Jonathan Ezra Goldman with Robert Snyder | Hidden Histories of Jazz Age New York: From the Suppressed to the Strange

Jonathan Ezra Goldman, James Joyce Society President and Professor at New York Tech, provides us with a fresh look at 1920s New York City in this conversation with recent Manhattan Borough Historian Robert Snyder.

This event will take place in person and online at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library on the 7th Floor.

Hidden Histories of Jazz Age New York offers a fresh look at 1920s New York City, unearthing stories of everyday life and marginalized communities. In sections that intertwine entertainment, politics, art, technology, crime, shopping, eating, and recreation, the book portrays sweeping events such as the Harlem Renaissance, Prohibition, and immigration reform through anecdotes of individual experiences that counter the era's popular conceptions of ballooning wealth and uproarious celebration. 

Jonathan Ezra Goldman's whirlwind tour of early 1920s New York City visits an all-female police platoon, a Black amusement park shut down before it opened, an Arabic literary salon, socialist Puerto Rican cigar factories, Chinatown funerals, lesbian cafes, overcrowded jails, toxic dumps, and Ku Klux Klan recruitment offices. The grand narratives of the 1920s interweave with little-known anecdotes about well-known figures such as Marcus Garvey, Dorothy Parker, and Babe Ruth, serving as a backdrop to the everyday challenges and triumphs of a city beset by crowds, automobile traffic, and rapidly changing technology and urban infrastructure, as well as erased stories of injustices like Jim Crow practices, immigration anxieties, and the violent treatment of political dissent. 

These stories still resonate today, showing that this dizzying, exuberant ride through hidden history can help twenty-first readers see our own moment more clearly.

To join the event in person | Doors will open 30 minutes before the program begins. For free events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. All registered seats are released shortly before start time, and seats may become available at that time. A standby line will form 30 minutes before the program.

To view the livestream | Whether you're attending in person or online, you must register with your email address. You will need a device with audio and/or video and an internet/cellular connection to view the livestream.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Jonathan Ezra Goldman is Distinguished Professor at New York Institute of Technology's Department of Humanities. His new book, Hidden Histories of Jazz Age New York from the Suppressed to the Strange "deserves a prominent place on any shelf of enduring works of New York City history" (Jonathan Mahler, The Gods of New York). Goldman's previous books include Modernism Is the Literature of Celebrity and Joyce and the Law. He directs the digital project, NY 1920s: 100 Years Ago Today, is president of the James Joyce Society, plays trumpet in a Latin boogaloo band, and lives in the Mitchell-Lama building where he grew up.

Robert Snyder, professor emeritus of American Studies and Journalism at Rutgers University, has devoted his career to sharing history with a broad public to better understand the past and present. He has written six books on New York City. The latest is When the City Stopped: Stories from New York’s Essential Workers, published by Cornell University Press, which was awarded the LaGuardia Book Prize. Robert was a Fulbright lecturer in American Studies in South Korea, and from 2019 to 2025 he was Manhattan Borough Historian.

GET THE BOOK

• Borrow: NYPL Catalog


• This event will also include signing and sales of the book.

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ACCESSIBILITY NOTES

In-Person

• Assistive listening devices and/or hearing loops are available at the venue.


• ASL interpretation and real-time captioning (CART) are available upon request. Please submit your request via this form or contact SNFL at least two weeks in advance.


• This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs.

Livestream

• ASL interpretation and real-time captioning (CART) also available (see previous).


• Captions and a transcript will be provided.

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All programs are subject to change or cancellation. All programs are subject to recording and photography.

The 7 Stories Up Series at SNFL is made possible by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).