Today’s “Fab 5″/ Selected NYCity Events  – MONDAY, JULY 21, 2014.

NYC Summer Restaurant Week
July 21 – August 15 Various New York Restaurants

Summer Restaurant Week kicks off today and the city’s tourism wing has added new restaurants outside of Manhattan while preparing to reward Big Apple foodies who take to social media to share their experiences.

Fred Dixon, the president and CEO of NYC & Company, said the event, which actually lasts three weeks, has grown tremendously from its beginnings in 1992.

Diners can enjoy three-course prix-fixe lunches for $25 and three-course prix-fixe dinners for $38 at 300 selected restaurants, Mondays through Fridays from now until Aug. 15. Some restaurants will offer Sunday deals.

NYC & Company will also award prizes to diners who best capture their experiences and dishes on Instagram. Four celebrity judges will judge Instagram users who put the hashtag #nycrestaurantweek on various themes such as appetizer, entree, dessert and group shot/selfie. Winners will receive gift cards worth up to $250.
see: www.nycgo.com/restaurantweek/

SummerStage: New Songs of Justice
An Evening Honoring Pete Seeger featuring Amanda Palmer / Anti-Flag (acoustic) / Toni Blackman / The Chapin Sisters / Rebel Diaz / Steve Earle / Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion / James Maddock / Mike + Ruthy /

Hip hop,Indie-rock, punk and folk artists committed to social change will come together to honor musician and activist Pete Seeger. The program’s hosts are Gina Belafonte, Harry Belafonte’s daughter and Kitama Jackson, Pete Seeger’s grandson.

Mr. Seeger and Mr. Belafonte became international household names as singers who stood for change. For Belafonte that meant being involved in both the Civil Rights Movement in US and the Anti-Apatheid movement in South Africa. For Seeger that meant getting people singing, and then using song to lead marches and rallies around the world. From the labor movement to the Civil Rights movement to the environmental movement, Pete Seeger was always on the front lines.

Today’s artists aren’t that different from Seeger and Belafonte, they also use music as a means to give voice to the voiceless and inspire people to change the world for themselves, their communities and future generations.
6:00 pm / FREE
Central Park SummerStage, Rumsey Playfield
Enter at 69th and 5th Ave.

Broadway Sings Justin Timberlake
Some of Broadway’s hottest talents will sing completely new arrangements of the hits of Justin Timberlake in the sixth concert of the BROADWAY SINGS concert series.

More than 15 Broadway performers will be accompanied by a full jazz band playing brand new, original orchestrations of the singer’s greatest songs. Previous concerts in the series were Adele, Michael Jackson, Beyoncé Stevie Wonder, and Amy Winehouse.
The concert will feature cover songs to celebrate Timberlake’s iconic songs, including “Cry Me a River”, “Suit and Tie”, and “My Love”, as well as popular hits from his legendary boy band, ‘N SYNC. The music will be orchestrated and arranged by Joshua Stephen Kartes.

Performers will include Jason Gotay (Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark, Bring it On), Amber Iman (Soul Doctor), Jay Armstrong Johnson (Hands on a Hardbody, Hair), Mykal Kilgore (Motown, The Book of Mormon), Corey Mach (Hands on a Hardbody, Godspell), Marla Mindelle (official fan page) (Cinderella, Sister Act), Ciara Renée (Pippin, Big Fish), and Zak Resnick (Mamma Mia). Additional performers will be announced at a later time.
(Le) Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Str.
8PM / $20-$25

Vanguard Jazz Orchestra
There’s a tradition in many New York City jazz clubs – Monday nights are reserved for big bands. The Village Vanguard, the most storied of clubs, has observed this practice since 1966. The Grammy-winning Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, established by Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, is definitely a big band with 4 trumpets, and 4 trombones to accompany 6 reed players. Why not make it your tradition, too.
Village Vanguard, 178 7th Avenue South, just below West 11th St.
At 8:30 and 10:30 pm / $25
212-255-4037 / villagevanguard.com

Elsewhere, but worth the detour:
The Moth GrandSLAM XXXII
An evening of storytelling by StorySLAM champs

“The World Cup may be a wrap, but there’s another much more storied championship that is still yet to be played out. Tonight, not-for-profit storytelling organization the Moth heads to Brooklyn to crown a GrandSLAM victor. If you enjoy a good tall tale, then this event, which showcases the best and brightest yarn weavers from the group’s last 10 StorySLAMS, should not disappoint.” (Mindy Bond, Editor, FlavorPill)
Music Hall of Williamsburg, 66 N. Sixth St., Brooklyn
800-745-3000; 718-486-5400 / musichallofwilliamsburg.com
At 7:30 p.m. / $20 (event just sold out, so keep this in mind next year)
not Manhattan’s WestSide, but it is Bklyn’s WestSide.
subway:#1-2-3 to 14th St.; transfer to L to Bedford, (1st stop in Bklyn).
short walk to venue – 3 blks West on N 6th S

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WHAT’S ON VIEW: Special Exhibitions @ 4 MUSEUMS (Manhattan’s WestSide)

Museum of Modern Art:
‘Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art, 1948-1988’ (through Aug. 24)
‘Jasper Johns: Regrets’ (through Sept. 1)
‘Robert Heinecken: Object Matter’ (through Sept. 7)
‘A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio’ (through Oct. 5)
‘Designing Modern Women 1890-1990’(through Oct. 5)
Here’s what the NYT said about ‘A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio’
“This mostly lively if repetitive overview traces the history of photography as the Modern never has — with images taken in the studio rather than out in the world. Its roughly 180 works span 160 years and represent some 90 portraitists, commercial photographers, lovers of still life, darkroom experimenters, Conceptual artists and several generations of postmodernists. Including film and video, it offers much to look at but dwells too much in the past, becoming increasingly blinkered and cautious as it approaches the present. 212-708-9400, moma.org.” (Smith-NYT)
Museum of Modern Art: 11 W 53rd St. (btw 5th /6th Ave.)
(212) 708-9400 / moma.org.

Designing Modern Women 1890-1990:

American Folk Art Museum: ‘Self-Taught Genius: Treasures From the American Folk Art Museum’ (through Aug. 17)
This exhibition is not only an enthralling display of about 100 works from the museum’s permanent collection; it’s also an intellectually provocative effort to rethink the nature of artistic creativity. There are paintings and drawings, quilts, ceramics, handmade books, pieces of elaborately decorated furniture, duck decoys and weather vanes dating from the mid-18th to the early-21st centuries, all produced by people from many different walks of life who had no formal training in art. The inspirationally democratic message is that potential for creative genius is wired into the consciousness of everyone.
American Folk Art Museum, 2 Lincoln Square, Columbus Avenue at 66th Street, 212-595-9533, folkartmuseum.org. (Ken Johnson-NYT)

International Center of Photography: ‘Urbes Mutantes: Latin American Photography 1944-2013’ and ‘Caio Reisewitz’ (through Sept. 7)
It’s a Latin American summer at New York City art museums, with a high number of shows of work from South America and the Caribbean. This institution, as usual one step ahead of the curve, has two. The larger, “Urbes Mutantes: Latin American Photography 1944-2013,” is a roomy survey of some 200 small, mostly black-and-white pictures that fit, with trimming and squeezing, into the genre of “street photography.” The second is a solo devoted to a single artist, the contemporary Brazilian photographer Caio Reisewitz, whose big color images of threatened tropical rain forests offer a lush antidote to urban grit — Manhattan’s included.
International Center of Photography, 1133 Avenue of the Americas, at 43rd Street, 212-857-0000, icp.org. (Cotter-NYT)

Museum of Arts and Design: ‘NYC Makers: The MAD Biennial’ (through Oct. 12) This plunge into the biennial format makes a big, messy splash sampling the visual culture across the city — whether opera set design, art or new technologies. An expansive, invigorating move, it still contains too much that is fun, cute, clutter-making or useless, aimed at those with plenty of disposable income and homes to decorate.
Museum of Arts and Design, 2 Columbus Circle,
212-299-7777, madmuseum.org. (Smith-NYT)

The Art of the Brick by Nathan Sawaya (ongoing)
This exhibition by artist Nathan Sawaya is a critically acclaimed collection of intriguing and inspiring works of art made exclusively from one of the most recognizable toys in the world — LEGO® bricks. The Discovery Times Square exhibit is the world’s biggest and most elaborate display of LEGO® art ever and features brand-new, never-before-seen pieces by Sawaya. This show was named ‘One of CNN’s Ten Global Must-See Exhibitions.’
Discovery Times Square, 226 West 44th St. (btw 7th/8th ave)
866.987.9692 / http://www.discoverytsx.com