New York: In The Light Of Memory

This exhibition is based on David Dunlap's eponymous guide to 1,079 houses of worship, (Columbia University Press, 2004). From Abyssinian to Zion features sanctuaries off the beaten path that would count as major attractions in any other city or setting: St. Aloysius Church, a bristling work of Lombard architecture on West 132nd Street; All Saints Church, a virtual cathedral known with good reason as the St. Patrick's of Harlem (it is arguably a more inventive work of Gothic design); the Church of the Crucifixion, a powerful work of modern concrete sculpture on West 149th Street that evokes Le Corbusier; the elegantly neo-Classical Mount Olivet Baptist Church on Malcolm X Boulevard, built as Temple Israel, which used it as a synagogue for only 13 years; St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral, under whose onion domes on East 97th Street bitter and sometimes violent battles have been waged for the soul of the Russian church since the Revolution; the abandoned Pike Street shul where the Young Israel movement was born, now serving as the Sung Tak Buddhist temple; St. Augustine's Church on Henry Street, which has what it says is the only remaining slave gallery of any church on the island; and the greatest single house of worship built in Manhattan in the last 60 years: the mosque of the Islamic Cultural Center.

A group of approximately twenty paintings and two small sculptures offer visitors a chronological journey through highlights of the New-York Historical Society's rich collection of New York views, including historical images of the metropolis and richly allusive images of its inhabitants and their lives. The installation includes a selection of city views, beginning and ending with two monumental cityscapes, A Southeast Prospect of the City of New York from ca. 1756-1761 and Jacquette’s From World Trade Center, 1998. It features portraits of political and cultural figures such as DeWitt Clinton, who oversaw the development of the Erie Canal, and Katharine Cornell, the first lady of the American theater in the 1920s and 1930s. It also illuminates the everyday lives of city dwellers through such works as Thain’s Italian Block Party, 1922, and Blauvelt’s images of New Yorkers at work in the 1850s.

As part of its 200th anniversary celebration, the New-York Historical Society presents the exhibition Impressions of New York: Prints from the New-York Historical Society. By picturing over 300 years of New York City's dynamic urban evolution, the exhibition presents more than 100 prints featuring the city's dramatic panoramic vistas, distinctive architecture, memorable triumphs and disasters as well as many everyday occurrences that make up New York City's unique character. The prints will provide a snapshot of the city's history from its colonial beginnings to the thriving metropolis of today. The exhibit will be on view from November 9, 2004 through March 20, 2005.

The New-York Historical Society is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Remembering The Forgotten Ones: The Photographs of Milton Rogovin, which will be on view from June 17, 2003–October 12, 2005.

The Hudson River Day Line was the favorite way for New Yorkers to travel between Albany and New York City for a day in the country for more than 80 years. The exhibit highlights the Library's collection of photographs, advertising mockups, schedules, guidebooks, menus and other ephemera relating to the Hudson River Day Line, principally between 1890 and 1948.

The New-York Historical Society is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Petropolis: A Social History of Urban Animal Companions, which will be on view from July 15 to November 2, 2003. The Humane Society of New York is the Historical Society's institutional partner for this diverting and thought-provoking project, which will trace the history of the relationship between city dwellers and their pets, with an emphasis on New York City over the last two and a half centuries.

The Landmarks of New York is an exhibition which explores the history of New York as revealed by its historical structures. The exhibition’s ninety photographs of New York landmarks, including thirty newly donated by former New York City Landmarks Commissioner Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, are critical documents that chronicle the city’s past from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries. As the city grew, single family houses were replaced by apartment buildings and then skyscrapers; agriculture replaced manufacturing, which was supplanted by commerce and the movement of goods and services. All of these structures tell the story of New York’s journey from a small colonized village to a world class city.