History Lessons in NYC, New York

WrestleMania meets Debate Club Your hosts Meg Pierson, Zak Martellucci, and Dustin Growick lead a rotating cast of special guest experts in a battle royale of serious—and not so serious—topics.  Who will come out on top? Dinosaurs or mammals? Biology or physics? Space or oceans? Chock-full of trivia, games, and prizes,...

Dinosaurs! Science! Adventure! Break out your pith helmet as we embark upon a brazen expedition through the halls of New York City's world-famous American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). Join your maverick tour guide as we deftly navigate this massive 27-building, 1.6 million square foot landmark cultural institution. Learn the science...

In this talk, we'll first discuss the origins of coffee and coffee houses as a shared communal space. On our world tour, we will sample different coffeehouse experiences throughout history. After that we'll dive into the United States's love affair with coffee shops,particularly in the last century: coffeehouses as a counterculture performance...

Does it seem like our current culture is the most self-obsessed to date? It has seemed like that for five centuries. If anything, our current mania over self-obsession wielded by the hand-held black mirrors we carry in our pockets is only the latest in the habitual renegotiation of self-fashioning whose roots were planted in the 16th century. Are we...

Meet the badass Brooklynites who brought us the ballot. Behind the stately facades of Brooklyn Heights’ most gracious brownstones lies the history of firebrand feminism! The wise “women of Brooklyn” were doctors, lawyers, educators and orators who made some of the foremost contributions to the Suffrage movement. Join us for a walk through their...

Why Your Train is F*cked: A love/hate show about the history of the MTA You know when your train is f*cked – this is the show that tells you WHY. Get on board for a deep dive into the history of the MTA. Whether you love it, hate it, or want to compose more informed rage-tweets about it during your next 20 minute delay – we’ve got you covered....

Boston, Philadelphia, Yorktown… these are the places that usually star in the American Revolution, but New York City has a story to tell as well! NYC was burned, abandoned, repopulated, and put under martial law; it became home to pirates, runaway slaves, and smugglers; its churches were turned into hospitals, its warehouses into jails, and its cemeteries...

From the debauched slums of Victorian London to dry martinis and fancy cocktail parties,gin has had a remarkable journey, a story that reflects the ever changing moods and sensibilities of society at large. Like many other spirits, it began life in the alchemist’s workshop as a medicinal cure-all, a link it would retain as a mainstay of European...

Compared over the course of her life to Marlene Dietrich, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Rainer Maria Rilke, Arthur Rimbaud, a sphinx, a she-wolf, a “foreigner on earth,” and a hurricane, the Jewish Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector moved in mystery. The author of nine novels and a large body of short stories, journalism, and children’s...

Over 800,000 New Yorkers are now riding a bicycle regularly (NYC DOT). As the subways falter, transit fares increase and the streets grow ever more congested, cycling offers a more efficient way to get around the city, becoming a key part of the city’s commuting network.  However, cyclists’ attempts to share the streets with cars...

Mesopotamia, the “Land Between the Two Rivers” in present-day Iraq, is often referred to as the Cradle of Civilization. The ancient peoples of this region developed the first cities and multicultural societies, invented writing and the wheel, and left behind incredible works of art and a rich and varied literature. Yet despite their...

The history of Coney Island is like nothing you’ve ever heard before. From prostitutes living in a giant tin elephant, to the invention of the hot dog, to a ride that’s so scary it actually made its riders pee themselves, and we’ll tell you all about it!  Join New York Local Tours as we explore the engaging history of Coney Island’s...

Find your circa 1900 New York City ancestors in online databases, and learn where to look for them in brick-and-mortar NYC archives: births, deaths, marriages, ship manifests, military, tax and voting records. Come with a name and any documents you already have. Questions will be answered, and your ancestor may be used as the class example. Hands-on...

“Wrong life cannot be lived rightly.” This enigmatic statement stands at the heart of Theodor Adorno’s mid-20th century masterwork Minima Moralia. Subtitled “reflections from damaged life,” Adorno’s text is a collection of miniature essays, fragments, theses, and aphorisms about a modern capitalist life that Adorno argues leaves no...

Transfeminine lives are often seen as having, in and of themselves, political consequences, theoretical limits, and some kind of relation to a ‘beyond’ of gender. While former sports celebrity Caitlyn Jenner has come to stand for the notion that ‘transgender’ is now a “respectable” identity, Olympic gold-star medalist Caster Semenya, despite...