TOPIC

History

Shelf Life

Local Frequencies

An audio archivist documents the evolution of pirate radio in Brooklyn and its place in the cultural landscapes of the borough's immigrant communities.

Unjust Treatment

The geography of methadone treatment in New York City follows familiar patterns of discrimination, while clinics subject patients to punishment, not rehabilitation. Does this one kind of medicine need its own space in the first place?

When Government Came to Main Street

The Bronx County Building embodies the New Deal era's ideals of robust government presence in everyday life, for better and worse.

Signs of Things to Come

Despite two centuries of discrimination, New York's psychics continue to make space for contacting spirits, telling fortunes, and making a future for themselves.

Memory Loss

Roots of Memory

Less conspicuous and permanent than statues or sculptures, New York City’s memorial trees register histories that are personal, passed over, or in progress, from intimate loss to climate catastrophe.

Track Record

Like reading the rings of an old tree, decoding the perplexing last century of ridership on the Long Island Rail Road casts light on the development of both a transit system and the identities of the places it passes through.

Memory Loss

The Bergen Family Owned 46 People

Drawing on census records, newspaper ads, and more from the city's archives, activists call attention to the legacy of slavery embedded in the names of familiar streets and neighborhoods.

Memory Loss

A Monumental Shift

A group of artists and creative technologists is wielding augmented reality to insert heroic women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ icons into an uneven landscape of public memory.

Memory Loss

Mourn and Organize

For all death’s new omnipresence, the scale of our losses has been hard to locate in the daily fabric of urban life. Where does the city put its grief and voice its outrage?

Where to Have Sex in an Epidemic

The New St. Marks Baths became a key infrastructure of care in the struggle against the HIV/AIDS epidemic. What can its history tell us about still pressing questions around public health, private pleasure, and the spaces in-between?