Tag Archives: events

Virtual Trip to Design Island

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Let me guess. You didn’t get to see the spectacular design show that ended yesterday on Governor’s Island. While their mansion up on 91st Street is being renovated, The Cooper-Hewitt (a.k.a. Smithsonian) outdid itself by mounting a show inside Building 110 on New York Harbor’s hottest party-picnic location.

Graphic Design: Now in Production gathers great design produced since 2000 to feature what creative minds are offering. The summertime crowd loved it, and people flowed right from the ferry into the show and through the aisles where works were grouped around themes like storefronts, branding, typography, and print (it lives!). Check out the action on the Flickr feed.

The show is vibrant, interactive, mind-blowing, provocative, and fully documented in a 10-minute walk-through video with the curator Elleln Lupton that pretty much replicates the experience.

If you’re in LA, the show opens September 30 at UCLA’s Hammer Museum before migrating in 2013-2014 to Grand Rapids, Houston, Winston-Salem, and RISD.

Among our favorites are Brand New’s display, which asks visitors to vote (“before” or “after”) on redesigned corporate logos, and CognitiveMedia’s “RSA Animate: Changing Education Paradigms.”

Get Out Your Credit Cards for FNO

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Better use the holiday weekend to rest up, since Fashion’s Night Out happens next Thursday!

The tents are going up at Lincoln Center, the stores are getting ready for the onslaught, and the NYPD is gearing up for crowd control everywhere in the City.

Check out the New York event listings at the web site, or (if you’re not in NYC that night) the FNO worldwide or elsewhere US sites. Hey, there are even events planned in Wyoming and online, so there’s no excuse not to shop, contribute to a cause (by buying stuff from the collection), and have fun all night!

If you’re in NYC, start early, have a strategy, and be prepared for crowds. The web site lets you sort the 800-plus events by neighborhood, shopping category, and the type of event you’re hankering for (pop-ups, fashion shows, new product launches, charity-focused, DJs, designer appearances, and block parties).

Check out the video to get in the mood.

Massachusetts Fishermen Outperform Houdini

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Although we expect great things from Hugh Jackman in the upcoming Schwartz-Sorkin Broadway musical Houdini, Harry’s Vanishing Elephant trick won’t hold a candle to the feat of making Washington and the entire Continental Army disappear from the shores of Brooklyn exactly 236 years ago.

Reenactors assembled this weekend at the pebble beach in Brooklyn Bridge Park to explain exactly how some fishermen from Marblehead, Massachusetts, under the command of General John Glover, accomplished the disappearing act for General Washington, so soon after the Continental Army suffered its first round of defeats from the British. Check out the Flickr feed.

The Marblehead Regiment fire muskets, noise that wasn’t permitted during the August 29, 1776 nighttime evacuation

The backstory: The Continental Army was surrounded on three sides and pinned against the East River. While the British Army was recovering from pretty intense of hand-to-hand fighting, it began to rain. Then a thick fog rolled in. Glover and his Massachusetts seamen, undaunted by the weather, had no problem ferrying ammo, muffled equipment, and people all night on August 29, with Washington finally crossing at daybreak. In total, they made 9,000 troops disappear without a sound, all before the British woke up and discovered the escape.

The reenactors who paid us a visit are the same Pennsylvania crew that recreate Washington’s Delaware River crossing each Christmas, and for many it was their first trip to New York. They promise to try to get the “big boats” for next year’s appearance.

Battle Week bonus: Take a peek at Paul Benney’s “Battle of Bergen” performance last night, courtesy of Proteus Gowanus, which had Redcoats and Americans spilling all over the intersection of Smith and Bergen.

Join the Revolution This Week in Brooklyn

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Did you know that the British landing of 22,000 troops in Brooklyn in August 1776 was the largest sea invasion until D-Day? Or that the face-off along Flatbush was the largest and most fateful battle of the Revolution?

The site of the Continental Army’s line of defense at Battle Pass along the Flatbush Road during the Battle of Brooklyn on August 27, 1776 (Prospect Park)

It will be easy to get up to speed on this historic turning point this week by joining any of the activities happening in and around the key sites (Prospect Park, The Old Stone House, Green-Wood Cemetery, Fulton Ferry, and The Brooklyn Navy Yard) as Brooklyn hosts Battle Week 2012.

Yesterday was the vigorous, cross-country hike up to Battle Pass in Prospect Park to learn about the brave defense, and on to the grand finale at The Old Stone House to relive the historic battle with expert William Parry.  The good news is that Parry will be doing it all again on Tuesday, August 21. Don’t miss this or the rest of the schedule posted on the Stone House’s Battle Week calendar. Highlights:

August 22: You’ll have to decide between a canoe tour with the Gowanus Dredgers or a history lecture on our waterfront’s role in the battle at Pier 1 at Brooklyn Bridge Park.

August 23: The spectacular pub at the top of BLDG 92 at the Navy Yard hosts Battle of Brooklyn-inspired team trivia.

August 25: Witness a reenactment of how Glover’s Marblehead Regiment facilitated Washington’s undercover escape with our Army at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s pebble beach.

August 26:  Have a full day at the big battle site, Green-Wood Cemetery, with tours, parades, the Continental Army, horses, cannons, muskets, Hessians, Redcoats, and George Washington. (We’ve also heard that Ben Franklin could make an appearance, but shouldn’t he be concentrating on the U.S. Postal Service?)

The Old Stone House, where 400 brave Marylanders fought against 2,000 British, Hessians, and Cornwallis to delay their assault on the Continental Army, which escaped

August 27: The Battle on Bergen art performance by Proteus Gowanus at Smith & Bergen at their Liberty Pole.

August 29: A follow-up talk about Washington’s Retreat at Pier 1 of Brooklyn Bridge Park.

If you want to prepare, watch the video tour recorded by John Turturro, and check out the interactive map on the Old Stone House website.

Shakespeare at the River

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Don’t miss Twelfth Night, the latest production offered by the New York Classical Theater at the second half of the River to River Festival.

Set against the backdrop of Castle Clinton, the players enact a Shakespeare comedy as if the cases of mistaken identity were unfolding in turn-of-the-last-century New York.

Last season, the group led everyone across hill, dale, bay, and the historic buildings of Governor’s Island in Henry V. This year’s show may not involve sea travel, but is set against the backdrop of the Hudson. And it’s a chance to see free Shakespeare without standing in a line for 12 hours.

The show begins at Castle Clinton each night at 7pm. Twelfth Night continues for a few nights (until July 22) after the other official River to River festivities end on the 15th. Two more weeks; go check the calendar.

Enlightenment Under the BQE

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Strolling along The Fence under the BQE

Actually, it’s in the part of Brooklyn Bridge Park that sits next to the tiered speedway, over at under-construction Pier 3, just beyond the cattail ponds flanking Pier 1. Today and next weekend (Thurs-Sun) is an opportunity to peek at the work of some of the best young photographers on the planet, get some insights into the human condition, and eat/drink in the best Brooklyn style for free. Check out the photos.

Photoville’s long fence of photos is the preamble to this free shipping-container-based photo show. Once you get to Pier 3, you’ll step into other worlds through the eyes of high-quality photo documentarians.  Check out the portraits of homeless transgender teens by Josh Lehrer, or see what it’s like to live in a tent in Haiti (Wyatt Gallery) or a basement in Beijing (Magnum’s Sim Chi Yin). Two Nooderlicht containers feature the work of eleven female photographers that have documented live in prisons in South Africa, Burundi, the United States, and elsewhere.

Josh Lehrer’s shipping-container gallery with portraits of homeless transgender teens at Photoville

Different food trucks rotate through Brooklyn Lager’s beer garden every day, but on Saturday we scored with Rickshaw Dumpling (remember them from The Lot last summer?) and the “grilled cheese truck” (@morristruck) that’s always catering to long lines in DUMBO.

There’s no excuse not to stroll over, and bring your dog, too. They’re welcomed in the containers, in the beer garden, and in the fully outfitted dog run.

Circus on 45th

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Even if you think you’ve seen it all in Times Square, be sure to catch the sights in store all summer on West 45th Street inside the magical spiegeltent.

Behind the tattered fence on an empty lot in the Theater District, you’ll enter a glistening beer/music/variety hall complete with stained-glass windows, velvet booths, multiple mirrors, a carousel horse, and a central stage that’s the platform for a dozen vaudeville, burlesque, and acrobatic acts.

Empire is the latest offering from Spiegelworld (the folks who pitched their tent down at the South Street Seaport a few years ago). I don’t want to give anything away…just go, grab a beer, and enjoy the lights, costumes, illusions, and daring feats of skill, all spinning, whirling, and teetering just a few feet away. Amazing!

Bronx Senior Home = Art

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“This Side of Paradise” installation view

The final days have come to pass for one of the most innovative art sites in the Bronx – the multi-artist/multi-organizational show This Side of Paradise at the Andrew Freedman Home on the Grand Concourse.

For the past several months, visitors have entered the long-shuttered gates, crossed the lawn under gigantic trees, and entered once-grand rooms where formerly wealthy seniors sat out their golden years to experience two floors of art works by Bronx sculptors, painters, videomakers, and installation artists. Take a look at the entrance and first floor.

No Longer Empty organized the project with participation by members of The Bronx Arts Alliance, featuring new works, Bronx collections, and recent artist-in-residence programs. On the second floor: The Bronx Documentary Center displayed Tim Hetherington’s film Diary in a wreck of a room; Wave Hill’s artist Adam Parker Smith bedazzled another nearby room; and photographer Sylvia Plachy placed her 1980 Village Voice portraits of the former residents in Room 246 amid furniture and knick-knacks evoking her long-ago visit.

Nicky Enright’s “The Ravages” (2012)

Mars on Park Avenue

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It’s time to live the dream. No doubt you’ve seen the American Museum of Natural History’s show about what it’s like to explore Beyond Planet Earth. (AMNH has even dug out 1950s letters to the Hayden on its web site.)

But drop into the Park Avenue Armory to experience it for yourself. Tom Sachs has created the surface of Mars and an exploratory base out of materials that he scrounged near his art studio. The results are spectacular, fun, and a trip worth taking.

You’ll go through orientation to enter Space Program: Mars, but once you’re on the base, you can stroll around, take the test to enter the LEM, chat with the dozens of lab-coated workers, tour the museum, or just sit and view it all from the bleachers in front of Mission Control. Seriously, you can be entertained all day. Check out the inspiring trailer and a few on-site photos.

If you’ve wanted to travel to Mars, now’s your chance, before the show blasts off June 17.

Ferry to Frieze

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The international art crowd has descended upon a deserted island that is crammed with sculpture, installations, art talks, events, high-end food, and 180 galleries from all corners of the world. It’s the Frieze Art Fair (New York edition) and there are two more days to catch it on little-visited Randall’s Island in New York’s East River.

One of the nicest ways to get there is via the free New York Water Taxi, which offers a spectacular ride up the East River. Check out the photos. If you can’t get out there today or tomorrow, check out the virtual walk-through of the caterpillar tent and sculpture garden.

For other virtual fun, go shopping on the Frieze Art Fair virtual site, read more about the special projects that were commissioned for the fair, take advantage of the podcasts of the special talks, and listen to some of the sound projects.

Hope to see you at the fair!

Entrance to the Frieze Art Fair on Randall’s Island