July 1 New York Asian Film Festival
Join Lincoln Center’s annual New York City Asian Film Festival from July 1 through the 14th for a remarkable journey into Asia’s cinematic culture. Exploring both the traditional and modern, the festival showcases newly released films from Korea, China, Japan, and India (to name a few) as well as favorites from the past. Film showings are accompanied by informative talks discussing the cultural idiosyncrasies of Asian film as well as trends of diffusion between the Eastern and Western industries. Directors, actors, and film industry giants will be present to answer questions and grant autographs to eager fans.
Check out the schedule and get your tickets today!
Volunteer Paint Day at the Bedford Playground
Give back to the community and help repaint the Bedford Playground! Snap on your overalls and grab a brush!
2 – 4:30pm
Bedford Playground (Bedford Ave, between S. 9 St. And Division Ave)
Email julia@openspacealliancenb.org to sign up!
Dance.Here.Now at Governors Island
Put on your dancing shoes and ride the ferry to Governors Island to enjoy the four day outdoor music festival featuring Fat Boy Slim and many more artists!
Opening Ceremony BLOWOUT SALE
Starting June 29th, Opening Ceremony is holding a huge-up-to-70%-off summer blowout sale! Check it out before they run out!
Opening Ceremony NYC, 35 Howard Street (between Broadway and Crosby); 212-219-2688
Opening Ceremony Ace Hotel, 1190-1192 Broadway (between West 29th and West 30th); 646-695-5680
July 2
The Scene at Tavern: Pedal Stop
Hosted by Bike NYC and Bike & Roll, this day is dedicated to uniting bikers from all around the city! Come get suggestions, repairs, and share tips at this FREE event.
9 am – 4:30 pm
Tavern on the Green, Central Park
Rite of Summer Classical Music Festival
“The first ever classical/contemporary music festival to be held on Governors Island kicks off its inaugural season with a series of outdoor concerts. Curated by Artistic Directors/NYC-based pianists Blair McMillen and Pam Goldberg, Rite of Spring launches with a performance of Terry Riley’s “In C” led by keyboardist/conductor/musical impresario Jed Distler, featuring nearly 40 of New York’s top freelance musicians, including members of the American Modern Ensemble, Newspeak, the Momenta Quartet, The Asphalt Orchestra and others.”
1 and 3 pm
Governors Island
Parks’ FREE Outdoor Summer Movies: E.T.
Settle down for everyone’s favorite family-friendy alien movie! Bring a blanket and some snacks.
St Mary’s Park, Bronx
8 pm
WARM UP!
MoMa’s PS1 outdoor concert and art series, Warm Up, begins this Saturday and will continue every Saturday through September 3. This series introduces audiences to the best in experimental live music, sound, performance, and more. Make sure to check it out!
2 pm to 9 pm
Admission: $15
OPUS Dance Theatre with Dance Iquail! Iquail Shaheed, artistic director of DANCE IQUAIL, has had experience with choreographing a variety of dance companies from PHILADANCO to The Lion King. This company now speaks in the universal language of movement, and grapples with serious themes ranging from racism to violence and abuse while promoting the power of family and unity through dance.
7:00 pm Master class
8:00 pm Performance
St Mary’s Park, Bronx
July 3 Upright Citizens’ Brigade IMPROV
The Upright Citizens Brigade performs longform improv with possible special guests from Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock & The Colbert Report.
7:30 pm: $10, tickets are only available via pre-sale.
9:30 pm: FREE – tickets are distributed at 8:15 pm outside the theatre on the night of the show.
307 West 26th Street
July 4 Macy’s Fourth of July Fireworks in New York City
Since 2009, the Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks display has taken place on the Hudson River instead of the East River, from 20th to 55th Streets. The spectacular display will last 26 minutes and 40,000 rockets will be fired up to 1,000 feet!
9:20 pm
West Side Highway
July 4 Marathon
Come to this FREE marathon! Just show up and run! Marathon, half marathon, marathon relay, 10 km, and trail course events are being held. The Holiday Marathon course is the only trail marathon inside New York City! The course is challenging, beautiful, and scenic, a true adventure.
9 am – 4 pm
Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx
Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest
Watch and engage in this national hot dog eating contest. Wear stretchy pants! Eat up!
Surf Avenue (at Stillwell Ave.), Coney Island
Theatre is often a retreat from the rush and routine of daily life, but for the Overground Physical Theatre Company the subject of their Urban Tao Revolution performance is the lives of their audience—New Yorkers. The Theatre Company, comprised of international artists from various disciplines, performs works based on New Yorkers habits, thoughts, dreams, and mental, emotional, and physical environments.
There is a colorful display of glittering costumes, several musicians onstage shrouded in net, a large projection screen, an inventive and selective use of the set and props, and narrative arc revealing a select group of characters. Some of these characters are embodiments of the abstract, such as the Navigator which is a megaphone for every individual’s unvoiced meditations on the subway, and the Breath of the city, a sort of invisible, golden-spun sun of the possibilities, dreams, and memories of urban dwellers.
I have been playing piano since I was eight and have been interested in playing the piano publically since the day I decided that I would become Alicia Keys—as in physically morph into her. Unfortunately, I have not yet “become” Alicia (not for lack of trying, of course) but I am still obsessed with the piano. So imagine my delight when I stumbled across a fabulously feathered piano in the courtyard of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine on the Upper West Side this past Wednesday.
The piano, I learned, is part of Sing For Hope’s Pop-Up-Pianos initiative in which volunteer artists decorate 88 pianos that are then dropped off in various locations around all five boroughs of New York City. They have been open for anyone to play since June 18th and on July 2nd all of the pianos will be donated to the local schools, hospitals, and community organizations that Sing For Hope serves year-round.
Below is my attempt to sight-read Paparazzi by Lady Gaga:
Today in 1936, Margaret Mitchell’s prolific novel Gone with the Wind was published here in New York City by The Macmillan Co. The book received strong criticism for a romanticized view of the antebellum South and its aristocracy, which supported both slavery and secession, which threatened American society as a whole. Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for the novel in 1937 and a film adaptation was released in 1939, starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh. Both the film and the novel have endured as great American classics and are still widely celebrated today.
Jem, spotted at Buffalo Exchange. She started working there about a month ago and has been shopping there ever since. Her crazy cool rock-and-roll style is topped off with cherry red Rihanna hair and a matching bandana. I just had to take a picture.
My best friend is afraid of feet. She probably stopped reading this post as soon as she saw the f-word. While we all have our own phobias, I’m sure hers would disappear after a grapefruit pedicure at Sweet Lily Spa in Tribeca.
Confession: I’m a little high maintenance. I’ve had my fair share of mani-pedis in my lifetime, but this pedicure pretty much topped them all.
This spacious Tribeca spa with its pristine white walls and floral décor provides the perfect escape from our busy city. I was welcomed in with a glass of citrus water and ushered into a plush chair large enough to fit three of me. I will shamelessly admit that in my head I referred to the amazingly comfortable furniture as my throne for the sixty minute spa treatment. Ladies in Lily Pulitzer dresses and Nanette Lepore tops to either side of me sat leaned back with their eyes closed, and I knew I was in for something special.
It may not have looked like it, but the minimalist black door set in a brick wall below a single red stripe on 61 Bergen Street was an immense threshold for me. 61 Local was the bar I turned 21 in.
On Saturday night, 61 Local hosted the one-year anniversary of a small brewery called Barrier Brewing Company.
This event was one of many the bar hosts every month in support of local businesses.
Inside, I found the bar to be strikingly spacious. The ceilings were so high that I almost felt like I was outside, a feeling emphasized by the exposed brick walls, wood paneling and picnic-table-like seating.
On Church Street, beneath the sleek skyscrapers of Manhattan’s Tribeca, lies a miniature version of the Pearl-River Delta city-state, Macao. On the coast of China, this 19th-century Portuguese colony was like Hong Kong’s sinister twin – a haven for prostitutes, pirates, gamblers, and delicious Portuguese-Asian cuisine. On Monday, three friends and I got to dine and sip on Drunken Dragon’s Milk at Macao Trading Company, the New York City restaurant inspired by “Asian Las Vegas.”
On this day in 1882, New York City paid for the Brooklyn Bridge – Manhattan paid $416,666 and Brooklyn covered the remaining $833,333.34 big bucks, for a grand total of $1,249,999.34. Originally known as the East River Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge is one of America’s favorite bridges; millions of people cross each year by car, by foot, and by bike.
With a span of 1,595 feet, the bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world until the Williamsburg Bridge was constructed in 1903, although it is the United States’ oldest suspension bridge and the first steel-wire suspension bridge. The iconic bridge was ultimately opened on May 24, 1883, and remains one of New York’s most beloved landmarks.
After attending a live taping of the Colbert Report (see below), Inside New Yorker Amanda Pickering shares some of her best tips and tricks to scoring tickets to all the shows you’ve ever wanted to be on– if not in front of the camera, then definitely as a part of the studio audience!
July 1
