Le Cirque, Nobu, Del Posto, Telepan, 21 Club, The Modern, The Oak Room at The Plaza, Perry Street, Esca, Red Cat, Tabla, Gallagher’s, Shun Lee, Central Park Boathouse, Fives at The Peninsula, Le Colonial, Lure, Morimoto, Petrossian, David Burke Townhouse, Water Club and The River Café have all signed on for Summer Restaurant Week and reservations are now open.
The summer deal will run from July 12-31, excluding weekends although some restaurants will participate on Sundays.
Restaurants will offer three-course lunches for $24.07 and/or dinners for $35. Tax, tip and drinks cost extra.
Technically, reservations don’t open until Tuesday, but sponsoring group NYC & Co, released the list early on its @nycgo Twitter account.
Since the High Line opened June 8, crowds have been a problem only twice, officials said. “So far, the only times we’ve had to ask people to wait to enter was on Saturday and Sunday, between 1:00 PM and 4:00 PM. The wait was not more that 30 minutes,” Joshua David and Robert Hammond, co-founders of Friends of the High Line said Thursday in their newsletter.
For the first few weekends only, park-goes must enter the High Line at Gansevoort and Washington streets, map.
There are a number of upcoming events at the High Line, including Sunday walking tours with architectural historian and High Line horticulture staff members.
Spectacular High Line park opens on elevated railway
The High Line today unofficially opened half a day early, debuting an elevated space that will undoubtedly turn into Manhattan’s new favorite thing.
In the first hours it was open, people were lounging about, splashing bare feet in the water installation under benches facing the Hudson, taking lunch on the amphitheater steps that now make 10th Avenue look like a stage, and there was even a picture-perfect couple dressed for a wedding.
Already, there is something passionately New York about it. The brilliantly designed space embraces the city’s juxtapositions — it is old and new, for rich and poor, crass and quiet, public yet intimate. Quick-and-dirty condos appear to grow from the same grass as the Empire State Building. Frank Gehry’s modern IAC Building appears as half a bookend to a billboard often plastered with high-fashion models in various stages of faux-orgasm.
The High Line itself was built in the 1930s to move the big freight trains off the West Side streets. Abandoned since the 1980s, the rail line was threatened with demolition until the Friends of the High Line was founded with the crazy idea to turn it into a park.
The High Line will be open every day from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. For now, only one phase is open (up to 20th Street,) and you can enter at Gansevoort and Washington streets, map.
The High Line also opens with a major, though temporary art installation by Spencer Finch in association with Creative Time. “The River That Flows Both Ways,” is 700 individual panels of glass — in hues of blues, purples and greys — fitted into the original High Line window panes that allowed light into the bay of the Nabisco building. Finch plays with parallels between the rail line, where trains ran north and south — and the Hudson, which is not actually a river, but an estuary, and flows “both ways” during each day.
VIP auctions: Broadway backstage to Agassi's US Open
VIP New York is yours for the taking — from a private U.S. Open tête-à-tête with Andre Agassi to a table for eight at Rao’s — merely for a contribution to a worthy charity.
A number of auction sites can get you into Fashion Week, backstage on Broadway, ono the set of “30 Rock,” or even high up a crane in the Brooklyn container port.
The park will be open daily from 7a.m. to 10 p.m. with limited use during June due to anticipated crowds.
“After ten years of advocacy, planning, and construction, the High Line is opening. Section 1 of the High Line (from Gansevoort Street to 20th Street) will open Tuesday, June 9, offering visitors the chance to preview the park, which is still under construction,” Friends of the High Line writes in its newsletter announcing the opening.
More details from the newsletter:
To ensure public safety during the first days and weeks that the High Line is open, visitors on the High Line will flow from south to north. Please plan on entering the park at the Gansevoort Street access point, unless you are in need of an elevator. Elevator service is available at 16th Street, with another elevator opening in July at 14th Street. You may exit the park at any of the access points (Gansevoort, 14th, 16th, 18th and 20th Streets).
The park remains under construction on an elevated rail tracks used by freight trains since the 1930s. Sitting abandoned on the West Side, the Friends of the High Line formed to raise funds to turn the space into a public park. For a live view of a section, see the webcam for The Standard hotel, (pictured,) which straddles a section of the High Line in the Meatpacking District.
Free French films on Fridays in city parks this summer
French films will be screened for free on Fridays in city parks this summer as part of the Films on the Green series presented by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
The series kicks off in Central Park this Friday with the U.S. premiere of “Home,” a environmental call-to-action documentary shot entirely from the air over 54 countries.
All the screenings are free, and will start at sunset, with the parks opening for seating at 8:15 p.m.
The schedule this far:
June 5 - “Home”
(Update: Postponed to Sun. June 7 due to rain.)
Central Park - Cedar Hill (79th St & 5th Ave)
June 12 - “March of the Penguins”
Washington Square Park
Do-it-yourself Obama date night: $515 + helicopter
The First Couple’s trip to New York City this past Saturday for a “private” date night can be re-created for about $515, based on reports of where the Obamas wined, dined and saw a show.
If you want to arrive in Manhattan the way they did, you can take a helicopter from JFK Airport to the Downtown Heliport near Wall Street on US Helicopter. The price is $159 per-person one-way.
The Obamas dined at Blue Hill at 72 Washington Place. President Obama reportedly ordered the “Farmer’s Feast,” five-course tasting menu inspired by the week’s harvest. The price is usually $72, but the cost varies depending on the week’s ingredients.
He reportedly ordered the wine-pairing, but since that price varies as well, for comparison, use the price for a bottle of wine that another source said they ordered. The Hirsch Vineyard & Blue Hill, A Special Release 2007; Pinot Noir; Sonoma Coast, California is priced at $88 on the restaurant’s wine list.
If you want something akin to presidential-motorcade on standby, try a car service to cover the trip from the heliport to Greenwich Village for dinner and then to Times Square for your Broadway show. A two-hour luxury-class car booking is about $90.
Orchestra-level tickets to the Tony-nominated Lincoln Center production of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” on Broadway are $96.50 each.
Manhattanhenge dates for perfect on-the-grid sunset
Although Monday’s weather was practically perfect, Manhattan’s still a few more days away from the sun’s center-stage on-the-grid show known as Manhattanhenge.
A spokesman for the American Museum of Natural History today confirmed the dates for 2009:
Half Sun on the grid:
Saturday, May 30 — 8:17 P.M. EDT
Sunday, July 12 — 8:25 P.M. EDT
Full Sun on the grid:
Sunday, May 31 — 8:17 P.M. EDT
Saturday, July 11 — 8:25 P.M. EDT
The -henge term was coined by Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium in the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. The details:
As you may know, had Manhattan’s grid been perfectly aligned with the geographic north-south line, then the days of Manhattanhenge would be the spring and autumn equinoxes, the only two days on the calendar when the Sun rises due-east and sets due-west. But Manhattan’s street grid is rotated 30 degrees east from geographic north, shifting the days of alignment elsewhere into the calendar.
Some of the best viewing locations are on the east ends of 14th, 23rd, 34th. 42nd and 57th streets.
NYC Ballet's $25 orchestra seats on sale every Monday
On Mondays at 10 a.m., the New York City Ballet will start selling a week’s worth of $25 orchestra-level tickets.
Normally those seats go for $90 each.
Through an arrangement with CIT, 50 of the discounted seats will be sold for every performance during the ballet’s 2009 Spring Season. Swan Lake, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Firebird, The Four Seasons, Romeo + Juliet, and Vienna Waltzes are among the offering’s on this season’s calendar.
The tickets must be purchased at the box office at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center or by phone with CenterCharge (212) 721-6500.
NYC Ballet also offers $12 student rush tickets to some performances. There’s also the Fourth Ring Society, where a $20 membership gets you access to $15 seats during the season.
The Nantucket Lightship, which is docked downtown in the North Cove Marina behind the World Financial Center, has been completely refitted and renovated and features five upscale staterooms.
The price is $395 per night, breakfast included with a check-in and check-out time of 11 a.m. The Nantucket specializes in corporate and private events, but individuals can also book a room on the ship.
“Prior to 2000, the ship was used by the United States Coast Guard as a floating lighthouse 40 miles east of Nantucket Island in an area known as Nantucket Shoal,” Luke Webster, the business manager and director of operations of the Nantucket Lightship, told NewYorkology.
