Ed Koch Archives - Public Seminar

When The New School Tried to Sell the Orozco Room

On the institutional amnesia that enables universities to treat artworks as fungible assets

June 16, 2026 • by Gil Bittner

Art has always been treated as an investment. The Italian Renaissance was bankrolled by patrons wishing to glorify God—and their own families and administrations. Today, blue-chip art buyers park their assets in storage lockers in tax-friendly freeports, openly treating art as capital rather than culture. Yet it feels different when ...

As New York City Rebuilds, Business Can Be Part of the Solution

Higher taxes are necessary, but who will have the political courage to make it happen?

October 1, 2020 • by Kim Phillips-Fein

Early in September, more than 160 executives from companies like Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, the white-shoe corporate law firm Skadden Arps, and a host of real estate developers and financial firms sent a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio. They expressed their fear that “deteriorating conditions” in the city might slow ...

Rat Race

Why are young professionals crazy for marathons?

February 15, 2018 • by Dylan Gottlieb

Over half a million people finished a full 26.2-mile marathon in 2016; roughly seventeen million ran in a road race of any distance that year. It is nearly impossible, at least among a set of educated professional types, to avoid overhearing discussions of training routines throughout the summer months. Studies confirm that ...