Exhibition Partnership with the Museum of the City of New York

The Gotham Center is very pleased to announce that it will be partnering with the Museum of the City of New York on an exhibition for the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. The exhibition will build on the Gotham Center’s NYC Revolutionary Trail, now in production to become a multimedia walking tour app. It will open May 1, 2026, taking over 7,000 square feet of the Museum for more than a year.

To learn more, view the press release here. Or read this early spotlight in the New York Times.

Gotham Center on LinkNYC

Have you seen us around town? The Gotham Center is advertising NYC Revolutionary Trail on LinkNYC, near thirty locations spotlighted and referenced in our new multimedia walking tour, recounting New York City’s experience with the American Revolution from 1763 to 1789. Learn more here.

Gotham Center Launches NYC Revolutionary Trail

The Gotham Center has launched NYC Revolutionary Trail, a “Freedom Trail” for New York, which relays the city’s experience with the American Revolution from 1763 to 1789. The website provides audio narration, site information, video interviews, and historical imagery for sixteen location in downtown Manhattan, plus K-12 material and 60,000 words of additional text and source material.. This is the first phase of a larger project. We’ll be expanding our core tour in lower Manhattan and placing this content onto a smartphone app for a more immersive and interactive experience, with various forms of “extended reality” and other media. The idea is to recreate New York in virtual space and to organize existing historic sites into a networked whole before the start of the American Revolution’s 250th anniversary.

Gotham Center Partners with Untapped New York

The Gotham Center is excited to announce our partnership with Untapped New York. Our institutions will now be presenting a roving Trivia Night, as well as a biweekly column in UNY’s highly trafficked media outlet, highlighting pieces from Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

UNY’s content reaches 4 million unique visitors yearly, with 1.5 million page views monthly and 25,000 newsletter subscribers, nearly half under the age of thirty-four. Other cultural partners include the Museum of the City of New York, the Center for Brooklyn History, the Smithsonian, and the Waterfront Alliance.

Gotham Blog Now Distributed to Teachers Nationwide

The Gotham Center is proud to announce that material from its blog will now reach upwards of 2 million teachers in the country via a partnership with Newsela, the K-12 education company. The New York firm has been named one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Companies” two years in a row, and now provides educational material to 90% of public schools in the nation, serving 25 million students. Among its 100 content partners are the New York Times, the Guardian, Scientific American, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the Marshall Project, and Columbia University Press.

2022-23 Robert D.L. Gardiner Writing Fellow

The Gotham Center has awarded its 2022-23 writing fellowship for Elizabeth K. Moore, in support of her book on the history of the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR).

COVID-NYC Documentary Project Wins Archivists Round Table Award

The Gotham Center has been awarded the 2021 Prize for Archival Achievement by the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York, which represents more than 400 archivists, librarians and records managers in the New York metropolitan area, and is one of the largest local organizations of its kind. The award recognizes “an individual or archival program that has made an outstanding contribution to the archival profession, or a notable achievement of value to the archives community, its patrons or constituents.” It was given in recognition of the COVID-NYC Documentary Project, a clearinghouse for the various efforts by museums, universities, libraries, neighborhood groups, and individuals to historically document New York City’s experience with the COVID-19 pandemic.

'Lost NYC' wins Guides Association Award for 'Outstanding Achievement in Radio / Podcast'

Lost NYC, last year’s special edition of Sites and Sounds, the Gotham Center’s annual podcast series for Open House New York Weekend, has won the Guides Association of New York City (GANYC)’s Apple Award for ‘Outstanding Achievement in NYC Radio / Podcast (Audio / Spoken Word).’ Past awardees for this prize include WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show, The Bowery Boys, and WFUV’s Cityscape. This is the second nomination in three years.

2021-22 Gardiner Writing Fellows

The Gotham Center is pleased to announce the 2021-22 awardees of “Writing the History of Greater New York,” a writing fellowship program established with generous support by the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation. The program supports independent and early-career professional scholars with book manuscripts substantially underway, which explore 1) the history of the “outer boroughs” (Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the Bronx), 2) Long Island’s contributions to the development of the metropolitan region, or 3) work that integrates these histories somehow, approaching the fields of urban and suburban history with a metropolitan or regional lens.

New Year-Round Program Offering Courses in New York City History

The Gotham Center is very pleased to announce the creation of a new, year-round program offering online courses in New York City history. Click here to learn more.

'Sites & Sounds' Nominated for a Second GANYC Award for 'Lost NYC'

Sites and Sounds, the Gotham Center’s annual podcast series, created for Open House New York Weekend, has been nominated for the second time in three years for an Apple Award by the Guides Association of New York City (GANYC). This year’s nomination for Outstanding Achievement in NYC Radio / Podcast (Audio / Spoken Word) is for Lost NYC, a special edition of the yearly podcast series, focusing on places in New York that are gone, but were nonetheless of great importance to the city's history.

Past awardees for this prize include WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show, The Bowery Boys, and WFUV’s Cityscape.

Gotham Center Sponsors Directory for All Work Historically Documenting NYC's Experience with COVID-19

The directory will create a single digital home for all the various efforts by museums, universities, libraries, neighborhood groups, and others to historically document NYC’s experience with COVID-19, a clearinghouse for new or existing work by organizations in all five boroughs, to avoid duplication, enhance visibility, better facilitate research, share resources and best practices, and create opportunities for partnerships. To submit an entry, write to us at: GothamCenter@gc.cuny.edu

Achelis and Bodman Foundation Supports Multimedia Digital Exhibit on NYC's Experience with the American Revolution

The Achelis and Bodman Foundation has awarded The Gotham Center $50,000 to create a multimedia digital exhibit on New York City’s forgotten but central role in the American Revolution. The project will use audio, video, image, and text to recount the events leading up to the War for Independence, the British occupation, and the city’s early days as the new republic’s first capital. This will be the only learning resource of its kind, highlighting the many respects in which Gotham served as the central location of the war. It will be designed for use in self-guided walking tours, classroom instruction, and home-based learning.

Rechler Philanthropy Supports New Writing Fellowship

The Gotham Center is pleased to announce that it has received a grant from Rechler Philanthropy to support a writing fellowship exploring the history of the Long Island Railroad’s development in relation to New York City. The award contributes to the organization’s work in advancing the history of greater New York. It is presently the only academic institution underwriting research on the history of the wider metropolitan region.

Seedtime Fund and Lauren Cramer Support Podcast Documenting NYC’s Experience with the COVID-19 Epidemic / Shutdown

The Gotham Center is pleased to announce the creation of a podcast documenting the experience of New York City in the COVID-19 epidemic and shutdown. The series will be a sister program to “The Big Shut-In: Stories from Quarantine,” a weekly storytelling podcast that has been documenting the personal experience of the crisis, introduced by Racecar Radio on March 16th.

Unlike its brother, which takes a national scope, this companion series will focus exclusively on New York, the city hit worst by the pandemic. Specifically, it will look at the experience of individuals and families within the public university system (“CUNY”), as perhaps New York City’s most representative institution — with over 250,000 students, faculty, and staff at twenty-five campuses spread across the five boroughs, hailing from every walk of life, teaching every imaginable discipline and profession, and providing enormous administrative support. Extra focus will be given to communities whose pre-existing vulnerabilities have made this outbreak and depression an unprecedented calamity.

In addition to producer David Hoffman and CitizenRacecar, the team behind Racecar Radio, The Gotham Center will be partnering with other CUNY institutions to gather stories, and has recruited Char Adams, a seasoned writer, reporter, and editor, as the series’s co-producer.

New York Public Library / Uris Fellows

The Gotham Center is pleased to announce the recipients of its new research grant program, generously established by the Uris Foundation and the New York Public Library. The program supplies graduate students in the City University of New York (CUNY) with stipends of $1,000 per week, for a minimum of two and maximum of four weeks, to finance research that expands our knowledge of any aspect of New York City history, political, economic, social, or cultural.

2020-21 Robert D.L. Gardiner Writing Fellows

The Gotham Center is pleased to announce the first winners of its new fellowship program, “Writing the History of Greater New York,” established with generous support by the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation. The award provides a stipend of $40,000, plus office space and library access for one year at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. The program supports independent and early-career professional scholars with book manuscripts substantially underway, which explore 1) the history of the “outer boroughs” (Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the Bronx), 2) Long Island’s contributions to the development of the metropolitan region, or 3) work that integrates these histories somehow, approaching the fields of urban and suburban history with a metropolitan or regional lens.

Gotham Center Blogs and Podcasts Now on Urban Archive

The Gotham Center is pleased to announce that its award-nominated podcast series “Sites and Sounds,” as well as the material from its semiweekly digital publication, “Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History,” will now be available on Urban Archive, the web- and phone-based app.

The organization began in 2016 as an experiment with the Museum of the City of New York, Brooklyn Historical Society, and New York Public Library, designed to breath new life into archives by using digital technology to engage users in the history of their surroundings. Since then, it has mapped almost 100,000 photographs at nearly 35,000 locations, throughout New York City, in collaboration with more than fifty organizations.

The Gotham Center will be uploading more than thirty-five podcasts from Sites and Sounds, its yearly series for Open House New York Weekend, and select material from the roughly 400 articles it has published on Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History, to the Urban Archive platforms.

New York Public Library Establishes Research Grant Program for CUNY Graduate Students

The Gotham Center / Uris Foundation is pleased to announce the creation of short-term research grants, supporting the work of graduate students at the City University of New York (CUNY) studying the history of New York City and using the collection materials of the New York Public Library. The stipends will provide $1,000 per week for a minimum of two and maximum of four weeks.

The fellowship is open to CUNY graduate students whose research touches on any aspect of New York City history (political, economic, social, or cultural) and is a joint venture of the New York Public Library and The Gotham Center, at CUNY’s graduate school and university center.

For application information, click here. Individuals needing to conduct on-site research in the Library’s special collections are welcome to apply. Preference is given to applications making a strong case for accessing special collections materials.