This morning we got our hands on a screener of The Lost Arcade, showing today at 12:45 p.m. as part of the Doc NYC Festival. Yup, it’s super short notice, but having just finished watching the documentary about the rise and fall of Chinatown Fair, it’s our duty to implore you to get over to IFC Center for the screening.
Photo: Daniel Maurer
“Lower East Side, not for sale!” “Chinatown, not for sale!” These were the chants on the streets of Chinatown two weeks ago, when protesters, huddled under umbrellas, marched to City Hall to demand the prevention of the 80-story tower currently planned for the East River waterfront. With more luxury apartments on the rise and the commercial landscape following suit, anxiety over the rapid gentrification of the Lower East Side is intensifying.
(Photo: Angelo Fabara)
Alexander Olch definitely has his hands full these days: in addition to opening an art-house cinema on Ludlow Street, the designer just moved his Orchard Street clothing store a couple doors down. It reopened on the corner of Canal Street yesterday.
(Photos: Daniel Maurer)
Ryan McGinley’s seventh opening at Team Gallery was just like all the others: at any given moment, there were just as many people on Grand Street as in the gallery – a fact that did not go unnoticed by the uniformed and undercover cops who rolled by to tell the mob of downtown scenesters to clear the sidewalk and bike lane.
(Photo: Jaime Cone)
“Where are you, de Blasio?” That was the question of the afternoon when rain-soaked protesters braved the weather at City Hall to protest rezoning that they claim has led to racism and displacement within their community. According to the organizers of the rally, The Coalition to Protect Chinatown & The Lower East Side, Mayor Bill de Blasio told them earlier in the day Wednesday that a representative from his office would come out to address them, but no one showed up. It could have been the rain that kept the nameless flack away, but try telling that to 75 wet, angry people struggling to keep their umbrellas from turning inside out. The next stop, they say, will be Gracie Mansion.
Stuffed Crab Ball with pulled tea (Credit: Joshua Alvarez)
Kyo Pang, co-owner of the newly opened Kopitiam on Canal Street in Chinatown, is pulling off the rare and improbable. With remarkable concentration, she pours steaming Malaysian tea, teh tarik, from one aluminum pot to the other, lifting her hands above her head to extend the stream of tea. This is what is called “pulled tea” in Malaysia, which is something of a lost art in the Malaysian community in New York.
As its name implies, it takes some effort to discover the new storefront of Lower East Side’s enigmatic purveyors with panache, The Hunt. Framed under an electronics store sign belonging to an old tenant, The Hunt’s cryptic entrance acts as a sort of portal into the world contained within – part store, part museum – where the line between old and new is a bit uncertain.
The folks at Films in Tompkins are once again bringing a big screen to Tompkins Square Park this year. This year, series founder Darin Rubell (owner of Forrest Point and Boulton & Watt) has tapped some celebs to pick the flicks. Tonight James Franco has selected Chinatown, preceded by the “post-hipster smooth jazz” of Todd Gaynor. Hopefully he’ll bust out his smokin’ sax cover of Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So.”
“Gates” open at 6 p.m., movies starting at sundown.
(Photo: Daniel Maurer)
While we’ve been packing our picnic baskets for SummerScreen, Rooftop Films, Nitehawk’s Summer Series, Films on the Green, and the films at Socrates Sculpture Park, one of our favorite outdoor movie series has remained relatively mum about its plans. But the folks behind Films in Tompkins recently wrote in to tell us that, yes, they’re once again bringing a big screen to Tompkins Square Park this year. Not only that, but in the spirt of Greta Gerwig’s forthcoming film fest in Rockaway, series founder Darin Rubell (owner of Forrest Point and Boulton & Watt) has tapped some celebs to pick the flicks.
(Photo: Daniel Maurer)
Federico García Lorca once again achieved Poet in New York status when a mural depicting the Spanish literary lion went up in Bushwick a couple of years ago. Now he’s returned to Manhattan, where he studied at Columbia in 1929 and penned “Sleepless City: Brooklyn Bridge Nocturne.” The poem is quoted in this new mural by Spanish artist Raúl Ruiz and Brooklyn’s own Cern.