NEW YORK – Oprah Winfrey, Rachel Maddow and Arnold Schwarzenegger will be among those appearing this fall at the 92nd Street Y, a New York City cultural institution and community center marking its 150th anniversary.
Winfrey will appear with co-author Arthur C. Brooks to discuss their new book, “Building the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier,” and Maddow will examine the roots of far-right extremism in the U.S., the subject of her upcoming book “Prequel.” Schwarzenegger will give a talk about his book “Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life.”
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Founded in 1874 as the Young Men’s Hebrew Association, the 92nd Street Y has been based on Manhattan’s Upper East Side since 1900. Some of the most notable public figures in the arts, politics and culture have spoken and performed there.
The 92nd Street Y will also host events — many of them streaming online — featuring such acclaimed fiction writers as Helen Garner, John Edgar Wideman, Richard Ford, Sandra Cisneros and Viet Thanh Nguyen.
Other showcases include “An Evening With Audra McDonald,” the Tony winning singer and actor; readings of Latin American literature hosted by Rosie Perez; a discussion between Elon Musk biographer Walter Isaacson and Michael Lewis, who has a book coming out about FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried; and a poetry panel with such Pulitzer Prize winners as Tracy K. Smith and Natasha Trethewey.
“For 150 years, the 92nd Street Y has consistently brought the best and brightest to its stages, allowing people from all over the world to connect through culture, arts, entertainment and civil conversation,” CEO Seth Pinsky said in a statement.
“While this role as a world-class cultural and community center has always been an important one,” he said, “it is particularly important for us to do what we do at this moment when so many arts and cultural institutions are being forced to retrench.”
Those who have appeared at the Y range from Dylan Thomas, T.S. Eliot and James Baldwin to Al Pacino, Hillary Clinton and Harry Belafonte. The center also maintains audio archives that include recordings of Eudora Welty, Harold Pinter and Wallace Stevens, the subject of a Mark Strand poem “Wallace Stevens Comes Back to Read His Poems at the 92nd Street Y."