You know the day destroys the night, Night divides the day, Tried to run — Tried to hide — Break on through to the other side! 
"Break Through (To The Other Side)" from The Doors (album)|The Doors (1967)
We chased our pleasures here, Dug our treasures there, But can you still recall The time we cried? Break on through to the other side.
"Break on Through (To The Other Side)" from The Doors
It hurts to set you free, but you’ll never follow me.
"The End" from The Doors (1967)
People are strange when you're a stranger Faces look ugly when you're alone Women seem wicked when you're unwanted Streets are uneven when you're down.
"People Are Strange" on the album Strange Days|Strange Days (1967)
When you're strange Faces come out of the rain When you're strange No one remembers your name When you're strange.
"People Are Strange" on the album Strange Days (1967)
Five to one, baby One in five No one here gets out alive, now You get yours, baby I'll get mine Gonna make it, baby If we try.
"Five to One" on the album Waiting for the Sun|Waiting for the Sun (1968)
The old get older And the young get stronger May take a week And it may take longer They got the guns But we got the numbers Gonna win, yeah We're takin' over Come on!
"Five to One" on the album Waiting for the Sun (1968)
At first flash of Eden, We race down to the sea. Standing there on Freedom's shore. Waiting for the sun...
"Waiting for the Sun" on the album Morrison Hotel|Morrison Hotel (1970)
This is the strangest life I’ve ever known.
"Waiting for the Sun" on the album Morrison Hotel (1970)
Killer on the roadHis brain is squirming like a toad.
"Riders on the Storm" from the album L.A. Woman|L.A. Woman (1971).
City Lore: the New York Center for Urban Culture was founded in 1986 - the first organization in the United States devoted expressly to the "documentation, preservation, and presentation of urban folk culture." Their mission is to produce programs and publications that convey the richness of New York City—and America's—living cultural heritage. In addition to regular programming that includes the Place Matters Awards and the People's Hall of Fame, the organization works with a wide range of partners to develop exhibitions, publications, and documentary films, and to advocate for the rights of street performers, ethnic clubs, and other grassroots cultural expressions in New York City. An incubator of non-profit cultural initiatives, City Lore works in four cultural domains: urban folklore and history, preservation, arts in education, and grassroots poetry traditions. Described by Sonnet Takahisa of the September 11th Memorial Museum as "wise renegades," their programs include,
People's Poetry Project,
Place MattersThe was created to promote the conservation of the places that are culturally or historically significant to New York City. The significance of these places can arise from their contribution to the historical record, from memories involving them, or traditions that were started at them and can be...
(in collaboration with the
Municipal Arts Society) and
City of Memory.
City Lore works collaboratively with folk and community artists, embracing different aesthetics for the creation of art. Their collaborators include the
Gotham Center for New York City History, the
New-York Historical SocietyThe New-York Historical Society is an American history museum and library located in New York City at the corner of 77th Street and Central Park West in Manhattan. Founded in 1804 as New York's first museum, the New-York Historical Society presents exhibitions, public programs and research that...
,
Bank Street College of EducationBank Street College of Education is located in Manhattan, New York City.-History:Bank Street was founded in 1916 by Lucy Sprague Mitchell as the "Bureau of Educational Experiments"....
, and smaller groups such as Los Pleneros de la 21. City Lore’s staff consists of professional folklorists (Steve Zeitlin, the founder and executive director, Elena Martínez and Amanda Dargan), historians (Marci Reaven), photographers (
Martha CooperMartha Cooper is an American photojournalist born in the 1940s in Baltimore, Maryland where she picked up photography at the age of three. She graduated from high school at the age of 16, earned an art degree at age 19 from Grinnell College...
), ethnomusicologists (Roberta Singer and Lois Wilcken), and arts and education specialists (Anika Selhorst).
Projects & Programs
Urban Folklore
The City Lore office on
First Avenue (Manhattan)First Avenue is a north-south thoroughfare on the East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan, running from Houston Street northbound for over 125 blocks before terminating at the Willis Avenue Bridge into The Bronx at the Harlem River near East 127th Street. South of Houston Street, the...
on the
Lower East SideThe Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
houses archives containing over 100,000 images, hundreds of oral histories, and traditional music and poetry performance tapes . The archives are part of the ongoing documentation project featured on
City of Memory, a participatory online story map of
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
City Lore's
People's Hall of Fame, established in 1993, honors grassroots contributions to New York's cultural life and presents winners with a plate-sized bronze version of the New York City subway token. Recipients have included the Pearls of Wisdom Storytellers, Peter Benfaremo ("The Lemon Ice King of Corona"), Jim Power ("New York's Mosaic Man") , and Renee Flowers (original member of the Gowanus Wildcats Girls Drill Team).
City Lore created
Know Your Rights!, a guide for street performers.
Place MattersThe was created to promote the conservation of the places that are culturally or historically significant to New York City. The significance of these places can arise from their contribution to the historical record, from memories involving them, or traditions that were started at them and can be...
Since our inception, City Lore has served as an advocate for local landmarks through the
Place Matters program in collaboration with
Municipal Arts Society. There have been over 650 nominations from the public, including parks, historic sites, public art, beer gardens, industrial sites, and stores. In 2001, they successfully nominated
Bohemian HallThe Bohemian Citizens' Benevolent Society is a private benevolent society founded in 1892 in Astoria, Queens to support Czech and Slovak immigrants to the area, as well as people of Czech and Slovak ancestry...
, still a vibrant community center/beer garden started by Czech immigrants in Astoria, Queens, and the
Casa Amadeo Music Store, the oldest, continuously occupied Latin music store in New York City, as census sites to the
National Register of Historic PlacesThe National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. The organization has funding from the
DutchThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
government for an outdoor exhibit in Lower Manhattan commemorating the Quadricentennial of
Henry HudsonHenry Hudson was an English sea explorer and navigator in the early 17th century. Hudson made two attempts on behalf of English merchants to find a prospective Northeast Passage to Cathay via a route above the Arctic Circle...
’s voyage with signage marking key sites in
New AmsterdamNew Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....
.
In 2006, City Lore published Hidden New York: A Guide to Places that Matter
http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-New-York-Places-Matter/dp/0813538904/.
Arts in Education
City Lore develops and implements arts residencies and offers professional development to New York City public schools. In response to requests of public school teachers with increasing
BengaliThe Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...
and
BangladeshiBangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
populations, the organization designed artist residencies in
QueensQueens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
, funded by the
United States Department of EducationThe United States Department of Education, also referred to as ED or the ED for Education Department, is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government...
to teach traditional Bengali scroll painting. City Lore has designed similar programs bringing
MexicanMexican people refers to all persons from Mexico, a multiethnic country in North America, and/or who identify with the Mexican cultural and/or national identity....
, Ecuadorian,
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian, Ivory Coast,
CubanCubans or Cuban people are the inhabitants or citizens of Cuba. Cuba is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...
,
HaitiHaiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
an, Peruvian, South African, and
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian artists into the schools.
People's Poetry Project
In the aftermath of
September 11, 2001 attacksThe September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
, City Lore found and collected anonymous poems and other writings that had been left at memorials, hospitals and gathering places throughout the city. A selection of these anonymous poems was published in the book,
Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam. and appeared in Steve Zeitlin's essay, "Oh Did You See the Ashes Come Thickly Falling Down .
Founded by City Lore and
Poets HouseFounded in 1985 by the late Stanley Kunitz, two-time poet laureate of the United States, and arts administrator Elizabeth Kray, Poets House is a national literary center and poetry library based in New York City. With more than 50,000 volumes of poetry, the library is the premier independent poetry...
in 1999,
The People's Poetry Gathering was created to present the diverse oral poetry traditions of New York City. In 2003, City Lore's People's Poetry Project launched an initiative to document and disseminate poetry from endangered languages.
Special Projects
City Lore produces documentary films and collaborates with filmmakers whose work relates to the organization's mission. Sponsored films include
Ric BurnsRic Burns is an American documentary filmmaker and writer. He has written, directed and produced historical documentaries for nearly 20 years, beginning with his collaboration on the celebrated PBS series The Civil War , which he produced with his older brother Ken Burns and wrote with Geoffrey C...
'
Coney Island and the five-part series
New York: A Documentary FilmNew York: A Documentary Film is an eight-part, 17½ hour, American documentary film on the history of New York City. It was directed by Ric Burns and originally aired in the U.S. on PBS. The film was a co-production of Thirteen New York and WGBH Boston....
;
City of Dreams, a film about women artists in New York City;
From Mambo to Hip Hop , a documentary which traces the history of music in the
South BronxThe South Bronx is an area of the New York City borough of The Bronx. The neighborhoods of Tremont, University Heights, Highbridge, Morrisania, Soundview, Hunts Point, and Castle Hill are sometimes considered part of the South Bronx....
; and the forthcoming
DeAf Jam, which highlights the poetry and storytelling of the deaf performed in
American Sign LanguageAmerican Sign Language, or ASL, for a time also called Ameslan, is the dominant sign language of Deaf Americans, including deaf communities in the United States, in the English-speaking parts of Canada, and in some regions of Mexico...
.
City Lore developed the traveling exhibit
Weavings of War, which featured the work of women textile artists from
Central AsiaCentral Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
,
Southeast AsiaSoutheast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
,
Latin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
, and
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
.
Funds were raised by City Lore to support Peter Siegel's project to restore and issue tapes he made in the 1960s of folk music concerts by
Mississippi John HurtJohn Smith Hurt, better known as Mississippi John Hurt was an American country blues singer and guitarist.Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself how to play the guitar around age nine...
, The Carter Family,
Jesse FullerJesse Fuller was an American one-man band musician, best known for his song "San Francisco Bay Blues".-Early life:...
,
Bill MonroeWilliam Smith Monroe was an American musician who created the style of music known as bluegrass, which takes its name from his band, the "Blue Grass Boys," named for Monroe's home state of Kentucky. Monroe's performing career spanned 60 years as a singer, instrumentalist, composer and bandleader...
, and others. The recordings became the box set
Friends of Old Time Music released by
Smithsonian FolkwaysSmithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was founded in 1987 after the family of Moses Asch, founder of Folkways...
in 2006