One Night At The Museum Mile - The 2013 Museum Mile Festival

 

Last night, the 23-block stretch of Fifth Avenue (82nd to 105th Streets) called the Museum Mile turned into a car-free pedestrian plaza when ten of the city’s most prestigious art institutions—including the Guggenheim, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of the City of New York—opened their doors to the public free of charge for three hours. The annual Museum Mile Festival featured musical performances, including Batala all-women Afro-Brazilian Samba Reggae drumming band, string quartets, and jazz ensembles, as well as entertainment for kids. The annual event took place from 5:45 PM until 9:00 PM.

Pop Dogs

Pop Dogs is a mobile installation from artist Carlo Sampietro that takes the traditional popcorn machine and replaces its edible content with stuffed dog toys. Sampietro uses this project as a visual language to discuss the global issue of dog overpopulation. It was at Governor's Island as part of the annual FIGMENT, a participatory art event that took place last Saturday and Sunday within ferry distance of Manhattan.

Much like a popcorn machine left unattended, more dogs are bred daily throughout the world than can be properly cared for. The installation was inspired by the abandoned dogs Sampietro saw during his travels. Compared to the street dogs of Brazil, NYC dogs are pampered like children. The piece is designed to explore the contradiction that what we crave can become undesirable. 

Theater Fans Celebrate the Tony Awards

Last night, the 67th Tony Awards, Broadway's highest honors, took place at Radio City Music Hall and included appearances by nominee Tom Hanks and other stars including Scarlett Johansson, Sigourney Weaver, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anna Kendrick, Zachary Quinto, Sally Field, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Jon Cryer. Theater fans celebrated Broadway's most spectacular night in the heart of Times Square to view a live simulcast of the program on two large screens in Duffy Square at West 46th Street and Broadway. The awards ceremony was hosted by actor Neil Patrick Harris. Other theater fans gathered in front of the Radio City Music Hall to take a glimpse of their favorite theater performers on the red carpet. 

Lea Salonga at Café Carlyle

Last night, the Tony Award winning star of Broadway’s Miss Saigon gave her final performance at Café Carlye (in the Carlyle Hotel) in a show called "Back to Before" that looks at her life as a New Yorker and pays tribute to inspirations including Ella Fitzgerald and Barbra Streisand. The Carlyle Cafe is located at 35 East 76th Street at Madison Avenue. The authentically elegant venue is regarded the epitome of New York class, attracting such top-level singers.

Here is an excerpt from the New York Times review:

In the first half, she concentrated on standards that included “The Song Is You,” “Manhattan” and “How Long Has This Been Going On? — all delivered with an almost machinelike perfection. Her performance was matched by the facility of her musicians, the pianist Jeff Harris, the bassist John Miller and the guitarist Jack Cavari, who were playing arrangements by Larry Yurman.

“Greatest Love of All,” Whitney Houston’s early hit, received an unusually strong and focused interpretation whose message of unapologetic self-reliance resonated with Ms. Salonga’s show business biography. “I Won’t Mind,” a woman’s protective love song to a child who’s not hers, written by Jeff Blumenkrantz, Annie Kessler and Libby Saines, and a medley of Stephen Sondheim’s “So Many People” and “Loving You” demonstrated her comfort in a more intimate, psychologically subtle mode.

First Avenue Street Fair

The Street Fair and Festival season has begun, and today, it's on First Avenue from 68th to 79th Street. Every warm-weather weekend brings multiple street fairs that offer opportunities to explore new neighborhoods, sample different kinds of food and drinks, and browse for bargains for clothing, accessories, plants and household gadgets.

Mural for Red Bull Music Academy New York 2013

This is one of the murals for the recent Red Bull Music Academy NYC 2013. The mural is on an apartment building on Lafayette Street in SoHo. The Red Bull Music Academy was a five-week series of concerts, lectures, art installations and workshops that is one of the biggest musical happenings in New York, as well as perhaps the most elaborate example of the reach of corporate brands into popular culture. The academy is a combination citywide festival and private musical summer camp. It has been held in different international cities almost every year since 1998, when it began in Berlin. The events in New York City this year were underwritten by Red Bull.