Today at 11 AM, Walt Whitman Initiative President and NYU Professor Karen Karbiener will lead Untapped New York Insiders on a virtual walking tour of Whitman’s Brooklyn. The tour offers an introduction to Whitman’s earliest days in Brooklyn: it was in Brooklyn Heights that the Whitmans first settled when they moved to Brooklyn from Huntington, LI, in 1823. Whitman’s membership in the Brooklyn Apprentice’s Library (once located at the Henry/Cranberry intersection) gave the grammar school dropout his first access to books, and his years editing the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in its offices near the Fulton Ferry Landing sharpened his writing skills. We’ll start our tour at the site of the first printing of Leaves of Grass, and end it with the view that inspired his seminar New York poem, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.”
This tour is dedicated to the memory of Greg Trupiano (1955-2020): lifelong Whitmaniac and Brooklynite, devoted cultural activist, and dear friend. This live talk is organized for Untapped New York Insiders — get two months free with code STAYHOME. A video of the talk will also be made available to all our Insiders afterwards in the Virtual Content section of our website.
