Venue : The Beekman Hotel, Downtown Manhattan

A History of Knowledge, Human Connection & Entrepreneurship

Long before The Beekman stood here, this corner of Lower Manhattan was a gathering place for ideas.

In 1761, the Chapel Street Theatre opened on this site. It was here that New York first encountered Hamlet—one voice wrestling with questions it could not answer alone, and a darkened room leaning in to listen.

By 1832, the site had become Clinton Hall, named for DeWitt Clinton, a former New York City mayor and New York governor who was a driving force behind the Erie Canal. Built as the permanent home of the Mercantile Library, with support from John Jacob Astor, Clinton Hall became an intellectual and social center for the city's rising generation of merchants, clerks, and entrepreneurs.

NYU held its first classes here. Poe, Twain, Emerson, and Thoreau were among the notable figures who passed through its library and reading rooms.

Across centuries and institutions, one idea has endured : meaning happens between us.

To gather here now—and ask what human connection means in an age of intelligent machines—is to continue a conversation this ground has hosted for more than 250 years.