Past Event: Moonlight & Movies | Desk Set

A pre-film happy hour sets the scene with martinis and live jazz!  
Join us for an outdoor screening of the classic 1957 rom-com Desk Set, starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Hepburn and Tracy play a research librarian at a New York television network and a visiting computer expert, who clash when Tracy tries to convert Hepburn's network to computers and to replace Hepburn and her brainy, all-female research team with a giant computer (nicknamed "Miss Emmy"). But, wouldn't you know it, as the sparks fly, an office romance blossoms.

Introduction by Lilly Tuttle, curator of our new hit exhibition, Analog City: NYC B.C. (Before Computers), and New School anthropologist Shannon Mattern.   

Event Timeline:
7:00 pm - "Office Party" happy hour with live jazz by the Josh Levine Trio with Katie Martucci (South Terrace).  Analog City open for viewing (2nd floor).
8:00 pm -  Introduction by Lilly Tuttle and Shannon Mattern
8:15 pm - Screening of Desk Set (Walter Lang, 104 mins)
10:00 pm - Film ends, Museum closes.

About the Speakers:
Shannon Mattern is Professor of Anthropology at The New School for Social Research. Her writing and teaching focus on media architectures and infrastructures and spatial epistemologies. She has written books about libraries, maps, and urban intelligence, and she contributes a column about urban data and mediated spaces to Places Journal. You can find her at wordsinspace.net. 

Lilly Tuttle is a curator at the Museum of the City of New York. During her tenure at the Museum, she has collaborated on numerous exhibitions and publications. She served as Associate Curator for New York at Its Core, the Museum’s long-term, signature exhibition, which opened in November of 2016. Most recently, she has curated Analog City: NYC B.C. and City/Game: Basketball in New York, which opened in February 2020. Previously, she worked as a researcher, writer, and content manager at the New-York Historical Society.  

Event Logistics (subject to changed based on NYC regulations):

• In case of rain, this event will move indoors into Ronay Menschel Hall (Ground Floor).  
• Please contact programs@mcny.org with any questions or ticketing issues.
• All sales are final; refunds not permitted. Exchanges and credit for future programs only. Programs and dates may be subject to change. 

Watch the Trailer: