…With apologies to Arthur Miller, Brooklyn Bridge Park is a work in progress.
By Nancy Mandell
Last week, Karen Altfest hosted a docent-led tour of the Neue Museum’s collection of Viennese and German art with 15 of her sister alums from McGill University. After a fascinating tour of works by German artist Otto Dix (on view through Aug. 30), we stopped for lunch in the museum’s Café Zabarsky. Read More…
Halfway through its 40th FREE season of international and avant garde music and dance Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival is in full swing. Since it was launched as a small festival of street theater in 1971, Out of Doors has commissioned some 90 works from composers and choreographers and presented hundreds of major dance companies, world-renowned musicians and legendary jazz, folk, gospel, blues and rock performers. Read More…
…New York’s parks and piers offer free films all summer long.
By Nancy Mandell
There have been days this summer when the only appealing destination was an air-conditioned movie theater. But even senior ticket holders pay a pretty price for the privilege. So, before the season escapes us, it’s time to consider a different kind of film-going—one that offers a wide variety of films in a variety of scenic venues that share two significant elements in common: The movies are free, and the seats are outdoors, under the stars. From river to river, from uptown to down, New York is truly a summer film festival. Read More…
…Some of New York’s greatest art and architecture call Lincoln Center their home.
By Nancy Mandell
Here it is, just the beginning of summer according to the calendar—if not the temperature—and you’ve already hit the highlights of the city’s art scene. You’ve seen Picasso prints (through Aug.30) and Pictures by Women (photography on view through next March) at the Museum of Modern Art; and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Picassos from the museum’s collection (through Aug. 10) as well as the beautifully presented costumes illustrating “The American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity” (through Aug. 15). And there’s still plenty of time to check out the Big Bambu on the Met roof, a mind-boggling living sculpture by Doug and Mike Starn, before it closes on Oct. 31. You may also have covered the Whitney, the Guggenheim, the Jewish Museum and perhaps made it all the way down to the Bowery for the impressive New Museum. Read More…
Casual dining arrives in style at the Plaza
By Nancy Mandell, guest blogger
The best things in life aren’t always free. But in New York City, they can be surprisingly moderate for the setting. Take the landmark Plaza Hotel, where the Palm Court and the Oak Room still beckon with some of their past splendor. Read More…
A couple of old favorites dish up bargains—and memories on the side.
By Nancy Mandell, guest blogger
If you want the early bird special, maybe you should move to Florida! But if you don’t mind eating on the early side of a beautiful summer evening, there’s no shame in searching out a pre-theater, pre-fixe dinner—even if you don’t have tickets to a show. Read More…
Construction can’t stop the festivities or the freebies!
By Nancy Mandell, guest blogger
It was just a short time ago that we blogged in this space about the new David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, and now we learn that it will be temporarily closed starting this Friday, May 28, in order to complete deferred construction work on the space. Unfortunately this means that Target Free Thursdays will suspend performances until July 22, and Meet the Artist Saturdays will not return until August. For updates, go to www.LincolnCenter.org/Atrium.
But there is good news from the Atrium, too. Its services will relocate during this summer solstice (see below), and there will still be a free (Target-underwritten) performance this Thursday evening at 8:30 by artists of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Highlighting the program is Mendelssohn’s String Quintet No.1— a favorite of the repertoire—and it also includes the “vivacious, spirited, and virtuosic” sonata for two cellos by Jean-Baptiste Barrière. (The adjectives belong to the program notes!)
Of course there is lots more on Lincoln Center’s summer schedule. Visit www.SummerAtLincolnCenter.org for information about Midsummer Night Swing, the always innovative cross-genre performances of Lincoln Center Festival, the free Lincoln Center Out of Doors performances and the annually anticipated Mostly Mozart Festival.
For the next several weeks—probably until mid-July—the Atrium’s Day-of Discount Tickets (David Zucker box office) will move to Alice Tully Hall, and Lincoln Center Tours and Visitor Information to Avery Fisher Hall (across from each other on the West side of Broadway at 65th Street.) If you’re wondering what Day-of discount tickets you might have picked up last week, examples are Lincoln Center Theater’s production of “South Pacific,” performances by the New York City Ballet and presentations of The Film Society at Lincoln Center.
When it comes to street scenery, you can’t beat New York.
By Nancy Mandell, guest blogger
You don’t have to be a New Yorker to appreciate the pleasures of retiring in the Big Apple. If you don’t believe me, take the word of the New York Times, which recently ran a feature story (“Attracted to Walkable New York”) about a retired Florida couple who decided to buy an Upper East Side apartment because they were thinking “about redesigning our lifestyle a little bit.”
…Enjoy the Eternal City, but don’t expect your senior discount!
By Nancy Mandell, guest blogger
Having just returned from a week in Rome, let me say that it is a great city to visit, but you might think twice before moving there to live!
First of all, there don’t appear to be any senior discounts! Museums reduce entry fees for children and students—but not for senior citizens! At the movie theatre where we saw Sherlock Holmes in English on New Year’s Day, the policy was discounted tickets for children, students and the military!
Furthermore, while the rigid dining hours I found on previous trips now seem relegated only to the most formal of ristorantes I don’t think there is anything like an early-bird special! And at $1.43 to the euro, even the prix fixe menus carried sticker shock. But at least you can sit down for a snack—anything from pizza to panini—at virtually any hour of the day. If you want just a slice, however, you’ll probably have to take it to go. By the way, it’s important never to forget that a cappuccino from the same machine at the same coffee bar may cost you as much as double if you take it sitting at a table rather than standing at the counter. They’re shorter—and to my taste, better—than the US version, anyway, and usually never too hot to handle.
By Nancy Mandell, guest blogger
Are you suffering from “frugal fatigue?”
If so, you’re among the many holiday shoppers—more than two-thirds of them women, by the way—who are believed to be succumbing to a malady as unique to the past year as the H1N1 virus. The cause of frugal fatigue is less mysterious than the origin of swine flu, however: It’s the economy, stupid! And as memories of the early pall cast by a lackluster Black Friday and Cyber Monday fade, retailers are seeing evidence that a good many shoppers have decided they’re “fed up and not going to take it anymore!”.
In the recession, women not only had to change their (shopping) habits—often putting their own needs at bay—but also to make more concessions than their male counterparts, explains Marshall Cohen, chief retail industry analyst for the NPD Group and author of Buy Me! How to Get Customers to Choose Your Products and Ignore the Rest, to be published next month. In fact, Cohen dates the start of the recession to the point where sales of women’s apparel began declining at a greater rate than men’s, all the way back to January 2007 “when we began to see the women’s market underperforming the men’s.”
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