Our Events

Past Events

  • Wednesday, September 27, 2023 - 11:00 AM | Wednesday, October 25, 2023 - 11:00 AM | Wednesday, November 29, 2023 - 11:00 AM | Wednesday, January 31, 2024 - 11:00 AM | Wednesday, February 28, 2024 - 11:00 AM | Wednesday, March 27, 2024 - 11:00 AM | Reading Group | Whitridge Room | for members only | $100 for the six sessions | registration required
    “Never say you know the last word about any human heart.” That’s one of the great sentences of this great writer, Henry James (1843-1916). In this seminar – which welcomes both experienced readers of James and novices – we discover many more.
  • Monday, March 25, 2024 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Members' Room | open to the public | $15 per person | registration required
    The New York Times bestselling author of Cork Dork takes readers on another fascinating, hilarious, and revelatory journey—this time burrowing deep inside the secretive world of art and artists.
  • Monday, March 25, 2024 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Livestream | open to the public | $10 per person | registration required
    The New York Times bestselling author of Cork Dork takes readers on another fascinating, hilarious, and revelatory journey—this time burrowing deep inside the secretive world of art and artists.
  • Thursday, March 21, 2024 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Members' Room | open to the public | $15 per person | registration required
    A stunning life of the iconic American artist Keith Haring, by the acclaimed biographer Brad Gooch. Stacy Schiff calls it "A keen-eyed, beautifully written biography, atmospheric, exuberant, and as radiant as they come.”
  • Thursday, March 21, 2024 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Livestream | open to the public | $10 per person | registration required
    A stunning life of the iconic American artist Keith Haring, by the acclaimed biographer Brad Gooch. Stacy Schiff calls it "A keen-eyed, beautifully written biography, atmospheric, exuberant, and as radiant as they come.”
  • Thursday, February 15, 2024 - 2:00 PM | Thursday, March 21, 2024 - 2:00 PM | Thursday, April 11, 2024 - 2:00 PM | The Writing Life | on the Zoom Meetings platform | open to the public; free for members | separate sessions | registration required
    Join poet and teacher Esther Cohen to write the poems we've always intended to write.
  • Tuesday, March 19, 2024 - 6:00 PM | The Writing Life | Members’ Room | open to the public | $15 per person | registration required
    Library members read from their own short stories, novels, poetry, criticism, memoir, and plays.
  • Tuesday, March 19, 2024 - 3:30 PM | The Writing Life | Whitridge Room | for members only | free of charge | registration required
    What works and what doesn’t when it comes to publicizing a book? After publishing her memoir with an award-winning independent press that made it clear that they would rely on her to create a marketing plan, Elizabeth Winthrop got to work. In this talk, she’ll provide tips and takeaways from her journey, and lead a discussion useful for all writers: those who are self-publishing, publishing with a small academic or independent press, and even those publishing with one of the big five.
  • Tuesday, March 19, 2024 - 10:00 AM | Children | Whitridge Room | Ages 24 Months and Younger | For Members Only

    Join us for songs, stories, and movement for babies and toddlers.

    Pick up a ticket in the lobby.

  • Thursday, March 14, 2024 - 6:00 PM | The Writing Life | Zoom | for members only | free of charge | registration required
    Books Walter Bode edited have won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In this seminar, he’ll help writers find the most effective words and make the best use of them – based on participants’ own writing samples.
  • Thursday, March 14, 2024 - 5:00 PM | Children | Whitridge Room | Grades 3+ | For members & a guest | $15 per child

    In this ongoing series, young writers are invited to join notable authors in exploring different genres. Rob Ackerman will share the fundamental tools of great playwriting and guide participants in writing their own scenes. 

  • Thursday, February 22, 2024 - 10:30 AM | Thursday, March 14, 2024 - 10:30 AM | Thursday, March 28, 2024 - 10:30 AM | Reading Group | Zoom | open to the public | $75 for the three sessions | registration required
    In this three-session seminar, we will read three multi-perspective novels, exploring how each author builds their story using the voices and/or perspectives of multiple characters. Participants will also have the opportunity to practice crafting their own multi-perspective stories.
  • Wednesday, March 13, 2024 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Members' Room | open to the public | free of charge | registration required
    This fresh biographical study aims to explore neglected or misunderstood aspects of Lord Byron’s private life. In this event, Antony Peattie explores the poet’s relationship with his hero, Napoleon. It traces its origins to Byron’s fatherlessness and considers how it impacts his love life, his eating disorder, and his work, to reveal new and central aspects to his masterpiece, Don Juan.
  • Friday, March 8, 2024 - 12:00 PM | Lecture | Livestream (online only) | open to the public | $10 per person | registration required
    2024 marks the Library's 270th anniversary. Up to the Revolutionary War, the Library occupied a room in City Hall, and our early readers included both revolutionaries and loyalists. In this unique event, two leading scholars of the Loyalist movement in New York City discuss their work and revise our understanding of the coming of the American Revolution.
  • Wednesday, February 14, 2024 - 11:00 AM | Wednesday, March 6, 2024 - 11:00 AM | Wednesday, April 3, 2024 - 11:00 AM | Reading Group | Whitridge Room | for members only | $75 for the three sessions | registration required
    The Books of Jacob (2014) is the central work of the acclaimed contemporary Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk, winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize for Literature. Tokarczuk uses the form of the historical novel to explore questions of identity in an era, much like ours, poised uneasily between ethnocentric and pluralist ideas of nationhood.
  • Tuesday, March 5, 2024 - 6:00 PM | The Writing Life | Members' Room | open to the public | free of charge | registration required
    Join expert, entertaining, award-winning biographers Kitty Kelley and Debby Applegate to discuss how and why they choose their subjects, share with us their best and worst moments as writers, and remind us why we love reading about other people.
  • Tuesday, March 5, 2024 - 6:00 PM | The Writing Life | Livestream | open to the public | free of charge | registration required
    Join expert, entertaining, award-winning biographers Kitty Kelley and Debby Applegate to discuss how and why they choose their subjects, share with us their best and worst moments as writers, and remind us why we love reading about other people.
  • Sunday, January 7, 2024 - 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM | Sunday, February 4, 2024 - 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM | Sunday, March 3, 2024 - 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM | Sunday, April 7, 2024 - 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM | Sunday, May 5, 2024 - 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM | Sunday, June 2, 2024 - 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM | Reading Group | Whitridge Room | for members and their guests | free of charge | registration required
    We gather monthly to read aloud a play by William Shakespeare.
  • Thursday, February 29, 2024 - 5:00 PM | Children | Whitridge Room | Grades 3+ | For members & a guest | $15 per child

    In this ongoing series, young writers are invited to join notable authors in exploring different genres.

  • Thursday, February 29, 2024 - 9:00 AM to Thursday, March 7, 2024 - 7:00 PM | Special Event | Entry Hall
    Donate children's & YA books to New York City public schools February 29-March 7.
  • Wednesday, February 28, 2024 - 7:00 PM | Lecture | Members' Room | open to the public | free of charge | registration required
    The 2015 Man Booker Prize winner and author most recently of Moon Witch, Spider King shows clips and discusses favorite great forgotten films with Antonio Monda, including works by John Boorman, John Huston, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
  • Wednesday, September 27, 2023 - 11:00 AM | Wednesday, October 25, 2023 - 11:00 AM | Wednesday, November 29, 2023 - 11:00 AM | Wednesday, January 31, 2024 - 11:00 AM | Wednesday, February 28, 2024 - 11:00 AM | Wednesday, March 27, 2024 - 11:00 AM | Reading Group | Whitridge Room | for members only | $100 for the six sessions | registration required
    “Never say you know the last word about any human heart.” That’s one of the great sentences of this great writer, Henry James (1843-1916). In this seminar – which welcomes both experienced readers of James and novices – we discover many more.
  • Tuesday, February 27, 2024 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Livestream (online only) | open to the public | $10 per person | registration required
    The story of the Combahee River Raid, one of the Civil War's most dramatic episodes, and the central part Harriet Tubman played in it, based on original documents and written by a descendant of one of the participants.
  • Thursday, February 22, 2024 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Members' Room | open to the public | free of charge | registration required
    In this keynote event for our 270th anniversary exhibition, A Belief in Books, Dr. Leslie M. Harris speaks about the Library in the context of slavery and abolition, and about historical African American reading practices - print culture, reading rooms, and literary societies - in the absence of access to places like the Library.
  • Thursday, February 22, 2024 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Livestream | open to the public | free of charge | registration required
    In this keynote event for our 270th anniversary exhibition, A Belief in Books, Dr. Leslie M. Harris speaks about the Library in the context of slavery and abolition, and about historical African American reading practices - print culture, reading rooms, and literary societies - in the absence of access to places like the Library.

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