Posts from Seward Park Library

At the New York Public Library's Adult Learning Centers, where adults work on basic English and literacy skills, we're often asked for recommendations of websites for adults to practice English at home. Below you'll find eleven sites, some with a focus on listening, some on vocabulary, others on grammar, and some with a range of activities. Happy learning!

Visit NYPL's BiblioCommons for these lists and many more. See below for some interesting staff picks from the past couple months, on topics both timely and timeless:

I'm sorry to shout. But we're showing Desperately Seeking Susan and DIRECTOR SUSAN SEIDELMAN WILL BE HERE. So if ever you were going to attend a Lower East Side Heritage '80s film, this is the one. Ms. Seidelman will be speaking about her work, and there will be a Q and A after the show. Moving on...

What’s the history of your favorite haunt? Teens from The New York Public Library’s Seward Park Branch explored the hidden past of their neighborhood earlier this year and made some surprising discoveries.

It's the end of August, which means soon we'll be trading in our fluffy beach reads for heartier winter tomes. NYPL librarians have plenty of suggestions for you.

Visit NYPL's BiblioCommons for these lists and many more. You can also create your own and share them with us in the comments! See below for some interesting staff picks from the past month, on topics both timely and timeless:

Pretend you’re just outside Tompkins Square Park. Enter the park on Avenue A, at 8th Street. Take the windy path through the park towards Avenue B. Okay, now sniff. What do you smell?

You smell dogs.

The Way it Is or Eurydice in the Avenues opens early morning summer in the Park. Three feckless dog walkers stand over the dead body of a girl in a polka-dot dress. Who else is going to find a dead body in Tompkins Square Park? Okay, drug-addicts, probably, but still. Dog walkers. Brilliant.

On June 7, 2012, a fabulous sunny day, the New York Public Library (NYPL) had a kickoff celebration for summer reading at the Seward Park Library.

I started summer 2012 seeing One Direction, not once but TWICE in concert! Let me just say this: they were AWESOME! I could go on and on (and on, just ask my friends) about my favorite four British boys and one Irish boy, but I won’t. I could talk loads about Harry’s accent, Niall’s laugh and Louis’s trousers but I will stop myself and instead mention that NYPL has bought their journal memoir Dare to Dream! As we wait patiently for it to arrive and listen to Up All Night on replay, here are some novels filled with charming, brooding, floppy haired British and Irish boys. 

Permanent Vacation opens with a moving crowd of New Yorkers, still dressed '70s groovy. It might be a camera trick, but no one appears to be rushing. The music is slow, diffuse horn and bells. We meet 16-year-old Aloysious Christopher Parker, already dressed '80s rockabilly cool. His body is like a marionette's — all long limbs and loose joints. His voice is like an oboe, and his delivery is like slow air out of a tire. He dances to Earl Bostic's Up There in Orbit, on a toy phonograph, on the floor, in a narrow Lower East Side tenement room painted thickly yellow-white.

Visit NYPL's BiblioCommons for these lists and many more. You can also create your own and share them with us in the comments! See below for some interesting staff picks from the past month, on topics both timely and timeless:

Don't Shhhh me!.... NOT this time.

We are about to conclude the second season of our Lower East Side Heritage Film Series and for the closer we are ALL TALK.

I went to high school in the East Village from 1983 to 1987. This might sound kind of punk rock. Unfortunately, I totally missed out on CBGB in the late Seventies (see also: Punking Out) and early Eighties. And let's face it, I didn't go inside any real club for most of the Eighties either — I was underage, and too busy studying for the SATs. But I remember how the outsides looked. The streets and lines. The cars, still squared off boats from the Seventies. Of course, three-card monte. And lots and lots of vacant lots. Dirty, over-painted apartment facades with broken front doorknobs. Vinyl miniskirts. Wanting to look like Debbie Harry, not Madonna.

Guilty pleasure: something you like, but feel guilty about liking, because you are aware that your fondness for said thing is a little embarrassing or not so great. Reasons for feeling guilty include: enjoying a silly pop song, liking a band for their hotness and not necessarily for their music, the genre of music is considered uncool, liking the artist makes you one of them — and you are sooo much cooler than that! But SO WHAT? WHO CARES? You like what you like. Let your cheesy, pop-song lovin', freak flag fly! Have long discussions about your favorite member(s) of One Direction! Just know that you are not ALONE!

Shhhh.... this one is silent.

One of the great things about silent film is the fact that it is, well, silent.

While this attribute certainly draws attention to body language and visual storytelling, it also provides a blank canvas. As someone who composes and arranges music, this proves a great opportunity to sharpen my skills and have a bit of fun, dropping different types of music into a set of scenes. The fun happens when music intended for one purpose magically enhances another. It is proved to be a much more laborious a task, as I am not able to rely on the timings (and ease of scrolling) as one would with a digital version.

Visit NYPL's BiblioCommons for these lists and many more. You can also create your own and share them with us in the comments! See below for some interesting staff picks from the past month, on topics both timely and timeless:

You have not crossed the bridges I have crossed.
You have not listened to the music I have listened to.
You have not been in the top of the World Trade Center the way I have been there.
You have not seen the waves I have seen.
You have not fallen from horses the way I have fallen.
You have not felt the guns on your neck the way I have felt them.
You have not been in the sea with a big storm in a little boat the way I have been.

—Excerpt from "Don’t Give Me Advice," by Luis Marin, Tompkins Square CRW

This month is National Poetry Month, and here at the Center for Reading and Writing (CRW) some 

In the late hours of April 14th, 1912 and the early morning hours of April 15th, about 85 years before a dying Leo DiCaprio urged a freezing Kate Winslet to live, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sunk into the icy waters of the North Atlantic. In a matter of hours this “unsinkable” ship was on the bottom of the ocean and only 712 out of its 2,208 passengers would survive.  Since the news of the sinking first got out up to the present day, on the100th anniversary of the tragedy, there have been hundreds of stories about those who died, those who survived and what really happened on board that ship — real and imagined. What trick of fate 

Happy birthday to Charles Mingus, who would have officially become a nonagenarian this coming April 22, 2012 — a word I am certain he could have cleverly crafted into a title. And to celebrate one of the most unique and gifted voices in not just the jazz world, but, in my opinion, the whole of 20th century music, we are projecting on 16mm this wonderfully insightful film capturing Mingus at a very specific period in his life. A must see for all fans of Charles Mingus.