It’s been nearly a year since New York City first went into lockdown, and the last movie I went out to see was Dolittle, so you could say I’ve been eagerly waiting for the moment to step into a theater. More →
For performance artists across New York City, today is a turning point in recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. Cultural institutions and entertainment venues can now begin applying for Open Culture, an initiative to revive performance arts after a year of shutdowns. “Although the COVID-19 [pandemic] has impacted the entire arts sector, nowhere has the effect been more direct, deep, and immediate than on the performing arts,” stated a COVID-19 impact analysis conducted by Argonne National Laboratory. Open Culture is a long-awaited step for the sector widely noted as the first to have closed and the last to reopen. More →
Just last week, New York’s cinema scene looked like, well, something out of a horror movie. Movie theaters had been dark since March, and– even as New York City’s casinos, gyms, and massage parlors were allowed to operate– cinephiles had to drive to Long Island or New Jersey to watch a movie the old-fashioned style, making for a virtually unprecedented reverse bridge-and-tunnel situation. More →
The pandemic has been rough for museums and art galleries. The Met is on the brink of selling masterpieces to keep the lights on, and galleries — small, intimate spaces — are largely empty because of capacity-limiting social distancing guidelines. All of this makes the buzzy start of Leo Fitzpatrick’s new gallery on St. Marks Place, Public Access, twice as exciting. More →
The Lunar New Year usually draws thousands to Manhattan’s Chinatown to watch the annual parade and partake in cultural festivities. Participants and spectators questioned whether they’d be able to celebrate this year, but a muted version popped off in Chinatown this afternoon — with confetti in lieu of fireworks. More →
In the middle of the night in early November 2012, Karen Santry dressed in a wetsuit and skulked down the stairs of her West Village apartment building, hoping not to wake anyone. Hurricane Sandy had just struck the East Coast, battering much of New York City. Santry’s home had been without power, heat, and water for days. In the week following the storm, she and her fellow residents of Westbeth Artists Housing used flashlights to navigate darkened corridors. The more intrepid shuttled water in buckets up the stairs of her 13-story building. More →
On the eve of his 30th birthday, Benny Benack III, a Pittsburgh-born, New York City-based trumpet player, jazz singer, pianist and charismatic bon vivant played a late November show at The Craftsman, a plucky bar in Morningside Heights. More →
When I plugged in disposable red earbuds to a headphone jack on TopView’s double-decker bus on a recent Tuesday, Frank Sinatra greeted me with a nostalgic rendition of “New York, New York.” More →
When the pandemic started in March, performing arts venues all over the country closed. In June, Off-Broadway fixture The Playroom Theatre shuttered permanently, and many of New York’s independent theater owners, directors, and administrators feared they would be forced to do the same. More →
A native New Yorker, Azikiwe Mohammed has always envisioned a space where Black and brown people can feel safe expressing themselves. More →