A Conversation with Think!Chinatown | Episode 105

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Manhattan’s Chinatown has been a destination for visitors from around the world seeking exotic food and curiosities for more than 100 years. Think!Chinatown works to demystify this neighborhood, while connecting people and resources to Chinatown businesses and organizations. Co-founder Yin Kong will share some of Think!Chinatown’s most recent projects, discuss their work with the community, and talk about how the neighborhood is working through this difficult time. We’ll explore how the organization uses design, community, and civic engagement as a way to connect visitors and locals alike with a sense of place in one of NYC’s most dynamic and vibrant immigrant neighborhoods. Chinatown is so much more than a culinary destination!

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In Service to Seafarers from Titanic to Today: Seamen’s Church Institute | Episode 103

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The day that news of the Titanic’s sinking reached New York, dignitaries assembled at 25 South Street on the tip of Lower Manhattan to lay the cornerstone. That building would stand tall among the icons of the Port of New York and vastly improved the lives of the seafarers who helped build this port city’s commerce. In this program, the Seamen’s Church Institute’s Senior Archivist and Queens College Assistant Professor Johnathan Thayer discusses SCI, its iconic building at 25 South Street, and its ongoing commitment to the unseen workforce on our oceans and inland waterways.

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Virtual Accessibility: Challenges and Opportunities | Episode 84

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During the pandemic, our daily routines have largely shifted from the physical world to virtual platforms, from school and work to social gatherings and religious ceremonies. This virtual program will engage disability advocates in a roundtable conversation about the ramifications of this shift and their observations and insights on this moment’s impact on the future of accessibility and universal design. Moderated by Cindy VandenBosch, panelists will include Hearing Loss Association of America-NYC board member Ruth Bernstein, autism advocate, consultant, and author Michael John Carley, Nefertiti Matos Olivares from the Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library of the New York Public Library, and Meredith Wong, Manager of connect2culture at CaringKind, a community resource for Alzheimer’s and dementia care in NYC.

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Struggle and Resilience on Manhattan’s Lower East Side | Episode 83

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In celebration of Lower East Side History Month, this virtual program will explore how the neighborhood has weathered difficult times, including stories of mutual aid, charity, and resilience shared from the Museum at Eldridge Street’s archives and by historian Sarah Litvin. At the end of the program, we will interview staff from the LES Partnership about their current efforts to bring together government, business, and community-based resources to support the needs of local residents. This program is hosted by Turnstile Tours in partnership with the LES Partnership, the Museum at Eldridge Street, and Dr. Sarah Litvin, Director of the Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History.

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Voices of Essex Market with Feed Me A Story | Episode 75

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In celebration of Lower East Side History Month, join us for a conversation with Theresa Loong, Laura Nova, and Sarah Kramer about Feed Me A Story’s video and audio documentation of Essex Market that explores what it means to be an American through questions like, “What is your favorite childhood food?” or “What was the first recipe you learned to cook?” We’ll be listening together to clips from their recently launched audio walk of the market, watching videos that feature stories and family recipes from vendors and customers alike, and inviting viewers to share the ingredients and dishes that spark their own stories and memories of family and community.

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Virtual Visit to Williamsburg’s Moore Street Market | Episode 73

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Learn the history of Brooklyn’s Moore Street Market and join a live broadcast with market manager Egaudy Gomez, who will take us on a virtual tour of the market to meet the vendors, hear their stories, and learn about what they are making and selling during this time of crisis, including businesses that are collaborating to make Puerto Rican- and Dominican-themed protective masks. Built in 1941 as part of a city-wide network of public retail markets, today “La Marqueta de Williamsburg” is a neighborhood institution, known by local residents for family-owned businesses selling herbal teas, beverages, gift items, and traditional ingredients like tubers and plantains, as well as prepared food vendors with lunch counters that serve up flavorful Latin dishes.

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From Orchard to Essex: Street Peddlers and Market Vendors with the Tenement Museum

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When Essex Street Market opened in 1940, it was heralded as a new era for commerce, as the city promised to clear the streets of pushcart peddlers and provide a clean, orderly space for shoppers. Many former street vendors set up shop in the new market’s 475 stalls, but New Yorkers lamented the loss of the pushcarts that had filled the streets of the Lower East Side for nearly a century. Together with the Tenement Museum, we’ll explore the evolution of the market itself and the stories of the vendors who made it their home. The history of the Essex Street Market and its businesses have always been a reflection of the immigration and migration to the Lower East Side and during this virtual visit, we’ll meet vendors of the past, and drop-in live to the new Essex Market to talk with its vendors of today.

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A Year in Review at Essex Market | Episode 63

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The first and second floors of the Essex Market with a historic neon sign from the Orchard Essex Meat Market

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On May 13, 2019, Essex Market moved from its 1940 building to a new home at Essex Crossing, opening a new chapter in the market’s history by adding 13 new vendors, a state-of-the-art demonstration kitchen, robust public seating, and tripling the market’s footprint. Despite the change in venue, Essex Market remains dedicated to its mission to serve the Lower East Side with fresh, affordable and high-quality food. On this virtual tour of the market, we will look back at the last year, which began with a flurry of excitement, but we enter Year Two with a completely different sense of “business as usual.” Learn about the historic move and get a first-hand look at how market vendors are adapting to the new state of affairs and keeping their businesses going. We’ll go live to the market with Community Manager Lauren Margolis, who will introduce us to some of the vendors and share the measures put in place so everyone can continue shopping safely.

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Hospital Ships and Shipwright Tools: Exploring Collections of the South Street Seaport Museum | Episode 56

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Dive into the collections of South Street Seaport Museum with Director of Collections Martina Caruso, who will share some of the highlights among the museum’s 28,000+ artifacts and 55,000+ archival materials that document the rise of New York as a port city. In honor of the recent visit of the hospital ship USNS Comfort, we will look at items related to past hospital ships that have visited New York, and we will examine some fascinating shipbuilding tools, including those used by workers at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and other nearby shipyards.

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Animal History of Prospect Park | Episode 52

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Prospect Park is not just 585 acres for people, but animals, too. We’ll share stories of the furry, feathery, scaly, and slimy inhabitants of the park throughout history, including the livestock that used to work in the park, the inhabitants of the various zoos over time, the dogs that roam the meadows during off-leash hours, and the many wild fauna that thrive in the park today.

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