A guided night of jazz listening on Wednesday, Nov. 4, leads the next stretch of Roosevelt Island Library events, followed by a Crochet Club, a Thanksgiving travel film and a book cover workshop, according to the New York Public Library’s latest events email and its event listings. Everything below takes place at the Roosevelt Island Library, 504 Main Street.
Jazz night, crochet and a holiday film
On Wednesday, Nov. 4, from 6:30 to 7:30 PM, Susheel Kurien leads Chasing the Melody: A Journey Through Jazz Interpretation, a guided listening session that traces “how a single melody evolves from its theatrical roots into a masterpiece of modern improvisation.” Through clips and conversation, the listing promises, the group will “discover how the world’s greatest artists ‘steal’ a melody and make it entirely their own.” NYPL describes Kurien as a jazz documentarian, historian and musician.
Saturday, Nov. 7, is a double bill. Crochet Club meets from 11 AM to 12:30 PM for adults, families and teens to “crochet, knit, sew, and more.” The library says to “Bring your own supplies, or use ours,” though supplies are limited.
At 1 PM the library screens Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987), the story of “a Chicago advertising man” trying to get home from New York for Thanksgiving with “a lovable oaf of a shower-curtain-ring salesman as his only companion.” Steve Martin and John Candy star. It is rated R, runs 93 minutes and is listed for adults, with the program set to end around 3 PM. The branch has hosted screenings before, and the Daily covered its Summer Film Series showing of Holes on the library patio in August 2025.
More Roosevelt Island Library events through Nov. 14
English Conversation Hour runs again on Monday, Nov. 9, at 11 AM. INTERMEDIATE Level English Conversation Classes: We Speak NYC meet on Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 1 PM.
Serenity Art Hour follows on Monday, Nov. 9, from 6 to 7 PM. It is listed for adults and people 50 and up, and the library says it “will take place in-person.”
On Saturday, Nov. 14, from 3 to 4 PM, library staff host History of Book Covers, a conversation about how book covers have evolved, after which participants design a cover of their own for a book based on its description. Registration is in person when you arrive.
The branch’s November calendar also included a Community Conversations with Cornell Tech talk on short-form video on Monday, Nov. 2, with Eden Shaveet, whom the library describes as “a Ph.D. student at Cornell Tech.”
The branch sits among the Main Street storefronts whose leases and renovations the Lighthouse has examined. It is open Mondays and Wednesdays from 10 AM to 8 PM and closed Sundays. For questions about any program, the branch can be reached at 212-308-6243. For the jazz session, the crochet club and the book cover talk, NYPL says ASL interpretation and real-time captioning are available on request at least two weeks in advance.
Who Does This?
At the June 18 meeting of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation’s Real Estate Development Advisory Committee, President and Chief Executive Officer B.J. Jones acknowledged that there had been no progress finding a tenant for the long-discussed medical space on Main Street. Hudson/Related Realty LLC had told him that filling the space, along with other vacant storefronts, was proving more difficult than expected.
