacs.

In addition to textual information, city directories feature many images, including maps, illustrations of buildings, and advertisements, occasionally printed on  colored or decorative paper. Directories record the city's built and commercial history.

Previously the directories for New York City (i.e. what we now might call Manhattan) were available only in the Library, either on microfilm, or via subscription databases, the original print directories now being too delicate to be regularly served to patrons. One or two could be found on the Internet, but coverage there was patchy. In many instances, the directories were reproduced from microfilm only. The Library has, where possible, scanned the directories, presenting them as hi-res, color surrogates of the original print copies. Now anyone and everyone will be able to access the directories free of charge, online.

​ Doggett's New York City directory, 1850/51

Initially the city directories will be browseable, through NYPL Digital Collections, but the Library wants to make the directories work harder, to integrate them with other digital collections: maps, deeds, census records, family histories, prints, photographs, and so on. The directories will eventually be text searchable, enabling researchers to create new datasets. For instance, and I'm speaking theoretically here, researchers might be able to track addresses across directories. Where, for instance, were theaters on Broadway located overtime? Where did people live and work? Can we see in datasets derived from the information in the directories a history of commuting? Where were cemeteries located in New York? What types of business were most prevalent? What were the different types of family names listed in New York City? How many people were listed in the directories? Where did our ancestors live in the city during the years covered? The potential for new knowledge creation is limitless.  Expect to hear more on these datasets, and their implications for the Library's NYC Space/Time Directory soon.

Accessing the directories

So what do we have now? Initially the city directories can be accessed and browsed through Digital Collections. Eventually around 175,000 pages of information, featuring the names of millions of New Yorkers, will be online.

Here are some viewing tips.

Blake's Patent Fireproof Paint (1851)

To browse the directory like a book, click the “View as Book” icon. Tip: it’s the icon to the left of the image that looks like an open book. Click each page to turn to the next, until you find the page you want. You can scoot ahead lots of pages by opening the drop down “Jump to” menu and clicking the page you want, or by dragging the pointer at the bottom of the page, from left to right. 

Once you have found the page you want, I recommend clicking the individual page link at the top of the browser, above the corresponding page, to look at that page on its own. I recommend this because this option allows you to use the Scroll Wheel Zoom, to zoom right in on the text.

A closer look

Let’s look at a directory in detail. Doggett’s New York City Directory for 1850-51, cost $2 (a princely sum), and recorded the names and addresses of some 80, 290 New Yorkers living or doing business as far North as 42nd Street. New York City’s population in 1850 was around 696,000.

Churches 1850
Doggett's New York City Directory for 1850-1851: Churches

Index

Next is the Index to the Appendix (the Appendix was later expanded and renamed the City Register, a classified listing made up of business card-style advertisements). This is a useful index for finding the names and addresses of asylums,banks, churches and burial grounds, courts, foreign consuls, hotels, newspapers, police stations, post offices, schools, and more besides. Want to know the price of a stamp? How many people lived in New York in 1840 and 1845? Who the various members of city government were? The names of the railroad companies? Packet steamer destinations? Where to catch a bus? It's all here.

Next is an Alphabetical List of Nurses (might one of these nurses have delivered your ancestor? Or be your ancestor?). Then an almanac, tables showing the times that the sun and moon set and rose (vital information in 1850), followed by Names Too Late For Insertion, Removal, & C, which is just that: genealogists might consult this page if you can’t find a name listed in the main city directory section.

Directory

Flipping past some interesting advertisements, we find the City Directory itself. Following a key to the abbreviations used in the directory (al. for alleyway, n.r. for North River, ct. for court, etc), we see listed the names, occupations, residential addresses, and business addresses of our New York ancestors. The first few entries offer further clues. Elias E. Aaron, at 214 Tenth,  is late a commission merchant, i.e. he is retired: some life news right there. Clarissa Abbot, who lives at 47 Grand Street, is the widow of the late Abijah Abbot. Many women are not listed in the directories until they become widows, and often the name of their deceased husband is included. The 1855 New York State Census lists a Clarissa Abott, 29, widow, living in the First Ward of New York City, with her three children, Mary, 10, Kate, 8, and Frank, 6. Could this be the widow Clarissa listed in the 1850 directory? The dates work.

Clarissa Abbot, New York City directory, 1850/51
Clarissa Abott, 29. 7th Ward NYC, 1855

Business addresses are usually listed first. Some entries even describe how business was done, below, for Timothy Abbott, coal merchant.

Individuals are identified by professional calling (Rev., elsewhere Dr.), and all manner of occupations are represented, some common today, many forgotten: cooper, druggist, carman, tailor, drygoods, musician, inspector, saddler, milliner, carpenter, importer, steamboats, weaver, tinsmith, sugarmaker,  and more besides.

Dipping into the directory, one finds all sorts of characters from mid-19th century New York City history. For instance...

James Harper (1795-1865), and his brothers Fletcher (1806-1877), John, and Joseph launched Harper’s, the second oldest monthly magazine printed in the U.S., in June 1850. They ran their publishing business, Harpers & Brothers, at 82 Cliff Street, and would go on to publish Harper’s Weekly in 1857, and Harper’s Bazar (later Harper’s Bazaar) in 1867.

James Harper. John Harper. Joseph Wesley Harper. Fletcher Harper.
James Harper. John Harper. Joseph Wesley Harper. Fletcher Harper.

154 Nassau Street is the business address of Horace Greeley (1811–1872), proprietor of the New York Daily Tribune, a newspaper he founded in 1841. The Tribune’s weekly edition, featuring Greeley’s editorials, was nationally popular. Greeley was a Whig, then a progressive Republican, and later a Liberal Republican. He campaigned against political corruption, and for the abolition of slavery. During his time with the Tribune, he included among a number of illustrious employees editor Whitelaw Reid (1837–1912), the newspaper’s owner after Greeley’s death, who went on to become U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom (1905-1912). He also employed two European correspondents, Messrs. Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895). The Tribune Building was conveniently located on the same block as Tammany Hall, a source of much political news.

Also on Nassau is the New York Evening Post: Bryant William C. & Co. publishers, 18 Nassau h. Roslyn, L.I. The New York Post is, of course, still with us, the oldest  daily newspaper in the United States. On the same street, 108 is home to George Wilkes’s National Police Gazette.  Don’t let the title fool you. This was a scandal rag, full of lurid stories about criminal careers, seduction, murder, and rape, replete with graphic (by 19th c. standards) illustrations. It sold 40,000 copies per issue.

Map of the City of New York, Plate 11 / William Perris (1852) , showing the offices of Harpers & Brothers.


Caleb Smith Woodhull (1792-1866) could likely be found at one of three addresses: 5 City Hall, in his capacity as 70th Mayor of New York City, from 1849 to 1851, at his law office, 59 Fulton Street, or at home, 24 Beekman Street.

Waiting in the political wings is one William M. Tweed,  26 years old and in the business of brush making, at 240 & 357 Pearl Street, home being 31 Rutgers. Tweed had the previous year helped found the Americus Fire Company No.6, known as ‘The Big Six,’ with himself as its head. Fire companies at this time were a way into politics, and Tweed came to the notice of the Democrats. In 1852 he was voted in as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for New York's 5th district.

Herman Melville (1819-1891) lived at 103 Av. 4 (Fourth Avenue), with his wife Elizabeth (Shaw), whom he had married in 1847. During his years in New York Melville wrote his first novels, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian LifeOmoo (1847), Mardi, Redburn (both 1849), and White Jacket (1850). Melville’s U.S. publishers were the previously mentioned Harpers & Brothers.

Photographer Matthew Brady isn’t yet described as a photographer, but as a daguerreotypist, plying his business at 205 Broadway, Brady’s National Gallery of Daguerreotypes. He lived at the American Hotel, 229 Broadway. Frenchman Louis Daguerre developed his photographic process in 1839, and Brady came to hear of it from none other than Samuel F.B. Morse. Shortly after, the young photographer opened his first studio, in 1844.

Brady's National Gallery of Daguerrotypes (1850)

The aforementioned Samuel F.B. Morse was a 19th century Renaissance man. A talented painter he produced portraits of John Adams and James Monroe, among many others. He was also an inventor, contributing to the development of telegraph, and was a co-inventor of Morse Code. He also ran for Mayor of New York City, but was unsuccessful. In 1850 he lived at 142 Nassau, with his second wife, Sarah Elizabeth Griswold.

Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877), “steamboats, 9 Battery pl. H. 10 Washington Place.”

In 1838 two steamships, the Sirius  and the Great Westernsteamed into New York harbor, the first such vessels to cross the Atlantic, from Europe to the U.S. In the next few decades English and German steamship companies, often with the assistance of government money back home, came to dominate Trans-Atlantic steamship travel. With the exception of companies like Edward Knight Collins’ United States Mail Steamship Company (1848-1854), located at 74 South Street, U.S. shipping companies during the middle of the century focused on overseas trade and serving markets at home. The 1848 California Goldrush was good for New York, and men like Vanderbilt, August Belmont (1813-1890), Prosper M. Whitmore (1798-1876), Royal Phelps (1809-1884), and John A. Dix (1798-1879) made fortunes opening up trade routes to California, via the treacherous Cape of Good Hope, or across Panama and Nicaragua. Between 1851 and 1854 $175 million in gold from California wound up in New York City.

Street Directory

The next section, the Street Directory, describes the streets and cross streets of New York City. This information is useful to anyone researching real estate and house histories, and, from 1870 on, searching the U.S. Federal Census for Manhattan by address. The Street Directory helps researchers locate historical buildings, and addresses. Street names and numbers have a habit of changing over time. If you find a record that says your ancestor lived at 35 East 14th Street in 1850, it does not necessarily go that they lived at the site of the current 35 East 14th Street. Historical street directories help us pinpoint a place in time, especially useful when there is no property map to go by.

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Barnum's American Musuem (1850)

The 1850-1851 directory finishes with pages of advertisements for, among other things, Webster’s Dictionary, “Reduced to $6” (a hefty $188 today), and Barnum’s American Museum, on Broadway, opposite The Astor House. Phineas Taylor "P. T." Barnum’s  American Museum was open from 1841 to 1865, when it burned down. Prior to that the building had been home to Scudder’s Museum, which occupied the lot, from 1830. Burrows and Wallace, writing in Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, describe Barnum’s American Musuem…

Barnum stocked his American Museum [...] with jugglers and ventriloquists, curiosities and freaks, automata and living statuary, gypsies and giants, dwarfs and dioramas, Punch and Judy shows, models of Niagara Falls, and real live American Indians.[...] And, of course, [Barnum] featured blackface dancers, Ethiopian melodists, and the new minstrel show. (p.644)

Other features included were the 2’1" Charles Stratton, better known as Major Tom Thumb, and the Fejee Mermaid, an object purporting to be a mermaid, but actually a hideous model combined of the skeletons of a monkey and a fish. No-one said the past was pretty.

Barnum and Commodore Nutt
Barnum and Commodore Nut

So there you have it. An exciting new collection, and a free digital gateway into researching New York City history, and genealogy. I hope that this post has described to you why this digitization project is great news, and how the directories connect to a wealth of other materials in the Library's collections: maps, photographs, newspapers, books, microfilm, and more besides. As we move forward, as the directories are turned into datasets, researchers will be able to build new tools with the (free) data that the Library makies available.

Libraries and researchers working together to create new knowledge.

Resources:

New York City Directories

Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 / Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace

 


Books Written at the New York Public Library

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Rose Main Reading Room
The Rose Main Reading Room

The New York Public Library's iconic Rose Main Reading Room at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building reopened today after a two-year closure for repairs and restorations. Since its opening in 1911, the Reading Room has served as a valuable resource for researchers, scholars, and writers. In honor of this morning's Reading Room reopening, we look at some of the books whose authors have acknowledged writing or researching at the Schwarzman Building over the years.

The Power Broker

The Power Broker by Robert Caro
Robert Caro's exhaustive and fascinating book about the life of Robert Moses, the city planner who shaped New York throughout the mid-20th century, is a landmark work of nonfiction and considered one of the best biographies of all time. Caro researched and wrote much of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book in The New York Public Library in the 1960s and 70s.

 The Feminine Mystique 

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan spent two years at the Library writing this groundbreaking book about American gender inequality, which scholars credit with sparking second-wave feminism in 1963. Writes Friedan in her introduction to this revolutionary work: "I wouldn't have even started it if The New York Public Library had not, at just the right time, opened the Frederick Lewis Allen Room."

Ragtime

Ragtimeby E.L. Doctorow
The emblematic New York novelist E.L. Doctorow conducted research at the Library for his best-known work, Ragtime, the story of three New York families from the turn of the 20th century to World War I. A far-reaching work of historical fiction, the novel interweaves the stories of actual figures of the 1900s, including Evelyn Nesbit, J.P. Morgan, and Harry Houdini.

Many others have also credited the Library as the location at which they wrote. Critic Alfred Kazin, a Library devotee, wrote his breakout book On Native Grounds at the Library in between table tennis matches with historian Richard Hofstadter. Nancy Milford wrote Zelda, her biography of Zelda Fitzgerald here; Pulitzer Prize-winner Theodore H. White wrote The Making of The President, 1964; and long distance swimmer Diana Nyad wrote her memoir, Other Shores, over the course of six months in the Library.

The Keep A Great Improvisation Here

In more recent years, the Library has hosted contemporary literary luminaries at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. Many of the Cullman Fellows have published highly acclaimed works of literature, including Jennifer Egan's novel The Keep, Stacy Schiff's history A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, and Richard McGuire's experimental graphic novel Here. Since its beginning in 1999, the fellowship has supported the creation of dozens of incredible works whose authors drew on the Library's research collections. Other novels created at the Library include Colum McCann's Zoli, Colson Whitehead's Sag Harbor, and Colm Tóibín's Lady Gregory's Toothbrush. Many more works published in the past two years that were written at the Library are now featured in a display case in the Bill Blass Public Catalog Room.

The Library has also been cited as a resource by many other writers: Tom Wolfe, Nora Ephron, Isaac Singer, Elizabeth Bishop, E.B. White, and Jerzy Kosiński among them. Norman Mailer and John Updike have been spotted using the collections in the Rose Main Reading Room. With the reopening of this storied space, the Library continues its legacy of helping authors and scholars learn, create, and spread knowledge around the world. Walking into the Rose Main Reading Room, you might just get inspired to do some writing yourself. Join us at the Library's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building to visit this incredible room.

Thanks to the Library's Carolyn Broomhead for help with this post.

Political Reads: Tackle one of these Masterpieces this Election Season

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Book covers

If election coverage has not already exhausted the political portions of your brain, head to the NYPL and check out some great works of literature that wrestle with questions about government, law, and the complexities of human society. Here are some suggestions to get you started:

All The King’s Men

  • By telling the story of fictional governor Willie Stark through the eyes of a staff member, Robert Penn Warren gives the reader an intimate portrait of political idealism, corruption, and disillusionment in this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

Intruder in the Dust

  • Twelve years before Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, William Faulkner told a similar tale of a Southern man accused of murder and the people who attempt to save him. This book is at the same time a moving coming-of-age story and a nuanced reflection on sectionalism, nationalism, and the racial tensions that still affect our country.

Hamlet

  • Like he did in many of his plays, Shakespeare intertwined the personal and the political in this great tragedy, whose disastrous events affect not only the prince, but also his entire country. “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”

A Tale of Two Cities

  • Dickens often dealt with contemporary politics in his fiction, especially critiquing flaws he saw in the law and society of his native England. This novel takes a broader approach, examining both England and France during the most radical years of the French Revolution. The personal drama of the Mannette family and their friends is only part of a larger, international one threatening western Europe.

A Man For All Seasons

  • In his Tony Award-winning play about Thomas More’s ill-fated conflict with King Henry VIII, Robert Bolt reflects on the meaning of national loyalty, the role of law in society, and the relationship of citizens to their government. Also be sure to check out the 1966 film adaptation of the play, which won six Academy Awards.

Lord of the Flies

  • Not many books present a more sobering view of the difficulties involved in creating a just government than William Golding’s chilling story about a group of schoolboys stranded on an otherwise deserted island and forced to fend for themselves.

Brave New World

  • Before George Orwell penned his bleak vision of totalitarianism, Aldous Huxley wrote a similarly pessimistic novel set in a dystopian society of a very different kind. In pondering humanity’s need for both community and solitude, Huxley managed to balance poignancy and dark humor with great skill and insight.

Watership Down

  • Although this book grew from stories Richard Adams would tell his children, it is far from a childish novel. The tale of rabbits searching for a new home explores various forms of government, diverse styles of leadership, and the intricate task of founding a new society.

The Republic

  • Plato’s most famous dialogue is political philosophy as drama. Socrates’ controversial lessons about justice, power, and education are lent even more significance by the readers’ knowledge that these very teachings will eventually lead to his execution.

Not-So-Scary Monsters: A Book List for Littles

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The goblin man
Image ID #1256860

Ahhhh! Eeeek! Oh no! What's that noise?!

Monsters in the closet. Boogey man under the bed. Shadows moving outside of the window.  October is here, and Halloween is just around the corner. Monsters abound!

Are you looking for some reads that won't give your little people the frights? Monsters aren't always scary; in fact, sometimes they are silly and sweet. Check out a few of my favorite not-so-scary monsters stories: 

 

Glad Monster, Sad Monster

Glad Monster, Sad Monster  by Ed Emberley and Anne Miranda: Feelings can be scary and hard to understand, but with the help of a few emotional monsters, your little person can explore feelings of joy, sadness, love, worry, anger, and silliness.

Have You Seen My Monster?  by Steve Light : Look very carefully; a monster is hiding at the fair. Take a peep through the pages of this black and white book and discover an array of shapes as you seek out the monster hidden on each page.

Monster & Son by David LaRochelle : A charming story, reminiscent of a lullaby, follows a different  father and son pair through their day. The text is not one bit creepy, and the monsters are more cuddle worthy than frightful.

Your Pal Mo Willems presents Leonardo the Terrible Monster   by Mo Willems: No matter how hard he tries, Leonardo cannot scare anyone. His "boo" is broken-- that is until he comes across Sam. Will Leonardo be able to "scare the tuna salad" out of someone once and for all?

Tickle Monster by Édouard Manceau:  Use your tickles to make this bedtime monster disappear! Watch the picture change before your eyes as the monster transforms on each page.

Monster Trouble  by Lane Fredrickson: These monsters will not let Winifred get any sleep!! She does everything she can to scare them away so that she can snooze in peace.

 

Monsters Eat Whiny Children by Bruce Eric Kaplan: Who doesn't love a spicy, child vindaloo? These monsters do! Especially one made with whiny children. (Spoiler alert: The only things eaten in this book are cucumber sandwiches.)

When a Monster is Born by Sean Taylor : What will the monster be when it grows up--this or that?  Have a monstrous giggle with this silly book of alternatives.

Go Away, Big Green Monster! by Ed Emberley:  Uh oh...a big green monster!!! Piece by piece the monster appears, and piece by piece the reader is able to make him disappear. Nothing to be afraid of here!

 

 

What are some of your favorite not-too-scary monster books?

Check out some other picture books featuring  monsters

Children's books about Halloween.

 

 

 

Game Changers: A Reading List from Open Book Night

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For our last Open Book Night, we chose the theme "Game Changers". By game changers, we meant anything and everything that made readers think differently about the book they were read or books they may read in the future. It didn't matter how big or small the effect was, as long as it had some kind of effect. For some that meant taking a chance and reading something different, like a graphic novel (a game changer for two in the group), or a nonfiction title (two biographies were in this group, graphic novels, as well as a self-help title). We talked about the particular aspect of each book that set it apart from other books we have read.

On October 14, we will be recommending Horrifying Tales. Join us to share those stories that keep you up at night or those tales that give you goose bumps. Open Book Night meets on the second Friday of the month at Mid-Manhattan Library. We hope you’ll come and talk about books with us! In the meantime, check out our Game Changers list:

Being Mortal

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Atul Gawande

A prominent surgeon argues against modern medical practices that extend life at the expense of quality of life while isolating the dying, outlining suggestions for freer, more fulfilling approaches to death that enable more dignified and comfortable choices.

Lorraine was taken by the complicated and difficult subject made accessible through wonderful prose.

 

March

March: Book One

John Lewis; co-written by Andrew Aydin; art by Nate Powell

A first-hand account of the author's lifelong struggle for civil and human rights spans his youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., and the birth of the Nashville Student Movement.

Joan loved this true story of the Civil Rights Movement told through pictures!


 

fun home

Fun House: A Family Tragicomic

Alison Bechdel

In this groundbreaking, bestselling graphic memoir, Alison Bechdel charts her fraught relationship with her late father. In her hands, personal history becomes a work of amazing subtlety and power, written with a controlled force and enlivened with humor, rich literary allusion and heartbreaking detail.

Elizabeth was surprised by the way pictures could convey a complicated story and be at once engaging and enjoyable.

 

tourist

The Accidental Tourist

Ann Tyler

The Accidental Tourist focuses on the complexities of family relationships. In this story, middle-aged travel writer Macon Leary finds himself alone and miserable after his son is murdered and his wife leaves him. As a result, he realizes that he is in danger of becoming "a dried up kernel of a man that nothing real penetrates." Tyler's intermingling of comedy and tragedy results in a bittersweet tale of loss and recovery.

Eileen was impressed how a realistic and engaging story can be made better with comedic touch.

 

plague

The Plague

Albert Camus

Published in 1947, The Plague is a fictional story written about the very real town of Oran in Northern Algeria. Many consider this novel to be a war allegory of the French resistance to the Nazis in World War II, pointing out the futility of human aspirations and the inevitability of suffering. Camus won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 for the body of his work, and this existentialist novel is considered one of his best.

This reader felt the story is a meditation in violence, that is haunting and vital.

 

thorn birds

The Thorn Birds

Colleen McCoullough

A saga of three generations of the indomitable Cleary family begins in the early 1900s when Paddy Cleary, a poor New Zealand farm laborer, moves his wife and children to the Australian sheep station owned by his rich sister.

Besides being a good story, the reader thought it interesting that each chapter heading was the name of character, followed by the time frame the character is featured in book.

 

Madame Bovary

Madame Bovary

Gustave Flaubert

An unhappily married woman, Emma Bovary's unfulfilled dreams of romantic love and desperation to escape the ordinary boredom of her life lead her to a series of desperate acts, including adultery, in a classic novel set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century bourgeois France.

Madame Bovary for one reader is a book she reads every year and every year she finds something new and illuminating.

 

Little Prince

The Little Prince

Saint-Exupery, Antoine

The Little Prince is a poetic tale, in which a pilot stranded in the desert meets a young prince fallen to Earth from a tiny asteroid. The story is philosophical and includes social criticism, remarking on the strangeness of the adult world.

Generally thought of a children's book, the reader thought this book offered much, much more and would be better appreciated by an adult.

 

d Curtis

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis

Timothy Egan

Edward Curtis was thirty-two years old in 1900 when he gave it all up to pursue his great idea: He would try to capture on film the Native American nation before it disappeared. At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait.

Cynthia enjoyed the rare glimpse into the dying Native American nation and captured so beautifully in Curtis' photographs and story.

 

Thank you for the wonderful recommendations by our readers. Those who come to listen and hear recommendations for books they might enjoy are also welcome at Open Book Night. Check out these other reading lists for books recommended at past Open Book Night Sessions. Also join us for the Gracie Book Club on Oct 19 where we will be discussingPanic in a  Suitcase by Yelena Akhtiorskaya.

Live from the Reading Room: Claudia Jones to Eslanda Robeson

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Live from the Reading Room: Correspondence is a podcast series that aims to share interesting and engaging letters written by or to key historical figures from the African Diaspora. 

Each episode highlights a letter from popular collections housed in the Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library.

Today’s letter features correspondence between Trindaindian journalist and activist Claudia Jones (1915-1964) and Civil Rights activist, anthropologist, and author Eslanda Robeson (1895-1965).  

Claudia Jones reading the West Indian Gazette, London, 1960s
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library. "Claudia Jones reading the West Indian Gazette, London, 1960s" The New York Public Library Digital Collections

 

Today’s correspondence was recited by Carole Boyce Davies, an African Diaspora Studies and Black Feminist scholar who is professor of Africana Studies and English at Cornell University, New York.  She is the author of the landmark and prize winning Left of Karl Max: The Political Life of Black Feminist Claudia Jones and Black Women, Writing and Identity: Migrations of the Subject. Carole Boyce Davies and has recently written Caribbean Spaces: Escape Routes From Twilight Zones and a children's book titled Walking, based on a childhood experience in her native country, Trinidad.

 

NYPL #FridayReads: The With Your Sister Edition October 14, 2016

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During the week, it can be tough to stay on top of everything. On Fridays, though, we suggest kicking back to catch up on all the delightful literary reading the internet has to offer. Don’t have the time to hunt for good reads? Never fear. We've rounded up the best bookish reading of the week for you.

Actresses (L-R) Madeline Kahn, Jane Alexander and Christine Estabrook in a scene from the Broadway production of the play "The Sisters Rosensweig" (New York)

We Read...

Books to enjoy with your sister and space exploration novels. Monsters don't have to frighten the young readers in your life. Yes, we have thirteen secret library apartments. No, we don't want to do the mean girls trope anymore. We're more interested in stories for the International Day of Girl. Looking for some bookish solidarity? Get your book club together over one of these discussion-worthy titles. Today is the last day for New Yorkers to register to vote. Learn how here. Guess what was on Louisa May Alcott's mindMona Eltahawy is one of our favorite outspoken women, and she wants to talk about vaginas. What would happen if NYC paid homage to great women in maps? It might make us as happy as these photographs of the Stonewall Inn and LGBT activists

Stereogranimator Friday Feels:

GIF made with the NYPL Labs Stereogranimator - view more at http://stereo.nypl.org/gallery/index
GIF made with the NYPL Labs Stereogranimator

TGIF:

What did you read?

If you read something fantastic this week, share with our community of readers in the comment section below.

Job and Employment Links for the Week of October 16

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Enrollment Now Open - SAGEWorks Boot Camp,  Sunday, October 16 - October 20, 2016, 8 - 9 am at The SAGE Center, 305 7th  Avenue, New York, NY 10001.  This 2 week training takes place from Monday - Friday, 10/24/16 - 11/4/16, 9:30 am - 2:00 pm. SAGEWorks assists people 40 years and older in learning relevant, cutting-edge job search skills in a LGBT-friendly environment.

Dutch Express LLC will present a recruitment on Tuesday, October 18, 2016, 10 am - 2 pm for Delivery Associate - Driver (5 openings), Delivery Associate - Walker (10  openings), Delivery Associate - Box Truck Driver (10 openings), at NYC Workforce 1 Career Center, 215 West 125th Street,  New York, NY 10027.  By appointment only.

SAGEWorks workshop:  An Introduction and Recruitment Event by GoodTemps, on Thursday, October 20, 2016, 11:30 am - 1:30 pm, at SAGE Center Midtown, 305 7th Avenue, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10001.  RSVP via email: zramos@sageusa.org.  Please bring  your resumes and dress in business casual attire.  SAGEWorks assists people 40 years and older in learning relevant cutting-edge job search skills in a LGBT-friendly environment.

Spanish Speaking Resume Writing  workshop on Thursday,  October 20, 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 October 20, 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.

SAGEWorks workshop:  What is Career Coaching ? on Thursday, October 20, 2016, 6:45 - 7:45 pm, at SAGE Center Midtown, 305 7th  Avenue , 6th Floor, New York, NY  10001.  RSVP via email: zramos@sageusa.org   SAGEWorks assists people 40 years and older in learning relevant cutting-edge job search skills in a LGBT-friendly environment.

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 October 16 become available.


Podcast #134: Margaret Atwood on Shakespeare in the 21st Century and on YouTube

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Subscribe on iTunes.

Margaret Atwood is one of the most prolific Canadian writers alive today, working both in prose and poetry. In a career spanning over four decades, Atwood has won the Booker Prize and earned a Guggenheim. She is best known for novels such as The Handmaid's Tale and The Blind AssassinFor this week's episode of the New York Public Library Podcast, we're proud to present Atwood discussing how she brought Shakespeare into a twenty-first century context, memorizing poetry, and what YouTube can tell us about the Bard.

Margaret Atwood

Atwood's most recent novel is Hag-Seed, a retelling of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, which is part of Random House's Hogarth Shakespeare series. She discussed how she and other writers have explored retelling the Bard's work:

"The brief was pretty simple. The brief was choose a play of Shakespeare, any play, and revisit it in the form of a modern prose novel, so we have I think eight writers doing this. We've had four of them published already, and four are yet to come. The approaches have been very different from one to another. So the first one, which was Jeannette Winterson, took A Winter's Tale, and she made pretty mirrorings of what's in the play. Howard Jacobson's My Name is Shylock [sic] was a lot looser."

In response to a question about how Shakespeare's language affected her own writing, Atwood spoke of the importance of memorizing poetry to her education:

"Long ago before you were born, we had to memorize things in school, and write them out from memory. I don't think that was harmful. Then it went away for quite a while, but it's coming back. There's in fact a very good contest that's held across Canada for secondary school, high school students in which they memorize three poems and recite them. You win big prizes, not only for yourself but for your school, and it's become violently popular. These kids are really good. The winners are just exceptional, and that happens here too. I think it's the National Arts that's got a poetry high school contest going on as well. So it is coming back, and I think writing poetry it is true that you have to get the sound right, that the sound actually matters as much or more."

Atwood mentioned some YouTube videos that offer perspective on Shakespeare. Specifically, she spoke of how humor can be enhanced by lessons from the video streaming site:

"I'm sure that you have come across this YouTube called Shakespeare Original Pronunciation. It's these two guys, father and son, in and around the Globe Theatre, explaining what Shakespeare in the original pronunciation would have sounded like and even does some of it. One of their things which seems pretty much that it has to be true is that we're missing a lot of puns because words used to, for instance whore and hour used to be pronounced the same. So 'And so, from hour to hourwe ripe and ripe, And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; And thereby hangs a tale' has quite a different meaning when they're pronounced the same. They said they've put on a couple at the Globe in Shakespeare's original pronunciation and they were worried at first because they thought people wouldn't understand it, but in fact they do."

You can subscribe to the New York Public Library Podcast to hear more conversations with wonderful artists, writers, and intellectuals. Join the conversation today!

 

 

 

The Dorot Jewish Division Invites You: Fall Events

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The Dorot Jewish Division of The New York Public Library, one of the world's great collections of Hebraica and Judaica, invites you to join us for these upcoming events:

Art Spiegelman_CREDIT_Nadja Spiegelman-dorot

Art Spiegelman and Paul Holdengräber - October 27, 2016

Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, 7 PM

Art Spiegelman surprised and moved readers with Maus, the renowned graphic novel recounting his father’s experience of the Holocaust. Now, Spiegelman has brought to our attention the forgotten Si Lewen masterpiece, The Parade, a meditation on the cycle of war. For this year's Joy Gottesman Ungerleider Lecture, LIVE welcomes Spiegelman to the stage to celebrate the republication of the book and to honor Si Lewen’s memory.

Buy tickets

unspecified

Munich '72 and Beyond - New York Premiere - November 15, 2016

Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, 6 PM, Free

Nearly 45 years after the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, "Munich '72 and Beyond" -- winner of Los Angeles International Short Film Festival's Best Documentary—chronicles the struggle of the victims' families to find answers about what happened to their loved ones and their mission to create a memorial to the fallen Israeli athletes.

Join us for a film screening of "Munich '72 and Beyond," followed by a panel discussion with producers Dr. Steven Ungerleider and David Ulich, moderated by sportswriter and reporter Jeremy Schaap.  

Register

FriedWies300

Saul Friedländer and Leon Wieseltier - November 17

Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, 7 PM

A classic of Holocaust literature, When Memory Comes, is the eloquent, acclaimed memoir of childhood by Saul Friedländer. Forty years after its publication, Friedländer bridges the gap between past and present with his new book, Where Memory Leads: My Life. In celebration of the reissue of the original and the publication of the sequel, Friedländer is joined by his friend, writer and critic Leon Wieseltier.

Buy tickets

Professor Carolivia Herron

Banned in Brooklyn: The Journey of Nappy Hair from Washington DC to New York City

December 15, 2016
Mid-Manhattan Library, 6:30 PM, Free

Carolivia Herron's children's book Nappy Hair, which caused a major national controversy on diversity education in 1998, was published while Herron, an African American author, was rediscovering and affirming her Jewish identity.  Banned in Brooklyn, the book ultimately catapulted onto the bestseller list and made Herron a sought after speaker in Jewish communities nationwide. Nearly two decades after it was published, Herron comes to the Library to speak about the continued importance of Nappy Hair in our national conversation.

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Zev FeldmanDeborah Strauss

Klezmer: Music, History and Memory

December 22, 2016
Mid-Manhattan Library, 6:30 PM, Free

On the occasion of the publication of researcher Walter Zev Feldman's book Klezmer: Music, History, and Memory, the Library welcomes the author (left) along with internationally acclaimed klezmer violinist Deborah Strauss (right) for an appreciation of the genre and musical history. 

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Book Review: "What Made Me Who I Am" by Bernie Swain

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What made me who I amLaugh. Cry. Laugh. Cry. Laugh. Cry. A-ha moment! Get upset. Awww, now melt in tenderness. Laugh and cry some more… What Made Me Who I Am accompanied me during several of my long commutes, and its beautiful stories sent me into a roller coaster of emotions. They are heartfelt and moving, and more importantly, they depict their protagonist leaders, politicians, journalists, writers, sports legends and larger-than-life, iconic people as, precisely that: people. Normal, everyday people.

We all start somewhere in life, with a family and relatives (or lack thereof), friends, school stories, childhood memories, college, our first job…and, as our life begins to take shape, there are pivotal and defining moments that mark our very existence. Those moments are the ones that somehow open up or create the paths in which we will walk through life.

Bernie Swain
Bernie Swain

What made me who I am is filled with the stories of turning points and defining moments in the lives of people whose chosen path made them successful and famous at some point. From Doris Kearns Goodwin to Colin Powell, Terry Bradshaw to Tom Brokaw, Tony Blair to Dave Barry and many more (full list below), Bernie Swain, as co-founder and CEO of Washington Speakers Bureau, has represented all the great leaders that appear in his book; and, throughout the course of business, they became friends. The rest of us know who they are, and are aware of their professional deeds mainly through the media. Yet Swain decided to give us a glimpse on what made him and his clients what they are today, by portraying the human, down-to-earth, and very vulnerable aspect of their lives. This is where the emotional roller coaster comes in: the book is a collection of easy-to-read, extraordinary motivational stories, depicting the way in which love, inspiration, a desire to live a better life, pride, mentorship, joy, humor, pain, frustration, health, sickness, death, perseverance, gratitude, determination, and a myriad other values, feelings and circumstances have shaped the lives and careers of these leaders.

Writer and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez said it best: “Life is not what you lived, but what you remember and how you remember, so as to tell it.” * And to this, I would add, “It is also what you learned and how you were transformed by it.”  Every story in the book left me with a lesson to ponder and grow from it.  Highly enjoyable read. Thanks a lot, Bernie!

Don’t miss the opportunity to hear Bernie Swain tell these stories live at the Business Library on October 20, 2016 (free and open to the public). 

* Original quote in Spanish: La vida no es lo que uno vivió, sino lo que recuerda, y cómo la recuerda para contarla.

Full list of leaders whose story appears in What Made Me Who I Am:

  • Madeleine Albright – Secretary of State
  • Dave Barry – Pulitzer Prize winning author
  • Tony Blair - Prime Minister of United Kingdom
  • Terry Bradshaw - Four-time Super Bowl Champion
  • Tom Brokaw – Journalist and best-selling author
  • Ben Carson – Renowned American neurosurgeon
  • James Carville – Political strategist and commentator
  • Debbie Fields – Founder of Mrs. Fields Bakeries
  • Bob Gates – Secretary of Defense, Director of CIA
  • Barry Gibbons – Chairman/CEO of Burger King
  • Rudy Giuliani – Mayor of New York
  • Sal Giunta – Recipient of Medal of Honor
  • Doris Kearns Goodwin – American historian
  • Alan Greenspan – Chairman of the Federal Reserve
  • Lou Holtz – Legendary college football coach
  • Mort Kondracke – American journalist and author
  • Ted Koppel – American broadcast journalist
  • Mike Krzyzewski – Duke and Olympic basketball coach
  • Stew Leonard – President/CEO of Stew Leonards
  • Mary Matalin – American political consultant
  • Chris Matthews – American political talk show host
  • George Mitchell – U.S. Senator and businessman
  • Liz Murray – Homeless teenager in New York
  • Scott O’Grady – Air Force fighter pilot
  • Colin Powell – Secretary of State
  • Robert Reich – Secretary of Labor and author
  • Mary Lou Retton – Olympic Champion
  • Condeleezza Rice – Secretary of State
  • Willard Scott – NBC Today weatherman
  • Tom Sullivan – Blind entertainer, actor and author
  • Peter Ueberroth – Commissioner of Baseball
  • Judy Woodruff – American television news anchor
  • Lee Woodward – New York Times best-selling author
  • Bob Woodward – Investigative journalist and author

Free Web Design and Coding Program

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Did you know that you can get a STEM job without a college degree?  Web developers typically need less than a bachelor's degree to get started and also pay close to or above the median for all ocupations in 2015: $36,200.

Web developers are on top of the fastest growing list and the list with most openings, projected 20141-24.  Web developers make $64,970, with 58,600 openings and 26.6%  job outlook, much faster than the average (7%) for all occupations.  Demand will be driven by the growing popularity of mobile devices and ecommerce.

According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook,  web developers typically do the following:

  •  Meet with clients or management to discuss the needs and design of a website
  • Create and test applications for a website
  • Write code for websites, using programming languages such as HTML or XML
  • Work with other team members to determine what information the site will contain
  • Work with graphics and other designers to determine the website's layout
  • Integrate graphics, audio, and video into the website
  • Monitor website traffic

Important qualities for web developers include: opportunities for better tomorrow

  • Concentration. Web developers must sit at a computer and write detailed code for long periods.
  • Creativity. Web developers often are involved in designing the appearance of a website and must make sure that it looks innovative and up to date.
  • Customer-service skills. Webmasters have to respond politely and correctly to user questions and requests.
  • Detail oriented. When web developers write in HTML, a minor error could cause an entire webpage to stop working.

If you are 17-24 years old, and are interested in web design and coding, the free Web Design and Coding Program at INNOVATION LAB @ INDUSTRY CITY provided by Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow may be an opportunity for you!

You will learn and recieve:

  • Website design and coding fundamentals in HTML, CSS, JavaScript and more
  • Skills to analyze information using digital technology
  • Preparation for the Adobe Certified Associate Certification  in Photoshop
  • Critical thinking skills
  • College access assistance
  • Job placement assistance

For more information or to apply, call, email, or visit: 

Innovation Lab at 87 35th Street, 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11232

718-801-8970

New York Times Read Alikes: October 22, 2016

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Get ready for some nail-biters! It's a suspenseful time of year, with four tense mysteries on the list this week.

girl on the train

#1 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, more stories told from multiple perspectives:

And Then There Was Oneby Patricia Gussin

Murder on the Orient Expressby Agatha Christie

Fates & Furiesby Lauren Groff

 


 

two by two

#2 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed Two by Two by Nicholas Sparks, more sweet stories about fathers and daughters:

What We Find by Robyn Carr

Fast Track by Julie Garwood

Father's Day by Simon Van Booy

 

 

 

missing

#3 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed Missing by James Patterson and Kathryn Fox, more mysteries featuring private eyes:

Charm City by Laura Lippmann

Suspect by Robert Crais

A Hard Ticket Home by David Housewright

 

 

 

trespasser

#4 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed The Trespasser by Tana French, more mysteries set in Ireland:

The Wrong Kind of Blood by Declan Hughes

Killing the Emperors by Ruth Dudley Edwards

Killing Ways by Alex Barclay

 

 

 

home

#5 Recommendations for readers who enjoyed Home by Harlan Coben, more mysteries featuring amateur detectives:

The Monkey's Raincoat by Robert Crais

New York Dead by Stuart Woods

The Amazing Harvey by Don Passman

 

 

 

Want more? Check out last week's readalikes.

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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!

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