Join the NYC Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS) each month for our virtual Lunch & Learn Series—an intimate conversation with agency staff and special guests focusing on the collections of the Municipal Archives and Library and the history of New York City. During 2025, the 400th anniversary of the founding of City government, DORIS is expanding access to records documenting the city and its diverse communities.

On April 3rd, join Dr. Robert Snyder for an in-depth discussion on his upcoming book, When the City Stopped: Stories from New York’s Essential Workers.

Five years after New York City shut down to reduce the spread of COVID-19, Snyder examines the inequalities illuminated by the pandemic, the workers who saved the city, and the lessons we can learn from the days when New York City was at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Using poems, first-person narratives, and oral histories, When the City Stopped explores the experiences of immigrants, people of color, and low-income New Yorkers whose work exposed them to the dangers of the pandemic, the fear and uncertainty of life in the early weeks and months of the pandemic, as well as the solidarity that sustained the city.