5 Secrets of Grand Central Terminal

A Tour Behind-The-Scenes

In mid-January of this year, the Children’s book group headed up to Midtown to take a behind-the-scenes tour of Grand Central Terminal. We were lucky to have as our tour guide a Grand Central legend: the extremely knowledgeable Danny Brucker. Danny has been giving tours at Grand Central for over two decades, and his energy and ceaseless enthusiasm for the history of the building were infectious.

Martin Luther King Jr.

A King Family Tribute

On January 15, 2013, Martin Luther King Jr. would have celebrated his eighty-fourth birthday. For a great many reasons, his absence is felt by all, but nowhere more profoundly than in the homes and hearts of his family.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Honoring an American Hero

This Monday, as is every third Monday in January, marks the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a federal holiday that honors the birth of a great community-minded and civil rights fighting leader. Dr. King led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, along with the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where he delivered one of the most important speeches in American History, titled I Have a Dream to over 200,000 Civil Rights supporters on the steps of The Lincoln Memorial. While Dr. King was known for being a beloved Baptist Reverend and a prolific orator, many don’t know about the personal side of King, or the type of person that he was outside the public eye.

Passover and The Szyk Haggadah

The Art of Arthur Szyk

Tonight marks the start of one of the most widely celebrated Jewish holidays in the world, Passover. Admittedly, I grew up in a very secularized household, in which my personal experience with religion extended primarily to what I had read in books. Moving across the country to New York City meant I was exposed to a melting pot of cultures, ideas, and yes, religions. My natural curiosity blossomed in New York and there was no shortage of new experiences and new people.

So when Abrams reissued The Szyk Haggadah this month, I had a perfect opportunity to understand more about Judaism and, more specifically what this beautiful tome meant for the Passover holiday. Pretty soon, however, my questions began to look a little like the four questions posed at the beginning of any Haggadah (more on this in a second).