1. History has secrets - and you can unlock them at the Library. That’s the theme of this pretty darn amazing new “suspense trailer” highlighting our incredible Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy (which is often featured on the show “Who Do You Think You Are?” and can be used to trace family histories). Just watch it - it’s awesome.

  2. You never know what you are going to find in the collections of The New York Public Library. The New York Times wrote a fascinating piece on Valerie Solanas - the feminist loner best remembered for shooting Andy Warhol - who actually came to The NYPL in the 1970s and marked up her own book the S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up Men) MANIFESTO with edits and annotations. The book is now preserved in our Manuscripts and Archives Division at The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 40th Street and 5th Avenue. Solanas story was depicted in the 1996 film I SHOT ANDY WARHOL starring Lili Taylor as Solanas.  Today is also the 25th Anniversary of Andy Warhol’s death. This is not the only Warhol related material we have at The New York Public Library as The Times reported a few weeks ago about a Christmas Card that Mr. Warhol drew and gave to our fascinating Art and Picture collection. RIP Andy.

    You never know what you are going to find in the collections of The New York Public Library. The New York Times wrote a fascinating piece on Valerie Solanas - the feminist loner best remembered for shooting Andy Warhol - who actually came to The NYPL in the 1970s and marked up her own book the S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up Men) MANIFESTO with edits and annotations. The book is now preserved in our Manuscripts and Archives Division at The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 40th Street and 5th Avenue. Solanas story was depicted in the 1996 film I SHOT ANDY WARHOL starring Lili Taylor as Solanas. 

    Today is also the 25th Anniversary of Andy Warhol’s death. This is not the only Warhol related material we have at The New York Public Library as The Times reported a few weeks ago about a Christmas Card that Mr. Warhol drew and gave to our fascinating Art and Picture collection. RIP Andy.

  3. There was a time when men were kind, And their voices were soft, And their words inviting.There was a time when love was blind, And the world was a song, And the song was exciting.There was a time when it all went wrong… ACTUALLY that time was 1987, 25 years ago, when the musical Les Miserables made its first US tour. In honor of that anniversary we are posting this photograph from our Broadway Theater Marquees Collection from The Billy Rose Theatre Division at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. 

    There was a time when men were kind, And their voices were soft, And their words inviting.
    There was a time when love was blind, And the world was a song, And the song was exciting.
    There was a time when it all went wrong… ACTUALLY that time was 1987, 25 years ago, when the musical Les Miserables made its first US tour. In honor of that anniversary we are posting this photograph from our Broadway Theater Marquees Collection from The Billy Rose Theatre Division at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. 

  4. What do Sam Shepard, Bernadette Peters, Edward Albee and Al Pacino all have in common? It was called the Caffe Cino and it is credited as the birthplace of the Off Off Broadway theater movement in the nineteen sixties. The New York Times writes about the new and fascinating Caffe Cino collection that was recently donated to The Billy Rose Theatre Division of The  New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Read all about it here 

    What do Sam Shepard, Bernadette Peters, Edward Albee and Al Pacino all have in common? It was called the Caffe Cino and it is credited as the birthplace of the Off Off Broadway theater movement in the nineteen sixties. The New York Times writes about the new and fascinating Caffe Cino collection that was recently donated to The Billy Rose Theatre Division of The  New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Read all about it here 

  5. Happy birthday, George Washington Bridge! Today in 1931, the famous bridge opened to traffic for the first time. To mark the occasion, NYPL’s own Jeremy Megraw did a blog about his love of the 80-year-old G-Dubs, and above is a cigarette card from sometime between 1931 and 1940 documenting the early years of the bridge. It is from our George Arents Collection. Enjoy!

    Happy birthday, George Washington Bridge! Today in 1931, the famous bridge opened to traffic for the first time. To mark the occasion, NYPL’s own Jeremy Megraw did a blog about his love of the 80-year-old G-Dubs, and above is a cigarette card from sometime between 1931 and 1940 documenting the early years of the bridge. It is from our George Arents Collection. Enjoy!

  6. Want to go back in time? Check out this photo from 1978 of an apartment in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. It’s one of a collection of very cool images taken by photographer Dinanda Nooney back in 1978 and 1979. She snapped the interiors of about 200 homes across Brooklyn, from Park Slope to Bed-Stuy to Bushwick and so on. It’s amazing to look at these images now and see how things have changed.  We have a bunch of the photos on our Digital Gallery, and today, Gothamist highlighted 21 of them in a very nice blog post. So if you love real estate, take a look!

    Want to go back in time? Check out this photo from 1978 of an apartment in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. It’s one of a collection of very cool images taken by photographer Dinanda Nooney back in 1978 and 1979. She snapped the interiors of about 200 homes across Brooklyn, from Park Slope to Bed-Stuy to Bushwick and so on. It’s amazing to look at these images now and see how things have changed.  We have a bunch of the photos on our Digital Gallery, and today, Gothamist highlighted 21 of them in a very nice blog post. So if you love real estate, take a look!

  7. Today is President William Howard Taft’s birthday, so we thought we’d remind everyone that back on May 23, 1911, he presided over the opening of our landmark building on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue (above is a Digital Gallery photo of the building’s iconic Reading Room as it was being built in December 1909). At the ceremony, Taft said: “This day crowns a work of National importance. The dedication of this beautiful structure for the spread of knowledge among the people marks not only the consummation of a noteworthy plan for bringing within the grasp of the humblest and poorest citizen the opportunity for acquiring information on every subject of every kind, but it furnishes a model and example for other cities which have been struggling with the same problem, and points for them the true way.” Happy birthday, Mr. President. 

    Today is President William Howard Taft’s birthday, so we thought we’d remind everyone that back on May 23, 1911, he presided over the opening of our landmark building on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue (above is a Digital Gallery photo of the building’s iconic Reading Room as it was being built in December 1909).

    At the ceremony, Taft said: “This day crowns a work of National importance. The dedication of this beautiful structure for the spread of knowledge among the people marks not only the consummation of a noteworthy plan for bringing within the grasp of the humblest and poorest citizen the opportunity for acquiring information on every subject of every kind, but it furnishes a model and example for other cities which have been struggling with the same problem, and points for them the true way.”

    Happy birthday, Mr. President. 

  8. All Work And No Play … NYPL Closed For Labor Day

    NYPL is closed today in honor of Labor Day (although you can still download eBooks from us). To mark the occasion, we thought we’d share this image of one of the first ever Labor Day parades in New York City, held in Union Square. This one happened in 1887. The first one happened only five years before, and is considered the first Labor Day parade in US history. The image above - found in our Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs - is a stereoscope, which uses two identical offset images to create the illusion of 3-D.  Meanwhile, NYPL is always honoring Labor by offering people tons of job search resources. So if you’re looking for a job, check us out. And happy Labor Day!

  9. “Listen, we iz NOT cats on a hot tin roof! This roof iz not tin!” “OK, OK. Don’t go hisssterical!” This crazy card from between 1876 and 1890 was an advertisement for F.O Pierce and Company, which had a paint and oil warehouse on Fulton Street in Manhattan, according to an old NY Times article. The card is now in our Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs. Our favorite part is the little cat head that is seemingly floating around. Happy Caturday!

    “Listen, we iz NOT cats on a hot tin roof! This roof iz not tin!”

    “OK, OK. Don’t go hisssterical!”

    This crazy card from between 1876 and 1890 was an advertisement for F.O Pierce and Company, which had a paint and oil warehouse on Fulton Street in Manhattan, according to an old NY Times article. The card is now in our Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs. Our favorite part is the little cat head that is seemingly floating around. Happy Caturday!

  10. Toilers in the Westinghouse Lamp Division Research Department perform the firsts tests on “the largest mercury vapor lamp ever built” in this photo from our 1939-40 World’s Fair collection. More than 60 years later, some similar research and development went on right in our own Science, Industry and Business Library, when Ground-Lab co-founder, Justin Downs, was developing another record-breaking lamp.  While we’re sure his work is just as brilliant, if not more, than that in the photo above… we can’t be sure that his goggles were quite as awesome. Go behind the scenes of his work in this week’s Check Out, our Huffington Post Column.

    Toilers in the Westinghouse Lamp Division Research Department perform the firsts tests on “the largest mercury vapor lamp ever built” in this photo from our 1939-40 World’s Fair collection.

    More than 60 years later, some similar research and development went on right in our own Science, Industry and Business Library, when Ground-Lab co-founder, Justin Downs, was developing another record-breaking lamp. 

    While we’re sure his work is just as brilliant, if not more, than that in the photo above… we can’t be sure that his goggles were quite as awesome.

    Go behind the scenes of his work in this week’s Check Out, our Huffington Post Column.