July 8, 2009
'Speakeasy' to open on Museum of City of NY terrace
 The Met has its rooftop martini bar, and now another museum at Central Park plans to open a “speakeasy” on its terrace, complete with classic cocktails and “Roaring 20’s” dance music.
The Museum of the City of New York on July 15 will open The Speakeasy at 1220 Fifth. Admission — $10 for members, $12 for non-members — will include a free drink and access to current exhibitions. Bar food will be available for purchase.
The Wednesday-only club will operate from 6 to 9 p.m. and the whole joint will get busted up after August 26.
And because it’s a museum, the official announcement of the club’s opening features a gallery-quality historical factoid:Prohibition, which lasted from 1919 to 1933, gave rise to drinking establishments that were illegal and for the most part secret. Under Mayor Jimmy “Beau James” Walker (1926–1932), New York’s speakeasy count grew to some 32,000 establishments.
Plenty of other New York museums are in on the cocktail game to lure more visitors. Also along Central Park, Cocktails@Cooper-Hewitt begin this Friday in the Arthur Ross Terrace of the design museum operated by the Smithsonian. The jazz trio Ed Fuqua Group will play each party, held Fridays from 6 to 9 p.m. through Aug. 14.
Whitney Live features concerts every Friday night in July with bands such as Titus Andronicus, Real Estate, Abe Vigoda and Grooms; the Museum of Modern Art stays open late every Thursday in July and August and runs a bar with live bands in the sculpture garden for MoMA Thursday Nights; the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History hosts a monthly One Step Beyond dance party from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.; the Met’s indoor Great Hall balcony bar features live classical music on Friday and Saturday evenings; and the Guggenheim’s It Came from Brooklyn shows will begin Aug. 14. The Guggenheim’s Art After Dark parties will return in the fall.
Image source: Jazz Age Journal from the Museum of the City of New York’s Paris/New York exhibition.
Earlier: Museums open late in NYC for spring/summer 2009
Roxy Paine’s ‘Maelstrom’ opens on Met roof for summer
‘The City on a Still’ celebrates Prohibition’s repeal
July 8, 2009 8:03 AM in Cheap Stuff, Drinkology, History, Midtown, Museums, Romance, Sightsology, Upper East Side, Upper West Side
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