1. It’s a Cassatt Caturday. This 1908 painting by famed artist Mary Cassatt depicts a little girl holding an adorable kitten - perfect Caturday fodder. It’s also a perfect opportunity to shamelessly promote a brand new (totally free) exhibition at the Library’s landmark 42nd Street building - Daring Methods: The Prints of Mary Cassatt. Here’s a description: “Spanning twenty years of Cassatt’s career as a printmaker, from 1878 to 1898, this exhibition documents her first tentative steps in the medium and culminates with her highly accomplished and technically dazzling color prints.” So come on down today (before 6 p.m.) and check it out on the third floor - there won’t be any paintings as seen here, but the prints from our Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs are pretty amazing (you can some of them here). You have something better to do on this glorious Caturday? See you later!

    It’s a Cassatt Caturday. This 1908 painting by famed artist Mary Cassatt depicts a little girl holding an adorable kitten - perfect Caturday fodder. It’s also a perfect opportunity to shamelessly promote a brand new (totally free) exhibition at the Library’s landmark 42nd Street building - Daring Methods: The Prints of Mary Cassatt. Here’s a description: “Spanning twenty years of Cassatt’s career as a printmaker, from 1878 to 1898, this exhibition documents her first tentative steps in the medium and culminates with her highly accomplished and technically dazzling color prints.” So come on down today (before 6 p.m.) and check it out on the third floor - there won’t be any paintings as seen here, but the prints from our Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs are pretty amazing (you can some of them here). You have something better to do on this glorious Caturday? See you later!

  2. Looking for something to do on Black Friday (besides shop and eat leftovers)? Check out one of our totally free exhibitions, like the acclaimed Lunch Hour NYC exhibit highlighting the storied history of the midday meal (pictured). That’s at our landmark 42nd Street building (check out our Library Shop while you’re there for gift ideas). Or, head uptown to our Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center for an amazing (and also acclaimed) exhibit on the fashion of Katharine Hepburn, which includes outfits she wore in some of her most famous productions. Or keep going uptown to our Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for yet another acclaimed exhibit, Visualizing Emancipation, which displays 171 pre- and post- Civil War photographs of both enslaved and free black men, women and children to mark the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Did we mention these exhibitions are all free and easily accessible by subway? Check them out!

    Looking for something to do on Black Friday (besides shop and eat leftovers)? Check out one of our totally free exhibitions, like the acclaimed Lunch Hour NYC exhibit highlighting the storied history of the midday meal (pictured). That’s at our landmark 42nd Street building (check out our Library Shop while you’re there for gift ideas). Or, head uptown to our Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center for an amazing (and also acclaimed) exhibit on the fashion of Katharine Hepburn, which includes outfits she wore in some of her most famous productions. Or keep going uptown to our Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for yet another acclaimed exhibit, Visualizing Emancipation, which displays 171 pre- and post- Civil War photographs of both enslaved and free black men, women and children to mark the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Did we mention these exhibitions are all free and easily accessible by subway? Check them out!

  3. Looking for something to do today (something easily accessible by subway)? Why not check out the Library’s totally free Lunch Hour NYC exhibition at our landmark 42nd Street building? It tells the story of the midday meal, from power lunches to street carts to Sardi’s cartoons. Check out other images from the exhibition, and this (very enthusiastic and positive) NY Times review. We’re open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today - come on down.

    Looking for something to do today (something easily accessible by subway)? Why not check out the Library’s totally free Lunch Hour NYC exhibition at our landmark 42nd Street building? It tells the story of the midday meal, from power lunches to street carts to Sardi’s cartoons. Check out other images from the exhibition, and this (very enthusiastic and positive) NY Times review. We’re open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today - come on down.

  4. It’s December already (seriously, how did that happen). So for this week’s Caturday, we thought we’d share a holiday-ish item from our collections - the cover of a book from the 1880s called “The Three White Kittens” by the McLoughlin Brothers. So happy Caturday!! Speaking of the holidays, NYPL is holding its annual “Holiday Open House” tomorrow for Friends of the Library complete with music, face painting, refreshments, tours of the stacks (first come, first served), etc. If you’re a Friend, come by the flagship Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 42nd Street at 1 pm. If you’re not, come by anyway, sign up to become a Friend and party! Hope to see you there!

    It’s December already (seriously, how did that happen). So for this week’s Caturday, we thought we’d share a holiday-ish item from our collections - the cover of a book from the 1880s called “The Three White Kittens” by the McLoughlin Brothers. So happy Caturday!! Speaking of the holidays, NYPL is holding its annual “Holiday Open House” tomorrow for Friends of the Library complete with music, face painting, refreshments, tours of the stacks (first come, first served), etc. If you’re a Friend, come by the flagship Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 42nd Street at 1 pm. If you’re not, come by anyway, sign up to become a Friend and party! Hope to see you there!

  5. Check out “Wikipedia, The Musical!”

    Looking for something to do tomorrow (Saturday, Oct. 22)? Head to our Library for the Performing Arts anytime between noon and 6 pm and use our collections to help edit Wikipedia pages for musicals and theater music. This all-day “editathon” - called “Wikipedia, The Musical!” - is a partnership between NYPL and Wikipedia, and you can read more about it in the NY Times. Participants require ZERO experience with Wikipedia, so come on down!

  6. What greater gift than the love of a cat?

    — Good question, Charles Dickens. Good question. Want to see some rare items belonging to him? Come to NYPL’s free exhibit “Celebrating 100 Years” at our 42nd Street building (the one, appropriately, with the big cats outside). We have over 200 items from people like Malcolm X, Emily Bronte, Bob Dylan, and more. Looking for something else to do? The Anthology Film Archives is playing a bunch of cat videos today in NY. Happy Caturday!

  7. Looking For Something To Do Tonight?

    Internationally acclaimed writer Ariel Dorfman will be at our Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue tonight to discuss his time as an exile from Pinochet’s Chile, a time he discussed in his memoir Feeding on Dreams. So pick up a ticket and come on down! It’s guaranteed to be fascinating! And while you’re at it, check out the rest of our season - we’ve got John Lithgow, Diane Keaton, Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin. Hope to see you!

  8. I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

    — 

    We couldn’t agree more with legendary writer Jorge Luis Borges, whose birthday is today. Happy birthday! Want to see the manuscript of his La loteria en Babilonia? It’s being shown as part of our FREE exhibition Celebrating 100 Years at the landmark Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 42nd Street. See over 250 rare items from our collections, including artifacts belonging to Charles Dickens, Malcolm X, Charlotte Bronte, John Coltrane, Bob Dylan and on and on and on. See you there!

  9. Today: Show Us You Love Us. Hug The Library.

    Do you love the New York Public Library? Do you love the free books and internet? The free ESOL classes? The free literacy classes? The free kids’ programming? The amazing community spaces? Well, show us. Go to the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building today at 1:30 and join in a “hug” of the library, hosted by advocacy group Urban Librarians Unite. They are symbolically showing how much the city loves and wants to protect its libraries from potentially devastating proposed budget cuts. NYPL faces a $40 million cut - the largest in our history. That would mean cutbacks in hours, branches, programming and more. So come hug and make a statement. And then go to our site and write a letter to your councilmember. Then get all your friends to do it. This is important - do it!