May 23, 2008

Memorial Weekend on tap: Fleet Week, Bridge events

It's Memorial Day Weekend, Fleet Week, and the 125th anniversary of the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge. The city's beaches open for the season on Saturday, the Yankees have home games all weekend, the Lighthouse tender Lilac celebrates its 75th birthday, the New York Botanical Garden debuts Moore in America: Monumental Sculpture and Jones Beach hosts the Blue Angels for the New York Air Show.

On Monday, Memorial Day, there are free holiday concerts at Green-Wood Cemetery and Cathedral of Saint John the Divine (the latter with the NY Philharmonic.)

For more ongoing exhibits and shows, see NewYorkology’s Now in NYC list. For Memorial Day weekend events especially for kids, see the list at Mommy Poppins. For more upcoming events, see NewYorkology’s calendar page.

Events will be added through the long weekend.

Friday
The Guggenheim begins extended hours for the final days of “Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe,� (pictured,) which ends on Wednesday

The American Society of Civil Engineers and the Roebling Chapter of the Society for Industrial Archeology will offer free guided tours for the Brooklyn Bridge 125th Anniversary celebrations from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Free outdoor screening of Disney's "Enchanted" and two historic shorts: "Panorama from the Tower of the Brooklyn Bridge" (1903) and "Manhatta" (1921) at the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park from 6 p.m.

Free screening of “Mo’ Better Blues� at Tribeca Cinemas as part of the Brooklyn Bridge 125th Anniversary celebrations (Doors at 6:30 p.m.)

Yankees vs. Seattle Mariners at Yankee Stadium at 7:05 p.m.

13th Annual Lower East Side Festival of the Arts

8th International Toy Theater Festival

Van Halen plays Madison Square Garden at 8 p.m.

The Horticultural Society of New York screens “Soylent Green� at 6:30 p.m.

Ardeshir Mohassess: Art and Satire in Iran and Vietnam: A Memorial Work by Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba exhibitions open at the Asia Society

Exene Cervenka, Sleep in Spite of Thunder exhibition opens at the DCKT Contemporary

Turntables on the Hudson from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. at Water Taxi Beach

Auction: American Indian Art at Sotheby’s

Book signing: Greg Girard, Phantom Shanghai at the International Center of Photography

Open Studio, Afternoons with Artists: Amie Siegel at the Whitney at 2 p.m.

Free music Fridays at the American Folk Art Museum from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Sleepover at the American Museum of Natural History

Brooklyn Bridge art show reception at the City Reliquary

Tonight’s colors on the Empire State Building are red white and blue for Fleet Week

Museums open after 7 p.m.: American Folk Art Museum, to 7:30 p.m. (with free admission from 5:30 to close;) and the Guggenheim to 7:45 p.m. (where admission is pay-what-you-wish from 5:45 to close)

Museums open to 8 p.m.: International Center of Photography, (which has "voluntary contribution" admission from 5 to close;) Museum of Modern Art, (which is free from 4 to close;) New-York Historical Society, (with free admission from 6 p.m.;) Bronx Museum, (which is free all day;) and the Children’s Museum of Manhattan

Museums open to 9 p.m.: the Met; Whitney, (which is pay-what-you-wish from 6 to 9 p.m. and tonight hosts a Whitney Live dance party with Matthew Brannon and Lucky Dragons;) Cooper-Hewitt; the Morgan, (with free admission from 7 p.m.;) Neue Galerie; and the Asia Society, (where it's free from 6 to 9 p.m.)

Closing at 10 p.m.: Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, (with free admission from 7 p.m. to close.)

More late night NY: Top of the Rock (last ticket sold at 11 p.m.) and Empire State Building (last elevator up at 1:15 a.m.)

Saturday
Lighthouse tender Lilac celebrates her 75th birthday all weekend with open ship tours, an art show and music – along with fireboat John J. Harvey at Pier 40, where Houston Street meets the Hudson River

All 14 miles of NYC public beaches open for the season

Two-day New York Air Show at Jones Beach State Park begins

Lady Liberty Swim

Yankees vs. Seattle Mariners at Yankee Stadium at 1:05 p.m.

Moore in America: Monumental Sculpture opens at the NY Botanical Garden

Lizards and Snakes: Alive! reopens at the American Museum of Natural History

1970’s theme-park terrorism flick RollerCoaster screens at Coney Island Museum at 8:30 p.m., with free popcorn

A Cyclist's History of New York at Museum of the City of NY at 2 p.m.

Free outdoor screening of Frank Sinatra in 1947's "It Happened in Brooklyn" at the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park as part of the Brooklyn Bridge 125th Anniversary celebrations from 6 p.m.

Brooklyn Historical Society hosts lectures and children’s readings: (1 p.m. Dave Frieder aka "Dave the Bridge Man" on The Great East River Suspension Bridge; 2 p.m. childrens’ reading by Lynn Curlee, author of Brooklyn Bridge; 3 p.m. children’s reading by Phil Bildner, author of Twenty-One Elephants; 4 p.m. John Stern and Carrie Wilson lecture on the Beauty of the Brooklyn Bridge)

Free screening of Ken Burns' 1981 documentary "Brooklyn Bridge" at BAM as part of the Brooklyn Bridge 125th Anniversary celebrations at 4:30 p.m. (but tickets handed out from 1:30 p.m.)

Brooklyn Icons Mini-Golf at Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park free all weekend from 1 to 5 p.m. as part of the Brooklyn Bridge 125th Anniversary celebrations

Big Onion walking tour of Brooklyn Bridge & Heights at Twilight at 5 p.m. as part of the Brooklyn Bridge 125th Anniversary celebrations

City Reliquary- sponsored Brooklyn Bridge Birthday Bike Ride at noon

Free kayaking on the Hudson at 72nd Street from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Free NYC Parks walking tour in Central Park at noon of Seneca Village, Manhattan's first known community of African-American property owners

Peter Stuyvesant and His Ghostly Friends of the East Village walking tour at 7 p.m.

NY Audubon’s Bird Watching at Fresh Kills

Chinatown Walking Tours offered by the Museum of the Chinese in the Americas from 1 to 2:30 p.m.

Central Park Scavenger Hunt at 11 a.m.

Memorial Day Balkan BBQ in Williamsburg at 4 p.m.

The Yard opens for the season with The Brooklyn Shuffle

Museums open late: Museum of Sex to 8 p.m. and the Met Museum to 9 p.m.

More late night NY: Top of the Rock (last ticket sold at 11 p.m.) and Empire State Building (last elevator up at 1:15 a.m.)

Scheduled subway interruptions

Sunday
Yankees vs. Seattle Mariners at Yankee Stadium at 1:05 p.m.

New York Marble Cemetery, the oldest public non-sectarian cemetery in New York City, is open to the public from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

4th Annual Tour de Brooklyn bike ride

Free walking tours of the Brooklyn Bridge as part of the Brooklyn Bridge 125th Anniversary celebrations - Ron Schweiger, the official historian for Brooklyn, leads an 11 a.m. tour starting from the Manhattan-side arch; Dave “Dave the Bridge Man� Fieder leads 1 and 4 p.m. walks from the Brooklyn side of the bridge

Brooklyn Historical Society hosts lectures: (1 p.m. Raymond “Paul� Giroux lecture on Building the Bridge, presented by the American Society of Civil Engineers, 2 p.m. Clifford Zink lectures on The Roebling Legacy, presented by the Roebling Chapter of the Society for Industrial Archaeology, and 3 p.m. Richard Haw, author of Art of the Brooklyn Bridge: A Visual History lectures on the Art of the Brooklyn Bridge.)

Municipal Arts Society walking tour Brooklyn Heights: America's First Suburb at 2 p.m. as part of the Brooklyn Bridge 125th Anniversary celebrations

Deedle-Deedle-Dees play free kids concert at 1 p.m. in Brooklyn Bridge Park as part of the Brooklyn Bridge 125th Anniversary celebrations

Spring Family Day at the Guggenheim

Lecture at the Coney Island Museum by Dr. Michael Mark Chemers on “Liliputia: The Secret Utopia of Coney Island's Midget City�

Little Brother book event at Books of Wonder at 5 p.m.

Edgar Allan Poe and His Ghostly Neighbors of the East Village walking tour at 7 p.m.

Brighton Beach Nosh Walk

Turntables on the Hudson from 3 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Late night NY: Top of the Rock (last ticket sold at 11 p.m.) and Empire State Building (last elevator up at 1:15 a.m.)

Scheduled subway interruptions

Monday
NY Philharmonic’s free Memorial Day Concert at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine at 8 p.m.

Free 11th Annual Memorial Day Concert at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn

Normally closed on Mondays, the Met Museum, Museum of the City of NY and Children’s Museum of Manhattan are open for Memorial Day
Free 11 a.m. Memorial Walk among the military attractions in the southern end of Central Park

Mets vs. Florida Marlins

The B-52s play a free concert at Rockefeller center for the Today Show

John Treacy Egan, (from Broadway’s “The Little Mermaid�) at the Metropolitan Room

Les Paul plays Iridium Jazz Club at 8 and 10 p.m.

Jim Caruso's "Cast Party" at Birdland from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Scheduled subway interruptions

Closing soon
"Macbeth" on Broadway (through May 24)
Celia: The Life and Music of Celia Cruz - performed in English on Tuesdays @ 8pm, Saturdays @ 5pm and Sundays @ 7pm, and in Spanish in all other performances (through May 25)
Live Butterfly Conservancy at the American Museum of Natural History (through May 26)
Water: H2O = Life at the American Museum of Natural History (through May 26)
What’s My Line live on stage at the Barrow Street Theatre (extended through May 26)
Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe at the Guggenheim (through May 28)
Building China: Five Projects, Five Stories at the Center for Architecture (through May 31)
Ethan Coen’s Almost an Evening plays Off-Broadway’s Bleecker Street Theater (through June 1)
John Lithgow: Stories By Heart plays the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater Sundays and Mondays (through June 2)

Picture credits: Brooklyn Bridge, Amy Langfield/NewYorkology.

Cai Guo-Qiang, Inopportune: Stage One, 2004, Nine cars and sequenced multichannel light tubes, Dimensions variable, Seattle Art Museum, Gift of Robert M. Arnold, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum, 2006, Exhibition copy installed at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2008, © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation New York. Photo by David Heald. Provided to NewYorkology by the Guggenheim.

May 23, 2008 9:01 AM in

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