Smart Things to Do in NYC This Week
Looking for smart things to do in New York this week? Thought Gallery has a collection of talks and lectures this week, from urban planning to understanding pandemics to a nearly lost musical tradition.
MONDAY, MARCH 24
New York is the only major American city that doesn’t have an interstate running through its core. It does still deal with the contortions made to accommodate the car, however, and the half century spent trying to undo those mistakes. Urban writer Nicole Gelinas talks about her new book, Movement: New York’s Long War to Take Back Its Streets from the Car, with “Gridlock Sam,” former NYC Traffic Commissioner Sam Schwartz, looking at lesser-known milestones in an ongoing battle. Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library.
TUESDAY, MARCH 25
Historian of science Edna Bonhomme marks five years of COVID-19 with an account of humanity’s battle with the virus, along with cholera, HIV/AIDS, the Spanish flu, sleeping sickness, and Ebola. She discusses her new book A History of the World in Six Plagues: How Contagion, Class, and Captivity Shaped Us, from Cholera to COVID-19 with acclaimed author Leslie Jamison. The New York Historical.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26
Andalusian lute, from the 1283 AD book, The Book of Chess, Dice and Board Games, St. Lorenze del Escorial, Madrid. The book was made for or commissioned by Alfonso X, King of Castile and León.
Canadian ethnomusicologist, medievalist, singer, and storyteller Dr. Judith Cohen shares little-known songs from her fieldwork among the Sephardim of Morocco and the Eastern Mediterranean. The presentation and performance also includes regional songs from Spain and Portugal, some she learned in the same villages—sometimes from the same people—as Alan Lomax recorded in 1952. Centro Primo Levi.
This battle over identity in China is the core theme of Let Only Red Flowers Bloom: Identity and Belonging in Xi Jinping’s China, which looks at state oppression and push back from the grassroots. Award-winning NPR correspondent Emily Feng shares her reporting, in conversation at Asia Society.
Professor Emma Stamm’s interests cover technology, philosophy, art, and politics. She’ll bring them together for the Think Olio session Creativity is Dead, Long Live Creativity!: Generative AI and the Artistic Mind. An evening in Park Slope will ask “was creativity always a myth, and if so, is this a problem?”
THURSDAY, MARCH 27
A half century ago, limestone fragments were found in a Sardinian field. Reassembled into dozens of colossal statues, they revealed a powerful Bronze and Iron Age civilization. Learn more from a panel of experts, followed by a celebration of the opening of a new gallery exhibition. Italian Academy, Columbia University.
Following the theme “Common Ground,” stay up late with ideas. Prominent French and American intellectuals, including philosophers, a historian, and a political scientist, discuss global issues; dance, live music, and a cocktail reception are part of the night at Albertine as well, until midnight. (Pre-registration is closed now, but they’ll take walk-ins as space is available.)
New York State has the third-highest number of wrongful convictions in the nation and has paid out over $300 million to the exonerated since 1990. Learn more as The Museum of the City of New York hosts an expert panel (including Yusef Salaam, a New York City Councilmember representing Harlem, who served seven years in prison after being wrongfully convicted in the “Central Park jogger” case) looks at Redefining Justice: Tackling Wrongful Convictions and Reforming the Criminal Justice System.
Professor Ravliel Netz of Stanford is an expert in the history of pre-modern mathematics. He’ll be speaking at The Cooper Union on the Archimedes Palimpsest, describing how an ancient manuscript was decoded to provide the answers to longstanding mathematical and historical questions.
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