Events

DORIS


Events

DORIS offers programs, tours, and activities related to our holdings. Join our mailing list to be the first to know about exhibition openings, upcoming events, recent blog posts, and much more.

Note: If you require an auxiliary aid or service in order to attend a DORIS event, please contact the Disability Service Facilitator.

Note: To request language interpretation services, please contact the Language Access Coordinator at least three (3) business days before an event.

Lunch & Learn: Digitizing the 1890 NYC Police Census

Online (Zoom)

Tuesday, February 18 - 1:00-2:00pm

Join the NYC Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS) each month for our virtual Lunch & Learn Series - an intimate conversation with agency staff and special guests focusing on the collections of the Municipal Archives and Library and the history of New York City.

In 1890, questioning the accuracy of the city’s population count reported by the federal government, New York City officials launched an independent census using police officers as enumerators. Today, this census is known as the 1890 New York City Police Census.

On February 18, join City archivists to learn more about the newly digitized 1890 census and how you can help transcribe information from this valuable record. Long valued by family historians, the Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS) recently completed digitizing the 1890 census with a generous grant from the Peck Stacpoole Foundation. During 2025, the 400th anniversary of the founding of the City government, DORIS is expanding access to records documenting the City and its diverse communities. The 1890 census is an important resource for studying the City’s immigrant population.

Discover the challenges archivists faced in digitizing the fragile census books and learn how you can contribute to this exciting transcription project.

RSVP to join us virtually (via Zoom) by clicking here.

Saving Radio City Music Hall with Rosemary Novellino-Mearns

Online (Zoom)

Thursday, March 13 - 6:00-7:30pm

Join the NYC Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS) this March for a special Women's History Month virtual presentation.

In January 1978, Rockefeller Center president Alton Marshall announced that Radio City Music Hall would close its doors that April and was slated for demolition, shocking fans worldwide. Determined to prevent this from happening, a group of the Music Hall employees, fans, dancers, and politicians banded together to save the theater.

On March 13, join Rosemary Novellino-Mearns, the former president of the Showpeople’s Committee to Save Radio City Music Hall as she shares her firsthand account of the three-month struggle to reverse Rockefeller Center’s decision.

Using archival media coverage and personal anecdotes, Rosemary will discuss how she and the Showpeople’s Committee fought in a David-and-Goliath battle to preserve the iconic theater for future generations.

RSVP to join us virtually (via Zoom) by clicking here.

Lunch & Learn: When the City Stopped

Online (Zoom)

Thursday, April 3 - 1:00-2:00pm

Join the NYC Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS) each month for our virtual Lunch & Learn Series - an intimate conversation with agency staff and special guests focusing on the collections of the Municipal Archives and Library and the history of New York City.

On April 3, join Dr. Robert Snyder for an in-depth discussion on his upcoming book, When the City Stopped: Stories from New York’s Essential Workers.

Five years after New York City shut down to reduce the spread of COVID-19, Snyder examines the inequalities illuminated by the pandemic, the workers who saved the city, and the lessons we can learn from the days when New York City was at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Using poems, first-person narratives, and oral histories, When the City Stopped explores the experiences of immigrants, people of color, and low-income New Yorkers whose work exposed them to the dangers of the pandemic, the fear and uncertainty of life in the early weeks and months of the pandemic, as well as the solidarity that sustained the city.

RSVP to join us virtually (via Zoom) by clicking here.

Lunch & Learn: America's Street of Dreams

Online (Zoom)

Tuesday, April 8 - 1:00-2:00pm

Join the NYC Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS) each month for our virtual Lunch & Learn Series - an intimate conversation with agency staff and special guests focusing on the collections of the Municipal Archives and Library and the history of New York City.

On April 8, join architectural historian Dr. Mosette Broderick as she delves into the evolution of one of the most iconic streets in the world, New York’s Fifth Avenue.

Dubbed America’s “Street of Dreams,” the transformation of Fifth Avenue from a country road on the 1807 Commissioners’ Map to a 19th-century symbol of wealth and high society mirrored the dramatic shifts in the city’s early social and architectural landscape.

Explore Fifth Avenue’s 19th- and early 20th-century architecture, from the brownstone rowhouses of NYC mercantile society to the grand European-inspired mansions of arrivistes such as Alva Vanderbilt and Marietta Stevens; and discover how the rise of modern skyscrapers quickly overshadowed it.

RSVP to join us virtually (via Zoom) by clicking here.

Lunch & Learn: You Have Unleashed A Storm

Online (Zoom)

Tuesday, April 29 - 1:00-2:00pm

Join the NYC Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS) each month for our virtual Lunch & Learn Series - an intimate conversation with agency staff and special guests focusing on the collections of the Municipal Archives and Library and the history of New York City.

On April 29, join us and Dr. David Viola for an in-depth discussion on his upcoming book, You Have Unleashed a Storm: New York City’s Descent into Chaos During America’s Most Explosive Era of Radical Violence.

Using newly declassified files, preserved court records, and archival collections such as the Municipal Archives’ Handschu Collection, Viola delves into the untold history of domestic terrorism and political radicalism that shook New York City in the 1960s and 70s. He will reveal how these records illuminate the city’s rapid transition from postwar prosperity to turmoil and highlight the NYPD’s role in navigating this era of radical violence.

RSVP to join us virtually (via Zoom) by clicking here.

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