Join us on Thursday, October 24 from 6:30-8:30 pm to celebrate our new exhibition P.S. NYC: Artifacts from NYC Public Schools 1850-1970! Marty Raskin, the inspiration for this show and longtime collector of Board of Education memorabilia, will be on hand to discuss his time attending and working in NYC’s public schools and how he has come to amass this wide-ranging archive. Light refreshments will be available. You can RSVP for the reception on Facebook.
Thursday, November 7 at 7:00 pm at the City Reliquary Museum
$15 General Admission – $10 Museum Members (Join Today!)
Come and experience a retro-tech time-travel experience unlike any other! Immerse yourself in the 1950s through incredible Midcentury 3-D photographs — taken mostly by amateurs with the Stereo Realist Camera system. Emmy-winning writer and comedian Eric Drysdale has been collecting the amazing images produced by this largely-forgotten technology for 25 years and will share them with you in your own (for the night) high-quality restored vintage stereo viewer. New York City will be highlighted, but all of America is the star. Don’t miss this intimate yet spectacular trip to the past!
There are only 12 tickets available for this evening, so we highly recommend purchasing in advance to guarantee your seat (and stereo-viewer)!
Sunday, October 27 – 6:30-10 pm – $10 – Advance Tickets Available Now!
On Sunday, October 27, the City Reliquary will host an October art party experience unlike any other! Produced by Jacquelyn Shannon and Omer Gal of Cookie Tongue, the evening will feature music, performance art, puppetry, film, ritual, dance, and more. Expect the eerie and uncanny, haunting images that appear only in the corner of your eye, sounds that linger on the wind.
Cinema City: Not New York – Friday, October 25 – 6:30 pm
Tickets Available Now – $20 General Admission – $15 Members (Join Today!)
The City Reliquary’s Fall event series, Cinema City, continues on Friday, October 25! Presented by Screen Slate contributor and NYC trivia expert (part of the reigning Panorama Challenge championship team!) Cosmo Bjorkenheim, each Cinema City program will explore New York City’s many and varied depictions in film through clips and discussion. From early Edison experiments to recent blockbusters, studio standards to cult favorites, you’ll see New York in a whole new light!
Our second Cinema City program, in Halloween-adjacent fashion, collects instances of other cities in unconvincing New York City costumes. Some film productions have cut costs by filming in Toronto or Cincinnati and dressing up the set to resemble our fair city. While often every effort is taken to create a convincing faux New York, sometimes this aspect of design is completely neglected (like the distinctive Vancouver SkyTrain posing as the NYC subway in Jason Takes Manhattan, or Melbourne’s checkered squad cars standing in for NYPD cruisers in Knowing). This program will explore these and other egregious examples of Not New York as well as appearances of places that have become permanent New York City sets, like the neighborhood of Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati which frequently stands in for 1950s NYC.
Your ticket includes a specially designed menu of themed snacks created by Lucia Jazayeri and Anna Gelb, a.k.a. Forest Dinners! Lucia is the Creative Director for Clover Food Lab. Anna is the Director of Events for Outstanding in the Field. You’ll also receive a drink from our friends at Brooklyn Brewery! (Non-alcoholic beverages will also be available.)
Tickets Available Now! – $20 General Admission – $15 City Reliquary Members (Join Today!)
The City Reliquary is pleased to announce our Fall event series, Cinema City! Presented by Screen Slate contributor and NYC trivia expert (part of the reigning Panorama Challenge championship team!) Cosmo Bjorkenheim, each Cinema City program will explore New York City’s many and varied depictions in film through clips and discussion. From early Edison experiments to recent blockbusters, studio standards to cult favorites, you’ll see New York in a whole new light!
On Saturday, October 5, 2019, Cinema City kicks off with an exploration of Coney Island on film! Coney Island’s thrill rides and colorful entertainment have made it a popular on-screen destination for more than 100 years. As its fortunes have changed, so too has its depiction on film. Cosmo will trace the history of America’s playground from dream destination to Darren Aronofsky fever dream in this hour-long program. You’ll have plenty of time to explore the City Reliquary’s collection afterward!
It wouldn’t be a film screening – or, indeed, a trip to Coney Island – without refreshments! Included in your ticket is an array of unique Coney Island-themed snacks from culinary creatives Lucia Jazayeri and Anna Gelb, a.k.a. Forest Dinners. Lucia is the Creative Director for Clover Food Lab. Anna is the Director of Events for Outstanding in the Field. You’ll also receive a drink from our friends at Brooklyn Brewery! (Non-alcoholic beverages will also be available.)
See you in the Cyclone line! Get your tickets here!
Saturday, September 14, 2019 | Doors at 2 pm | $10
Beer lovingly provided by Brooklyn Brewery
It’s King Pizza Records’ 4th Annual end-of-summer bash! Once again, the country’s finest punk, rock, metal, sludge, psych, and undefinable bands take over the City Reliquary’s backyard. Wear your best Hawaiian shirt and dancing shoes, because this is a packed lineup and you’ll want to stay all day!
Featuring…
| The Royal They
|| Teen Mortgage (DC)
||| The Fucktons Family Band (extended Fucktons lineup!)
|||| Zip-Tie Handcuffs (Boston)
||||| True Dreams
|||||| Matt Witte
||||||| Slug Fest (Cleveland)
|||||||| World’s Greatest Detective
||||||||| Plaid Dracula
The City Reliquary and Riders Alliance are seeking contestants who believe they should be the public ambassador for the New York City subway in its time of crisis. Despite the potentially “miss”-leading title, we welcome contestants of all gender identities!
TO ENTER: Send the following in an email to [email protected]:
The deadline for entries is SEPTEMBER 29, 2019 at 11:59 pm! Contestants will be notified of their acceptance on a rolling basis.
Competition will be fierce! The more compelling your entry, the greater the chance of being selected as a final contestant!
The Third Annual Miss Subways Extravaganza will take place on Thursday, October 3, 2019! We’re returning to Littlefield, 635 Sackett Street in Brooklyn, for this year’s celebration of the weird, wild, frustrating, entertaining, and vital circulatory system that is our city’s subways.
With cascading malfunctions and literal cascades happening all too frequently, it can be difficult to find things to celebrate about our transit system. But let’s not forget the bright spots of the past year in subway news: the L Train shutdown was downgraded from “apocalypse” to merely “difficult.” New York passed a congestion pricing plan which will help speed up city buses and raise additional revenue for transit. A new fare payment system is on its way. And…well…there’s always a chance of seeing a dog in a bag. Our subways need advocates and ambassadors more than ever!
This event serves as a call to arms for subway supporters and lovers of the NYC underground. A modern take on the Miss Subways pageants held in NYC between 1941 and 1976, subway riders of all ages and gender identities are encouraged to participate! In a night of performances spanning the classy, the trashy, the weird, and the whimsical, contestants will demonstrate their devotion to their subway line of choice. But only one can take home the transit tiara! Our panel of distinguished judges, with assistance from the audience, will select this year’s public ambassador, Miss Subways 2019.
All proceeds from the event support the City Reliquary, NYC’s finest cabinet of city curiosities, and Riders Alliance, a membership organization dedicated to winning better transit by organizing bus and subway riders into a powerful political constituency.
If you’re interested in being a contestant in the Miss Subways Extravaganza 2019, click HERE for more information on applying!
Mural Unveiling Party With Live Music! 1:00-4:00 p.m.!
The City Reliquary Museum is home to New York’s many histories, the multiple, interweaving narratives that make up this city we call home. This summer we are partnering with Argentinian artist Joaquin Torres Zavaleta to create a mural in our backyard, celebrating some of the NYC plants and birds that came from other countries. As these species made their homes here they transformed the urban environment. Some even became local icons, like the ever-present pigeon. Joaquin’s mural asks us to think about migration, settlement, and the ways that cultural exchange is embedded in our cityscapes. We are excited to welcome these birds to our backyard and to highlight how immigration continues to enrich and strengthen our city.
We’ll be celebrating the completion of the new mural with a party on Saturday, June 29! Join us for live music by Julian Harris (who also directed this great video of Joaquin’s work) and Sami y Sarah, and hear from Joaquin about his research and influences.
Many thanks to Residency Unlimited for connecting us with Joaquin and providing refreshments for Saturday’s party!
Saturday, September 7, 2019 6:00-9:00 p.m. Tickets available at the link!
At Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 275 N. 8th Street, Williamsburgh, Brooklyn, NY
General admission tickets $20 /$10 discounted tickets available to presenting collectors and City Reliquary Members.
The City Reliquary is proud to present our 14th Annual Collectors’ Night! Every year, collectors and archivists – whose collections run the gamut from loose groupings to the hyper-specific – display their treasures to the public and share their stories in a rapid-fire show and tell. It is an opportunity to get up close with obsessive labors of love.
Our featured presenter on September 7 will be architect and NYU Professor Louise Harpman, who will be speaking about her collection of coffee cup lids! Her recent book (co-written with Scott Specht) on the surprisingly complex design of this ubiquitous yet commonly overlooked item has received rave reviews, and she even acts as a consultant on coffee cup lid design from time to time!
We’ll also have a very special live model presentation of handmade vintage Hungarian dresses from director, actor, and fashion maven Syrie Moskowitz!
In addition, we’ll have our usual eccentric variety of collections – check out these photos of past editions! Small collections of large things. Large collections of small things. Commonplace items with a singular theme. Vintage, obscure, and ephemeral. Precisely laid out vitrines or piles of whatsits. You’ll see it all!
Do you have a collection you’d be interested in displaying at Collectors’ Night 2019? Big or small, loosely grouped or exactingly themed, obscure or commonplace, vintage or brand new – we’d love to see it! Follow this link to complete a brief application form. If accepted, you’ll receive a code for discount tickets and special instructions. We’ll try to get back to you speedily – usually within a day.
We hope to see you on September 7 as a collector or guest!