news

No Comments

At The Cans Film Festival, Movies That Are Seminal to Queens and Creatives

"Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" screening tomorrow night at the Cans Film Festival

“Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” screening tomorrow night at the Cans Film Festival

Film “festival” might not be exactly the right word to describe this brand new monthly queer film series at Williamsburg’s Macri Park, but clearly the curators, Daniel Kessel and Ben Miller, are willing to bend things slightly for a solid pun. The Cans Film Festival pops off tomorrow night with the 1962 cult classic Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? 

The organizers are hoping to give people access to classic, nostalgic, and just straight-up weird films that have inspired local drag queens and other queer artists. “For queens, these films really shape your aesthetic– and not just queens but every person really, especially artists,” Daniel explained. “Everyone has their own set of films that they particularly love and that have shaped them, especially when they were younger and were coming into their own as people and artists.”

More →

No Comments

Boylesque Star Raises Funds and His Body Is Up For Grabs?

Stephen Plante (AKA Vic Sin). (Photo: Dmitri Wildfong-Nishman)

Stephen Plante (AKA Vic Sin). (Photo: Dmitri Wildfong-Nishman)

Stephen Plante’s stage persona, Vic Sin, is inspired by both masculine and feminine qualities, but is the Bushwick performer prepared to go full-on Pretty Woman to attend the Vienna Boylesque Festival? To help finance his trip, he created a GoFundMe campaign that offers intimate rewards, ranging from “a big hug!!!” to “MY BODY!!!!!” for “1 night only.”

More →

No Comments

Sketchbook Project Leaves Home of 6 Years to Start a ‘Living Artist Community’ Nearby

via Sketchbook Project

via Sketchbook Project

The Brooklyn Art Library is boxing up its thousands of crowdsourced sketchbooks, housed since 2010 on North Third Street, and hitting the road.

The closing party was this past weekend, but never fear– yes, rents are rising, but the beloved repository for dreams and doodles has already found a space nearby, at 28 Frost Street, and plans to re-open in mid-April.
More →

No Comments

Inside Sunnyvale, the East Williamsburg Venue Where DIY’s Gone Legit

A sprawling new bar and venue in East Williamsburg (Photo: Nicole Disser)

A sprawling new bar and venue in East Williamsburg (Photo: Nicole Disser)

It was bitterly cold last Thursday night, but a sandwich board outside of Sunnyvale promised: “Free shot if you prove you went to Pumps!” Aside from the strip club, some lonely looking art studios, and hot corn smells emitting from the tortilla factory, there’s not much nightlife at this industrial edge of East Williamsburg. But walking inside the multi-purpose venue that opened its doors earlier this month, I didn’t find a throng of strip club patrons clutching lap dance receipts (which they probably thought were only good for “business lunch” write-offs until now) and clamoring for oversized pours of Jose Cuervo. Thankfully.

More →

No Comments

Free Wine and Blintzes to Celebrate the Reopening of Broad City Favorite, B&H

Owner Fawzy Abdelwahed with a customer during B&H's reopening. (Photo: Jaime Cone).

Owner Fawzy Abdelwahed with a customer during B&H’s reopening. (Photo: Jaime Cone).

Last week on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, Abbi “Abbo” Jacobson and Ilana Glazer of Broad City asked the former East Villager if he’d seen the St. Marks episode of their show. “That one’ll give you douchechills,” Ilana promised, going on to describe the block as “NYU’s, like, quad.” When Maron, who now lives in LA, asked, “What’s authentic anymore?”, their response was instantaneous: the tomato soup and grilled cheese at B&H Dairy.

More →

No Comments

Pour One Out (a Coffee Seltzer, That Is) For Northern Spy Food Co.

(Photo: Konstantin Sergeyev for Grub Street)

(Photo: Konstantin Sergeyev for Grub Street)

On Saturday, the weather took a brief and unexpected turn into iced coffee territory and I found myself craving the city’s most delicious and instantly effective caffeinated beverage: the coffee seltzer at Northern Spy Food Co. But as fate would have it, the seven-year-old brunch standby had closed just days earlier. Somehow I had missed the heads up, a couple of weeks prior, from owners Christophe Hille and Chris Ronis.

More →

No Comments

Another Downtown Slashing; Upper Rust Moves to Chelsea

(Photo: Nicole Disser)

(Photo: Nicole Disser)

Friday afternoon, a man was slashed in the face outside of the Soho sportswear shop Supreme at the corner of Lafayette and Price Streets. [ABC 7 NY]

Dahlia’s Fine Mexican Cuisine on E. 5th Street was caught serving alcohol to 43 teenagers on January 30. [Gothamist]

Tenants and advocates of 173 Henry St will protest at 10am outside the Federal Court in Lower Manhattan after the property’s owner allegedly halted elevator service during building renovations. [The Lo-Down]

More →

No Comments

New French-Algerian Spot, Bar Omar, Has Legendary Family Back in Paris

(Photo: Courtesy of Yasmina Guerda)

(Photo: Courtesy of Yasmina Guerda)

Bar Omar, a new addition to Williamsburg’s bubbling culinary landscape, is a French-Algerian restaurant that forgoes the stereotypical Moroccan-style lamps and ornamental plates in favor of what co-owner Yasmina Guerda says is a “Brooklyn aesthetic”: natural wood paneling, a well-stocked, speakeasy-type bar, and a window-paneled front looking out onto Grand Street.

More →

No Comments

NYU Will Create More Affordable Housing, Maybe Cut Down on Arrangement Seeking

(Photo: Courtesy of Barry Solow)

(Photo: Courtesy of Barry Solow)

Fear not, NYU students! No longer will you have to log on to Seeking Arrangement in order to pay your student debt. In a memorandum sent on Thursday to the school’s entire staff, faculty, and student body, new university president Andrew Hamilton decided to address one of the issues that repeatedly causes NYU students to top the list of “Sugar Baby” schools: tuition and housing.

More →

No Comments

2 Great Excuses to Check Out the Galleries, Eateries of Bushwick and E W’Burg

(Bushwick Galleries map)

(Bushwick Galleries map)

If you’re a Manhattanite who has bunkered down for the winter, it’s probably been a while since you’ve gotten out to East Williamsburg and Bushwick. After all, those after-hours warehouses are just so drafty this time of year. But two big productions are aiming to lure you onto the L train and into the neighborhood’s restaurants and galleries. If these don’t get you to throw on a scarf and skate across the river, nothing will.

More →