Upcoming Events at the Jefferson Market Library

By CORINNE NEARY

The end of the year is fast approaching, but at Jefferson Market Library we still have a couple of exciting tricks up our sleeve for 2024. One upcoming event we are very excited to share is A Look Back on The East Village Eye Magazine on Thursday, December 12 at 6 p.m. Do you remember the East Village Eye? And did you know that The New York Public Library (at 42nd Street) recently made its complete archives available to the public? 

The Eye was a magazine that covered art, culture, politics, and news in the East Village, and was founded by Leonard Abrams in 1979. The Eye published 72 issues until it ceased publication in 1987. The New York Public Library is the one institution that has a complete run of those issues, as well as original artwork used in the publication, correspondence, editors’ notes, photographs, and administrative records. The paper provided an extensive document of New York City’s downtown scene during this time. Many of the artists, musicians, writers, film and theater directors, and others that made up the contributors and readers of the East Village Eye are now recognized as significant cultural figures of the 1980s, including many who were lost to the AIDS epidemic, including Cookie Mueller and David Wojnarowicz.

On December 12, the curator of this collection, Julia Gorga, who oversees the Library’s Manuscripts and Archives Division, will moderate a panel discussion along with Hugh Ryan, who you may already know as the author of the 2022 book, The Women’s House of Detention and When Brooklyn Was Queer. On the panel will be four former Eye writers and editors: Carlo McCormick, Mark Miller, Walter Robinson and Yasmin Ramirez. They’ll discuss their memories of working on the magazine, as well as the East Village culture of the 1980s. This event will be sure to bring out a crowd, so get ready to rub elbows with your neighbors! 

Next up, we have what many of you ask me about: a Book Swap! Just in time for the Holiday gift giving season, come and look for some new (to you) books, or clean out your bookshelf and give those items gathering dust a new home. This time, we’re going back to our Book Swap roots and holding the event in our first floor Willa Cather room, and we may even have some light refreshments to make things more festive. This will all be happening Sunday, December 22, for our opening hours of 1-4 p.m. 

And lastly, I would be remiss not to mention a few of the movies we have coming up this month, featuring stars like Marlene Dietrich, Gloria Swanson, Bette Davis, and Judy Garland. Talk about Glamour! Please check our flyers and website for the complete listing of films, currently being shown in our first floor Willa Cather room Monday and Thursday nights at 6 p.m., as well as the occasional Saturday or Sunday matinee. We may not serve popcorn, but our screen and sound system are fabulous, and as always, every program is free and open to the public.

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Read Proust’s Swann’s Way:

A New Year’s Resolution!

Join first-time readers at the
Proust Center-Jefferson Market Library

Six sessions on the second Tuesday
of each month, 6-7:30 p.m.

January 14, February 11, March 11,
April 8, May 13, and June 10

All our events are free and open to the public.

Registration required, due to space:
nypl.org/events/programs/2024/01/14/read-prousts-swanns-way

Alex Klameth, our Proust Center-JML Group Facilitator will oversee the lively discussions.

We will read William C. Carter’s
fully annotated Swann’s Way, by Yale Press