Somewhere over in Bushwick the L train rides; artists and Hasids, poets and dreamers, ride their bikes.
So goes a dreamy, surreal version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” that may some day appear in “Bushwick the Musical the Movie,” an in-the-works film set in the neighborhood and modeled almost entirely on “The Wizard of Oz.” John Martino, a 55 year-old former IT specialist, is trying to raise a staggering $2.5 million to get the movie made.
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Already craving more Bedford + Bowery in your life? We thought so. Follow all our exploits on Instagram as we photograph, filter and #hashtag all the cultural goodies on offer in our favorite neighborhoods.
This weekend we went to a sprawling indoor-outdoor party at 299 Meserole thrown by masters of debauchery Bang On NYC (yep, we did a lot of Banging this weekend). In the interest of supporting our fellow ravers, we’d like to refer everyone to this Craigslist Missed Connection. Good luck, shirtless tall guy. We’re rooting for you.
#Nofilter folks, we love you, too. Submit your shots to our Flickr group and we’ll share the standouts with our readers.
This past Saturday, Spencer Walker, the author of the pickup-artist cookbook “Cook to Bang” (think Martha Stewart for the Tucker Max set) mingled with a group of about 80 people on a private rooftop in his home neighborhood of Williamsburg.
No, he wasn’t teaching them how to “bring out their date’s inner slut” through recipes like “Tap that ass-paragus soup” and “miso horny cod.” Walker insists that the supper club he produces with his friend Will Holloway is entirely separate from “Cook to Bang.”
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Bon Yagi isn’t Osaka’s latest Bon Jovi cover band. He’s the “mayor of Japantown” who quietly owns, oh, pretty much every Japanese joint in the East Village: Robataya, Decibel, the list goes on.
After a quiet test run last week, he’ll open Hi-Collar tomorrow in the old Rai Rai Ken space (another Yagi venture, now relocated two doors down). The bar-cafe is a slim portal to Japan’s jazz, or “Taisho,” era, when western fashion and food first made inroads – up to a point.
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For all the new bars that have opened up in Bushwick in the past year or so, the craft beer scene has remained woefully underrepresented. That changed this weekend when Jorge Arias opened The Sampler just steps off the Jefferson L.
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Left to right: Tessa Skara (Apologetic Lena), Haley Traub (Perfect Lena), Stephanie Hsu (Urban Lena), Sam Corbin (Self-Depicted Lena), Jaime Wright (Naked Lena)
She’s won a Golden Globe. She’s sold a book for over $3.5 million. She’s one of the most influential people in the world. Now imagine if there were six of her.
This is the premise of “Too Many Lenas,” a play based on — you guessed it — the creator of HBO’s “Girls” premiering at Dixon Place later this month.
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Bobby Drake in Lake Street’s bathroom. (Photo: Jesse Sposato)
What do a bunch of band dudes from the Midwest, who now live in Greenpoint, do when not making music together? Easy: they open a bar. Bobby Drake (The Hold Steady, w/o.), Frank Bevan (w/o.), Rob Pope (Spoon), Eric Odness (The Wanted, Primitive Weapons) named Lake Street after a major thoroughfare in Minneapolis, and they want it to be reminiscent of the bars they used to hang out at back home – “kind of old-man divey but cool bars, you know, where they could be sketchy, but not really,” Drake told Bedford + Bowery during a chat at the nearly finished space at 706 Manhattan Avenue, near Norman.
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Black and blue. (Photo: Sasha Von Oldershausen)
They don’t roll on Shabbos, or anytime else. But among the Hasidim of South Williamsburg, a grassroots organization is pushing for more bike-share stations.
Hasidim For Bikes, founded late last month, is committed to uniting those members of the Hasidic community who are psyched for bikes — and bummed about a perceived dearth of bike stations south of Broadway.
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A little over a week ago, The Times reported that the Los Angeles Chessboxing Club was set to make its debut at Gleason’s Gym. Somehow, the paper failed to note that the bizarre hybrid sport — which started in Amsterdam and has gained popularity across Europe — is also being practiced right here in New York City.
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