Brooklyn Archives - Public Seminar

History

New York, From a Balloon

A map captured the evolution of New York City but missed one thing, the people

April 28, 2021 • by David T. Z. Mindich

_____ In its May 6, 1871 issue—150 years ago next week—Harper’s Weekly published an extraordinary bird’s-eye view of New York, which was quickly becoming one of the world’s greatest cities. “Eighteen Miles Around New York” is a snapshot of a city still under construction, one that had been transformed well within the lifetime of ...

Democracy

Confessions of a Poll Worker

When I volunteered to work on Election Day, my melting pot neighborhood taught me about the complexity of Trump’s America

November 5, 2020 • by Mitchell Abidor

It’s not the least of the paradoxes of the Trump era that this wannabe authoritarian did more than any decent man to lead Americans to assume their civic duties. Trump’s attacks on the electoral process led 52,000 New Yorkers to sign up for work at the polls, 18,000 more than in ...

Interviews

Bernie Sanders’s Socialism Is New York Born and Bred

June 24, 2020 • by Charlotte Slivka and Ted Hamm

Charlotte Slivka [CS]: Bernie’s Brooklyn is so much more than what the title would suggest. This book shows a deep love for the city and how politics and life are so tightly intertwined in our dense and crazy city. Are you from New York? Ted Hamm [TH]: No, I grew up ...

Bernie Sanders’s Socialism Is New York Born and Bred

Activism

The Anti-Racist Uprising in Brooklyn

A report from the streets

June 3, 2020 • by Natasha Lennard

Since March, sirens have become a consistent soundtrack where I live in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights. For weeks, this was the sound of ambulances, ushering thousands to nearby hospitals from the predominantly African American area, hard hit by the pandemic. But in recent days, the sirens have carried a different meaning. Night ...

Race

It’s Personal: Changing How White People Think About Racism

October 11, 2019 • by Marcia Ely

I’ve watched the movement to take history textbooks to task for their alarming kid gloves treatment of slavery. I shook my head following last year’s story about Texas finally updating its public school curriculum to teach the truth that slavery was the main cause of the Civil War. And I ...