2025 Annual Meeting

April 23 – 26, 2025 • New York City, NY

Ceiling of a classic New York City building.

The Big Apple. The City That Never Sleeps.

Everything about New York City is big. New York City has more people, more millionaires, more languages, more stores, more theaters – just more of nearly everything – than any other city in the United States. The biggest item in New York is news that the Manuscript Society is coming to town!

Next spring the Manuscript Society will be excited to find out if the Big Apple’s manuscript treasures match the promise of the metropolis’s tremendous breadth and diversity!

We last held our annual meeting in New York in 2000. In twenty-five years, much has changed: New York’s cultural institutions have evolved, and our Society’s membership has grown. It’s time to return.

With so many fantastic venues to sample during a three-day visit, you know that you’ll be absorbing information and sights at “New York Speed.” Your planning committee has been hard at work to make this meeting as productive and enjoyable as it possibly can be!

The history of New York is the history of our nation.

European explorers recognized the importance of New York’s strategic harbor as early as 1524 with the arrival of Giovanni da Verrazzano. Dutch colonists claimed the area in 1624 as New Amsterdam, and soon purchased part of Manhattan from Lenape natives. Dutch influence is still evident in famous New York names and geography, and we’ll see that in artifacts on our tour. British colonists soon took over, changing the settlement’s name from New Amsterdam to New York.

With independence from England, New York became the young nation’s first capital under its new Constitution, and surpassed Philadelphia as its most populous city. Because of its pivotal position in the mid-Atlantic seaboard, New York became the immigration focal point for most of the 19th and part of the 20th century. Many Americans can trace their ancestors’ arrival path to the new world through New York City.

As the economic capital of the United States today, the New York City metropolitan area, if it were an independent nation, would be the world’s tenth-largest economy!

Limited Capacity: Important Note

Nearly everything about New York is big, but not the capacity of every library and museum room that we’ll visit. Because we need to keep our group to a manageable size, we may not be able to accommodate everyone who wishes to attend. The number of attendees at this meeting will be limited! If you know you would like to attend this great meeting, you should send in your form and payment as soon as possible. Once we sell out, we will be sold out.

Registration

  • $750.00 (exclusive of airfare and hotel)
  • Deadline for registration is March 17, 2025
  • Additional Sunday: $140.00

Warwick New York Hotel
65 West 54th Street
New York, NY 10019
Get Directions

Phone: 212-247-2700 or 800-223-4099
Email: infoboxny@warwickhotels.com

We have secured a block of rooms at a favorable rate:

  • Premier King rooms: $345 per night ($399.39 with taxes – see below)
  • Premier Double rooms: $365 per night ($422.34 with taxes – see below)

[Quoted hotel room rates are subject to 8.875% NY State sales tax, 5.875% NY City sales tax, and a $3.50 per night occupancy tax. Room rates are based on single/double occupancy. Triple occupancy is only available in two-bedded rooms for an additional $30 per day or a king-bedded room with a rollway for an additional $60 per day. An early departure fee of one night’s room and taxes will incur if the individual guest departure occurs prior to the agreed upon departure date.]

  • The block of rooms is reserved for April 22 through April 27, 2024.
  • Room reservations must be made by March 20, 2025, to participate in the Society’s room block at our negotiated rate.
  • Reservation Online Link to The Manuscript Society Block of Rooms.

Transportation

New York City is served by three major airline airports and nearly all of the world’s major airlines.

  • John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
  • La Guardia Airport (LGA)
  • Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) in Newark, NJ

Amtrak Railroad serves New York through two major railroad stations: The Pennsylvania Station, at Eighth Avenue and 32nd street, and the Grand Central Station at Park Avenue and 42nd street.

Those choosing to drive private automobiles into Manhattan should be aware that congestion pricing will be in place in the Central Business District (Manhattan south of 60th street) beginning in January 2025.

Weather

The weather is great in New York in mid-April: typically, ideal travel and tourism weather, neither hot and muggy, nor cold and snowy. Bring seasonal clothing for a range of springtime temperatures!

Add On Day – National Historical Parks – Sunday, April 27, 2025

On Sunday April 27, registered attendees may choose to enjoy an optional day trip to visit two nearby historic sites. The Morristown (New Jersey) National Historical Park commemorates the sites of General Washington and the Continental army’s winter encampment of December 1779 to June 1780, where they survived what would be the coldest winter on record! The park also maintains a museum and library collection related to the encampments and George Washington, as well as items relating to pre- and post-Revolutionary America. In nearby West Orange, the Thomas Edison National Historical Park preserves the laboratories where Edison conducted research in electricity, photography, motion pictures, chemistry, metallurgy and other disciplines, and developed early sound recording and movie filming products.