In a town renowned for its in-your-face persona, citizens have banded together on issues as diverse as historic preservation, civil rights, wages, sexual orientation, and religious freedom. Inspired by the ongoing exhibition Activist New York, which presents the ideas and conflicts that underlie New York City’s history of agitation, this program series looks at how a legacy of social activism shapes the city we know today.

This series, presented in conjunction with the Museum's exhibition AIDS at Home: Art and Everyday Activism (on view through October 22, 2017) brings together artists, photographers, and filmmakers to discuss the HIV/ AIDS epidemic in New York and its social, political, and emotional impact, from the earliest reported cases in 1981 up to the present. 

Click on a program below to learn more and purchase tickets. 

Following World War II, Todd Webb, a recently discharged Navy veteran, moved to New York City and took pictures of the city’s residents, booming waterfront, and rising skyline. Inspired by our upcoming exhibition A City Seen: Todd Webb's Post War New York, 1945-1960 (opens April 20th) join us for a series of conversations to examine Webb’s masterly but little-known work as a street photographer and the immediate postwar decades. 

Although New York City was located some 4,000 miles from Europe’s bloodiest battlefields during World War I, it nonetheless played an important role in the conflict, particularly as a producer of all types of war propaganda. Inspired by our exhibition, Posters and Patriotism: Selling World War I in New York (on view through October 9, 2017), and on the 100th anniversary of the U.S.

The character of New York City’s varied neighborhoods is governed by a novel set of rules first shaped by reformers one hundred years ago: the pioneering Zoning Resolution of 1916. Co-presented with The Municipal Art Society, our Mastering the Metropolis: New York and Zoning, 1916-2016 programs chart the city’s evolving approaches to zoning. 

Off the Page is a literary series spotlighting authors of the best new non-fiction written about the five boroughs. After a reading by the author, we will host a conversation with an expert commentator on the book’s topic. The programs are inspired by the Museum's ongoing exhibition New York at Its Core, which tells the story of NYC's 400-year history through the lens of four themes: money, density, diversity, and creativity.

Gay Gotham: Art and Underground Culture explores the queer creative networks that sprang up in the city over the 20th century. Join us for a series of programs that reveal this often hidden history and celebrate the power of artistic collaboration to overcome prejudice. 

Only in New York was a live conversation series hosted by New York Times journalist Sarah Maslin Nir that ran between January 2017 and February 2019.  At each program, Nir brought together two remarkable New Yorkers to explore and question key concepts and commonly-held beliefs about life in the city, its limits and its possibilities. The conversations were inspired by the Museum's ongoing exhibition New Yor