NYC Neighborhoods

It is the beginning of a new calendar year.
A time for reflection.
A time for resolution.
A time for hope.

In this next installment of the Lower East Side Heritage Film Series, we celebrate and reflect on the rebirth of a derelict East Sixth Street tenement building in Alphabet City. Producer and director Josephine Hayes Dean documents the toils and tribulations of its future residents into something that would become a home for their hopes and dreams.

The fairytale of New York City is just as strong for New Yorkers as it is for those who don’t live here: the glittering world of who’s in or out, swanky hotel bars and Hamptons summer houses. It is a world of movers and shakers and large, beautiful apartments that is longingly aspired to as we go about our daily drudgery. The narrative of the fairytale is learned in childhood, from movies and TV, like some Grimm or Charles Perrault story: ambitious nobody moves to Manhattan, meets the right people, makes the right connections and boom, enters the world of New York insiders.

Did you miss CBGB?
I did. Well, I should say I missed it in its heyday.

By the time I landed in New York City, the iconic establishment was just a tired bar living off the fumes of its former glories. Listen, I am certainly glad to have made the pilgrimage a handful of times and experienced it well before John Varvatos moved in, but the energy and congregation of locals that helped cultivate a movement of music that still resonates to this day was long gone. All that remained were the aromatics of misguided booze, beer, and smokes... and, of course, their infamous urinals. So before the tears (of regret or nostalgia) begin to well up, we have a way to relive this vibrant 

The Lower East Side Heritage Film Series is returning to Seward Park Library for its second season. To celebrate, we will project Hester Street from 16mm reels.

The Whispering Column of Jerash sounds very intriguing and mysterious. What does this mean, many will ask. Are you whispering to the column or is the column whispering to you? And, more importantly where exactly is this column located...

Ask NYPL gets a lot of questions about the sidewalk on Library Way. If you haven't seen it before, on your next trip to the main building on Fifth Avenue, be sure to approach from the east and walk along 41st Street. You'll have a perfect view of the building gleaming in the morning sun, and you can stop to read some inspirational quotes about reading, writing, and literature along the way.

Where were you? Uptown, midtown, downtown. Queens, Staten Island, the Bronx. Brooklyn, Manhattan, New Jersey. On the ferry, on the train, in the air, below ground. At the library, at school, at home, at work. Maybe you were somewhere else, and you watched the events unfold from far away on television. 

Nestled on a small tree-lined side street just off Arthur Avenue in "the heart of Little Italy, the Bronx" rests the Belmont Library and Enrico Fermi Cultural Center, proudly celebrating 30 years of service this fall. "What the Hester and Mott Street corner is to Little Italy in Manhattan," wrote the New York Times in 1980, "the Arthur Avenue and East 187th Street corner is to the Italian shopping district in the Bronx. It is a central location." The anachronistic neighborhood radiates with old-world flavor: the yeasty smell of baking semolina bread, savory meats and cheeses, and percolating coffee. "Even if you've never lived there, if 

Devlynn, 16, is a volunteer extraordinaire at Seward Park Library. She is a life-long resident of the Lower East Side and will be a junior this fall at Bronx Science High School. This is her list of must-reads, must-watch, and must-do's for summer 2011.

The General Slocum Disaster occurred on June 15, 1904. This tragedy is much less well known compared to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of March 25, 1911, and the Titanic Disaster of April 15, 1912. Perhaps these two shocking events happening within a year focused people's attention elsewhere. But the aftermath of the sinking of the PS Slocum radically altered the German-American community of the Lower East Side forever ...    

Blue Points, Saddle Rocks, Rockaways, Lynnhavens, Cape Cods, Buzzard Bays, Cotuits, Shrewsburys -- raw on the half shell. Fried oysters, oyster pie, oyster patties, oyster box stew, Oysters Pompadour, Oysters Algonquin, Oysters a la Netherland, a la Newberg, a la Poulette, oysters roasted on toast, broiled in shell, served with cocktail sauce, stewed in milk or cream, fried with bacon, escalloped, fricasseed, and pickled.  If you have spent any time transcribing for NYPL's What’s on the Menu? project, you’ve seen a lot of ways to prepare this humble bivalve.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then those words are priceless to people who cannot see. Verbal imaging is the art of describing pictures, art, and the world for people who are blind or have visual difficulty. For the past few years, Art Beyond Sight/Art Education for the Blind has been conducting art and craft programs at the Andrew Heiskell Library, teaching a variety of techniques to blind and visually impaired people, from sculpting to painting. And through their New York Beyond Sight project, they've been making city landmarks accessible to people who can't visually experience them.

It might be hard to believe, but the historic Fulton Fish Market migrated away from Lower Manhattan more than five years ago.  In our final installment of the 2010-2011 LES Heritage Film Series, we will take a look back at the Fish Market as it was in the 1950s (sans the olfactorial sensations). We'll be casting the rarely seen extended 23 minute reel for all to sea.  All this on our very own scaled down silver screen. (Apologies, as I am sure I have overfished these waters.)

And back by popular demand - to bookend this series - the Seward Park Compilation 

Greenery and flowers, birds singing and warmer temperatures ... it's a perfect time to venture outside into the nearest natural spot to find respite. New York City's parks and natural spaces provide enjoyment for millions of people and habitats for plants and animals, some of them rare or endangered.

When you think of New York City images, the first thing that comes to mind might be a bit different than the scenery in the photo below. 

Zisn Pesach!  In honor of Passover we are pleased to offer the following film on May 3, 2011 at 6:30 p.m. This FREE monthly series held at Seward Park Branch Library will offer documentary and feature films that were shot on location in lower Manhattan on both 16mm and DVD formats.

8th part in the series:

The Biggest Jewish City in the World
(1975, 58 min., 16mm)

"New York, New York, a helluva town. The Bronx is up but the Battery's down." —On the Town

With at least three "Hell" based place names within its boundaries—Hell Gate, Hell's Kitchen, and Hell's Hundred Acres—New York City is indeed a helluva town. But in spite of name and reputation, these places are now far from infernal.

"I hope you are not here because you like to read." It was the opening salvo for my interview with the admissions director at the University of Maryland's Graduate School of Library & Information Services. I don't remember what, or if, I countered. It was 1967.

This post offers information about affordable, subsidized and supportive housing programs in New York City.

The various federal, state and local rules and departments governing non-market housing in New York City can be a difficult maze to navigate: there are some support and advocacy organizations at the bottom of the page that may be able to help you chart your path through the NYC housing universe. Remember you can also visit the information desk at your local library branch for help looking for housing information or applications.

The Kingsbridge Library will soon be moving to a new building and as we start to plan for our move, I can't help but reflect on the long and rich history the Kingsbridge Branch has had through the years.