Rachel Haot: Making a Better World with Technology

“In God we trust; everyone else, bring data.”

By Ilene Dube

These words, from former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, continue to be a guiding maxim for Rachel Haot, who was New York City’s Chief Digital Officer from 2011 to 2013.

These days, as Chief Digital Officer and Deputy Secretary of Technology for New York State, Haot’s role is to develop digital products, programs and policy. Her team has re-launched the official state website, NY.gov, its first overhaul in 15 years, and she is committed to making government more accessible to better serve all citizens, regardless of income, age, ability or language.  more

Ernest Hemingway Exhibit at The Morgan Library and Museum

The Morgan Presents the first major museum exhibition of the life and writings of Ernest Hemingway

From September 25 through January 31, The Morgan Library and Museum will present Ernest Hemingway: Between Two Wars. This is the first major museum exhibition devoted to the work of Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), one of the most celebrated American authors of the 20th century. Organized in partnership with the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, it includes multiple drafts of Hemingway’s earliest short stories, notebooks, heavily revised manuscripts and typescripts of his major novels—The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls. more

The Met’s Artist Project

Metropolitan Museum Launches Season 3 of The Artist Project, an Online Series Featuring 100 Artists and Works of Art at the Met That Spark Their Imagination

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has launched Season 3 of its online video series The Artist Project, in which 100 artists respond to works from the Met’s vast collection, which spans more than five millennia and cultures throughout the world. Season 1 of the series launched in March 2015. more

The Master Sommelier Exam Uncorked

Laura Rhys MS gives Urban Agenda NYC an inside look at the rigorous process involved in obtaining her prestigious title

By Sarah Emily Gilbert

When it comes to pairing wine with food, my rules are fairly simple: red wine = pasta, white wine = anything other than pasta. As sophisticated as my process sounds, it’s evident that my knowledge of wine is limited, to say the least. Luckily, there are individuals in the world whose job is to guide people like me. more

Jack Kerouac’s New York

By Stuart Mitchner

Jack Kerouac’s earliest published writing on New York City appeared under the name John Kerouac, a formal touch reflected in the glossy, soft-focus, dust jacket photo and the relatively buttoned-up narrative style of his first novel, The Town and the City (Harcourt Brace 1950). When he celebrates the city as “the one place in all the roundway world where everything is different from anywhere else, simply because it happens in New York,” the only hint of vintage Kerouac is in a term like “roundway.” A long passage meant to suggest the mounting excitement felt by someone coming into Manhattan for the first time depends on generic expository prose about “the vital and dramatic heart” of the place and “the magnitude, the beauty, and the wonder of the great city,” phrases as detached from the spirit of his style as “John” is from the “Kerouac” who wrote On the Road. more

Digitizing Einstein

By Ellen Gilbert

Taking note of an important new resource: Einstein papers go digital

The December 2014 announcement of the launch of the Digital Einstein Papers (einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu) was greeted with huzzas from scientific circles as well as the popular media. “They have been called the Dead Sea Scrolls of physics,” began one article about the project by New York Times science writer Dennis Overbye. They will, he said, enable readers to “dance among Einstein’s love letters, his divorce file, his high school transcript, the notebook in which he worked out his general theory of relativity and letters to his lifelong best friend, Michele Besso, among many other possibilities.” more

It’s Not Just The Disease – Oliver Sacks Wants Details

By Ellen Gilbert

"The hunger for narrative has been very strong for me, but also is a necessity for me,” observed Oliver Sacks speaking to an audience at the University of Warwick, where he was Visiting Professor in 2013.

The title of his talk, appropriately enough, was “Narrative and Medicine: The Importance of the Case History,” and Sacks, who has been referred to as “the poet laureate of medicine,” was making the case for the “complete integration of science and story telling.” more

Flight of the Butterfly

By Ilene Dube

In its 17th year, the Butterfly Conservatory at the American Museum of Natural History joins such long-running family traditions as visits to the skating rink in Rockefeller Center and the model boat races in Central Park.

After passing the large dinosaur skeletons in the lobby, visitors go through a series of double doors to the Butterfly Conservatory, or vivarium, a 1,200 square foot freestanding transparent structure where they are surrounded by up to 500 fluttering, iridescent lepidopterans feeding on tropical nectars from flowers and lush green vegetation. There may be polar vortices outside, but here in the Butterfly Conservatory, it’s a tropical 80 degrees. more

What Would Mrs. Webb Do? MAD Celebrates Its Visionary Founder

By Ellen Gilbert 

"A good life is found only where the creative spirit abounds, where people are free to experiment and create new ideas for themselves." - Aileen Osborn Webb

Referred to as “MAD,” the Museum of Arts and Design is anything but disordered or wildly foolish, nor does it have anything to do with the eponymous magazine. This MAD was founded in 1956 by arts and design champion Aileen Osborn Webb (1892-1979), and from now through February 28, 2015 it is celebrating her achievements in an exhibit, What Would Mrs. Webb Do? A Founder’s Vision. more

Paul Krugman

Interview by Lynn Adams Smith

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman will be retiring from Princeton University in 2015 to join the faculty of the Graduate Center, City University of New York, as professor in the Ph.D. Program in Economics, where he will become a Distinguished Scholar at the Graduate Center’s Luxembourg Income Study Center (LIS). He will continue writing his column and blog for The New York Times. more

Day School vs. Boarding School

By Taylor Smith

At the end of their child’s eighth grade school year, parents are faced with the quandary of where to send their teen to high school. In New York the options are plentiful. Private day school is an attractive option to most since it combines academic rigor with the creature comforts of home. Enrolling as a day student at a local boarding school is also an option. The Millbrook School, Trinity-Pawling School, and the Emma Willard School being three examples. more

Digital Classrooms: New Paths In Education

By Ellen Gilbert

It's just a few years since MOOCs (massive open online courses) appeared on the scene. In 2011, Google research director Peter Norvig and computer scientist Sebastian Thrun taught the first MOOC (/mu:k/), a class on artificial intelligence, under the auspices of Stanford University. More than 160,000 students enrolled. Thus was born what Uncharted authors Erez Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel describe as “a revolution in higher education.” more

Urban Agenda Profiles Top Regional Day and Boarding Schools

Avon Old Farms (www.avonoldfarms.com) is a celebrated boys’ boarding school in Avon, CT. Their magnificent campus, with its distinctive Cotswold architecture, emphasizes the New England charm of the school’s setting. As well-known for their sports teams as their academic programs, Avon is fully anchored in the liberal arts.

Miss Hall’s School (www.misshalls.org) is an all-girls’ boarding school in Pittsfield, MA. The campus is situated on over 80 acres in the picturesque Berkshire Mountains. Founded in 1898 by Mira Hall, Miss Hall’s School is also the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Dwight-Englewood School (www.d-e.org) is an independent coeducational college preparatory day school for students in grades PreK through 12. Located in Englewood, NJ, the school has a long tradition of academic excellence. Dwight-Englewood prides itself on being the most ethnically diverse school in Bergen County with students who represent over 80 communities in NJ and NY. more

Graduation Gifts

grads

Being Esther Dyson

By Ellen Gilbert // Photography by Tom Grimes

"I’m flattered,” Esther Dyson says quietly when asked how it feels to be referred to by names like “queen of the internet,” “digital visionary,” or “innovation evangelist par excellence.” In a list of “Famous Real-life People Named ‘Esther’” her name appears next to Queen Esther and the competitive swimmer/movie star, Esther Williams. A tenacious pursuer of new causes and a swimmer who steadfastly hits the pool every day no matter where she is, citing this trio of Esthers in the same entry has a certain unintended logic. more

Books of “Derring Do” for the Armchair Adventurer and an Expedition to The Explorers Club

By Linda Arntzenius

Images Courtesy of The Explorers Club

Marco Polo, Ibn Battutah, Henry M. Stanley, David Livingstone, Mungo Park: their names ring with adventure. The records they left behind are classics enjoyed by countless armchair travelers. Sales of travel books peak during the holiday season. For what better time of year to enjoy a deathdefying yarn. Who can resist tales of eye-popping danger experienced vicariously from the safety of one’s own cozy fireside. more