Spring 2012 VIP Reception - Lunch Hour

Drawing on materials from across the Library’s collections, this major exhibition tells the story of the clamor and chaos of lunchtime in New York, a defining feature of the city for more than 150 years. Work-obsessed, time-obsessed, and in love with ingenious new ways to make money, New York City reinvented lunch in its own image. The exhibition focuses on different types of lunchtime experiences, from early power brokers inventing what they didn’t yet call the “power lunch” to local charities establishing a three-cent school lunch to visitors with guidebooks thronging the Times Square Automat. Highlights include caricatures from the walls of Sardi’s, selections from NYPL’s world-renowned menu and cookbook collections, and a restored section of an original Automat.