N.Y.C. Museum Celebrates the Nation's 250th Anniversary

New York Times

29-04-2025

Good morning. It's Tuesday. Today we'll look at exhibitions that the New York Historical is planning for the nation's 250th anniversary. We'll also get details on a contentious town hall with Representative Mike Lawler, one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the House.
If you happen to have a pair of platform shoes — vintage, from the 1970s — the New York Historical might want to borrow them.
The New York Historical, formerly the New-York Historical Society, is preparing six exhibitions for the nation's 250th anniversary next year.
New York will be a major character in all six because the nation's democracy began in New York, where the man who had been first in war became the first head of the newfangled federal government.
An exhibition opening in the fall will present Revolutionary-era documents from the New York Historical's collection. Another exhibition, opening in February of next year, will spotlight the little-known or unknown achievements of women before, during and just after the Revolutionary War.
The New York Historical is also beginning 'On Our 250th,' a digital campaign with a coalition of history museums. People can go here to write a birthday wish to the United States ('What are your hopes for America's future and our democracy?'). It's not a place to be prolix: Each message is limited to 250 characters, or about 50 words.
One of the six exhibitions, called 'You Should Be Dancing,' won't look back to 1776. Its focus will be the nation's bicentennial in 1976 — and prompted that search for period items like platform shoes.
'That's what you do in a museum — you get the authentic stuff of history,' said Louise Mirrer, the president and chief executive of the New York Historical. 'We've got lots of authentic stuff, but we are missing a couple of items.'
She also hopes to find a pair of shorts like the ones Dustin Hoffman wore in 'Marathon Man,' the thriller that came out that year. She did not mention hunting down the diamond that Laurence Olivier was forced to swallow at gunpoint in the movie.
She said the idea for 'You Should Be Dancing' came from the historian Ted Widmer, who was a speechwriter in the Clinton White House and later was a senior adviser when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. 'He said, 'Wouldn't it be interesting to look back at what we were doing in 1976?'' Mirrer recalled. It was the disco era, which led to the title of the exhibition.
The bicentennial played out months after The Daily News wrote one of the most unforgettable headlines of all time: 'Ford to City: Drop Dead.' Those five words told how the administration of President Gerald Ford saw New York and its financial troubles.
'If you were a pessimist, you might have seen it as New York's lowest point,' Mirrer said. 'This is a great lesson for today. Obviously New York is in a different place than where it was 50 years ago, but a lot of people are feeling pessimistic on many, many levels. It's good to remember that this country manages to pull itself together every time it has a challenge that seems insurmountable. It manages to transcend the pessimism and enjoy a rebirth.'
She then looked back to the New York Historical's own founders, 11 men who started the organization in 1804. They had lived through the Revolution, when New York was mostly occupied by the British.
'You could have said the city will never amount to anything,' she said. 'Philadelphia and Boston were more important cities at the time, but New York was central in many ways. And if you looked around you in 1804, the ordinary person would not have felt very hopeful about the American experiment or the city's ability to become what it became.'
But the 11 founders were 'consistently optimistic about the future,' so much that they decided to collect and preserve the history of the Revolution, she said.
My colleague Winnie Hu says that another new exhibition, 'CityWorks,' at the New York Hall of Science, serves as an ode to the resilience of cities in a different way. 'CityWorks' goes deep into the often overlooked physical and human infrastructure that keeps cities going. The exhibit draws on real-life New York City data, from traffic counts and subway ridership to maps of flood areas. 'CityWorks' opens on Saturday.
A warm, sunny day, with temperatures near 80. Showers and wind from 11 to 14 miles per hour are expected late in the evening, with temperatures in the mid-60s.
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The latest New York news
A rough night for a Republican's town hall
Representative Mike Lawler didn't take the advice of Republican leaders, who told House members not to hold town hall meetings with constituents amid anger at the Trump administration. My colleague Nicholas Fandos writes that no one expected a love fest, but Lawler faced shouts, groans and mockery as he sparred with voters.
Even he seemed surprised by the first clash of the evening, over the Pledge of Allegiance. Some people in the audience inside a high school auditorium groaned when he suggested reciting it. The group stood and said the words, but some indicated that the Pledge had come to ring hollow.
'Authoritarian,' one man yelled, apparently referring to President Trump.
'Support the Constitution,' another man said.
So it went for two hours as Lawler, one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the House, faced criticism on everything from tax cuts to how brightly the room was illuminated. He told the audience to disregard a budget blueprint he had supported that called for $2 trillion in spending cuts, including possible reductions for Medicaid. 'That is as good as the paper it's written on,' he said.
And, in a session that often turned combative, he got a rare round of applause when he defended the use of vaccines and criticized Trump's health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has cast doubt on the efficacy of vaccination.
'The fact is, where I disagree, I have no problem saying it and pushing back against the things they are saying,' Lawler said.
Close calls
Dear Diary:
New York City dog owners have their regular routes. For years, mine began with a right turn out of my Yorkville building.
One evening, I decided to turn left. My terrier tugged to go right, but my tug won out.
A few steps into our walk, I heard a tremendous thud behind me. I turned to see an air-conditioner that had tumbled from a window several stories up onto the sidewalk just on the other side of my building's front door.
A young man stood nearby facing me. He had stopped short in time to watch the heavy metal crash down at his feet.
I walked toward him and stopped, with the air-conditioner between us. His face was ghostly pale, as I imagined mine was.
A woman rushed out of the building.
'Oh my god!' she cried. 'My air-conditioner! I opened my window and didn't realize it was keeping the unit in place!'
'Or, perhaps,' the young man said, 'that's yours.' He pointed toward a second air-conditioner on the ground a few feet away.
'Oh no!' the woman said. 'Mine hit another one on the way down.'
— Sylvie Farrell
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.
P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.
Geordon Wollner and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [e-mail].
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