We’re a generation (or two) too late to have experienced life in the office where roles were clearly defined as a work marriage between bosses who kept themselves busy soliciting clients over three martini lunches ably assisted by extremely hardworking highly overqualified and lightly compensated ‘office wives’ glued to their Selectric typewriters who competently spent their careers scheduling meetings, booking business trips, faxing, and crafting perfectly spelled and punctuated letters, reports and meeting minutes while choreographing their superiors’ personal lives. Those secretaries have long since retired.  Today, when administrative assistants are few and far between, interns aspire to be influencers, and Gen Z professes a desire for a more meaningful work-life balance, Chat GPT has become a workaround and a godsend. It has relieved us from the tedious drudgery of all the grunt work that our emerging professionals are not willing or able to do with the same level of expertise as their forbears might have accomplished.

We’re thrilled to task it with instantly writing sufficiently enthusiastic recommendations for colleagues we barely know, undertaking tedious research projects that would normally take weeks if we’re lucky, and solving complicated problems where we have no expertise so that we can delight in its prowess as an author, diagnostician, travel agent, or caterer. Luckily, we are not spiritual leaders and do not have to resist the temptation of using it to draft meaningful sermons.  It goes without saying that we always carefully personalize the results and would never confess otherwise.  We wonder what people might have done in the past if they had today’s tools. Would Abraham Lincoln have shortened the Gettysburg Address to make it even more concise than its 271 words?  Would Jefferson have chosen to spend the two and a half weeks he was holed up in his stuffy and stifling 2^nd floor bedroom in Philadelphia practicing the violin instead of obsessing over how to declare independence?   We can only imagine. 

We were so inundated with requests on Giving Tuesday that we felt that it made absolutely no sense for our ‘year-end support letter’ to be one more to be deleted along with all the others. But we know we must step up to the plate; it’s that time of year.  Of course, we wouldn’t even dream of resorting to the services of ChatGPT, no matter how well-behaved and well programmed it is to instantly and carefully craft the perfect appeal that would highlight our growing impact while tugging at heartstrings, even though it would be considerably easier than struggling on our own.  But decorum prevails.  

Modestly, we will claim success in numbers. We constantly have programs, tours, and exhibitions which attract lots of people, many of whom haven't met before.  If you missed all or some of the 26 in-person free events for It Happened Here, no problem.  We have everything on our site so that you can peruse the videos at your leisure.  Highlights include our Black History Month program on the three black judges: Thurgood Marshall, Constance Motley, and Raymond Carter, which 400 people attended, the Naturalization of 150 new Americans on Independence Eve at America's first capitol, Federal Hall National Memorial.  

About It Happened Here
It is a truism that Lower Manhattan has been America’s town square since its founding in 1524, even though its history is much deeper. Virtually every aspect of global, local and national significance can be in some manner traced to this Downtown stage. To kick off the United States’ upcoming 250th birthday It Happened Here began with two years worth of prequel events followed by a weekend of programming on July 4, 2025 which compressed our 400 years into 5 days with each day being devoted to a century. More programs are in the works for 2026.  

 

We know how competitive it is to secure a proper obituary in the New York Times and an In Memorium slot at the Oscars.  For a long time, we've struggled with how to appropriately memorialize many of the artists and architects who have closely collaborated with us and are resting in peace. They include artists (Tony Rosenthal, Jackie Ferrara, John Powell, and Wopo Holup) and architects (Hugh Hardy, Cesar Pelli).  We decided to honor them by captioning the podcasts they recorded about the inspiration behind their work.  We liked the result so much that we bit the bullet and captioned the remaining 2000 podcasts which you can find on our site.   

Merch
This is the time of year that people like to visit our city.  Annually, we hear from classmates, far-flung relatives, and former colleagues we haven’t seen in decades who will land on our doorsteps during the holidays. Schedules are complicated, and New York is expensive. Taking in Broadway, the Nutcracker, Radio City, the Metropolitan Opera, dining in our Michelin-starred restaurants, and staying in our 5 Star hotels takes a substantial bite out of any credit card, no matter how many airline miles are promised. Which means that we will be tasked with coming up with cost-effective activities.  Our solution is to march our guests through some (or all) of our world-class museums.  It works like a charm.  Our visitors return home culturally fulfilled, completely exhausted from all those steps, and laden with bagfuls of tchotchkes purchased at the museum stores.  We have noticed that these shops do a thriving business in memorabilia inspired by their current exhibitions.  Why not us?  We are, after all, a museum, albeit digital.  And it’s Christmas.

Thus began our foray into product design, which we welcome as a vital source of needed income so that we can continue to offer free programming.  As we celebrate our semiquincentennial, what better gifting opportunity than our America250 collection? After all, It Happened Here. We’ve received numerous compliments on the design of our Lower Manhattan THEN map and immortalized it on a scarf packed in a reusable muslin bag, with a copy of the map itself. If you are like us and require a heavy-duty tote bag to carry everything needed for a day and/ or night in the city, we have just the thing.  Ours are reinforced with vegan leather printed with our THEN and NOW maps.  We have a very limited supply for Christmas.  Otherwise, you will need to wait for a month or two for them and for It Happened Here scarves and tote bags for our sister Revolutionary cities, Philadelphia and Boston.