Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg announced a project to commemorate abolitionist activity that occurred in Brooklyn in the 1800s. He named a panel made up of community leaders, academics, and historians to aid the city and Downtown Brooklyn Partnership in asking for and reviewing commemoration proposals. The panels of the Commemoration Panel are: the Reverend Lawrence Aker, Senior Pastor, Cornerstone Baptist Church; Richard Greene, Executive Director, Crown Heights Youth Collective; Colvin L. Grannum, President, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration......

The state legislature in Albany is prepared to issue a formal apology for the historic practice of slavery and will be the first northern state in the Union to do so. Several states on the Confederate side of the Civil War have already issued similar apologies. Albany lawmakers are pushing to pass the resolution in time for "Juneteenth", which is an unofficial holiday celebrating the June 19th arrival of federal troops in Texas to......

Today, the Sun reports that the State Legislature is considering a formal apology as well as to study the "feasibility" of reparations for New York's role in slavery. The apologies are "technically amendments to Chapter 137 of the laws of 1817 relating to slaves and servants — laws that imposed penalties on those who harbored runaway slaves." While many expect Legislature support for the apology bill (both Maryland and Virginia have formally apologized), some......

DISCUSSION: Noam Chomsky will be taking questions on US foreign policy tonight, following a screening of Harold Pinter's 2005 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech. Get your questions ready, smartypants. You can watch the video of Pinter's speech here, too. 6pm // Columbia University, Miller Theater [Broadway @ 116th St] // $5 THEATER: Isabella Rossellini with be playing Lotte Lenya in a one-night only performance at the New-York Historical Society called Kurt and Lenya: Two Great Artists......

+ Expect another uptown expansion battle, this time involving the New York Historical Society. First neighborhood resident to intimate Paris? Journalist Bill Moyers. + Architects Billie Tsien and Tod Williams have been tapped for Lincoln Center’s Harmony Atrium. Say goodbye to the climbing wall. + The city is rezoning a 100-block area in the East Village, leading to an 80-foot height cap and more housing. A response to neighborhood newbies Blue and The Hotel on......

The not-so-private life of everyone's favorite avian poster children for friendly coops, red-tailed hawks Pale Male and Lola, after they - okay, their human advocates helped them - moved back to their 927 Fifth Avenue digs is revealed. And it's been a barren nest. The NY Times gets nosy about the birds' year without a chick. It seems that even with a super fancy nest, baby bird making isn't a sure thing: Lola's eggs went......

One of the things on Gothamist's must-see list this week is the New York Historical Society's new exhibit, Slavery in New York. The show reveals New York relationship with slavery, from the days of the Dutch settlers until 1827. The exhibit is open until March, and the online site is pretty extensive, but a reason to go this week is for the pencil-written copy of the Emancipataion Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation is on display until......

What can you do to recover from a day of stuffing yourself silly on Grandma's maple-glazed turkey, Dad's cornbread and oyster stuffing and Aunt Sally's pumpkin pie? Go on a noshing tour of the Lower East Side, of course! Big Onion Tours and the New York Historical Society present their Annual Post-Thanksgiving, Multi-Ethnic Eating Tour on Friday, November 26 at 1:00pm. This tour will make pit stops to sample traditional foods from the Dominican Republic,......

New Yorker architecture critic and Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Goldberger speaks tonight about his new book, Up from Zero: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York, about the reconstruction of lower Manhattan and the World Trade Center. Goldberger surveyed many key figures - from politicians to city planners to architects to the families of September 11 victims - exploring the fundamentals of the rebuilding process, the bureaucratic armatures required to set such a process......

Gothamist would rather lick a subway pole than go to most conferences, but there are the rare exceptions. The second annual Good Experience Live was held on Friday at the surprisingly swank New York Historical Society, and, perhaps in an effort to keep things democratic, we managed to slip in unnoticed among the internet cogniscenti. Despite being late, hungover, and covered in a thin layer of cat fur, we enjoyed many of the presentations, including......

There's lots of excitement about the new exhibit, Petropolis: A Social History of Urban Animal Companions, at the New York Historical Society and Glenn Collins of the Times looks at what some New Yorkers will do for their pets, which include cats, rabbits, snakes, rats, mice, chickens, geese, pigeons, ferrets, turtles and tropical fish - but it's certainly dog-heavy, as dogs can break the ice between you and that cute guy or girl like nothing......