Museum of the City of New York to Open 'The City Electric: New York’s Gilded Age' Exhibition
The Museum of the City of New York is set to open a new exhibition titled 'The City Electric: New York’s Gilded Age' on March 12, 2027. This exhibition will offer visitors a dual perspective on New York's Gilded Age, a period marked by both immense wealth and significant societal transformation. It will showcase the opulent lifestyles of the city's wealthiest families, featuring artifacts such as Gilded Age fashion, jewelry, and decorative arts from Fifth Avenue mansions. Concurrently, the exhibition will explore the broader urban landscape, highlighting how record immigration, Black migration from the South, and a booming industrial economy reshaped New York. It will delve into the lives of new arrivals who transformed the city's neighborhoods and labor force, documented through photographs by Jacob Riis, Alice Austen, and Lewis Hine. The exhibition will also spotlight the vibrant society built by Black New Yorkers in Brooklyn and the engineering marvels of the era, such as the Brooklyn Bridge.