Summer at Jefferson Market Library

By Corinne Neary, Adult Librarian

Snapshot of the old Whelan drugstore on the corner of 8th Street and 6th Avenue circa 1985 by Louise Egan.

We have quite a few exciting things coming up at Jefferson Market Library this summer. The first is our neighborhood snapshot exhibit, Point and Click, which will be on view through the end of July in our Little Underground Gallery. Made up of photographs contributed by our library patrons, along with descriptions in their own words, the show includes memories of a 1990s Pride Parade on Christopher Street, Washington Square performers in the 1980s, C.O. Bigelow through the years, and too many others to list here! Stop by the basement to see what your neighbors have shared. 

As a supplement to our regular Monday and Thursday night movie screenings this month, we have a couple of Saturday afternoon matinees, and they couldn’t be more different from each other! Both are longer films, which would run over our normal two hour screen time, and will start at 1:30 pm. Kicking off on July 6, we have The Deer Hunter, an in-depth examination of the ways in which the Vietnam War impacts and disrupts the lives of several friends in a small steel mill town in Pennsylvania, starring Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken. Next up, on July 27, we have Sweet Charity, a 1969 Neil Simon and Bob Fosse musical starring Shirley MacLaine. This was Fosse’s directorial debut, and has costumes by Edith Head. In other words, a must see! 

Finally, due to popular demand, we are bringing back one of our most beloved professors in our Jefferson Market University series of courses, Ernie Rubinstein. Last August, Ernie led a class on religion in literature that proved to be one of our most popular ever. This August, he has agreed to return to teach a course called The Philosophical Life, and registration begins Thursday, July 18. Space is limited, so the class is sure to fill up quickly. Class times are Thursdays, August 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 from 1-2:30 pm. Ernie holds a PhD in comparative religion from Northwestern University. He is adjunct assistant professor of humanities at NYU’s School of Professional Studies, where he has taught for nearly 30 years.

From the course description: “Though philosophy is an academic discipline we can study at universities, it has also been, long before that, a life-guide in competition with ancient religions. It was philosophy that sustained the Roman scholar and dignitary, Boethius (480-524), as he languished unjustly in an Ostrogoth prison—as he recorded in his now classic Consolation of Philosophy. In this class of five sessions we read together short excerpts from the works of six philosophical life-guides: Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Marcus Aurelius, Spinoza, and Immanuel Kant.” 

We’ve got much more to come later this summer and fall, so stay tuned!