Results tagged “thenewyorkpubliclibrary”

Slowpokes and procrastinators beware: Late fees from overdue library books in New York could be costing you points off your credit score. The New York Times has an article today that describes how the The New York Public Library and the Queens Public Library have been using a private company named Unique Management Services, which is a collections agency that library late fines are referred to when not paid by book borrowers. One rabbi in Far Rockaway found this out when he tried to apply for a mortgage!

is considered a classic. It contains recipes such as Blood Cake with Fried Eggs, Tripe Gratin, and Crispy Pig’s Tail. Stuff like that. This isn’t stunt eating, Fear Factor-style, nor is Henderson’s food supposed to be particularly innovative, but it is. The chef’s “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” approach to cooking simultaneously emphasizes frugality and simplicity. In some sense, that's almost unheard of these days.

The city of New York is mourning the death of Brooke Astor. The philanthropist, who died yesterday at age 105, had channeled millions from her husband's fortune into a numbers of institutions and organizations - from Carnegie Hall to small community groups across all boroughs. The NY Times obituary makes a very good point about why the $195 million she donated through the Astor Foundation was so important: "Although the foundation was not large compared with powerhouses like Ford, Rockefeller and Carnegie, its contributions often served as seed money: others followed, knowing that if Mrs. Astor had given her seal of approval to a cause, it was worthy of support."

Brooke Astor passed away today. A gentleman should never ask a lady her age, but once Brooke Astor passed the century mark, she probably didn't care who knew how old she was. Brooke Astor was the wife of Vincent Astor, the only son of John Jacob Astor IV, who died in the sinking of the Titanic. The Astor family's roots stretch back almost as far as the history of New York City itself. The subway station at Astor Place in Manhattan is decorated with beavers, the animal whose pelt was the foundation of the family fortune before John Jacob Astor began buying large swathes of New York real estate.

The New York Public Library is closed today––it is a national holiday––but New Yorkers should be proud to hear that the main branch on 42nd St. and 5th Ave. has been entrusted with one of two surviving copies of the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson himself. The document is a handwritten duplicate of the document signed in Philadelphia 231 years ago, asserting the original thirteen colonies' indepedendence from England and starting the American Revolution.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a slashing on East 156th St. and Union Ave. in the Bronx, a missing patient on East 135th St. and Lenox Ave. in Manhattan, and a person under a subway train at Lenox Ave. and Central Park North in Manhattan.
• Being a Jew-hating Nazi in Brooklyn must be neverending work. One miserable person in Park Slope keeps slogging away though.
• The New York Public Library is opening its first new branch since 1989 and it's in an old candy factory in NoLiTa. We expect Roald Dahl will be forever on reserve.
• State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno is infatuated with the idea of Mayor Bloomberg assuming higher office. This week it's the Governor's office.
• The Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem is celebrating its 200th birthday with a pilgrimage to Ethiopia to commemorate the African seamen who obviated early colonial discrimination by opening their own church.
• This should make alternative-transportation advocates very happy: the city's new transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan commutes to work on a bike (at least for a photo-op this morning). We hope she's not killed in traffic before bike-friendly measures can be enacted.
• There are eight million stories in the naked city. This one's about watching a cop movie classic with the police commissioner.
• Three Staten Island teens attacked a 125-pound cancer survivor as the 56-year-old was walking home from his bus stop Saturday evening. No robbery; just a senseless beating.
• Jerry Falwell, who posited that New Yorkers and America in general brought the 9/11 attacks on themselves by being a bunch of godless sodomite heathens, was called home to Jesus today.

At the end of this month, your friendly neighborhood Spider Man will be all over New York for...Spider Man week! A five-borough-wide celebration (marketing ploy) featuring a ton of live events, screenings, parties and exhibits. The city has been central to the Marvel Comics legend since Spidey's beginning in 1962, so it only makes sense to launch the latest movie here.

Gotta love an event called "Gluttony," although we were sad to learn there wasn't any food involved. Atlantic food writer Corby Kummer pulls together chefs Mario Batali and Dan Barber (pictured), and James Beard Award winning writer Barbara Kafka to discuss whether the newest high-tech equipment glorifies or destroys the freshest low-tech ingredients. 1:00 PM in South Court Auditorium of The New York Public Library. Arrive early for best seat selection; doors open 30 minutes prior to event. $15 general admission and $10 library donors, seniors and students with valid identification. Tickets available online; use discount code LIVE2 for $5 off the ticket price.

Street photography is generally thought to have come about in the late 1950's, right here in New York, when a new generation of photographers (Robert Frank and William Klein) changed the nature of documentary photography. Now, through June, you can check out New York street photography from the 1960's and 70's - at the New York Public Library. From the NYPL's site:

. This makes the NYPL's collection of Bea-era materials the most comprehensive, since it already holds the Jack Kerouac archive. The NY Times story about the acquisition had the interesting sidenote about how Allen Ginsberg wanted the NYPL to buy his collection, but since he wanted to sell it quickly, the NYPL wasn't able to get the money together in time - the Ginsberg collection is at Stanford - but now the NYPL can say "This will be the place in the world to come to study the Beats." At any rate, we hope an exhibition of the work will be mounted soon - we'd love to see his letters to Kerouac, Timothy Leary, Ginsberg, and Terry Southern, among others.

All Weekend // The Metropolitan Museum [1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd St]

Today, the Parks Department will announce that Bryant Park will get a skating rink from October 28 until January 15. The New York Public Library had been worried that a rink would damage an underground book storage area, but say, "The concerns we've raised are being addressed and we know that Bryant Park, with its views of the library's Beaux-Arts facade, will provided a beautiful setting for skating this winter." And how. The rink, called The Pond at Bryant Park, will cost $4 million and is 17,000, which the Times says is half the size of Wollman Rink and double the size of Rockefeller Center. Fun fact: The rink and equipment like the Zamboni, plus crowds, will weigh less than the fashion shows! And to top it off, the skating will be free (there is $7.50 skate rental).

) to product names (the Subaru Tribeca SUV, Seven for All Mankind jeans' New York Rinse). And why does everyone want a piece of the Big Apple? Mayor Giuliani "cleaning up" the city, September 11, and TV shows Seinfeld, Sex and the City, and Friends - you know, shows without ethnic characters. There were some we think the article forgot, most notably the Olsen twins heading to NYU and The Apprentice, which, while annoying, has an opening that's like a Valentine to the city. Anyway, Gothamist felt both proud that New York City has that must-have cache but also wary, because what do these other people really know about New York? Do they get sweaty from waiting on the subway platform, because it's 100 degress there while it's at least 20 degrees cooler outside? Do they agreeably wait an hour for a table at the latest brunch place? Do they pay $15 for a cocktail? Do they have their toes run over by all the baby carriages on Seventh Avenue? Maybe the city has a point in trying to show what is made in NYC...

In June of 1776, five men - John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston - began drafting the Declaration of Independence. A final draft was sent to Congress on July 1, and it was ratified on July 4. However, Congress had made some revisions, much to the dismay of Jefferson, the primary author. For posterity, he immediately made several copies of the original text, underlining the sections that had been modified.