Make Winter Fun with Brooklyn Public Library

Struggling with the post-holiday blues? Brooklyn Public Library offers a variety of free activities that can help you stay busy, engaged and warm this season—here are just a few!

Culture Pass

There are dozens of arts and cultural activities you can access completely free of charge by making a reservation through Culture Pass! Sign in with your library card credentials at culturepass.nyc and you’ll find free passes for more than 75 different locations around the city. You can use Culture Pass to visit museums, take a brisk stroll through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden or Wave Hill, or even ice skate at Central Park’s famous Wollman Rink with family and friends.

Recently, I used Culture Pass to make a reservation at the Museum of the City of New York to see Gingerbread NYC: The Great Borough Bake-Off. Though impressive and festive, I was most enchanted by the neighboring Analog City: NYC B.C. (Before Computers)—a phenomenal exhibit tracing the tools, technologies and professions that kept the city running from the 1870s–1970s.

You can imagine my excitement when the exhibit opened with a section called "The City’s Search Engine," detailing how public library systems operated in the twentieth century. Though this section of the exhibition primarily focuses on the New York Public Library, it also showcases many facets of BPL’s rich history, including a photograph of a book chute at Brooklyn Heights Library (1966) and a hilarious short film, The Library: A Family Affair, 1952.

Central Library Audio Tour

The Central Library Audio Tour enables patrons to explore our historic building alongside a seasoned tour guide and longtime librarian, Norman Eriksen. Listeners will come away with fascinating facts and stories about the building, ranging from the origins of our Musical Instrument Lending Library to twentieth-century plans for a subway station many floors below.

I visited Central almost daily as a young child, mesmerized by the grand edifice and its mysterious nooks and crannies. This tour brought me back to those feelings of wonder and amazement about a building I continue to frequent, though now as both a patron and an employee. I enjoyed experiencing the tour as I walked around the building, but you can tune in from anywhere!

Reading Recommendations

After a day of art and culture adventures, cozy up with a cup of cocoa and one of these recently-released, NYC-based reads:

The Mutual Friend by Carter Bays: This debut novel from the co-creator of the hit sitcom How I Met Your Mother follows an amusing web of characters navigating faith, friends, romance and technology in modern-day NYC. You can read more about this title on the Bklyn BookMatch booklist, Our Favorite Books of 2022!

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang: This coming-of-age memoir follows a family’s journey from China to NYC as they try to find beauty in a life filled with fear, stress and scarcity. Readers will, along with our courageous protagonist, delight in the familiar comforts of the city including the Library, greasy pizza, and the annual tree lighting at Rockefeller Center.

Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour: When a chance encounter brings Darren from his mother’s brownstone in Bed-Stuy to one of NYC’s hottest tech start-ups, his life turns upside down. The only Black person in the company, Darren begins to reimagine himself as “Buck,” a fiery salesman committed to helping young people of color infiltrate America’s sales force.

Morningside Heights by Joshua Henkin: Set on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Morningside Heights follows a small family whose life takes an unexpected turn. This story is equally heart-wrenching and heart-warming as it encapsulates universal themes of love, loss and family.

If you’re looking for a classic read set in Brooklyn, check out two of my all-time favorites: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith and Brookyln by Colm Tóibín.