The exhibition Eminent Domain: Contemporary Photography and the City features the work of five contemporary New York–based photographers drawn primarily from new acquisitions in the Photography Collection. Thomas Holton’s The Lams of Ludlow Street is an empathetic account of one family’s daily life in Chinatown and a photographer’s personal quest to better understand his own heritage. Bettina Johae’s borough edges,nyc is a digital project exploring the edges of the city's five boroughs, which the photographer physically traversed as a way of “remapping” the supposedly well-known city. In Window, Reiner Leist used a 19th-century camera to photograph the view from his 26th-floor apartment on Eighth Avenue overlooking downtown Manhattan. At different times on almost every day during the past decade, Leist captured a slice of Manhattan that includes One Penn Plaza, Madison Square Garden, and, until September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center towers. Over the same period of time, Zoe Leonard tracked changes and disappearances occurring on the Lower East Side as a result of the city’s economic transformation; her Analogue also serves as both elegy and homage to a long-standing tradition of documentary photography. In his series Untitled/This is just to say, Ethan Levitas photographs individual train cars and their passengers along the elevated lines of the New York City subway, capturing unexpected moments of connection and contradiction in the most obvious and overlooked of public spaces. Levitas’s project, like all of the works in Eminent Domain, deals with the life of the city in terms of passage (of seasons and time, people and place) and exchange (between individual and collective, interior and exterior). Turning on the nature of photography itself (which always complicates the relationship between private and public property), the works in the exhibition intersect and resonate with current concerns about the reorganization of urban space, and its public use, in New York City. A publication accompanying the exhibition will include written meditations on these themes by the Bronx-born artist Glenn Ligon, who is known for his multi-media explorations of critical issues in contemporary culture.


Acquisition of works for this exhibition was made possible through the Estate of Leroy A. Moses, which provided funds to purchase photographs that enhance the Library’s collection of New York City views from 1950 to the present day.


Support for this exhibition has been provided by the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc., and by an anonymous contribution in honor of Elizabeth Rohatyn.

Additional support has been provided by The L Magazine, the exhibition's Media Sponsor.

Support for The New York Public Library’s Exhibitions Program has been provided by Celeste Bartos, Mahnaz I. and Adam Bartos, Jonathan Altman, and Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III.

The Library is honored to safeguard a fair copy (clean, full-text version without corrections or alterations) of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson’s hand. In the days immediately following ratification on July 4, 1776, Jefferson made several copies of the text that had been submitted to the Continental Congress, underlining the passages to which changes had been made. The Library’s copy is one of two known to survive intact. It is shown together with the first Philadelphia printing and the first New York printing of the final version issued by Congress. These versions are complemented by the earliest newspaper printings; the second official version ordered by Congress, published by a woman printer in Baltimore; and a letter from Franklin to Washington mentioning that the Declaration was being drafted. In addition to the exhibition, the 14-minute film We Hold These Truths …, a dramatic reading of the Declaration of Independence, will be shown continuously in the South Court Visitors’ Center. Admission is free.

Special Display: The first substantial printed book in the West is the royal-folio two-volume Bible on display, comprising nearly 1,300 pages and printed in Mainz on the central Rhine by Johann Gutenberg (ca. 1390s–1468) in the 1450s. Probably completed between March and November 1455, when Gutenberg’s bankruptcy deprived him of his printing establishment, the Bible epitomizes Gutenberg’s triumph, arguably the greatest achievement of the second millennium. Over possibly twenty or more years, at Mainz and perhaps at Strasbourg, he succeeded in developing printing from movable type in the West.

Perhaps some 180 copies of the Gutenberg Bible were originally produced, including about 45 on vellum. Of these, 48 integral copies survive, including eleven on vellum. The Lenox copy on display, printed on paper, is the first Gutenberg Bible to come to the United States, in 1847. Its arrival is the stuff of romantic national folklore. James Lenox’s European agent issued instructions for New York that the officers at the Customs House were to remove their hats on seeing it: the privilege of viewing a Gutenberg Bible is vouchsafed to few.

The REAL Winnie-the-Pooh won't be found on a video, in a movie, on a T-shirt or a lunchbox. Since 1987, the REAL Pooh and four of his best friends--Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga, and Tigger--have been living at The New York Public Library.

Long before Walt Disney turned Pooh and his pals into movie stars, Christopher Robin Milne, a very real little boy living in England, received a small stuffed bear on his first birthday. He named him Edward Bear (later renamed Winnie-the-Pooh). Following Edward came the rest of the stuffed animals, which Christopher loved and played with throughout his childhood.

One day, Christopher's father, A.A. Milne, and an artist named Ernest H. Shepard, decided that these animals, and two other imaginary friends, Owl and Rabbit, would make fine characters in a bedtime story. From that day on, Pooh and his friends have had many fanciful adventures, from Piglet's encounter with a Heffalump to Eeyore's loss of his tail. These stories have been embraced by millions of children and adult readers for more than 70 years.

Anyone can visit the real Winnie-the-Pooh and his pals. Every year thousands of children and their parents have come to see them. They have recently moved from their previous home in the Central Children's Room to grand new quarters in the History and Social Science Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Pooh and his friends are as happy as when they lived in the 100 Acre Wood.

This ongoing exhibition consists of large wall panels with photographs, text, objects, and videos illustrating the history and the vast array of collections, services, and users of The New York Public Library's Branch and Research Libraries. The Jill Kupin Rose Gallery was created in 1998 by former New York Public Library Chairman Marshall Rose in memory of his late wife, Jill Kupin Rose.

This adventurous theater for children has been, from their earliest performances at The Living Theater in the sixties through their tours of the Middle East, Asia and the British Isles, to their current performances in New York City and across the United States, profoundly influential artistically and managerially—and has performed for more then five million children! Under the artistic direction of Judith Martin, the company creates a distinctly contemporary theater. Their shows vividly reflect the everyday lives of children. Their performance style is direct, humorous and friendly. Their sets, props and costumes made of brown paper bags, cardboard boxes and household objects. Their shows are a memorable, personal experience for their young audiences. The artistic endeavors of the company have been strongly supported by a dedicated administration. Under the guidance of Managing Director, Judith Liss, The Paper Bag Players have achieved a series of “firsts.” The Paper Bag Players were the first theatre for children to receive a grant from The National Endowment for Arts, to receive an OBIE, to perform at Lincoln Center and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. This exhibit of photos, posters, historic documents, costumes and props, many drawn from the Paper Bag Players Archives, newly acquired by the Billy rose Theatre Division, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. It celebrates the 50th Anniversary of The Paper Bag Players. One of the longest running theaters for children in America, they are still as new, lively and imaginative as the youngest member of their audience.

"Gouaches" is an exhibition of four paintings on paper by the well-known painter Judith Linhares. These vivid and expressive images rendered in lush and brilliant colors depict simple subjects in a magical way. Ms. Linhares free handling of form and content is evident through her sophisticated rendition of space and color. Tom Huhn, the art critic and the Head of the Art History Department at the School of Visual Arts, will join Ms. Linhares for an "Artist Dialogue" on Monday May 19th at 6:30 p.m. on the 6th floor.

"Gouaches" is an exhibition of four paintings on paper by the well-known painter Judith Linhares. These vivid and expressive images rendered in lush and brilliant colors depict simple subjects in a magical way. Ms. Linhares free handling of form and content is evident through her sophisticated rendition of space and color.

“Does She or Doesn’t She?” “Think Different.” “I Want My MTV.” “Melts in Your Mouth, Not in Your Hands.” “Just Do It.” “Got Milk?” “Where’s the Beef?” These slogans are part of the American zeitgeist, but little is known about many of the people who created them—the culturally astute men and women who tapped so successfully into their generations’ desires and fears. This first-of-its-kind exhibition, presented by The One Club and The New York Public Library, shows that the people who created some of the most famous advertisements of the 20th century were as colorful as their slogans—from former spy David Ogilvy to scrappy street fighter George Lois, to tough, hardworking women such as Mary Wells Lawrence, Phyllis Robinson, and Shirley Polykoff, who held their own in the famously male world of 1950s and 1960s Mad Ave. The exhibition highlights the lives and work of dozens of brilliant copywriters and art directors who helped shape American consumption and culture over the past 80 years. The Real Men and Women of Madison Avenue: Their Impact on American Culture features more than 200 advertisements, posters, books, TV commercials, and video and audio interviews that amount to a commercial history of 20th-century America. The majority of the men and women represented have been elected into The One Club’s Creative Hall of Fame.

"Gouaches" is an exhibition of four paintings on paper by the well-known painter Judith Linhares. These vivid and expressive images rendered in lush and brilliant colors depict simple subjects in a magical way. Linhares free handling of form and content is evident through her sophisticated rendition of space and color.

An exhibition for the whole family! To celebrate the 100th anniversary of baseball theme songs, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts presents a tribute to the sport and the musicians who love it, organized around the lyrics -- beginning with a history of the song and its creators. "Take me out with the crowd" focuses on composers who were fans and wrote about the game, among them Charles Ives and William Schuman. "Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack" looks at baseball and promotion via vaudeville and the musical stage, as well as trading cards. "Root for the Home Team" features baseball musicians, among them Jane Jarvis, long-time organist for the New York Mets, and vocalists of the national anthem. The exhibition is based on New York Public Library collections, but includes unique items from the private collection of Andy Strasberg.

In celebration of the 90th birthday of former South African President Nelson Mandela, the Schomburg Center presents a photo exhibition featuring portraits of Mandela taken by internationally acclaimed photographer Peter Magubane. Spanning five decades, Magubane’s images cover important milestones in Mandela’s life as well as major moments in South African history, pre and post-apartheid.