A night out.
An idea in.

PHOTOGRAPHY

DISCOVER

Why do some photographs stop us in our tracks?

A DIFFERENT WAY TO SEE THE CITYPHOTOGRAPHY

DISCOVER

Why does New York look better in black and white?

Color tells you what a street looked like. Black and white tells you what it felt like. An expert in photography walks through the city’s great monochrome tradition — tenement stoops, subway cars, rain on Sixth Avenue — and shows how light, shadow and a little patience turn an ordinary block into a picture you keep.

LEARNING TO LISTENMUSIC

DISCOVER

How did jazz climb from speakeasies to Carnegie Hall?

It started as dance music respectable people pretended not to hear. An expert in jazz history follows it across New York — Harlem’s ballrooms, the basement clubs of 52nd Street, the after-hours sessions where bebop was born — to the January night in 1938 it sold out Carnegie Hall, with a recording for every turn.

LOOK UPARCHITECTURE

DISCOVER

Why do New York’s skyscrapers look like wedding cakes?

Blame a single building. In 1915 the Equitable Building swallowed the light on its block, and the city answered with rules that forced towers to step back as they rose. An expert in architecture reads the skyline those rules made, from Art Deco setbacks to glass plazas, so you never look up the same way again.