museums

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Meriem Bennani’s FLY at PS1 Will Leave You Feeling Buzzed

Meriem Bennani's "FLY" at PS1 (Photo: Nicole Disser)

Meriem Bennani’s “FLY” at PS1 (Photo: Nicole Disser)

It was an unusually quiet day on a recent visit to PS1– so deserted that, weirdly, I felt like I could get better acquainted with the 19th-century elementary school portion of the building than ever before. Call me cray, but the artwork at MoMA’s edgier little sister began to feel straight-up rebellious against the throwback schoolish confines which, in turn, started to feel even more institutional. Now that I was alone, and making actual contact with doors and hallways instead of awkwardly rubbing all over my fellow museum-goers, I realized everything was just slightly undersized. And that obligatory museum hush was starting to feel so intense that I felt compelled to swallow my gum and adjust my bad posture (everyone knows a well-trained ear can actually hear you resting on your laurels).

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Rockaway Is Getting a Swell New Surf Museum and Bakery

The work-in-progress surf museum location at 1-89 Beach 96th Street. (Photo: Jimmy Brady)

The work-in-progress surf museum location at 1-89 Beach 96th Street. (Photo: Jimmy Brady)

Get ready to wax nostalgic. 

David Selig, owner of the late, great Rockaway Taco, is working with surf instructor Fernando Pires to open a museum dedicated to the history and culture of surfing in Rockaway Beach. They’re giving a shack-like makeover to the second floor of a Victorian backhouse and stocking it with classic boards and over 500 surfing movies, magazines and memorabilia, mostly sourced from Pires’ personal collection. And that’s not all Selig is cooking up: the ground floor of the building, located on Beach 96th Street, will house a new bakery, and the adjacent tropical hideaway, The Palms, is getting a chef-driven dinner series.

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Learning How to Game Tinder at the Museum of Mathematics

(Photo: Luisa Rollenhagen)

(Photo: Luisa Rollenhagen)

New York City is known for its assortment of quirky and oddly specific museums, whether it’s gems like the Morbid Anatomy Museum, the cabinet of curiosities that is the City Reliquary, or the sheer weirdness of the Torah Animal World (a collection of taxidermied critters from the Old Testament, all lovingly arranged in a Hasidic rabbi’s home). And yet, somehow, until a friend invited me to “an evening of mathemagical mystique,” I had never heard of the Museum of Mathematics. Even though it’s billed as “the coolest thing that ever happened to math!”

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Hanukkah Haps: Take a Tipsy Tour of a Synagogue or Warp Back to Yiddish Theater

Museum at Eldridge Street. (Photo: Peter Aaron/OTTO)

Museum at Eldridge Street. (Photo: Peter Aaron/OTTO)

The Festival of Lights is as good a time as any to get in touch with your Jewish heritage — or at the very least your city’s Jewish heritage. Take advantage of these two fine opportunities.

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