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!

The NYPL is a proud contributor to a stunning new virtual exhibition called Leaving Europe: A new life in America. Created by the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and Europeana, the exhibition tells the story of European emigration to the United States during the 19^th and 20^th centuries. The virtual exhibition uses photographs, manuscripts, broadsheets, paintings, letters, audio, government documents and other unique materials to chart people’s journeys across the European continent and their settlement in the United States. It is an incredible look into our past and one that we highly suggest you take a look at!  

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!

Last weekend’s New York Times featured a powerful profile on NYPL patron Leironica Hawkins, who has Asperger’s Syndrome. Currently on display at The New York Public Library’s Grand Central location (located at 135 East 46th Street) is a fascinating art exhibition, Asperger’s Syndrome: An Invisible Disability, created by Leironica. Above is some of the art, all drawn by Leironica, featured in the exhibition.   

Where is home?

Our central library at Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street hosts travelers from all around the world, every day we are open. And we’re open today! So if you read this, please stop by our Map Division on the first floor (turn right before The Library Shop) and stick a map tack onto a reproduction of a rare map and show us where you call home! Library staffer Artis Wright came up with the idea for this cool exhibition. 

As you can see, there are actually five rare map reproductions that you can stick your map tack into! And a guest book for you to sign (Artis says the book allows visitors to get more specific with where they’re coming from)!

Somebody has tacked the North Pole — Santa, was that you? — although nobody’s claimed Antarctica. As for that map of the United States in the center, a few states are also map tack-free, so if you call South Dakota, Montana, Nevada, or Arkansas home, definitely stop by if you can! (It’d be cool to have map tacks in all of the states, right?)

And yes, The New York Public Library is actually pictured on the U.S. map! (This map was created by Ernest Dudley Chase in 1935, and we were on the scene back then.)

So please stop by, regulars, tourists, and friends just looking for something to do before converging to Times Square! Our remote friends can click here to find out more about the exhibition and the included maps.

This shrine outside of St. Michael’s Church in Sunset Park, Brooklyn is one of the latest submissions to our “Faith On The Street” project, which aims to capture the way people interact with faith in their everyday lives. Participate! Send in pics to ThreeFaiths@nypl.org. The project, by the way, is tied to our incredible “Three Faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam” exhibit at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 42 Street. It highlights about 200 ancient texts and artifacts (all from our collections) connected with the three largest Abrahamic faiths. The exhibit - which shows how the religions are interrelated instead of how they conflict - has gotten rave reviews. Thousands have already seen it. It’s free. Need something to do? Drop on by. In the meantime - snap some photos.

OYG: OH YOUR GOD

(Or Faith On The Streets)

Faith’s a fascinating thing in that it’s observed and perceived differently by everyone. With that in mind, we asked New Yorkers to send in photos of how and where they see expressions of sacred objects as part of our exhibition Three Faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam.

One of our readers sent in this photo, in which he says he sees Saint Moses the Black over the Hudson River from Harlem.

Where do you see faith on the street? Photoreply here, or email your image to threefaiths@nypl.org.

What does Indiana Jones have to do with our latest exhibition? →

After a long and dangerous quest Indiana — together with his father, a professor of medieval literature, and a German scholar of unspecified field — have finally located a hidden chamber dating back to the First Crusade. In the chamber are dozens of chalices, one of which is the Holy Grail, all guarded by a 900-year-old knight. And what do these learned scholars do when confronted by this living relic of the distant past? Brushing quickly past the knight, they head straight for the cups! At this point I find myself yelling at the screen: “Talk to him! Ask him questions!” After all, how many times do medieval scholars get to do oral history? Why must this long religious and historical quest end not with knowledge, but with a thing?

Sara Lipton, Cullman Fellow  on our latest exhibition, Three Faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam.

This photo is part of our new exhibition Recollection: Thirty Years of Photography at The New York Public Library.

If there’s one thing you should know about Grover Cleveland, its that he’s the only President of the United States who was elected to non-consecutive terms (making him the 22nd and the 24th President).

And if there’s one other thing you should know its that this is a photo of him fishing under a tree.