@bplboston

TW // sexual assault - Join us Tuesday night for an author talk with Michelle Bowdler; a national advocate for change in the way sex crimes are addressed, Michelle’s story and call to action is urgent in our fraught times. Register at: bpl.org/events

Happy birthday @norarobertsauthor! Celebrate her birthday with us by checking out this list of her contemporary romances. ow.ly/X8b550BOAUI

Join BPL & the @wgbh Forum Network for a virtual program in The Arc of History: Contested Perspectives Series, moderated by David Leonard.

We are excited to announce the debut of our virtual Art & Architecture Booklet! Learn more about the history of the Central Library in Copley Square, a National Historic Landmark, and enjoy looking through these photos until you can visit the library in person again. https://apps.bpl.org/tourbooklet/ ##

Happy ! Here are this week’s amazing BPL photos 😍 📷 credit: @airren_noel, @jennisa23 (+ @Lisa.f.v85, @jocelyn_sadler, @dontphilsad), @tcroman.photo, @yackie, @chippiwara, JP Branch ## Reminder: We want to see your BPL photos! Whether you just checked out a new book, are passing your local branch, reading from home, attending one of our digital events, or have an old BPL shot sitting in your camera roll, post your photo using the hashtag and we’ll share our favorites on Fridays!

In honor of , we’re sharing some historic images from our collections of Boston-area fires and fire departments. Thanks to all the brave men and women who keep our communities safe. 📷: Compliments of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection @bostonfirefighters

Hope you enjoyed the @bplmaps takeover today! If you haven’t already seen our stories about Atlascope and the South End, be sure to check them out. And if you have and want to learn more, come drop by our online South End By Map event tonight at 7 pm EDT! Registration recommended but not required at bit.ly/2GuTTD0 to get the streaming links sent to you. Otherwise, head to either the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center YouTube or Facebook pages to watch. The Cyclorama, pictured here in 1885, was a large dome built at 543-7 Tremont St. to house a giant painting of the Battle of Gettysburg, and hosted many exhibitions and events over the years between 1884 and 1898. It was eventually purchased by the Boston Flower Exchange, shown here in 1938, after being used as an industrial building and a garage for a couple of decades. It was used as a flower market until 1970. Today, it belongs to the Boston Center for the Arts, @boscenterforarts. We regularly post maps and more on our own social media pages. Follow if you need more cartographic content in your life! We’ll also be hosting more of these events at other BPL branch libraries in the coming months. If you want us at your local branch, send us a dm and we’ll get right on it! [Video description: A six-second video which starts with an old beige map showing a pink building footprint labeled “Cyclorama of the Battle of Gettysburg.” The building is round with small extensions in the front and back. A circle draws inward, obscuring the map and instead showing a map where the building is now a salmon-y color and has been absorbed into a larger rectangular building. It is labeled “Boston Flower Exchange.” The circle vanishes into a point at the center, and then opens back up again to show the original map.]

@bplmaps, the Leventhal Map and Education Center, is taking over the BPL Instagram account today! If you’ve never heard of us, we’re an independent nonprofit in a long-term relationship with the BPL to steward about a quarter million cartographic objects, provide access to those maps, and teach with them. This evening (10/7) at 7 pm EDT, we’ll be cohosting an online community history event with the South End branch called South End By Map! The video above is a screen capture of our tool Atlascope, which we’ll be using to explore some of the South End’s history. Atlascope stitches together urban atlases of the Boston area from the late 19th and early 20th centuries and lays them out over modern map layers so that you can learn about the history of the city, a neighborhood, or a building. The South End was full of factories and businesses throughout this time period, including quite a few piano factories like this one shown here in 1870! Today, this is an apartment building called the Piano Craft Guild, @pianocraftguild, in reference to its previous life. To learn more about South Boston and Atlascope, join us tonight! Registration suggested but not required at bpl.org/events; we’ll be streaming live on YouTube and Facebook: bit.ly/2GuTTD0 Check out our stories today for more, or follow us @bplmaps! [Video description: An eleven-second video which starts with a square of aerial imagery of a city block. Then, an old map showing the footprint of the same building drags down from the top like a window blind closing. On the map, the building is green with a pink outline and is labeled Chickering and Sons Piano Manufactory. Then, the map gets drawn back up to show the aerial image again.]

It's International Letter Writing Week! ✉️ Check out these great events from the BPL Children's Library. More info: bpl.org/events ## Image 1 text: Hands-on Letterlocking Workshop / October 7 4-4:45PM / Have you ever wondered how letters were sent before the modern envelope was invented? Are you curious about the ways people kept messages private centuries ago? Do you want to learn how to seal a letter like a 16th century spy? Kids 5-12 years and their families, join Jana Dambrogio of MIT Libraries and members of the Unlocking History research group for a hands-on workshop. Learn how to fold and secure letters using the fascinating historical technique of letterlocking. Letterlocking is perfect for ages 5 and up, and requires nothing more than your hands, some paper, and your favorite art supplies Image 2 text: Creative Letter Writing for Kids with Author Ruth Behar / October 8 4-4:45PM / Children 7-12 years, join Pura Belpré Author Award winner Ruth Behar for an exploration of letter writing, immigration, and the ways that we stay connected to the people we love. Chat with Ruth about her new book, Letters from Cuba, historical fiction, inspired by her grandmother’s escape from Poland to Cuba. Then let Ruth guide you through writing and drawing descriptive letters that you can use to connect with friends and family.

Join us + @bplmaps tonight at 6pm for a talk with Lizabeth Cohen, author of Saving America's Cities: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age. 📍🔗: bpl.org/events Urban Renewal of the 1950s through 1970s has acquired a very poor reputation, much of it deserved. But reducing it to an unchanging story of urban destruction misses some important legacies and genuinely progressive goals. Those include efforts to create more socially mixed communities, to involve suburbs—not just cities–in solving metropolitan inequality, and most importantly, to hold the federal government responsible for funding more affordable housing and other urban investments, rather than depend primarily on the private sector. Cohen will revisit this history by following the long career of Edward J. Logue, who worked to revitalize New Haven in the 1950s, became the architect of the “New Boston” in the 1960s, and later led innovative organizations in New York at the state level and in the South Bronx.

10/8, 3-4PM: As one of the ALA's Top 10 Most Challenged books of 2017, the middle-grade graphic novel Drama has found itself continually popping up as a topic of discussion, particularly during the annual . But as proven by @BPLBostonTeens' recent Tiktok post, Drama remains one of the most popular and beloved stories for and about young people in recent history. So why all this drama over Drama...? Join a group of teen librarians on 10/8 at 3pm as they discuss Raina Telgemeier's seminal work and other books on BPL's Teen Services Twitch channel, Twitch.tv/BPLts. Whether or not they have read Drama, teens are encouraged to join the conversation, letting us know their favorite content from our current list of Banned Books for Teen Readers. This live, public event will take place exclusively on BPL's Teen Services Twitch channel; no registration is required. More info at bpl.org/events

Happy ! Here are this week’s amazing BPL photos 😍 📷: @platedandplanted, @cheapcourage + @juliecrithary, @arireadsitall, @icha217, @panther80, Honan-Allston Branch ## Reminder: We want to see your BPL photos! Whether you just checked out a new book, are passing your local branch, reading from home, attending one of our digital events, or have an old BPL shot sitting in your camera roll, post your photo using the hashtag and we’ll share our favorites on Fridays!