NYPL Blogs

May Author @ the Library Programs at Mid-Manhattan

Elizabeth Waters, Mid-Manhattan Library — Wed, 01 May 2013 07:00:23 -0400

How important were navies to the outcome of the Civil War? What's the key to preparing delicious meatless meals? What in the world is mycophilia? Who conceived and engineered Grand Central Terminal? What was Jewish New York at the turn of the 20th century? What is it like to be a refugee in the United States? How did Joseph P. Kennedy get from East Boston to Washington's inner circle? How did one man's incurable amnesia provide invaluable insight to neuroscientists? How do nature and the city co-exist? Could democracy in the workplace be the cure for capitalism? What is a mental disorder and what is simply a struggle with real life? Are amateur inventors and tinkerers at the heart of the American dream? Is it possible to find passion, purpose and a paycheck in the second half of life?

During the month of May, you can hear noted authors offer their thoughts on these and other questions at the Mid-Manhattan Library. Please join us at 6:30 p.m. on the sixth floor for these illuminating Author @ the Library programs. Whether or not you attend the talks, you might enjoy reading some of the books. You can reserve copies using the links below.

Wednesday, May 1: Professor James M. McPherson, author of War on the Waters: The Union and Confederate Navies, 1861-1865, explains how the Union and Confederate navies were crucial to the outcome of the Civil War.

Monday, May 6: Kim O'Donnel, author of The Meat Lover’s Meatless Celebrations: Year-round Vegetarian Feasts (You Can Really Sink your Teeth Into) and The Meat Lover’s Meatless Cookbook, shares some deliciously healthy ideas for meatless Mondays.

Tuesday, May 7: In an illustrated lecture on Mycophilia: Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms, Eugenia Bone examines the role of fungi as exotic delicacy, curative, poison, and hallucinogen, ultimately revealing that a greater understanding of fungi is key to facing many challenges of the 21st century.

Wednesday, May 8: Dr. Kurt C. Schlichting examines the remarkable career of a man who had a profound impact on the history and development of New York City in Grand Central's Engineer: William J. Wilgus and the Planning of Modern Manhattan.

Thursday, May 9: Annie Polland and Daniel Soyer, authors of Emerging Metropolis, the second volume of the three-volume work, City of Promises, describe New York’s transformation into a Jewish city in an illustrated lecture, "City of Promises: A History of the Jews of New York."

Monday, May 13: Photojournalist Gabriele Stabile documents refugees, from their first steps on American soil to the cities and towns where they are rebuilding their communities in The Refugee Hotel.

Tuesday, May 14: Celebrated historian David Nasaw tells the full story of The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy.

Thursday, May 16: In this visual presentation Professor Suzanne Corkin explores the riveting story of H. M., the brain-damaged patient whose case, described in Permanent Present Tense: The Unforgettable Life of the Amnesic, afforded untold advances in the study of memory.

Monday, May 20: Professor John Waldman presents diverse and intriguing perspectives on the relationship between nature and America's most prominent city in Still the Same Hawk: Reflections on Nature and New York.

Wednesday, May 22: Professor Richard D. Wolff discusses discusses a democratic alternative based on workers managing their own workplaces in Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism

Thursday, May 23: Professor Richard J. McNally, author of What Is Mental Illness?, gives an illustrated lecture describing how “real” disorders are defined, offering insight into the intense political and intellectual struggles over what goes into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the psychiatric "bible".

Tuesday, May 28: Journalist and This American Life commentator Jack Hitt tells the story of America's many amateur inventors and tinkerers, from Benjamin Franklin's experiments with electricity to Mark Zuckerberg's social media website in Bunch of Amateurs: A Search For the American Character.

Thursday, May 30: Marci Alboher, author of The Encore Career Handbook: How to Make A Living and a Difference in the Second Half of Life, and Katherine Lanpher, radio commentator and author of the 2006 memoir Leap Days: Chronicles of A Midlife Move, offer a guide to finding passion, purpose and a paycheck in the second half of life.

Find lists of non-fiction books by authors speaking at the Mid-Manhattan Library in the BiblioCommons catalog:

This post includes authors who are discussing their recent non-fiction books at the Mid-Manhattan Library this month, but we have lots of other interesting readings and talks on on our calendar, including art lectures and discussions, monthly panel discussions featuring authors from the Mystery Writers of America, New York Chapter and short story readings at Mixed Bag: Story Time for Grown-ups. Oh, and did I mention that all of our programs are free? We hope to see you sometime soon!

Booktalking "Vegan is Love" by Ruby Roth

Miranda J. McDermott, Grand Concourse — Wed, 01 May 2013 06:49:36 -0400

Some animals in the world are treated badly, and vegans do not want to be a part of that. They do not use animals for food, clothing or fun. This is good for the animals, our health, and the environment.

Vegans are vegetarians. Some vegetarians eat cheese, eggs, honey, and drink milk. Vegans eschew all animal products.

However, vegans like plant-based foods, such as fresh vegetables, beans, grains such as rice, fruits and nuts. There is some delicious vegetarian fare out there, in restaurants and supermarkets, just waiting to be sampled.

Vegan is Love: Having Heart and Taking Action written and illustrated by Ruby Roth, 2011

Clothing - Fur, feathers, scales and animal skins are beautiful on the animals that they belong to.

Animal testing - You can buy cleaning materials that were not tested on animals and contain no animal ingredients. Animals that are used to test shampoos, soaps, etc. oftentimes get sick and die.

Zoos can be boring places for animals that do not truly replicate the experience of living in the wild.

Marine parks - Whales are social animals who live in pods in the wild. Living in captivity can be an isolating experience for them.

Circus - In the circus, animals often spend most of their lives in small cages, and they may be beaten into doing tricks.

Racing - Many animals are injured or killed in this sport. The training of race horses begins before their bones are sufficiently developed to withstand the stress of the strenuous workouts.

Hunting - There is nothing brave about slaughtering animals for fun.

Bullfights and Rodeos - People should not use animals as toys. It hurts horses to have painfully tight bucking straps on them, in more ways than one. They think that cougars may have jumped on their backs and are attempting to kill them. That is why the horses continue bucking even after the cowboys have fallen off.

Health - Most animals on the Earth are herbivores. We can be healthy and strong by eating plants. Vegans do not want to kill animals for food.

Pollution - Animal farms create much pollution. Pesticides can make us sick, and they can kill other animals as well when they leak into the water supply.

Organics is more sustainable method of agriculture for us.

World Hunger - Feeding grain to animals that are to be killed for food is grain that is not utilized to feed the people of the world.

Forests - Trees can be cut down to create cattle farms, which also decimates the wildlife that lived in the forests.

Oceans - Fishing has killed many of the fish in the sea.

Arctic - A cooler and less polluted planet will cause the ice in the Arctic and its wildlife to stay.

What We Can Do

Adopt a pet from a shelter, not a breeder or pet store.
Write letters to businesses and politicians to protect animals.
Recycle plastics, reuse materials, and reduce the amount of waste that you produce.
Donate or collect money to support saving the environment and animals.
Do not buy clothing made from animals, eat animal products or pay for animal entertainment.

I was inspired to write this blog by my brother, who recently created a fantabulous vegan web site, VeganDandy.com.

This book is beautifully illustrated by the author, with a different color scheme for each subject. However, she does tend to anthropomorphize the animals a bit. Many nonhuman animals do not have as many facial muscles as humans, and her animals have surprisingly human-like facial expressions.

Find New York Times Bestsellers at NYPL - April 28th, 2013

Adriana Blancarte-Hayward, New Dorp Library — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:25:22 -0400

For the week of April 28, 2013 we have hardcover fiction, hardcover non-fiction, and paperback trade fiction.

If you have an iPhone, iPad or Android phone, download our free app! Use it with your library card/username and pin.

Click on any of the titles below and place a hold to request the item. Remember to update your contact information (phone number or e-mail address), so you are notified when the book arrives for you at your local library. Don't have a library card yet? It's simple! Find out how to get one. Titles are available in regular print, large print, audio, and in electronic format — for FREE!

Week of April 28, 2013

Hardcover Fiction

Daddy's Gone A Hunting, by Mary Higgins Clark
Don't Go, by Lisa Scottoline
Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson
Unintended Consequences, by Stuart Woods
The Burgess Boys, by Elizabeth Strout

Hardcover Nonfiction

Lean In, by Sheryl Sandberg with Nell Scovell
Give And Take, by Adam Grant
Gulp, by Mary Roach
Unsinkable, by Debbie Reynolds and Dorian Hannaway
The Way Of The Knife, by Mark Mazzetti

Paperback Trade Fiction

World War Z, by Max Brooks
The Witness, by Nora Roberts
Fifty Shades Of Grey, by E. L. James
The Forgotten, by David Baldacci
Beautiful Ruins, by Jess Walter

For more information on this week's best sellers, visit the New York Times website and check out the full list. There is also a special section for Best Sellers in the Library's catalog, BiblioCommons.

Modern-Day Slavery: Stories about Human Sex Trafficking and Comfort Women

Raymond Pun, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, General Research Division — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:05:30 -0400

During World War II, when the Japanese invaded and occupied Shanghai, Nanjing and other coastal cities of eastern China, they looted, intimidated, and massacred millions of people to prove their imperial strength and mercilessness. Many children and women were raped and killed during the invasion; towns were burned to crisp and lives were forever changed and destroyed.

Five years ago, my parents told me that my grandmother had endured such a horrific event when she was in Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian, a coastal province in China. She witnessed people getting killed, and women were kidnapped and brutally raped by the soldiers; with her family, my grandmother had to "mess her face" up to discourage the Japanese from taking her as a "comfort woman." She used dirt from the floor to cover up her face to look unattractive and unappealing to the Japanese. Luckily it worked for her.

To this day, I never asked my grandmother about what happened during that time but I assumed it is something that no one should experience again even if it is retelling the story and making her relive the traumatic moment. Authors such as Iris Chang in her book The Rape of Nanking vividly describe the harrowing and painful history of the Japanese invasion in China, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, etc. and the Japanese treatment of the people from these countries.

During the war in Asia, women and girls who were kidnapped were often turned into "comfort women," another term for enforced sex slaves servicing the Japanese military. Known as "ianfu" in Japanese, many comfort women serviced over a hundred officers and military officials on a daily basis; they were trapped in their hubs called "comfort stations" throughout Asia and were often deprived of food and freedom. Some tried to escape and the ones who were unsuccessful in escaping were recaptured and beaten or murdered.

There were also cases of STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) where women caught them, and some also became infertile as a result of the trauma. In some of their stories, women committed suicide to end the nightmare of being a comfort woman.

Approximately "400,000+" Asian women and girls from China, Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and some European, particularly Dutch women living in Asia at the time were trafficked and turned into military sex slaves. Till this day, the data is still being contested by historians, politicians and activists. When the war ended, women who survived the trauma readjusted to their very different lives.

Much of their stories are being challenged by the Japanese government today, however, with interviews and resources covering their testimonies and the records documenting the history, it is evident that comfort women did exist in Asia during the war. The subject is often sensitive but needs to be discussed so that history will not repeat itself.

Selected Resources about Comfort Women:

NYPL Resources on the History of Comfort Women
An interview with a Dutch woman who was a comfort woman: 50 Years of Silence: The Story of Jan Ruff-O'Herne
Washington Coalition For Comfort Women Issues
Discover the roles that women played in World War II
Resources on World War II in Asia
Hear about their women's testimonies in this artistic film called Comfort Women Wanted

Something so heinous still exists in society today. The dark side of immigration/emigration is human trafficking, the modern-day slavery.

This slave trade system has generated over billions of dollars for criminal organizations and networks from all over the world. The victims' stories and incidents are far more grueling than what history reveals it to be. The FBI puts it very clearly, "It’s sad but true: here in this country (the U.S.), people are being bought, sold, and smuggled like modern-day slaves." See here for the FBI's take on Human Trafficking >>

The 2000 United Nations Trafficking Protocol established the term trafficking as the following: "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs..." Check out the CIA's World Factbook about Human Trafficking >>

New York City is no exception: there are cases after cases of humans being bought, sold and trafficked throughout the city; some may owe "debts" and must repay them by any means while others were hoping to find better opportunities for work in NYC but were innocently tricked into becoming a sex slave. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), 100,000 to 293,000 children in America are in danger of becoming sexual commodities.

"Every minute of every day, the most vulnerable women and children are raped for profit with impunity, yet efforts to combat sex trafficking remain woefully inadequate and misdirected... Sex trafficking is one of the ugliest contemporary actualizations of global capitalism because it was directly produced by the harmful inequalities spread by the process of economic globalization: depending of rural poverty, increased economic disenfranchisement of the poor, the net extraction of wealth and resources from poor economies into richer ones, and the broad-based erosion of real human freedoms across the developing world..." (pg. 3-4 in Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery by Siddarth Kara)

Women and children from Europe can get transported to the U.S. or from Asia to Europe and from the U.S. to Europe; there are many criminal networks and trafficking activities going on throughout the world. Many films and historical accounts have covered this topic and displayed the horror of sex trafficking. The blockbuster thriller Taken starring Liam Neeson in his role as a former CIA agent is worth checking out; in this movie, Liam is trying to save his daughter from being sold and trafficked as a sex slave in Europe. The sequel is Taken 2. Keep in mind: there are many stereotypes depicted in these movies.

There is hope in combating human sex trafficking, consider the New York Asian Women's Center, a nonprofit organization devoted to women's issues including sexual and labor exploitation in New York or Restore NYC, another nonprofit devoted to end sex trafficking in New York City.

Resources on Human Sex Trafficking:

Discover our resources about the history, research and studies behind human trafficking in the United States.
Read more about about the epidemic of human trafficking in the world.
For films about human trafficking at NYPL, see here
For online resources, see our Articles and Databases page (recommended resources include JSTOR and Project Muse.)
Look at Wide Angle on PBS research on the routes and business of sex trafficking around the world.
Read about one victim's account of being kidnapped and trafficked in Nepal from the BBC.

Booktalking "Horses" by Jill Greenberg

Miranda J. McDermott, Grand Concourse — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 06:38:52 -0400

I love horses, and Jill Greenberg makes them look like works of art. The horses in her photographs look so majestic that they do not look real. She has some spectacular photographs of equines, and she masterfully uses light to accentuate the horses. The horse on the cover looks almost fluorescent.

Greenberg also photographs distinct body parts of the equines. For example, you can see the muscle rippling on the horses' shoulders on the insides of the front and back covers of this hefty tome. Other pages feature portions of a horse's mane, glistening in the light.

Greenberg uses white or black as a background for her horses. She tends to use white for photographs of stationary horses, while she uses a dark hue to make dynamic horses in motion steal the spotlight.

Horses in this book have lovely manes braided in a variety of styles; it reminds me of how the kids at the barns I have ridden at played hairdresser with the horses.

The photographer also features horses in nature. Horses are pictured hanging out with their buddies in the field, surrounded by leaves made shimmering green in the light. Horses are in the sunshine, walking through bright yellow grass during sunrises. There are also beautiful pictures of an adorable chestnut foal. This book makes you love and appreciate horses more than you did before, and also appreciate their grace.

Horses by Jill Greenberg, 2012

When I was a kid, one of my relatives introduced me to Robert Vavra, and I was entranced by his photographs of horses. Sometimes it is hard to believe that these horses are real when you are used to dealing with their zany behavior.

Cooking New York Restaurant Favorites at Home

Lauren Lampasone, Reference and Research Services — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 11:06:07 -0400

There are lots of reasons to want to recreate favorite restaurant recipes at home. A happy memory of a meal, maybe at a place that no longer exists; the pure challenge of replicating that mystery sauce or seasoning; the desire to be thrifty, cooking in more and eating out less; improving cooking skills through imitation... having already had a taste of perfection. Some restaurant meals are just inspirational to the home cook.

Pinterest, that virtual bulletin board loaded with visuals, is one place to browse for "copycat" recipes. There are also scores of bloggers that set out to do this for all of the popular national chain restaurants. If you're dying for Olive Garden's Fettucini Alfredo, it's not hard to find someone who has already done the research on cheese proportions for you using Google.

Since this is New York, home of some of the best restaurants in the world, my idea was to pull together resources based less on chains and more on the dishes you might want to recreate that are unique to this city. Jacques Torres's chocolate chip cookies. Eleven Madison Park's granola. New York style pizza. The shack burger! I've eaten these things, and honestly I don't know that my homemade attempts can possibly compare. Still, it's fun to try. I am equally interested to learn how to make renowned dishes I haven't had the chance to order yet: Nobu's black cod miso, Frankies Spuntino's Wine-Stewed Prunes and Mascarpone.

I compiled all of the cookbooks I could find that are based on a particular restaurant or group of restaurants under one chef. To be included in this list there have to be actual recipes, but many books also contain narrative describing the history of the place and the owner or chef's vision and food philosophy.

2nd Ave Deli
21 / menu
Algonquin / menu
Alice's Tea Cup
Amy's Bread
Angelica Kitchen
Annisa
Aureole / menu
Babbo / Babbo desserts
BabyCakes
Balthazar / menu
Bar Americain
BLT
Blue Ribbon
Bouchon Bakery
Brasserie Les Halles
Bruce's Bakery
Bubby's
Café Boulud
Café des Artistes / menu
Candle 79
Candle Cafe
Carmine's
Chanterelle / menu
Ciao Bella
Craft
Da Silvano
Dean & Deluca
Dirt Candy
Dos Caminos
Eleven Madison Park
Employees Only
Fatty Crab, Fatty 'Cue
Fat Witch Bakery
Frankies Spuntino
Gotham Bar and Grill
Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant / menu
Jacques Torres Chocolate Haven
Jean-Georges
Junior's
Kefi
Le Bernardin / menu
Le Cirque
Lüchow's / menu
Lutèce / menu
Magnolia Bakery
The Meatball Shop
Mesa Grill
Mile End
Momofuku
Momofuku Milk Bar
Nobu
Once Upon A Tart
Ouest
Patsy's
Payard Pâtisserie and Bistro
Rao's
The Red Cat
Ritz-Carlton/ menu
Rosa Mexicano / menu
Russ & Daughters
The Russian Tea Room / menu
Serendipity 3 / menu
Shopsin's
Shun Lee / menu
Spice Market
The Spotted Pig / menu
Sylvia's
Tavern on the Green / menu
Tea & Sympathy
Town, Country
Tribeca Grill
Union Square Cafe
Veselka
The Waldorf Astoria / menu
Wallsé, Cafe Sabarsky, Blaue Gans
'wichcraft

Here are general resources about favorite New York City restaurant meals, in reverse chronological order:

Here's a handy tip. Unsurprisingly, many of New York's chefs have appeared in the pages of The New York Times over the years, often sharing popular recipes from their restaurants. Using this search box, type in the name of a restaurant, chef, or dish to view only the recipes they have submitted to the paper. Try searching for the keyword "adapted" just to browse some of them.

Have you tried to cook a new dish yourself after enjoying it in a restaurant? Please share your experience in the comments.

May 2013 DVD Releases... Reserve Your Copy Now!

Steve Herman, Stapleton Library — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:03:16 -0400

In the month of May, many great DVD movies are coming to the Library. Reserve titles now using the Library's Catalog.

May is a great month for movies based on books with DVD releases like Jack Reacher, Safe Haven, Cloud Atlas, and Beautiful Creatures. May is also full of thrills with A Good Day to Die Hard, Texas Chainsaw, The Last Stand, and Parker. Get a jump start ahead of the rest, and reserve these plus many more May DVD releases now!

Hack the Library with Hackasaurus!

Lindsy Serrano, Mulberry Street Branch Library — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 08:04:22 -0400

Are we teaching New York's teens tools for a life of crime?! Not exactly. Hackasaurus is a website that makes it easy for people to manipulate our favorite webpages while we learn about the ins and outs of HTML. A group of six teens met on a Tuesday afternoon to try out this new program and add their personal touch to the internet.

Using Hackasaurus couldn't be easier. You just download their xray goggles to your bookmark bar and activate them whenever you want to change up a webpage. Then you can save a copy of what you made and share it with your friends. A great example is a hack of Mulberry Street Library's webpage, the creator really likes apples! Interested in more tech programs for teens? Find more tech programs at a branch near you!

For more resources, see Cracking the Code: Learning Computer Programming Languages.

Life is a Cabaret! A Study Guide to a Great American Musical

Diana Bertolini, Manuscripts and Archives Division — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 07:46:15 -0400

If you're interested in doing research on a musical, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts has an embarrassment of riches. To find all the information we have, you may have to look in many different places. Of course, your first move should be to consult with the knowledgeable staff at the 2nd Floor Drama Desk, who'll be able to guide your research.

As a way of providing a guide to doing research in general, I'll take a case in point, one of the great musicals, which NYPL has covered from every angle; John Kander and Fred Ebb's 1966 masterpiece, Cabaret. You should always make sure to have the basics covered first. In NYPL's circulating collections you'll find the original cast recording, and other major recordings, the DVD of the Oscar-winning film version, and the published script, Cabaret: The Illustrated Book and Lyrics.

There are also plenty of books where you can read about Cabaret, like Open a New Window: The Broadway Musical in the 1960s (Mordden, 2001), Colored Lights: Forty Years of Words and Music, Show Biz, Collaboration and All That Jazz (Kander, Ebb, 2003) and The Making of Cabaret (Garebian, 2011).

Once you're familiar with the basics, you may wish to delve deeper into primary sources. I'm an archivist, so my main focus will be on archival collections. Also, you can start this part of your research from home. The best way to search just archival collections in the catalog is with this search tool.

From your search results, you can peruse the finding aids of these collections (From the "Location" tab on the catalog record you can find out if the collection is stored on or off-site—this is very important, because off-site materials must be requested in advance of your visit to the library.) Here are some archival collections we have relating to Cabaret, several of which I was fortunate enough to process myself:

Fred Ebb Papers:

For information on the process of creating the text of a musical, your best bet is looking at the papers of one of the authors. For Cabaret, we have the papers of the lyricist of, Fred Ebb. Materials on Cabaret in the Ebb Papers include: scrapbooks on all major productions and the film adaptation; scripts, including early drafts with different songs and annotated drafts with notes on revisions and blocking for the original production; the bound conductor score and piano/vocal scores and published sheet music for individual songs (including several cut songs).

Harold Prince Papers and Scores:

As director and producer of the original production of Cabaret, Prince has different types of material than Ebb. Prince's production files on Cabaret focus more on casting and producing. There are folders of head-shots and resumes for the entire ensemble and replacement casts.You can also expect to find contracts, royalty statements and box office ledgers. And there's plenty of information on the national tour and foreign productions as well.

Joel Grey Papers:

Joel Grey originated the leading male role of the Master of Ceremonies, toured the country in the show, and subsequently reprised the role for the film version and a 1987 revival. His papers are chock full of Cabaret stuff, and they can teach us about the show from an actor's point of view. They include contact sheets, casting files, contracts, costume plots, photographs, publicity files, scripts and a wonderful souvenir gift, a memento key (labeled "Ze Key," in tribute to a lyric from the show) given to Grey by his "Two Ladies" co-stars when he left the show.

Ruth Mitchell Papers:

Hal Prince's frequent stage manager, assistant director and assistant, Ruth Mitchell has something else to offer in her papers. Acting as both a producer and as the production stage Manager on the original Cabaret and as Prince's Assistant Director on the 1987 Broadway revival, Mitchell's papers have agreements, costume, hair and prop photographs, correspondence, clippings, cast lists, schedules, and scrapbooks. Most importantly, Mitchell's papers contain her stage manager scripts with blocking cues, one of the single most valuable aids to understanding Prince's staging.

Design Collections:

The legendary scenic designer Boris Aronson's papers and designs also have a lot to offer. As the designer of the original production, his collection includes research photos from the 1920s and 1930s and photographs of a model set. And best of all, there are designs, elevations, and model pieces from the famous set.

Cabaret's original costume designer Patricia Zipprodt's papers and designs also have a lot of materials on Cabaret, such as correspondence, contracts, clippings, and photographs. The most unique materials in her papers are her original costume design sketches, with fabric swatches.

Format-Based Collections:

A key element to any theatre research will always be photographs. As I mentioned in my descriptions of the archival collections mentioned above, many of them contain various photographs of Cabaret. But for the most comprehensive look at any show, you should consult the photograph files. The only way to search and request these is through the physical card catalog, located on the 2nd Floor of LPA. When you search the alphabetical sequence of titles, you'll find cards representing folders of photographs of multiple productions of Cabaret. (The Clippings files are also accessible by card catalog only.)

Videos in the Theatre on Film and Tape Collection:

Now that you've read and seen practically everything concerned with Cabaret, the only thing left is to see the show itself. If you're a qualified researcher, you can do this at the Theatre on Film and Tape collection! (The Archive is available to theatre professionals, students, or researchers with work or study-related reasons for viewing.) A recording of the 1987 revival of Cabaret with Joel Grey, filmed at the Minskoff Theatre on May 31, 1988 and a recording of the 1998 revival with Alan Cumming and Natasha Richardson, filmed at the Kit Kat Club, on July 1, 1998 are both available.

Good luck with your research!

Opera for the Uninitiated

Jenny Baum, Jefferson Market Library — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 07:12:05 -0400

The Gilded Stage: A Social History of the Opera by Daniel Snowman promises to do what few nonfiction books about opera have done thus far: describe the evolution of opera from everyman's entertainment to one, believed by many, to be reserved for those of a select social sphere.

In the Literary Review by Tim Blanning, he describes some attributes of that change. "One thing that has certainly changed for the better has been behaviour in the auditorium. Until deep into the nineteenth century, the opera house was more a social centre than a temple of the arts. Its visitors chatted, flirted, smoked, drank, gambled and—behind the drawn curtains of the boxes—made love." Although the decorum has changed, opera today is much more accessible than many believe. Fanciful stage sets and costuming, viewing technologies and library resources are all ways in which opera has become a more public event.

The production values of today's operas have more in common with the fantastical vision of Julie Taymor's The Tempest than the reserved set production that many people associate with operas. Just take a look at the cast for Médée, Euripides's ancient tragedy. Krzysztof Warlikowski and Christophe Rousset's costumes are strictly contemporary, evoking Amy Winehouse's iconic look to cement the theme of being an outsider. Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur at Royal Opera House in Britain balances creative costuming with the practicalities of singing through a structured headpiece. The Minotaur was also an interesting study in that it filled seats fairly well and returned as a revival.

Technological advances have made it possible to enjoy superb opera performances from home or live in HD through movie theatres via services like Fathom Events.

Opera News, a publication of the Metropolitan Opera Guild, highlights the best of the year in the Opera News awards.

"The Big Question: Why opera really is for anyone"

The Met Opera

Scene from Verdi's Rigoletto at the Met

Donald Laub wrote a great overview of his favorite singers and his favorite moments at the Met.

MetOpera Database has every Metropolitan Opera performance since 1883!

The Book Of My Lives by Aleksandar Hemon

Hyacinth Persad, Mid-Manhattan, Popular Library — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 06:45:35 -0400

I recently caught the end of an NPR program that hosted the author Aleksandar Hemon. Upon hearing the gentle sound of his voice on the radio speaking about his newest and first work of non-fiction, The Book of My Lives, I immediately placed it on reserve. When the book arrived and I saw the cover art, there was a picture of what Hemon describes as a blue alien, and though still prepared to read the book, I also kept hoping that it was not going to be a book of essays that included science fiction.

I was relieved that I didn't get to any part of the book that hinted at science fiction. Near the end of this easy-to-read-in-one-sitting book of essays Hemon makes reference to the blue alien, which his very young daughter created as a fictional sibling.

Here are reviews of this book. Beyond that, Hemon in this book of essays, uses the terms interiority—a sense of belonging which he felt in Sarajevo, and exteriority, the sense of alienation he first felt in Chicago after having arrived there on an International Visitors Program. This is, however, not the only instance of Hemon using interiority/exteriority as a theme—it frames all of the essays in this book. An instance of this was when he was stuck in traffic with his wife and their lives were falling apart. Hemon incisively conveys to the reader, that the world-outside-his-car couldn't possibly know what was going on inside-the-car.

Hemon situates himself, members of his family and friends in whatever-was-going-on in their lives, and because of this inherence, the reader gets to know without having to read a history book, for example, about the '90s war in Bosnia. Or, the reader gets a feel for what it is to be a writer in new surroundings by making him/herself feel at home, simply by obtaining a barber, and a butcher—he had his own barber and butcher in a place he loved, Sarajevo. This may be invaluable advice for would-be writers of personal essays, or just writers. See my previous blog, The Art Of The Personal Essay with Charles Salzberg for additional personal essay-writing suggestions.

Aleksandar Hemon is the author of the following works of fiction: The Question of Bruno, Nowhere Man, The Lazurus Project, and Love and Obstacles.

Booktalking "Human Footprint" by Ellen Kirk

Miranda J. McDermott, Grand Concourse — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 06:30:25 -0400

People may not be aware of how much they eat, wear, buy and throw out in their lifetimes. This book brings in the numbers.

In your lifetime, you will drive 627,000 miles in a car, eat enough bread to equal your body weight every three years, take 28,433 showers, and eat 12,888 oranges. You will spend $52,972 on clothes, and you will likely own 12 cars.

Americans throw away 694 plastic bottles every second. Be a part of the solution: recycle plastic bottles, newspapers and aluminum cans.

People can also go clothes shopping at thrift stores, buy products in larger containers to minimize waste, and not waste food that will end up in landfills. They can buy energy-efficient light bulbs.

Human Footprint: Everything You Will Eat, Use, Wear, Buy, and Throw Out in Your Lifetime by Ellen Kirk, 2011

I am a naturalist. I enjoy many trail rides each year in Pelham Bay Park, and the litter we observe there is simply a detraction from nature's beauty. Preserving the Earth for ourselves and future generations is an attractive proposition.

An Employer's Guide to Equal Pay

Magdalene Chan, Science, Industry and Business Library — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 07:23:38 -0400

In addressing the Equal Pay Gap, the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor recently released two guides on Equal Pay, A guide to Women's Equal Pay Rights and An Employer's Guide to Equal Pay. These guides are also published in four additional languages: Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese and French, to meet the diverse needs of today's workforce.

The second guide, An Employer's Guide to Equal Pay breaks down the five major federal laws addressing equal pay and compensation. It also highlights tips for employers to review pay practices and where to go for help. The following information is excerpted from this guide.

Major Laws Affecting Equal Pay

There are five major federal laws addressing equal pay and compensation.

Under the Equal Pay Act, all employers must pay equal wages to women and men in the same establishment for performing substantially equal work.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) prohibits employers with at least 15 workers from discriminating against their employees on the basis of their race, color, religion, sex or national origin in all terms and conditions of their employment, including pay. Both the Equal Pay Act and Title VII are enforced by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 clarifies that each paycheck containing discriminatory compensation is actionable under Title VII.
Executive Order 11246 prohibits federal contractors, federally-assisted construction contractors and subcontractors from discriminating in employment decisions, including compensation, on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, when these entities' contracts or subcontracts exceed $10,000.
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) protects the rights of most private sector employees to join together, with or without a union, to improve their wages and working conditions.

Reviewing Your Pay Practices

Listen to what your managers and employees are saying.
Look at whether and how you monitor your pay practices.
Increase transparency in compensation:

You may want to consider an open pay policy. An open pay policy allows workers to know how much their colleagues are earning. Such a policy can stop speculation about pay—workers will know they are being paid fairly.
Make it clear that top performers are rewarded, which creates an incentive to work harder.
Stop meritless complaints about unequal pay.
Identify pay disparities so they can be fixed.

There is no one correct way to conduct an appropriate evaluation of compensation practices for potential discrimination. Achieving legal compliance and a truly fair and equitable compensation system cannot be reduced to a checklist. You can obtain further compliance assistance from the resources listed below.

For more information on Equal Pay, please visit Job Search Central at 188 Madison Avenue and 34th Street.

Where the Hell is Hell? A Look at the Underworld

Raymond Pun, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, General Research Division — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 06:58:27 -0400

The Ancient Greeks believed it. Christians believe it. So do Muslims, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Shintos, Sikhs, Mayans, Mormons, Witches, and few other spiritual groups.

Regardless of their spiritual differences and outlooks, they all believe that after life, there is a special place reserved for people that harm others or indulge in their own "sins" without remorse or repentance; thus their souls deserve this special invitation to hell or somewhere dark, agonizing and unpleasant in a state of foreverness or eternal damnation.

What's intriguing about hell is that it is beyond a theological or metaphysical debate: the history of the study of hell (known as eschatology) makes the topic even more fascinating. We know for sure that hell is a place that no one wants to go to after life but can we avoid going there anyway?

Many spiritual groups as mentioned above believe so. They all recommend common deeds, creeds or steps that one should take when they are still alive to avoid the abyss like be kind to your neighbors, do not murder, steal and lie, etc. These values are important to the groups and to those want to avoid hell at all cost. Some believe that hell is below "earth" or where we are positioned while others believe that "earth" is actually our "hell."

What's also interesting is the number of classics and writings alluding to the underworld when the writers have never visited there before:

"Hell is empty and all the devils are here" from The Tempest by William Shakespeare: numerous references of hell including Hamlet, Macbeth and others.
17th century English Poet John Milton wrote Paradise Lost, a epic poem in blank verse that focused on the Biblical story of Adam, Eve and Satan.
In Ancient Greek mythology, the Ancient Greeks believed in Hades, brother of Zeus who is the Father of Gods. Hades ruled the underworld with an iron fist.
In the Christian Theology, the fallen angel Lucifer or known as the morning star, is referenced several times in the Bible. Lucifer, or known as Satan was cast out of heaven because of his evil nature.
A Western Classic: The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri is a 14th century epic poem from Italy that explores life in hell through literary metaphors.

It is obvious that we can't really "test" out the theory of hell since nobody has returned from there to testify its existence or ambience but based on several narratives and surveys from people who have "experienced" hell through a mystical encounter or vision, we can at least visualize what hell could look or feel like. Many have claimed that evil spirits, demons, and ghosts lurk in hell and from time to time, they enter our world and haunt us when we are awake or asleep—known as incubus (male demon seducing women) or succubus (female demon seducing men).

In hell, Lucifer also known as Satan or the Devil rules over this fiery kingdom with his infamous trident and notorious tail and hooves.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not referring to that experience where you had to deal with your terrible boss, ex or in-law that caused great mental anguish as if you are actually experiencing or living in "hell."

What I'm referring to is the existential experience that some have testified about their metaphysical state in the underworld: "I was horrified as I heard the screams of an untold multitude of people crying out in torment. It was absolutely deafening. The terror-filled screams seemed to go right through me, penetrating my very being. I once heard about a television special where a news reporter spent the night in prison just to experience prison life firsthand. The prisoners were crying, moaning and yelling all night long. He stated that he couldn't sleep because of all the noise. This place where I now stood was far, far worse..." p. 8 From 23 Minutes in Hell by Bill Wiese.

We also have a book discussion program on themes of world religion and literature for the summer. You are welcome to sign up for them and join us to discuss the eschatological symbols in these literatures and what they mean to you.

As Mark Twain puts it eloquently, "Go to Heaven for the Climate; Hell for the Company."

Peruse our Digital Gallery for images of Heaven and Hell
See here for resources on the study of Heaven and Hell
We also have films and movies about the afterlife and afterworld or simply horror movies
Read about the origins of New York's Hellish place names: Hell's Kitchen
See here for resources on religions from around the world at NYPL

What a Woman Can Do With a Camera: The Photography of Alice Austen

Rosa Caballero-Li, AskNYPL — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:43:28 -0400

I've always been partial to this particular photograph, there's just something about the girl's pose and smile, that draws one in. This image was taken by Staten Island native Alice Austen (March 17, 1866 – June 9, 1952) who captured everyday life with her camera during the late 1800s and early 1900s in New York City.

You can see Alice's photos of messenger boys, street sweepers, organ grinders, and peddlers in the Digital Gallery.

Growing up on Staten Island Alice learned to use a camera at the age of ten; recognizing her talent, her family even turned a storage closet into a darkroom for her. In her lifetime Alice took thousands of photographs. Amongst her favorite subjects were her friends and family, whom she photographed in her home Clear Comfort. She also took her cameras on 22 trips abroad. Her work can also be viewed online at aliceausten.org. The stock market crash of 1929 left Alice in dire financial straits, by 1945 she lost her family's estate and sold her last possessions for $600.00. The one thing she could not part with? Her photographs, she gave these to a friend from The Staten Island Historical Society.

In 1950 Alice was admitted to the New York City Farm Colony, a poor house in Staten Island. That was the same year that historical writer Oliver Jensen became interested in her work. He would go on to publish her photographs in the book The Revolt of American Women; A Pictorial History of the Century of Change from Bloomers to Bikinis-from Feminism to Freud and in Life and Holiday magazine. The proceeds from the sales of her photographs allowed Alice to spend the rest of her days in a private nursing home.

You can learn more about her life in Alice's World: The Life and Photography of An American Original by Ann Novotny. You can also visit her home Clear Comfort (a National Historic Landmark). The house was saved from demolition and restored by the Friends of Alice Austen House in the 1960s and is now a museum.

Alice was not the only female photographer in NYC at the turn of the 19th century. And while Alice herself was independently wealthy for most of her life photography was a viable profession for women, as illustrated by a Ladies Home Journal article published in 1898 titled: "What a Woman Can Do With a Camera" and "A Series of Beautiful Photographs Showing what American Women Have Done With the Camera," published in 1901.

Amongst the women profiled are Zaida Ben-Yusuf, Jessie Tarbox Beals, and Gertrude Käsebier. All three had studios in New York City and were well known for their work.

Related Books:

Zaida Ben-Yusuf: New York Portrait Photographer by Frank H. Goodyear III.
Buffalo Bill's Wild West Warriors: A Photographic History by Gertrude Käsebier by Michelle Delaney.
Gertrude Käsebier: The Photographer and Her Photographs by Barbara L. Michaels.
Jessie Tarbox Beals, First Woman News Photographer by Alexander Alland, Sr.

Sources:

Alice Austen House (2012). "Her Life." Retrieved from aliceausten.org/her-life
Corinne, Tee A. "Alice Austen." Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered History in America. Ed. Marc Stein. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2004. Biography In Context. Web. 22 Apr. 2013
HILTON K. "E. Alice Austen Photographed Earlier Gracious Days of S.I." New York Times (1923-Current file): 39. Apr 09 1976. ProQuest. Web. 22 Apr. 2013.
The New, York T. "Old Friends Honor Miss Alice Austen." New York Times (1923-Current file): 19. Oct 08 1951. ProQuest. Web. 22 Apr. 2013

Booktalking "Side by Side/Lado a lado" by Monica Brown

Miranda J. McDermott, Grand Concourse — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:04:54 -0400

Dolores came from a privileged family, and she grew up to be a teacher. Cesar's family were migrant laborers and they worked under harsh conditions. One day, the two met, and they agreed to work together for better living and working conditions for farm employees. They organized the workers and urged them to fight for justice.

Dolores and Cesar convinced people to boycott buying grapes from California because growers utilized pesticides that made the workers sick. This led to workers getting safer working conditions, and the grapes were also healthier for people to consume. They also were involved with a 340-mile march to demand better living wages for workers. On April 10, Dolores' birthday, the workers won their battle! Their pay increased due to their perseverance and passion.

Dolores and Cesar did not have much money, and they both had many mouths to feed, but they believed in their cause. They wanted to make the lives of workers better. Cesar even went on a hunger strike for 36 days to demand better working conditions for the people. Dolores galvanized the workers to believe that change was possible.

For thirty years, Dolores and Cesar worked together. They supported the passing of the Immigration Act of 1986 to help immigrants become US citizens. Unfortunately, Cesar died in 1993, but Dolores continued working for the betterment of the people.

Side by Side: the Story of Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez/Lado a lado: la historia de Dolores Huerta y Cesar Chavez by Monica Brown, 2010

I loved the fact that the book was bilingual. We have many customers coming into the library requesting English/Spanish bilingual books. I also liked the way that the book alternately talked about Cesar Chavez's and Dolores Huerta's accomplishments. The picture book was beautifully illustrated, and it was inspiring.

Find New York Times Bestsellers at NYPL - April 21st, 2013

Adriana Blancarte-Hayward, New Dorp Library — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:00:08 -0400

For the week of April 21, 2013 we have hardcover fiction, hardcover non-fiction, and hardcover advice & misc..

If you have an iPhone, iPad or Android phone, download our free app! Use it with your library card/username and pin.

Week of April 21, 2013

Hardcover Fiction

Starting Now, by Debbie Macomber
Manuscript Found In Accra, by Paulo Coelho
Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson
The Burgess Boys, by Elizabeth Strout
Six Years, by Harlan Coben

Hardcover Nonfiction

Lean In, by Sheryl Sandberg with Nell Scovell
Gulp, by Mary Roach
Carry On, Warrior, by Glennon Doyle Melton
The Great Deformation, by David Stockman
Secrets Of Silicon Valley, by Deborah Perry Piscione

Hardcover Advice & Misc.

It's All Good, by Gwyneth Paltrow and Julia Turshen
The FastDiet, by Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer
Daring Greatly, by Brené Brown
Life Code, by Phil McGraw
The Tapping Solution, by Nick Ortner

The Woolworth Building: The Cathedral of Commerce

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:11:32 -0400

April 24th sees the one hundredth anniversary of the opening of the Woolworth Building, at 233 Broadway. In 1913 the Woolworth Building was the tallest inhabited building in the world, and would remain so until the opening of the Chrysler Building, in 1929. The Milstein Division's collections include a series of photographs, taken by the photographer Irving Underhill, that chart the building's construction. This post looks at those photographs, and at the man who commissioned the building's construction, Frank W. Woolworth, and its architect, Cass Gilbert.

The term skyscraper, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, had been around for years before it was used to describe a "high building of many stories, esp. one of those characteristic of American cities." (O.E.D.) It was used to describe tall men, race horses, sailing ships, tall hats, big hits in baseball, and even tall stories. Seemingly anything deemed lofty in stature. Synonymous with cities in the United States, the early leaders in the development of the skyscraper was the city of Chicago. Between 1880 and 1900 a number of skyscrapers were built there, amongst them the first skyscraper, commonly thought to be William Le Baron Jenney's ten-story Home Insurance Building.

Iron and then steel frames, made the construction of very tall buildings possible, negating the necessity of the thick masonry walls of earlier buildings. With a sturdy, yet light steel frame buildings could be strong, tall, and elegant. It also meant that with relatively thin walls, and increased height a property developer might generate maximum profit from a small area of very expensive real estate. Technology at the end of the 19th century meant that skyscrapers could now be built as high as proportion would allow.

The first skyscraper in New York City was the Tower Building (Bradford Gilbert), built in 1889. More followed, including famously, the Flat Iron Building (1903), the Singer Tower (1908), and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower (1909). The Woolworth Building (1913) was the last of the great early skyscrapers built before the First World War. Construction of these tall buildings would not fully resume until the 1920s, with the golden age of skyscrapers, culminating in the construction of the Chrysler Building, and the 102-story Empire State Building (1931).

Frank Winfield Woolworth (1854-1919)

It seems appropriate that a man like F.W. Woolworth should be behind the construction of the Woolworth Building. He was keenly aware of the importance of image and brand, and he already knew where to locate a building for full effect. He had supreme business acumen, and appreciated architecture.

Woolworth was born in 1854, in the small town of Rodman, New York. He made his name with the Woolworth's chain of stores, originally selling items at 5 and 10 cents each. Woolworth started out working for other men, most significantly, William Harvey Moore, at his store Augsbury & Moore. In the fall of 1878, Moore's store in Watertown, New York had a 5-cent counter, laden with goods pre-priced at 5 cents. This was not a new idea, but was still something of an innovation. Instead of asking the store clerk to weigh out items, and then price accordingly, as was usual, the customer helped themselves. It was quick, convenient, had a high turnover, and required fewer store clerks to operate. Woolworth realized that what worked for one counter, could work for a whole store. In 1878 he borrowed $300 and opened "The Great Five Cent Store," in Utica, New York.

The store in Utica failed. Undeterred Woolworth opened a 5 and 10-cents store, on June 6, 1879, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The shelves were stocked with attractive, but inexpensive everyday objects—pencils, red napkins, coal shovels, cake tins, boot blacking, police whistles—products designed to catch the eye, but not dent the pocket book, all priced at either 5 or 10 cents. The store was a success. Woolworth attributed this in part to "the thriftiness of the Pennsylvania Dutch." He opened other stores. Some failed, others, like one in Scranton opened in 1880, did not. As more stores opened, Woolworth developed a formula for identifying the best place to locate his businesses: a small town with a prosperous economy, on a busy high street, and in the commercial part of that town. Woolworth's stores caught on, and by 1910 F.W. Woolworth and Company had nearly three hundred Five and Ten Cent Stores, including branches on the up market Ladies Mile, around 5th and 6th Avenue, in Manhattan, and seven branches in the United Kingdom.

Woolworth's colleagues when he worked for William Harvey Moore described him as a poor salesman. He was, however, particularly good at buying, and made a number of trips to Europe, looking for goods to sell in his shops, beginning in the 1890s. While in Europe, Woolworth became enamored of the architecture he saw there. Gail Fenske has noted that "the monumentality and grandeur of Paris's boulevards [...] made a forceful; impression on Woolworth," especially Aristide Boucicaut's luxury superstore, Le Bon Marché (1867) designed by Louis Auguste Boileau, and the Palais Garnier (1861-1875), home of the Paris Opéra, designed by Charles Garnier—Woolworth was a keen opera buff. He was also tremendously impressed by the Houses of Parliament in London. He wondered at the cost of the building, whose Gothic exterior would influence the design of his own Woolworth Building.

Woolworth moved his operations to New York in 1888, and by the early 1900s was a very successful businessman. Originally with offices in the Sun Building, 280 Broadway, Woolworth decided to build his own headquarters. He may have got the idea to build a skyscraper watching the construction of the Singer Building, built in 1908 at 149 Broadway, through the window of his office in the Sun building. Woolworth himself said that he was given the idea to build a skyscraper when visiting Europe, where he was frequently asked about the Singer Building. He realized that the Singer Company had built not just a headquarters, but an international talking point. In 1908 Woolworth began talks with the Irving National Bank regarding the construction of a modest office building to house both companies' headquarters, which would eventually evolve into the world's tallest skyscraper, the Woolworth Building. Beginning in 1910 Woolworth began to take measures to get the building constructed, and within a few months had selected and bought a site, arranged the financing of the project, and chosen an architect.

Woolworth decided to construct his building on a block fronting 229 through 235 Broadway, one of New York's premier shopping thoroughfares, near to City Hall Park, opposite the Post Office. 229 previously had been the site of the American Hotel (1825-1866), managed in the 1830s by William B. Cozzens, a former Tammany Hall politico. The hotel was noted for its succulent dinners, with champagne as cheap and plentiful "as the Croton," and for the "fast young men" who stayed their, and lit their cigars with "dollar bank bills" (New York Times, April 6, 1866). 235 Broadway, was between 1821 and 1836 the home of Philip Hone, Mayor of New York (1826), and in 1851, included the office of The Dagguerran Journal, an early periodical dedicated to the art of photography. The block on which Woolworth built his skyscraper reportedly cost him half of the $13.5 million he paid for the entire project, which he famously paid in cash.

With City government growing, and 500,000 people a day streaming across the Brooklyn Bridge on their way to Manhattan, Woolworth saw the commercial potential of the skyscraper's location, with the building acting as a "giant signboard," advertising the greatness of his company, and as a way to make money, leasing floors to other companies, which would in turn raise the value of his real estate. On August 10, 1912, speaking to the Dry Goods Reporter, Woolworth said

My idea was purely commercial. I saw possibilities of making this the greatest income producing property in which I could invest my money. Cass Gilbert (1859-1934)

Cass Gilbert was born in Zanesville, Ohio, in 1859. His father was a surveyor for the United States Coast Survey. In 1864 the Gilbert family moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, where, in 1876, Cass began work at the office of local architect Abraham M. Radcliffe. He left Radcliffe's firm in 1878, to enroll in the architecture program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. On graduation, in 1880 he visited Europe, to study and travel. On his return, Gilbert went work for the firm McKim, Mead & White, who had or were to design many New York landmarks, including Penn Station (1910, razed 1963), the Morgan Library & Museum (1900-06), Washington Arch (1892), and Brooklyn Museum (1895). McKim, Mead & White were exponents of an architectural style known as Beaux-Arts, which filtered classical Greek and Roman styles through the Parisian school École des Beaux-Arts, and of the City Beautiful Movement, a North American style of architecture and city planning that focused on beauty and monumental grandeur.

Gilbert, who had been Stanford White's assistant, returned to St. Paul in 1882, to set up an office with fellow architect James Knox Taylor. Gilbert and Knox completed a number of commissions together in Minnesota, including the Endicott building, which gained the architects a national reputation. In 1898 Gilbert moved his office to New York. In 1902 he received his first big commission, from the Office of the Supervising Architect, one James Knox Taylor, to build the U.S. Custom House, at 1 Bowling Green. Completed in 1907, the building combined Beaux-Arts and the City Beautiful Movement to great effect, and cemented Gilbert's reputation in New York.

When the two men met, in 1910 to discuss the contract to design a skyscraper, Woolworth was impressed by Gilbert's up front manner. At their meeting, the architect drew a sketch for the Woolworth Building, and jotted down some costs next to it. Typically architects at the time would agree to contracts before drawings were made. Gilbert realized that potential clients would be impressed by drawings, and would be more likely to award contracts to an architect who invested time and effort in that process before money was discussed.

Woolworth had already commissioned the construction of a number of buildings, including his mansion at 990 Fifth Avenue (1901-1927), and the impressive North Queen Street Woolworth store, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania (1901), that included 5 floors of office space and a theater above the store itself. Woolworth awarded the contract to Cass Gilbert. The photograph on the left, taken in 1931, is from the Library of Congress digital collections.

Construction

Originally Woolworth had intended to build a modest bank and office building for his company and his co-sponsors the Irving National Bank, but as the project went on, and the building was finished, it had grown in scope, and become the tallest occupied building in the world. Soon after it was completed Woolworth was to buy the Irving National Banks share of the skyscraper, reducing the bank's status to that of tenant.

The contract for constructing the Woolworth Building was awarded to the Thompson-Starrett Company, headed by Louis J. Horowitz. The company was in operation from 1899 until 1968, and was, along with the George A. Fuller Company, a pioneer in the construction of early skyscrapers in New York City. Thompson-Starrett's list of construction projects includes numerous historic buildings; the Equitable Building in Manhattan (1915), the former General Motors Building in Detroit (1923), the American Stock Exchange (1930), the City of New York Municipal Building (1914), Union Station, Washington, D.C. (1907), and the New York World's Fair New York State Pavilion (1964).

Construction began April, 1910, with the demolition of existing buildings on the site, and by August 26, 1911, the building's foundations were complete. Construction of the skyscraper's steel frame began August 15, 1911, and rose at the rate of 1½ stories a week, closely followed by the "brick layers attaching terra cotta cladding." By April 6, 1912, the steel frame had reached the thirtieth floor, the top of the main block, and the forty-seventh storey of the main tower by May 30. The topping out ceremony took place, as the last rivet was driven into the summit of the building on July 1, 1912. The building was completed, in record time, by April 1913. Gilbert's Custom House had taken 6 years to build. (Fenske, 186)

As the skyscraper went up New York newspapers (and hundreds nationwide) provided running commentaries on the building's ascent up and beyond the city's skyline. Not yet built, Woolworth's building had captured the public's attention, and was already generating enormous publicity. Woolworth decided to record the building's construction for posterity. He employed a commercial photographer, Irving Underhill, who had his studio on the corner of Broadway and Park Place, opposite the site, to document at regular intervals, the construction of the building. Underhill's photographs were sent out to Woolworth's stores all over the country, and can be seen in the gallery below.

Underhill's photographs below, views of City Hall Park and Broadway South, were taken in 1908 (top) and 1913 (bottom), and show the area before and after the construction of the Woolworth Building. The skyscraper dominates the landscape, and is so tall that the second photograph's horizon appears considerably lower than in Underhill's 1908 picture, an effort required to squeeze the building into the photograph's frame.

The opening ceremony, held by Woolworth, in Cass Gilbert's honor, took place on April 24, 1913. President Woodrow Wilson pressed a button in the Whitehouse and 80,000 light bulbs came to life, illuminating the skyscraper, and there was a banquet on the 27th floor, attended by 900 guests.

The building

A Landmark Preservation Commission report of 1983 describes the Woolworth Building as a 60-story skyscraper that rises 792 feet above street-level. It occupies the entire block front along Broadway, between Barclay Street and Park Place, and features a 30-story tower built on a 30-story base. Its construction consists of a steel frame, designed by engineer Gunvald Aus, and covered with masonry and Atlantic terra cotta, and features carving and decorative motifs that are Gothic in inspiration.

In 1913, superlatives and numbers abounded. The Wall Street Journal, from April 26, 1913, captures the mood, describing the building's vital statistics in detail:

By its combination of Italian, French and Renaissance architecture with Gothic steeple, in creamy white stone and terra cotta, the result is a building unique and one of the most beautiful in the world. […] The structure contains over 17,000,000 bricks, 24,000 tons of steel girders, 29 elevators, 13,200,000 cubic feet of space […], 200 feet higher than the Great Pyramid, […] fireproof and smoke-proof stairs […] enough to climb a mountain 4,000 feet high […] 87 miles of electrical wiring […] lamps [that] would light forty miles of waterfront around Manhattan, […] six 2,500 horsepower boilers [that] could lift 100 Statues of Liberty. It weighs 206,000,000 pounds at the caissons […] [and] can withstand wind speeds of 25 miles an hour. […] elevator shafts total two miles, […] there are 48 miles of plumbing, 53,000 pounds of bronze and iron hardware, 3,000 hollow steel doors, 12 miles of marble trim, 12 miles of slate base, 383,325 pounds of red lead, 50,000 cubic yards of sand, 15,000 yards of broken stone, 7,500 tons of terra cotta, 28,000 tons of hollow tile, […] [and [no] wood." And enough glass to cover Union Square.

It was built with bracing to protect against high winds, of a type that had previously been used in the construction of bridges. It has its own power plant (a first), barber shop, restaurant, doctor's office, and swimming pool. Gilbert designed the building in a U-shape, so that every office had access to daylight through one of 2,843 windows, with corridors running through the middle of each floor. The F. W. Woolworth Company, including Woolworth's own marble lined office, located on the 24th floor, occupied 1 ½ floors of the skyscraper until the company sold the building in 1998.

Gilbert included a three-storey high grand arcade entrance, with vaulted ceilings, and glass mosaic windows, and walls and floors made of marble imported from Greece and Italy. Frescos titled 'Commerce' and 'Labor', and a dozen marble busts, including one each of Gilbert and Woolworth adorned the lobby. The grand scale of the building, combined with its Gothic style, led clergyman Dr. S. Parkes Cadman, who attended the opening ceremony, to famously describe the building as "the cathedral of commerce."

The Woolworth Building met with universal acclaim. Architecture critic Montgomery Schuyler wrote the text for a brochure privately printed by Woolworth, titled The Woolworth Building that praised the its 'gracious shape,' and labeled it "an ornament of the city." Julian Huxley, the English scientist, described the Woolworth building as "a fairy story, gigantically and triumphantly come to life." French art historian Andre Michel called it "an epoch making work," and Japanese architect Matusnosuke Moriyama told the New York Times that "worlds opinion of American architecture will be different now." (Landmark Preservation Commission, 1983).

It should be noted that although Dr. Cadman popularized the name, the first recorded instance of the Woolworth Building being dubbed the Cathedral of Commerce appears in the New York Times, April 27, 1913. Alan Francis, an English visitor to New York, interviewed in a peice for the New York Times, described the Woolworth Building as "a source of both astonishment and inspiration," though he was appalled by "the rubbish which is heaped about it." Not withstanding Francis's displeasure at the trash littered streets surrounding the building, he did go on to say "Perhaps the phrase which best expresses it is that it appears to be a cathedral of commerce." (SM12)

Reader's Den: A Visit From the Goon Squad - Week 3

Melissa Scheurer, Mid-Manhattan Library — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 06:44:39 -0400

Welcome back to the Reader’s Den. In the early chapters of A Visit from the Goon Squad we meet Bennie Salazar. In his middle age Bennie is divorced, has a son and works as a record company executive. But Bennie fondly remembers his days playing bass in a punk rock band.

While Bennie and his bandmates are fictional, the bands they listened to made real music. You can borrow punk rock music CDs by the Dead Kennedys, the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, the Clash and Blondie.

For more music featured in the book, check out the website, Small Demons. It’s a neat site that connects books, music, people, places and events. You can even listen to a preview of the songs.

The punk movement was more than just the music. Art, fashion, film and books all played a part in defining the subculture. In New York, the magazine Punk helped bring all the aspects together. The Best of Punk Magazine, an anthology of interviews, photos, cartoons, articles and more from the magazine recently hit the stands. Reserve your copy today!

Enough about the music. Let's talk about the book.

Redemption seems to be a theme. Do any of the characters seek it? Do they find it?

Did you like or dislike the structure of the book? How did the shifting perspectives affect your perception of the characters?

"This is reality, right? You don't look good anymore twenty years later, especially with half your guts removed. Time's a goon, right?" says Bosco (p. 96). Do you think the characters perceive Time the same way?

Looking forward to reading your comments!

A Guide to Women's Equal Pay Rights

Magdalene Chan, Science, Industry and Business Library — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 06:41:32 -0400

The Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor recently released two guides on Equal Pay, A Guide to Women’s Equal Pay Rights and An Employer’s Guide to Equal Pay. These guides are also published in four additional languages: Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese and French, to meet the diverse needs of today’s workforce.

A Guide to Women's Equal Pay Rights is designed to help working women understand their rights under certain laws that govern equal pay and compenstion. The following information is excerpted from this guide.

Know Your Rights

Women are legally entitled to equal employment opportunities, including the right to earn a paycheck that is free from unlawful bias, and, in many cases, the right to discuss their pay with colleagues.

What are my equal pay and compensation rights under federal law?

Men and women must be paid equal wages if they perform substantially the same work under the Equal Pay Act.
Your employer cannot discriminate against you on the basis of your race, color, religion, sex or national origin in any terms or conditions of your employment, including compensation, hours and benefits.
If you have received an unfair paycheck within the last 180 days, you can file discrimination charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
If you work for a federal contractor, Executive Order (EO) 11246 prohibits your employer from discriminating in employment decisions, including compensation, on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin
Most private sector employees have the right to join together, with or without a union, to improve their wages and working conditions under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

What can you do if you think you’re experiencing compensation discrimination?

Try to resolve the situation informally, such as meeting with your supervisor to discuss your concern.
Educate yourself about your rights
Ensure that you keep accurate records.
Check with your state or local agency that administers state or local anti-discrimination laws.
Obtain legal assistance, if necessary.

You can obtain further assistance from the resources below:

For more information on women's equal pay rights, please visit Job Search Central at 188 Madison Avenue and 34th Street.