Shakespeare in the Parking Lot 2016: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (© Lee Wexler)
Cinephiles have plenty of excuses to spend the summer in city parks, starting with Films On The Green and Movies Under The Stars. But if you’ve sworn off going to the movies in favor of #Netflixandchill, there are plenty of other excuses to enjoy our public greenery, starting with the following free events dedicated to The Artist and The Bard.
Something strange is happening in the American psyche right now. Just a few years ago, the heroes of New York City-centric comedy TV were disconnected 20-somethings with suspiciously fancy apartments who wandered the earth clueless as to why no one wanted to date their flawless Tinder profile/soulless body. Now, they’re much tinier creatures that we rarely notice IRL and if we do, we’re like gagging and pointing and screaming: “Gawwwwd, I think that rat is bubonic.”
Hot on the hoofs of Louis CK’s The Secret Life of Pets, and HBO’s Animals (which just returned for season two), a new animated feature from Brooklyn-based animation company Cartuna offers a peek at what these city-dwelling creatures see in us humans. Obviously, it ain’t pretty.
(Photo: Luisa Rollenhagen)
If the Olympics put you in the mood for serving and spiking, here’s some good news: The Henry M. Jackson Playground is getting a volleyball area. It’s just one of many perks coming to two Lower East Side playgrounds as part of a city initiative to modernize ailing parks.
(Photo: Matthew Caton)
After 60 days on the table, the city’s offer to pay the former CitiStorage site’s owner $100 million for the final parcel of the long-promised Bushwick Inlet Park has officially expired. With Norman Brodsky’s default rejection of the offer (less than half the $250 million he was hoping for) questions emerge as to whether the Williamsburg waterfront park—which was first promised in 2005 as part of a rezoning deal that allowed for more high-rise developments in the sought-after neighborhood—will ever be completely finished.
The homepage of 1n11th.com.
Elected officials and neighborhood activists brought the contest over the long-promised Bushwick Inlet Park to the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront this morning when they publicly posted their ultimatum notice for the developer hanging onto the would-be parkland.
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“Untitled” (from the series In The Vale of Cashmere), Thomas Roma 2011
Like many Brooklynites, Prospect Park is my go-to, but the awesomely named Vale of Cashmere– a relatively isolated area on the east side of the park and the subject of photographer Thomas Roma’s new book– didn’t sound familiar at all. To outsider eyes like mine, the Vale (depending on your taste) is either a beautifully wild or pitifully neglected patch of land, overgrown with disobedient trees and untamed plants, at the center of which there’s a once-elegant fountain clogged with weeds and fetid puddles from years of neglect. Park staff have planted shrubs and flowers there too, lending the area a rotting romanticism.
But the Vale has another history: it’s long been a cruising spot for gay men, but especially gay men of color. Until recently it was considered an open secret, and one that many park powerfuls have decided not to engage, despite demands from elsewhere that they do so (in various ways). While Roma’s series is ultimately a personal exploration of friendship and loss, it’s nearly impossible to unravel his images from questions about what kind of impact a looming project will have on the community that has made this space its own.
Hey, Greenpoint’s getting a shiny new park! Alright, technically it’s a “playground,” but with a new skate park, handball court and basketball court, hopefully it’ll make grownups want to come out and play, too. The major overhaul of tired old Sgt. William Dougherty Playground is scheduled to begin late next year, according to Department of Transportation officials, who announced the plans at a Community Board meeting last night.
(Photo: McGolrick Park Neighborhood Alliance Facebook)
As the Mayor’s office allocates $130 million to improving neglected parks, one Greenpoint mother on a mission is celebrating the $1.3 million that will go toward a playground that has long made her worry about her daughter’s safety.
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