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Only in New York: Summer Events Celebrating NYC

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By Troy Segal

New York, New York — it’s a wonderful town. And to prove it, here are some upcoming talks, lectures, and activities on unique aspects of the Big Apple, past and present.

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Disney’s The Lion King in 2007, featuring the 10th anniversary cast. Photo: Joan Marcus

New York is the capital of American theatre — and its unique art form, the musical. Columnist Scott Siegel hosts a celebration of numbers from The Broadway Musicals of 1990-2014 at the Town Hall on June 23.

Author Meryl Gordon, who specializes in the denizens of NYC high society, unravels the mystery of “the phantom of Fifth Avenue,” Jazz Age heiress Huguette Clark, who lived in hospitals for the last decades for her 104-year-old life, at the 92nd Street Y, June 24.

Image: www.facebook.com/pages/Yogi-Berra-Museum-Learning-Center/

Image: www.facebook.com/pages/Yogi-Berra-Museum-Learning-Center/

Why is baseball the most beloved sport of New Yorkers? Several author/devotees of the game discuss the diamond’s unique appeal in a talk at the Museum of the City of New York on June 25.

Composer Leonard Bernstein’s score for West Side Story, with its unique use of jazz and Latino musical elements, seemed the embodiment of the NYC beat in the ’50s (small wonder the movie version was filmed on actual city streets). Learn about the making of the masterpiece at the 92nd Street Y on July 14.

Spiral Stair at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. © Michael Freeman. Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York

Spiral Stair at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. © Michael Freeman. Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York

Take a tour of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, the mother church of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, exploring its unique vaults, domes, and Rafael Guastavino-designed tiles, under the guidance of historian John Simko, on July 14.

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Lindsay speaking at a senior citizens rally October 1965 / World Telegram & Sun photo by Walter Albertin.

Hunter College professor Joseph P. Viteritti lectures on John Lindsay’s years as mayor during the 1960s — a decade that changed the city forever — in, fittingly, one of the city’s parks: the Bryant Park Reading Room, on August 6.