Springtime is a Great Time to Dive into Village History
Village Preservation recently released a raft of wonderful new resources that highlight and bring to life the Village’s rich history.
Category: Arts
BOOK REVIEW – Celebrating Big Dreams and The Second Avenue Subway
This lushly-illustrated coffee table tome, Second Avenue Subway: Building New York City’s Most Famous Thing Never Built, is a paean to big dreams and big infrastructure, a welcome reminder that big isn’t necessarily bad.
Jefferson Market Library
Jefferson Market Library history buffs and long-time residents will know that our building exists today due to the hard work of neighborhood activists who fought to have the old, abandoned courthouse saved from demolition and converted to a library.
Carolyn Hester, A Village Folk Legend of the 60s
Carolyn Hester was in the Village when the folkies took over the clubs and streets. And, she put a young harmonica player named Bob Dylan into her band.
Living in the Upside Down
I’m a fan of the Netflix series Stranger Things. In this sci-fi coming-of-age thriller set in a 1980s small-town America, teenagers face their fears of growing up and transitioning to an adult world with all of its peculiarities.
Writer’s Guild Kicks the Can to DGA and SAG on AI Negotiations
The Writers Guild of America recently surprised the industry with a new tentative minimum bargaining agreement with the studios, or the AMPTP.
My Mother’s Hands
My mother had beautiful hands. “A pianist’s hands” is how she’d have described them on someone else. And though she had played the piano as a young woman, as an adult, her fingers were more likely to be working the keys of a typewriter.
Beyond the Keys: Kimball Gallagher’s Night of Music, Meaning, and Connection
I covered 88 International’s founder, Juilliard master pianist Kimball Gallagher, in a different role: the musical artist himself, commanding the stage in a masterful program at Zankel Hall on April 13.
Music Without Borders: The Enduring Vision of Leonard Bernstein
Bernstein’s Wall is a documentary directed by Douglas Tirola. The timely film gets its name from the fact that legendary conductor, Leonard Bernstein, witnessed both the somber creation of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and the jubilant celebration of its fall in 1989, which reunified East and West Berlin after nearly three decades of division.
The Poorly Planned Planning Meeting
I have a decades-long relationship with 14th Street. In the 1980s, it was a bustling boulevard of electronics shops, wig stores, inexpensive clothing and luggage, and old-school mom-and-pop businesses.
- The Story of Rupert & Lulu
Rupert Pupkin and Lulu Bean both hail from the great state of Texas, arriving one year apart via a rescue group called Peyton’s Safe Haven. They’re Heelers born to herd, manage, supervise, and occasionally micromanage ─ and they take this responsibility very, very seriously.