New York, NY, Jan. 26, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Museum of the City of New York (MCNY), New York’s storyteller for nearly a century, together with producer and historian Kevin Burke, today announced details of a new podcast and live event series, Your Hometown, a show about growing up and how where we’re from shapes who we are. The first season of this innovative audio offering, a co-presentation between Kevin Burke Productions and MCNY, focuses on New York City as a hometown and features prominent New Yorkers—representing a range of backgrounds, neighborhoods, and industries—sharing often never-before-heard details of their formative years growing up in and around the five boroughs. Your Hometown launches on February 2 with the first of a two-part interview with Darryl “DMC” McDaniels (Hollis, Queens), co-founder of the legendary hip-hop group Run-DMC, and will coincide with a live virtual event featuring a conversation between Burke and McDaniels. Future episodes (guest list below) will be released bi-weekly on www.yourhometown.org and be available on the Museum’s website and wherever podcasts are available.
Conceived and hosted by Burke, Your Hometown seeks to illuminate and reveal one guest, one hometown, and one coming-of-age story at a time. In the case of NYC, this deep and personalized view allows listeners to gain an understanding of the vastness of human experience in the city. At a time when many feel placeless, Your Hometown uses the power of storytelling to connect listeners to our guests, their own roots, and to each other.
“Hometowns exist at the unique intersection of time, place and memory. They are the crossroads of our coming-of-age-years and composed of people and places that shape us forever,” says Kevin Burke. “Whether we stay, move away, or come back, our hometowns loom large and cast longer shadows, marking a permanent geography within our lives that take on mythical aspects in the rearview. Everyone is from someplace, and everywhere is somewhere.”
“New York as a hometown is one of the most iconic, dynamic, and resilient hometowns in the United States,” says Whitney Donhauser, Ronay Menschel Director and President of Museum of the City of New York. “As the City's storyteller for nearly 100 years, we are thrilled to partner with Kevin to bring this series to life and to share these formative tales from New Yorkers and the neighborhoods that helped shape who they are today.”
“I couldn’t be more thrilled to be partnering with the Museum of the City of New York on this inaugural season,” Burke adds. “More than any other cultural institution in the city, MCNY’s mission is to tell the New York story from the ground up, and it has a long track record of engaging a diverse audience interested in knowing the real New York. This is a show about what happened to our guests here and how they met the world before the world met them. It’s a model I hope to bring to other iconic cities and towns across the country, and it’s exciting to be establishing that blueprint here with my friends at MCNY.”
Several Your Hometown interviews were recorded on site at the Museum of the City of New York, and the Museum will present live virtual events in tandem with the episodes, including one timed to the February 2 launch show with Darryl “DMC” McDaniels. Other upcoming talks include fashion designer Danielle Guizio on Thursday, April 9. Tickets are donation based and can be found at mcny.org.
The production team includes award-winning radio journalist and executive producer Robert Krulwich, a brilliant storyteller with vast broadcasting experience including WNYC’s RadioLab. Krulwich met Burke in the New York neighborhood they shared, which in itself is a testament to the podcast’s concept.
“YOUR HOMETOWN”
Launches: February 2 (Approx. 25 episodes x 60 min.; bi-weekly)
Creator/Host/Executive Producer: Kevin Burke
Executive producer: Robert Krulwich
Co-presenter: Museum of the City of New York
Full episode credits can be found at the podcast website, yourhometown.org
Connect with Your Hometown
Instagram: @yourhometownpodcast
Facebook: @yourhometownpodcast
Twitter: @YHTpodcast
Patreon: /yourhometown
FUTURE GUESTS
Maria Bartiromo, financial journalist and news anchor (Bay Ridge, Brooklyn)
Tiffany Cabán, public defender and activist (South Richmond Hill, Queens)
Sewell Chan, journalist (Flushing, Queens)
Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist (Castle Hill/Riverdale, Bronx)
Danielle Guizio, fashion designer (Fairfield, NJ/Lower East Side, Manhattan)
Sherrilyn Ifill, civil rights lawyer (Jamaica, Queens)
David Johansen, singer, songwriter, and actor (West Brighton, Staten Island)
Glenn Ligon, visual artist (South Bronx)
Sonia Manzano, actress and author (South Bronx)
Lynn Nottage, playwright (Boerum Hill, Brooklyn)
Priyanka Naik, chef and author (Annadale, Staten Island)
Richard Price, novelist and screenwriter (East Bronx)
Rev. Al Sharpton, civil rights activist and talk show host (Hollis, Queens; Brownsville, Brooklyn)
Pamela Talese, visual artist (Upper East Side, Manhattan)
Suzanne Vega, singer and songwriter (East Harlem and Upper West Side, Manhattan)
Sigourney Weaver, actress (Upper East Side, Manhattan)
And others
SUPPORT
Your Hometown is made possible in part with support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Additional support provided by Joan K. Davidson (The J.M. Kaplan Fund), Rudolph Rauch/Lanegate Foundation, Lori and John Berisford, Claudette Mayer, Paul Sperry, Victoria F. Morris, Peter M. Wolf, Kenneth J. Halpern, the Newburgh Institute, David Phelps Hamar, and an anonymous donor.
ABOUT THE CREATOR/HOST
KEVIN BURKE is a historian, journalist, and documentary film producer who has developed the podcast series “Your Hometown,” which he also hosts and produces. In addition to serving as the director of research at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University, he is the founder and CEO of Kevin Burke Productions, Inc., a New-York based company. His film credits include working as a producer on the popular genealogy series “Finding Your Roots”, now in its seventh season on PBS, “The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This is Our Song” (PBS, 2021), and “Reconstruction: America after the Civil War” (PBS, 2019), winner of the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award. With Henry Louis Gates Jr., Burke is the coauthor of And Still I Rise: Black America since MLK (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2015) and co-editor of the Norton Critical Edition of Solomon Northup’s 1853 memoir, Twelve Years a Slave (W. W. Norton & Co., 2016). Burke graduated from Harvard College in 1998 and from Harvard Law School in 2003. He received his master’s degree in History and Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization from Harvard in 2004 and 2006, respectively. A member of the New York State Bar, Burke serves on several boards, including as chair of the Hudson River Valley Greenway Conservancy and president of the Downing Film Center in Newburgh, New York, his hometown. He and his wife Anna live with their two children in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter @Kevin_M_Burke.
ABOUT THE MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
The Museum of the City of New York was established in 1923 as the first museum in the United States dedicated to the study of a single city. Located at the top of Manhattan’s Museum Mile, across from Central Park’s Conservatory Gardens, the Museum of the City of New York’s mission is to foster understanding of the distinctive nature of urban life in the world’s most influential metropolis. It engages visitors by celebrating, documenting, and interpreting the city’s past, present, and future. For almost a century, the Museum has been offering locals and visitors alike award-winning and critically-acclaimed exhibitions, including New York at Its Core; public and virtual programs; and educational programs provided by the Frederick A.O. Schwarz Education Center. At the center of its offerings, the Museum’s collections contains approximately 750,000 objects, including prints, photographs, decorative arts, costumes, paintings, sculpture, toys, and theatrical memorabilia, with close to 200,000 of them available online.
To connect with the Museum and stay informed about virtual programs; follow us on Instagram and Twitter at @MuseumofCityNY and at Facebook.com/MuseumofCityNY. Visitors may also experience MCNY's walking tours and stories on the Urban Archive app and on social media. For more information, please visit www.mcny.org.