Hotels with discounts

• Holiday Inn Lower East Side: Typographics attendees are offered a preferred rate for reservations June 18–27, 2020. Prices start at $205 per night if booked by March 31. After that, nightly rates will increase an additional $14. For the preferred rate use this discount link and click the green “Book Now” button.

• Hotel Indigo Lower East Side: Typographics attendees are offered a preferred rate starting at $299 per night for reservations June 14th–25th, 2020. Offer expires May 15, 2020. For the preferred rate use this discount link and click “Book Online”.

More discounts for nearby hotels will be posted soon. For updates and announce­ments, join the Typographics mailing list and follow @TypographicsNYC on Twitter.

Other suggestions

• Airbnb: Homesharing website with plenty of options in NYC. Can be very affordable if you split a multi-room apartment with a group of people.

• Ace Hotel: Designer friendly, dimly lit, shabby chic.

• The Standard: Not cheap but very nice. Right next door to Cooper Union.

New York is one of the largest centers of graphic design and typography in the world. A home to several hundred design studios, it offers many options for typographic tourism. Here are just a few local suggestions.

Graphic Design

• Poster House: The first museum in the United States dedicated exclusively to posters.
• The Herb Lubalin Study Center: An archive of modern graphic design, with a collection of original work by many eminent graphic designers as well as books, posters, magazines, and type-related ephemera. Open by appointment.
• The Type Directors Club: The leading international organization dedicated to typography, regularly hosting lectures and other events.
• AIGANY: Organizes frequent design events and exhibitions.

Books & Printing

• Printed Matter: Organizer of the NY & LA Art Book Fairs. Both a bookstore and non-profit organization promoting publications made by artists.
• The Strand: Giant independent bookstore first opened in 1927, with “18 miles of books”. It’s not unusual to find rare design books here for cheap.
• Bowne & Co. Stationers: A 19th-century-style letterpress shop and gift store operated by the South Street Seaport Museum. New York’s oldest operating business under the same name and home to one of the largest collections of ornamental letterpress type in the US.
• The Arm letterpress studio: A public access letterpress shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Offers classes and press rental.
• Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library: Free and open to the public, houses one of the most impressive collections of type specimen books in the world. (Tip: Browse their catalog online and make a list of things you want to see before going.)
• The Morgan Library & Museum: World-renowned library with a large collection of early printing and and illuminated manuscripts.
• The Grolier Club: The oldest bibliophile club in North America and home to a vast library of books about printing and typography. Regularly hosts public events and exhibitions, can be visited by non-member researchers by appointment.

Culture

• Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum: Devoted exclusively to historic and contemporary design.
• New Museum: Among the few museums worldwide devoted exclusively to contemporary art. Cool building, great branding.
• Museum of the City of New York: A history and art museum focusing on NYC and its people.
• The Public Theatre: Organizers of Shakespeare In The Park and home to the iconic brand designed by Paula Scher.
• Museum of Art & Design: Documents contemporary and historic art, craft, and design.
• MoMA: Among the most influential modern art museums in the world. Also one of the few museums in the world to add digital typefaces to its collection.
• Mmuseumm: A tiny museum in an abandoned elevator shaft showing a variety of interesting objects.

Letter-gazing

• Coney Island: Filled with colorful sign painting, amusement rides, a beachside boardwalk, and hot dogs.
• Roosevelt Island: Use your Metro card to take a suspended tram over the East River and walk southern to the tip of FDR Four Freedoms Park to see stonecarved lettering by the legendary John Steven Shop (and a nice view of Manhattan too).
• New York Transit Museum: Museum dedicated to mass transportation in New York, housed in a 1936 subway station with tons of cool lettering to see.
• Green-Wood Cemetery: One of the first rural cemeteries in America, filled with interesting examples of stonecarved lettering. A giant cemetery and final resting place for many notable people like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Leonard Bernstein, and Cooper Union founder Peter Cooper.
• W 45th St, Theatre District: Despite the mobs of tourists, this is perhaps the highest concentration of signs with lightbulb lettering in the city.
• New York Neon: A wonderful source for info on neon signs around the city.
• C-Rock: Gigantic 60-foot tall letter C painted on a cliff just across the Harlem River from the northern tip of Manhattan. Also a popular spot to jump into the Harlem River. You’ll see it if you take a Circle Line boat tour.

Food

• Pizza: It is everywhere. Eat it.
• Other NYC food specialties: Bagels, cheesecake, baked pretzels, egg cream, hot dogs, pickles, pastrami, etc.
• Essex Market: A public market with many small food vendors, and a custom typeface by Frere-Jones Type. It’s the home of Shopsin’s, the famously strict but quirky family restaurant of 2018 Typographics conference speaker Tamara Shopsin.
• Russ & Daughters: Classic NYC establishment specializing in Jewish foods, with branding by 2020 Typographics conference speaker Kelli Anderson. Multiple locations include a sit-down cafe (home to a sculpture by Milton Glaser) and the original walk-in deli/shop.
• Tacombi: A taqueria with lots of colorful lettering and several locations throughout the city.
• Katz’s Delicatessen: Quintessential NYC deli, founded in 1888. Bonus points for cool lettering.
• Economy Candy: Old-time candy shop, opened in 1937.

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