Culture Archives - Page 3 of 3

Sunday Jazz

There are two types of concerts. The “big” ones: ceremonious and codified concerts in major venues, such as Carnegie Hall, where you are welcomed with several restrictions. No cell phones, no pictures, no talking. On the other hand you have the “small” concerts, in more informal venues. What about a performance hosted in the intimacy of the living room of a Harlem apartment? Welcome to Marjorie Eliot’s Parlor Jazz. 23 years. It has been 23 years since Marjorie Eliot opened the doors of her apartment in…

Dinner with Woody Allen

One of NY’s small privileges is the opportunity to randomly bump into one of your favorite personalities while out wandering – whether you end up on the same ferry to Brooklyn as Leonardo DiCaprio, or at the table next to Sarah Jessica Parker in a Nolita restaurant. But if you do not want to rely on fate alone, we suggest you visit the Carlyle Hotel on Monday evenings to have dinner in the company of Woody Allen. We all have our favorite version of Woody Allen. Whether he plays an inveterate…

The new “Sleep No More”

How about spending your Halloween night with Lewis Caroll trapped within the confines of a former psychiatric hospital? For a horrifying night, you can’t do better than the English writer’s eerie universe. Forget about haunted houses full of ghosts; instead, you will find yourself in the setting of a hospital occupied by strangely familiar figures such as the Mad Hatter or the Queen of Hearts, over which lingers the shadow of the (very) controversial relationship between Lewis Caroll and his (very) young muse Alice.

Soho like you’ve never seen it before

Soho is known for its trendy boutiques and weekends spent slaloming in the midst of (almost unbearable) stream of tourists. A coffee at The Mercer Kitchen, dinner at Blue Ribbon – Soho is the place to see and be seen. But there’s more to Soho than that! Here’s two spaces that will make you love Soho differently: The Judd Foundation at 101 Spring Street. Donald Judd, a founding father of Minimalism, acquired this ramshackle-superb cast-iron building in the late 60s, at a time when the…

Autumn in New York

Announcement: we officially entered fall yesterday. Weekends lazing in the sun are over: put away your sandals and take out your trench coats! For all those nostalgic of afternoons chilling on terraces who dread the glacial period’s approach, we have decided to accept the challenge of proving you that autumn is one of the nicest seasons, especially in NY when the city and the surrounding countryside take on their velvet ceremonial of green and orange-ish hues. In October, one of the discoveries that will make…

Entrées, sides & concert

It is a dilemma that divides all music lovers in New York, a perpetual interrogation among socialites: shall one eat before or after a concert? Knowing that in NY most shows begin at 8pm, having dinner before is irrefutably too early (no way – even though US restaurants start to fill at 6pm). And eating after brings the risk of having bags under your eyes for the rest of week. Julia Villagra found the solution. This vivacious thirty-year-old, who graduated from Boston University with a degree in…

Your 5 minutes of fame

For a long time, the longest queue in NY was not in front of Dominique Ansel’s bakery for the cronuts in the morning, nor in front of Output on a Saturday night, but in front of the different places hosting The Moth show. The Moth is a storytelling contest. A contest devoted to the art and craft of narration. The principle ? Each Moth is built around a word that will be the evening’s theme. When the doors open, storyteller hopefuls put their names in a hat. 10 names are pulled at…

Escape the heatwave

It’s a fact: 85° is the temperature beyond which it is not bearable to stay in Manhattan on the weekend. To escape the heatwave, we put together a special daytrip program upstate for you – a good alternative to the classic Rockaway beach or the (very) popular Hamptons. Take your car or the train at Grand Central. Make sure to sit on the left side to enjoy the Hudson River scenery as the train rolls north on its east bank during the 70 miles to…

Beat the Sunday night blues

Sunday. 6:30pm. And the perpetual question: what will you do on Sunday night? Sunday is undeniably the least inspiring evening of the week. Whether or not you have fully recovered from your weekend parties, or you have been worn down by the prospect of work on Monday morning or simply just tired of the traditional combo of laundry/cleaning of the apartment (because, yeah, you’ve postponed it for the whole week) it is difficult to escape the Sunday night spleen. The solution is the film club at the Crosby Hotel. You probably know this cosy hotel in the heart of Soho,…

Best kept secret in town – Brazenhead, the speakeasy library

It has been NY’s best kept secret for the past 8 years. It is difficult to describe Brazenhead properly: a bookstore? a speakeasy? a literary salon? a refuge for writers? This improvised bookstore hidden in an Upper East Side apartment is the most confidential literary rendez-vous in town. No sign, no label at the entrance. You can read about Brazenhead but none reveal its location. That’s the rule. Finding Brazenhead is something that has to be deserved! Michael Seidenberg, the tenant of the apartment and…