16mm Film, LIVE from NYPL, The Library After Hours: The Library After Hours: James Baldwin
Location
Join us at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building for the city’s most cerebral happy hour.
While registration for this event has ended, we may have a limited number of tickets available at the door on a first-come, first-served basis. Find out everything The New York Public Library is doing to celebrate James Baldwin's centennial year, including free exhibitions, a walking tour, a book list, and more.
Close out the year with a one-night-only celebration of James Baldwin's life and legacy.
Plan your evening!
All start times approximate.
James Baldwin: Mountain to Fire
(First Floor: Gottesman Hall)
Want to know more about the Library’s Baldwin collections? Kassidi Jones, Assistant Curator of Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books at the Schomburg Center, is here to answer your questions until 9 PM.
Collections Display
(First Floor: Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division)
One-night-only display of photographs, manuscripts, and more curated from the Schomburg Center’s Photographs and Prints Division and the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature.
Readings
(First Floor: DeWitt Wallace Periodical Room)
Artists and writers read some of their most beloved Baldwin works.
Featuring:
- Kendell Pinkney at 7:35 PM
- Tayari Jones at 7:50 PM
- Darryl Pinckney at 8:05 PM
- Phoebe Robinson at 8:20 PM
- Nicholas Boggs at 8:45 PM
- Daphne Brooks at 9:05 PM
16 mm Films
(Third Floor: Edna Barnes Salomon Room)
Selections from the Library’s Reserve Film and Video Collection spotlighting James Baldwin, his influences, and passions. Read more about the films here.
- Black Has Always Been Beautiful (1972) at 7:20 PM
- James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket (1989) at 7:40 PM
- Black Music in America; From Then till Now (1970) at 8:15 PM
- The Negro and the American Promise Part 2 (1963) at 8:55 PM
Music by Candice Hoyes
(Third Floor: Rose Main Reading Room)
Hoyes, known as “the diasporic soprano,” curates and performs music inspired by Baldwin’s life and work. Accompaniment by David Rosenthal. Performances at 7:30 PM, 8:15 PM, and 9 PM.
Taking place all night:
- Music by Rimarkable (First Floor: Astor Hall)
- Library Card Sign-Up (Third Floor: Bill Blass Public Catalog Room)
- Coloring, Crafts & Games (Second Floor: Margaret Liebman Berger Forum)
- Becoming Bohemia: Greenwich Village, 1912–1923 (First Floor: Wachenheim Gallery, Ispahani-Bartos Gallery)
- Line & Thread: Prints and Textiles from the 1600s to the Present (Third Floor: Rayner Special Collections Wing)
- Byron: A Life in Motion (Third Floor: Print Gallery)
- Polonsky Exhibition of The New York Public Library’s Treasures (First Floor: Gottesman Hall)
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TICKETS
Tickets for this event are Pay What You Wish, with a suggested cost of admission of $15. What you pay benefits The New York Public Library and helps make this event—and others like it—possible.
If you miss your chance to get a ticket in advance, we may have a limited number of tickets available at the door on a first-come, first-served basis.
Doors will open at our 42nd St entrance and the Marshall Rose Plaza (located at 40th St and 5th Ave) at 7 PM, with final entry at 9:30 PM. Both of these entrances are accessible.
All tickets are final sale.
If you have symptoms consistent with COVID-19 or suspect you have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive, please stay home.
VISIT THE EXHIBITIONS

JIMMY! God's Black Revolutionary Mouth
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Through February 28, 2025
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is home to Baldwin’s archive of personal papers. In celebration of his 100th birthday, on public display for the first time, we proudly present selections from the James Baldwin Papers that highlight his literary career and legacy from childhood to death, along with items from other research collections that illuminate the passion, brilliance, and courageous spirit of James “Jimmy” Baldwin. Learn more.
James Baldwin: Mountain to Fire
Gottesman Hall, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Baldwin was a constant NYPL patron in his youth, and today his vast archive of personal papers is kept by the Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Discover never-before-exhibited literary manuscripts—including draft pages from Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, and The Fire Next Time—and other remarkable items from our research collections, presented in a special display in the Polonsky Exhibition of The New York Public Library's Treasures in honor of Baldwin’s 100th birthday year. Learn more.
ACCESSIBILITY INFORMATION
This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs (enter at 42nd Street or the Marshall Rose Plaza, located at 40th St and 5th Ave). Assistive listening devices are available on-site. ASL interpretation and real-time (CART) captioning available upon request. Please submit your request at least two weeks in advance by emailing accessibility@nypl.org.
For other accessibility information, please contact accessibility@nypl.org.
CONNECT
Please submit all press inquiries at least 48 hours before the event: email press@nypl.org or use this Gmail template.
For all other questions and inquiries, please email publicprograms@nypl.org or use this Gmail template.
The New York Public Library's free services and resources are made possible thanks to the support of the Friends of the Library. Join this group of Library lovers and take advantage of special membership benefits, like invitations to members-only virtual events, discounts at the Library Shop, and more. Join now.
The Library After Hours is made possible with the generous support of Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos and Adam Bartos.
Treasures programming is made possible by the Estate of Helen Sisserson.
Library After Hours is supported by Artists for Understanding, a joint initiative with the National Endowment for the Arts, the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.