Revision date: 01/26/2025 (Schedule is subject to change)
Schedule of Events & Venues
Wednesday April 23, 2025
Afternoon
Warwick Hotel: 65 West 54th Street at Sixth Avenue
Check in, relax, rest up, or take a stroll around nearby Rockefeller Center or the theater district. Or head north a few blocks into Central Park. For those interested in art, the Warwick Hotel is within a block of the Museum of Modern Art.
Evening
Welcome Reception and Fun Auction
Quality Bistro: 120 West 55th Street at Sixth Avenue As has been custom for Manuscript Society Annual Meetings, on arrival day we’ll hold our annual “Fun Auction” cocktail reception at the Quality Bistro restaurant across the street from the Warwick. This event is where documents and books graciously donated to the Manuscript Society are sold to help support our Society and defray the costs of our various programs. So, pack your checkbook! And, if you would like to donate materials to the Fun Auction, contact Bob Hopper at hopper@manuscript.org.
Thursday April 24, 2025
Morning
Metropolitan Museum of Art: Drawings and Prints Department
The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral.
Lunch
Le Rivage Restaurant: 340 West 46th Street
Le Rivage offers a cozy, romantic French country atmosphere where traditional French cuisine is expertly prepared.
Early Afternoon
New York Historical (formerly the New-York Historical Society)
New York’s first museum, New York Historical is a leading cultural institution documenting over 400 years of American history through a peerless collection of art, documents, and artifacts. The New York Historical’s Patricia D. Klingenstein Library is one of the oldest, most distinguished research libraries in the United States and a vital center of research into the history of New York and the nation.
Late Afternoon
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, one of NYPL’s renowned research libraries, houses one of the world’s most extensive research collections in the fields of theater, film, dance, music, and recorded sound, as well as a wide array of circulating and reference materials.
Friday April 25, 2025
Morning
New York City Municipal Archives
Founded in 1950, the Municipal Archives preserves and makes available the historical records of the New York City municipal government. Dating from the early seventeenth century to the present, the Municipal Archives comprises the largest local government archive in North America. Acquired from city agencies, the Archives hold the records depicting the daily work of city government, including paper records, digital collections, web archives, still and moving images, ledgers and docket books, vital records, cartographic materials, blueprints, and sound recordings.
Lunch
Rossini’s Restaurant: 101 East 38th Street
The Rossini family looks forward to providing us with the finest in Northern Italian Cuisine and making our stay at Rossini’s a pleasurable and satisfying dining experience.
With informative updates from our Society’s officers and Executive Director, lunchtime offers members an opportunity to conduct the business portion of our annual meeting.
Afternoon
Morgan Library and Museum
No Manuscript Society visit to Gotham would be complete with a visit to the Morgan Library and Museum. Nineteenth century banker J.P. Morgan was an avid collector of books, prints, art, and of course manuscripts. The library’s amazing collection of illuminated manuscripts is one of its most well-known features. Our guide to the treasures of the Morgan will be Roger Wieck, the Melvin R. Seiden curator and department head of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts. See the Manuscript Society News, Volume XLVI, No. 1, page 12 for a virtual tour and preview.
Saturday April 26, 2025
Morning
Museum of the City of New York
The Museum of the City of New York holds approximately 750,000 objects in its collection. Nearly 190,000 objects from the collections are now available as part of the museum’s ongoing digitization project. Collections include: Prints & Photographs, Paintings & Sculpture, the Theater Collection, Costume & Textiles, Manuscripts & Ephemera, and Furniture & Decorative Arts.
Late Afternoon
The South Street Seaport Museum
The South Street Seaport Museum preserves and interprets the history of New York as a great port city, and curates an extensive collection of works of art and artifacts, a maritime reference library, galleries, working 19th-century print shop, and a fleet of historic vessels.
Evening
Gala Banquet Dinner at Fraunces Tavern
Fraunces Tavern is a museum and restaurant situated in the financial district of lower Manhattan. The building played a prominent role in history before, during, and after the war for American independence. At various points in its history, Fraunces Tavern served as a headquarters for George Washington, a venue for peace negotiations with the British, and housing federal offices in the Early Republic.
During dinner, we will learn about the history of printing and publishing in New York City from historian Francis Morrone, whose essays on architecture have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, City Journal, American Arts Quarterly, the New Criterion, Humanities, and The New York Times. In April 2011, Travel + Leisure named him as one of the 13 best tour guides in the world. Morrone was a 2012 recipient of the Arthur Ross Award from the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, and a 2016 recipient of the Landmarks Lion Award from the Historic Districts Council. He teaches at New York University and is an authority on Edith Wharton.
Sunday April 27, 2025 (optional Add-on day)
Morning
Morristown National Historical Park, Morristown, NJ
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 encampment and George Washington, as well as items relating to pre- and post-Revolutionary America.
Lunch
Star Tavern: 400 High Street, Orange, NJ
During lunch, long time Manuscript Society member and frequent host of Manuscript Mondays, Brian Kathenes, will orient us to the history of the Edison National Historical Park and this area of bucolic New Jersey.
Afternoon
Edison National Historical Park, West Orange NJ
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.
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.