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That Time When …

  • Isaac Stern, a concert, and a critic’s botched review

    One of the 20th century’s most celebrated and influential musicians, violinist Isaac Stern performed on our stage more than a dozen times over 50 years, from his first concert in 1943 to his last in 1994. On a May evening in 1979 – just a month before his historic, groundbreaking trip to China – Stern performed an evening of chamber music in Kaufmann Concert Hall. The concert was to open with a solo violin performance, which Stern originally planned to be Bach’s B-Minor Partita

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  • Remembering Harry Belafonte

    On April 21, 1948, 21-year-old Harlem-born actor Harry Belafonte made his off-Broadway debut at The 92nd Street Y, New York in Sojourner Truth with the American Negro Theatre. Based on the life of the Black abolitionist and early civil rights icon, the play earned the young actor what he called, in his memoir, “my first critical praise in print” — a column written by activist and former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who had attended the performance

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  • Tony Curtis, homegrown Hollywood star

    Before he was one of Hollywood’s most glamorous stars, Tony Curtis was Bernard Schwartz, born in Manhattan in 1925 to Hungarian-Jewish emigrants, and an active member of The 92nd Street Y. The not-yet Tony Curtis participated in athletics, clubs, and performances, and on February 7, 1941, made his acting debut in the Y Playhouse production of Thunder Rock

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  • Emma Lazarus’ Ode to Immigrants

    In 1883, while teaching English to Eastern European Jewish refugees at 92NY, poet Emma Lazarus wrote “The New Colossus” to fund the construction of the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal

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  • Draper’s Dance

    On February 23, 1941, noted tap-ballet dancer and choreographer Paul Draper made his first solo appearance at The 92nd Street Y, New York. In an explosive era of innovation that would come to define the institution, Draper would go on to make invaluable contributions

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  • Pulling the curtain on Norman Mailer

    On February 2, 1961, Norman Mailer’s reading at The 92nd Street Y, New York caused a ruckus. While reciting a string of characteristically crude couplets, the author found himself on the receiving end of a curt curtain call at the hands of an offended Dr. William Kolodney, the institution’s educational director

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  • A visit from Albert Einstein

    On January 27, 1938, renowned Jewish physicist Professor Albert Einstein paid a visit to The 92nd Street Y during the annual board of directors meeting. Scarcely documented, the enigmatic genius’ trip to 92NY would remain the stuff of hearsay and local lore for decades

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