Let’s Visit Pre-1907 New York City!
Saturday, April 13th, 2013
7:30 – 10pm | lecture at 8pm.
At the City Reliquary
$5 donation, Brooklyn Brewery beers available for donation.

Join curator Lon Black for a visit to pre-1907 New York City with a slide show, lecture and tour of “Greetings From the City of New York,” the current exhibit at The City Reliquary.

The exhibit features New York City postcards from an era when, by law, you were only allowed to write messages on the image side of a postcard. It focuses on New York City view postcards that were mailed and bear messages about the City.

Hear what New York City residents and visitors had to say about our city over 100 years ago and see an urban landscape that is very different from today’s.

Friday Feb 15th
6-9pm, FREE! Donation appreciated.
At the City Reliquary, 370 Metropolitan Avenue
Brooklyn Beer Available for donation

Join us to celebrate the newest exhibit in the back room of the City Reliquary! Starting Friday, February 15th, we are proud to present Greetings From The City of New York, a plethora of picture postcards from the collection of Lon Black, each one reversing the clock to the turn of the 20th century.

The exhibit is curated by Lon Black whose interest in postcards began in his early teens. All the postcards featured in the exhibit are from his personal collection. He started collecting New York City views after moving here 32 years ago. Always looking for the unusual or rare postcard, his focus was acquiring images he had never seen. But in the past several years, he has paid more attention to the words or pictures that people wrote on the images of the undivided back cards.

Selected for this show are New York City postcards with messages that refer to the picture and/or express a sentiment about the City. Some are humorous. Some are evocative. The marriage of the message and picture can animate the postcards with personality. Some can inspire the imagination and elicit an emotional charge. They are nothing less than a ticket to a time traveling experience.

A Kickoff to the New Year / Warming Winter Benefit
January 26 | 7pm – 10pm
The Brooklyn Kitchen (100 Frost Street)
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NOW WITH MORE BOOZE!!!

You know the drill. January storms its way into our city, leaving our hearts filled with cold gray slush and our minds with endless dreary skies. Well, the City Reliquary is saving its year-end benefit for the start of the New Year with an unbelievable line-up of local libations and friendly foodsters that we can only call SON of BOOZE and SCHMOOZE with the City Reliquary!
Please join us on Friday January 26th, at the Brooklyn Kitchen for an evening of awesome alcohols and delectable edibles. Since the last Booze and Schmooze event (Ahh, February of 2011…) Brooklyn has been beneficent enough to play home to a dozen new distilleries (!!) some of whom will be on hand pouring their tipples for your tasting pleasure.

Local booze providers will include: Kings County Distillery, Industry City Distillery, Greenhook Ginsmiths and NY Distilling Company will all be present to pour samples of their heavenly hard stuff. For those who need their beverages bubbly, beer from three of the five boroughs and three different types of NYC brewing – Micro, Nano & Cellular – will all be represented. Magnificent Micro Brooklyn Brewery will send Master Brewer Jimmy Valm, member of the Worshipful Company of Brewers, who will provide beer unavailable anywhere else in NYC. Alongside BK Brew & scaling a bit smaller, we’ll have fledgling Nano brewery Rockaway brewing Co. of Queens, currently brewing in LIC. Then, yet again, even SMALLER, we’ll have HOME BREWER and native Staten Islander Dave Z, pouring Cellular Brewed beer, one keg at a time.

Food providers include the always-awesome Meat Hook, the gals from Saltie, snacks from Lodge, Coffee from Oslo and more TBD.

$100 at the door, Goody Bags will be provided to all. All proceeds will benefit the City Reliquary Museum and Civic Organization, a non-profit museum in Williamsburgh, Brooklyn.

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Opening Reception: Saturday December 1, 6-9pm
Exhibit On View: December 1, 2012 – February 10, 2013

Celebrate the holiday season with a new exhibit about The Santa Claus Association, a New York City-based philanthropic group that answered children’s letters to Santa Claus. The show, will appeal to anyone interested in learning about NY’s quirky Christmas history and the story of a real-life Santa Claus.

For decades, letters that kids addressed to Santa Claus went unanswered, ending up in the post office’s Dead Letter Office But in 1913, an eccentric New York publicist and Christmas obsessive named John Duvall Gluck Jr. devised a way to answer these wishes. Thus was launched The Santa Claus Association.

The group’s dozens of volunteers matched each letter to a donor who delivered the child’s Christmas wish — be they toys, treats, warm food, or in one case, an artificial limb. In its first year, the Association brought gifts to 28,000 children and was dubbed a “revolution in methods of distributing charity” by The New York Times. The Association flourished for 14 years and Gluck exulted in his role as the Santa of New York City with frequent press appearances and high-profile parties. But when Gluck’s fundraising practices came under scrutiny in 1928 and a public scandal resulted, the group was forced to close up operations, never to be heard from since.

The show is based on the research and artifacts collected by Gluck’s great grandnephew, Alex Palmer, who first learned about the Santa Claus Association two years ago. Through family members he had met for the first time during his research, Palmer acquired Gluck’s scrapbooks, photos, and the original Santa Claus Association annuals that are on display in the show. He is now at work on a book about the organization.

Among the findings on display are photos of the group and Gluck processing Santa’s mail, as well as original Santa letters from New York City’s children. The exhibit also showcases the celebrities of stage and silent film who worked with the Association— including John Barrymore, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks — as well as politicians like New York Mayor Jimmy Walker, New York Governor Al Smith, and President Warren G. Harding.

Alex Palmer is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Post, Time Out New York, The Brooklyn Eagle, and The Queens Times Ledger. He is the author of the books Weird-o-Pedia and Literary Miscellany [both from Skyhorse Publishing].

December 15
Party: 1 – 5pm
Visit From Santa: 2pm – 4pm
The City Reliquary Museum, in association with its blockbuster new exhibition – The Santa Claus Association – is throwing a come-one come-all Holiday Party in the middle of our Museum! Timed perfectly to land in the middle of the Holiday Season, we promise to bring Santa Claus himself to his own show, along with a mailbag for local childrens’ letters to get delivered to the North Pole, eggnog, Brooklyn Brewery Beer, Christmas carols and more!

Visit With Santa Claus

From 2 till 4pm, Santa Claus will be making a visit to the City Reliquary! Bring all (good) children to the Reliquary to sit on Santa’s lap so they can tell him what they hope to receive for Christmas. Parents and their little ones can spend time enjoying the Reliquary’s new exhibit, The Santa Claus Association, a loving look at the New York City-based philanthropic group that answered children’s letters to Santa Claus. There will also be a North Pole Express Mailbox, where kids can drop letters to be delivered to Santa Claus just in time for Christmas.

Holiday Sale

During the holiday party, all products in our Gift Shop will be 15% Off! Recently remodeled and restocked, the Shop features unique New York gifts made by New Yorkers for everyone. Tote bags, trinkets, jewelry, notebooks, home furnishings and more gifts to brighten any tree or menorah.

We hope to see you and your family on December 15!