Avenues and Alleys
Do you want to eat at Katz’s when you visit New York? Oh, yes—yes, you do.
From The New York Times:
Katz’s has become a survivor in a neighborhood that had long-established delis. It began 125 years ago under a different name, Iceland Brothers. They took in the first Katz, Willy, as a partner in the early years of the 20th century. Eventually, he bought out the brothers and changed the name from Iceland & Katz to Katz’s. Read more……
You know you want to be here. Book a flight!
Whether you’re stuck outside the city or you live here but are daunted by the hordes of tourists, the Empire State Building remains a marvel for the ages. Time Out New York apparently agrees, as they’ve devoted an entertaining and informative slideshow to images of the Art Deco wonder.
We recommend you follow the above link and give it a look.
Orchestra leader, singer, and fashion plate Michael Arenella has a thing for the past.
Arenella plays the music of the 1920s and the ’30s and wears clothes and drives cars that match.
This weekend, he and his Dreamland Orchestra will again be featured at the annual Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governors Island, an event he founded some years ago. It takes place on both Saturday and Sunday.
If you’re within striking distance of New York City, you should it make it a point to be in attendance. The forecast calls for lovely weather, relatively speaking, the music will have you tapping your toes, at the very least, and you’ll be surrounded by hundreds of folks in vintage finery. (If you own no vintage finery, you might be advised to ask yourself why not, but don’t let that prevent you from attending the lawn party. Why, there will even been vintage clothing dealers on the premises, so you can kill two birds with one stone.)
This video was directed and edited by our friend Andrew Yamato.
The Central Park Casino in its heyday. Stephen Wolf recently wrote an interesting look at the Casino’s history in the New York Times.
The Brooklyn Bridge turns 129 years old today. A stroll across this magnificent bridge is an experience not to be missed!
One WTC officially becomes NYC’s tallest structure today. Here’s a slideshow of impressive photographs of the construction process.
Frank Oscar Larson (1896-1964) was born in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, of Swedish immigrant parents and lived in Flushing, Queens most of his life. As an adult, Larson spent his days at a branch of the Empire Trust Company (now Bank of New York Mellon), working his way up through the ranks from auditor to vice-president, and spare time on weekends taking photographs of street life throughout New York City.
He was an accomplished photographer who eloquently documented 1950s Chinatown, the Bowery, Hell’s Kitchen, City Island, Times Square, Central Park, and much more.
This exhibition is compiled from thousands of negatives recently discovered stored away in his daughter-in-law’s house in Maine in 2009. Soren Larson, his grandson and a television news camera man and producer, has been scanning and printing the 55-year-old images found stored in over 100 envelopes filled with mostly medium format, 2-1/4 x 2-1/4″ negatives, and neatly noted by location and date in Larson’s own hand.
Frank Oscar Larson: 1950s New York Street Stories is on view at the queensmuseum.org through May 20, 2012.
Eisenberg’s Sandwich Shop–one of our favorite spots in NYC and a must-see for visitors to the city. Try the lime rickey!
Going to be in NYC this month? Film Forum’s three-week William Wellman retrospective kicks off today.
William “Wild Bill” Wellman (1896-1975) earned his nickname, enlisting in the Lafayette Flying Corps before America entered the Great War, directing the first-ever Best Picture Oscar-winner, becoming Hollywood’s greatest specialist in aerial adventure, and renowned as well for a quick temper and occasional fisticuffs. But beyond the tough guy and action classics, he helmed some of the greatest of screwball comedies, among works in virtually every other genre; guided signature performances by Barbara Stanwyck, Louise Brooks, Loretta Young, Ginger Rogers, et al.; sensitively portrayed Norman Maine’s disintegration in A Star is Born; directed Cooper, Cagney and Gable in star-defining roles; and in his Pre-Code collaborations with producer Darryl Zanuck at Warner Bros., was the key director of one of the American cinema’s greatest periods.
The festival kick off with weekend screenings of the first movie to win the “Best Picture” Oscar: WINGS (1927), starring Clara Bow, Richard Arlen, and Buddy Rogers.
Here’s the full lineup.