Today’s “Fab 5” / Selected NYCity Events is on hiatus Aug 6-16.
We follow the European custom and will be taking our August holiday.
Return here on August 17 to plan your day in NYCity with our “Fab 5”, carefully curated, Selected Events for Manhattan’s WestSide.
In the interim this site will continue to provide essential travel resources for visitors to NYCity. Be sure to check out the info linked to in the header above:
➢ “9 Notable NYCity Events-August”,
➢ “onBroadway”,
➢ “Top10 Free”
We are especially proud of “onBroadway” which features “The Best of Broadway on Sale”, and important links for the most up to date Broadway theater info.
In addition, we alternate the following features on a daily basis:
– On odd days we feature one WestSide neighborhood, highlighting our fave “Premier Pub”, and a few of our fave casual dining options; think “Fast Food NYCity Style”
– On even days we highlight museum and gallery special exhibitions in the world’s cultural capital (5th avenue museums, WestSide museums, or Chelsea galleries).
And don’t forget these hot summer festivals in NYC:
Lincoln Center Festival 2014
JULY 07 – AUGUST 16, 2014
The Lincoln Center Festival looks outside the Western European canon and broadens notions of classicism by presenting classical works from other parts of the world. The last performance this season looks very special:
“The Maids”
/Sydney Theatre Company (Aug. 6–16)
New York City Center
Sydney Theatre Company returns with Cate Blanchett, Isabelle Huppert, and Elizabeth Debicki in Jean Genet’s absorbing play. http://lincolncenterfestival.org/
Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival 2014
JULY 25 – AUGUST 23, 2014
Inspired by the genius and brilliance of Mozart, Lincoln Center presents an expansive calendar of concerts, dance, opera, late-night recitals, and world premieres. http://mostlymozart.org/
SummerStage 2014 — Central Park and Manhattan
JUNE 03 – AUGUST 24, 2014
SummerStage’s Mainstage events in Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield are an eclectic mix of the finest musicians, dancers and spoken word artists from around the world, in both free and benefit performances. Beyond the mainstage, other Manhattan SummerStage events take place in Lower Manhattan and Harlem. http://www.centralpark.com/guide/activities/concerts/summerstage-festival.html
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♦ Before making final plans, we suggest you call the venue to confirm ticket availability, dates and times, as schedules are subject to change.
♦ NYCity is a big town with many visitors, where quality shows draw crowds. Try to reserve seats in advance, even if just on day of performance.
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What’s on View:
Special Exhibitions @ 3 Museum Mile / Fifth Ave. Museums:
‘Charles James: Beyond Fashion’ (through Aug. 10)
One of the Costume Institute’s most ravishing exhibitions argues for this American fashion designer as a great modern artist — a sculptor-architect with a keen but discreet appreciation of women and their bodies. Aided by the latest digital wizardry, the insuperably forward-looking garments, especially the ball gowns, do most of the talking. Their innovations in shape, draping, seam placement, texture and color coalesce into breathtakingly gorgeous couture and an important show. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Smith-NYT)
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‘Out of Character: Decoding Chinese Calligraphy’ (through Aug. 17)
Chinese calligraphy can seem daunting to viewers who are unfamiliar with the characters of this ancient art form. Some, stymied by the language barrier, tend to think about the physical act of the brushwork in the more familiar terms of dance or choreography, or to see the characters as abstract shapes. This smart and accessible show suggests a third option: appreciating calligraphy as a social art, and even an early social network. The emphasis comes partly from the collector Jerry Yang, a co-founder of Yahoo, who, with his wife, Akiko Yamazaki, has lent the works for the exhibition. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Rosenberg-NYT)
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The Flowering of Edo Period Painting: Japanese Masterworks from the Feinberg Collection’ (through Sept. 7)
‘Garry Winogrand’ (through Sept. 21)
Mr. Winogrand, who died at 56 in 1984, was the photographer laureate of urban and suburban middle-class life in the United States from the late 1950s through the ’70s and beyond. This ample retrospective focuses on his prime years, when he recorded a newly prosperous America while strolling Manhattan’s avenues and then followed it as it waded into increasingly troubled political waters. The result is a remarkable panorama of an era, with some terrific pictures, and some that Winogrand, who left a mountain of unprocessed film behind, never edited or printed. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Cotter-NYT)
‘Early American Guitars: The Instruments of C.F. Martin’ (through Dec. 7)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Ave, at 82nd St.
(212) 535-7710 / metmuseum.org
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‘Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe’ (through Sept. 1)
“This epic, beautifully designed exhibition may be one of the more thorough examinations of modernism’s most obnoxious and conflicted art movement that you are likely to see. Awash in the manifestoes that its members regularly fired off, it follows Futurism through to its end with the death of its founder, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, in 1944. It covers the Futurist obsessions with speed, war, machines and, finally, flight and the aerial views it made possible. And the show highlights relatively unknown figures like the delightful Fortunato Depero and Benedetta Cappa, Marinetti’s wife. 1071 Fifth Avenue, at 89th Street, 212-423-3500, guggenheim.org.“ (Smith-NYT)
Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, at 89th St.
(212) 423-3500 / guggenheim.org.
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‘Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937’ (through Sept. 1)
“This show — one of the first in decades in an American museum to address, on a fairly large scale, the Nazi demonizing of art — tells a complicated story. The basic facts of the narrative, which centers on Hitler’s grand plan to purify German culture of Modernist, Bolshevist and Jewish influence, are well known, and it culminated in the infamous 1937 “Degenerate Art” exhibition in Munich. The Neue Galerie sets examples of art from that show beside Nazi-approved work; addresses the persecutions of artists in Dresden; and touches on the suppression of the Bauhaus. There are gripping paintings and sculptures as well as complex and haunting personalities every step of the way. And in the end the links between aesthetics and disaster are clear.” (Cotter-NYT)
Neue Galerie, 1048 Fifth Avenue, at 86th Street,
212-628-6200, neuegalerie.org.
========================================================== Museum Mile is a section of Fifth Avenue which contains one of the densest displays of culture in the world. Ten museums can be found along this section of Fifth Avenue:
• 110th Street – Museum for African Art
• 105th Street – El Museo del Barrio
• 103rd Street – Museum of the City of New York
• 92nd Street – The Jewish Museum
• 91st Street – Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
• 89th Street – National Academy Museum
• 88th Street – Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
• 86th Street – Neue Galerie New York
• 83rd Street – Goethe-Institut
Last, but certainly not least, America’s premier museum
• 82nd Street – The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Additionally, though technically not part of the Museum Mile, the Frick Collection on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 70th St. and the The Morgan Library & Museum on Madison Ave and 37th St are also located near Fifth Ave. Now plan your own museum crawl. ==========================================================
NYCity 1-2-3 : What's Happening / Manhattan's WestSide 