|
 |
Nanette Shaw
New Center Gives Gotham a Historic Perspective Pulitzer-prize winning historian Mike Wallace will head the newly formed Gotham Center for New York History at The City University of New York Graduate Center. The Gotham Center will sponsor and produce lectures, conferences, a web site, festivals, and other special events aimed at emphasizing and documenting New York City’s rich history and helping others to learn about the past, present, and future of one of the world’s truly great metropolises. A joint project with CUNY’s John Jay College, the Center will facilitate cooperation between the institutions and individuals who are writing and producing the history of New York. The Gotham Center’s founding board of advisors includes philanthropist Brooke Astor, documentary film maker Ric Burns, journalist Pete Hamill, and former Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger. "We want to do for the historical community what the revitalized Rose Planetarium is doing for the stars," says Wallace. "We hope as well to generate new historical scholarship and to make it accessible to tourists, citizens, and students from K-12 through university," he adds. Wallace is co-author (with Brooklyn College professor Ted Burrows) of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning book Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 and is a Professor of History at The Graduate Center and CUNY’s John Jay College. Currently, the Gotham Center has four projects underway: 1) An ongoing series of New York City History Forums at The CUNY Graduate Center, sponsored by Fleet. This fall’s schedule (see press release "Sex and More in the City") includes: Friday, September 22, Nueva York: Historical Reflections on Puerto Ricans in New York City From 1945 to the Present; Thursday, September 28, From Bomba to Hip-Hop: A History of Latino Music in New York City; Thursday, October 12, Sex and the City: An Illustrated Talk about the History of Sex in The Big Apple; Thursday, October 26, Why Hasn't More Great Architecture Been Built in NYC in the Last 50 Years (and what can be done about it)?; Tuesday, November 14, From the Third Degree to Abner Louima: The History of Police Violence in New York City Since the 1880's; Tuesday, December 12, What's New about the New Immigrants?;Tuesday, January 9, 'Hood History: The South Bronx, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and East New York. 2) A Web site spotlighting the offerings of New York City’s many and varied historical museums, societies, libraries, archives, sites, colleges, neighborhoods, and tour guides. The site will also include a searchable database on New York City history, online discussion forums, and, eventually, ready-to-use curriculum packages for teachers. 3) A planned New York City History Festival, to be held biannually. The Festival will feature historical performances, music, and films aimed at a general public. It will also present panels of historians and historical participants to discuss and debate major issues. 4) An effort to help K-12 educators enhance the quality of their New York City history knowledge and teaching capacity. In addition, the Gotham Center is developing a series of videotapes that present the history of several New York neighborhoods. The programs, introduced by Mike Wallace, will take the form of a walking tour around each community. Urban historian Hope Cook will conduct the on-camera tours. The Graduate Center is the doctorate-granting institution of The City University of New York, the largest urban university in the U.S. The only consortium of its kind in the nation, The Graduate Center draws its faculty of more than 1,600 members mainly from the CUNY senior colleges and cultural and scientific institutions throughout New York City. According to a recent National Research Council report, more than a third of The Graduate Center's rated programs rank among the nation's top 20 at public and private institutions, nearly a quarter are among the top ten when compared to publicly supported institutions alone, and more than half are among the top five programs at publicly supported institutions in the northeast. Further information on The Graduate Center's programs and activities can be found on its Web site at: www.gc.cuny.edu. |