The 8 p.m. concert will feature Schubert's Symphony in B minor, "Unfinished" and Mendelssohn,'s Symphony No. 4, "Italian."
The cathedral, located at Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street, will begin at 8 p.m. though doors will open an hour earlier. All seating will be first-come, first-served, with overflow seating (weather permitting) on the Pulpit Green and from the Synod Hall.
But note, the cathedral's website warns there will be limited seating due to restoration work.
Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger, Piglet and Kanga recently left the children's room in the Donnell Library Center, which will be torn down to make way for a luxury hotel/library.
The stuffed animals, loved up into a shabby, patched-up state, now reside in an elegant glass case in the Edna Barnes Salomon Room of the Humanities & Social Sciences Library.
They're actually easy to find -- head up the main stairs to the third floor as if you were headed to the main reading room. But at the top of the landing, instead of heading west into the reading room, head east toward Pooh.
The animals were given to Robin Milne (the inspiration for Christopher Robin) between 1920 and 1922. Pooh was originally acquired from Harrod's. They were brought to the United States in 1947 and found a home at Milne's U.S. publisher, who then gave them to the library in 1987.
Library entrance is of course free.
Picture credit: Pooh and Friends, taken by Don Hamerman. Image provided to NewYorkology by the NYPL.
Waldorf's lost train off-limits, other tunnels offer tours
Matt Lauer of the "Today" show this morning got rare access into one of New York's City's best hidden spaces -- the abandoned rail platfrm under the Waldorf-Astoria hotel.
Most famously used by President Franklin Roosevelt to help hide the fact he was wheelchair-bound, the track allowed VIPs to enter Manhattan by train and take an elevator directly up to the luxury hotel without ever setting foot on the street.
In 2006, the Waldorf's general manager told NewYorkology that the hotel's entrance to the rail platform had been reconfigued and is no longer easy to access. He also debunked a few myths about who used the private entrance. Researchers at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum in Hyde Park also did some research on the matter for NewYorkology, making it clear that the abandoned rail car under the Waldorf isn't the polio-stricken president's famous Pullman car, the Ferdinand Magellan.
So unless you're Matt Lauer, you're probably not ever getting access to the train cars under the Waldorf. But you can get access to a couple other abandoned rail stations in NYC. The oldest option is in Brooklyn, directly under Atlantic Avenue as it leads out to the East River. Tours of the 1844 tunnel are offered about once a month by the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association. But be warned that you do enter the tunnel by crawling through a manhole in the middle of the street at the intersection of Atlantic and Court.
Your other option is to catch one of the rare tours the NY Transit Museum offers of the city's original subway station that opened in 1904 under City Hall in Lower Manhattan. The stunning station, with chandeliers, skylights and tiled, vaulted ceilings, is next open for tours on July 19.
Not quite as glamorous, but still cool, the old Knickerbocker Hotel on Times Square had its own stairs from the subway platform leading up to the hotel. See Forgotten NY for pictures. (In 2006, the Dubai royal family announced plans to convert the Knickerbocker back into a luxury hotel but the Post reported last week that instead they've decided to sell the landmark building which now houses offices and a Gap shop, streetview map.)
Also of note: Julia Solis' intriguing "New York Underground" recently came out in paperback.
Circle Line launching a $50,000 NYC Waterfalls tour
While several ferry companies have already announced plans for summer cruises that will get spectators close to artist Olafur Eliasson's NYC Waterfalls, Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises is hoping to top them all when it comes to pure excess.
For $50,000 you can get a private Circle Line boat (with crew) to cruise aroound the waterfalls while sipping Dom Perignon, dining on a six-course meal from Chef Daniel Boulud's Feast & Fêtes catering and sharing chocolate Knipschildt's La Madeline au Truffes.
Since you probably won't be sleeping on the boat, Circle Line will also throw in a night in a presidential suite in a hotel on par with the Waldorf, Mandarin Oriental or Four Seasons, a spokesman told NewYorkology.
Eliasson's four waterfalls are currently under construction under the Brooklyn Bridge, at Governors Island, at Manhattan's Pier 35 and below the Brooklyn Promenade. They'll be in operation from late June to mid-October.
Contributor Heesun Wee has been writing for NewYorkology since 2005. By day, she's a video segment producer for Yahoo'sTech Ticker. She’s also writing a screenplay entitled “War Photographer.” Recently she stopped by the Guggenheim, which has just announced it will stay open an extra two hours every day for the final week of Cai Guo Qiang's installation. (That's 10 a.m. to 7:45 p.m. from May 23 through May 28.)
Art in New York lately has been disappointing me. I’ve cruised through the Chelsea gallery ghetto thinking, ‘This is it?’ If I wanted cutesy prints and photographs I’d buy Domino or some other glossy fashion magazine run by cookie-cutter 30-somethings in $300 blue jeans.
But the current car-and-light installation at the Guggenheim in New York is amazing. Part of a larger retrospective, Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe, is beautiful, violent, spatially stunning, postmodern, reflective of 9/11, and East meets West -- all wrapped into one.
Inopportune: Stage One is Cai’s largest installation to date. It showcases nine real cars that are suspended in a cyclone-like progression in the central atrium of the Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda. Thomas Krens, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, has said the project "may be the best artistic transformation of the Frank Lloyd Wright space we've ever seen."
Cai, born in southern China and now living in New York City, has said constant media images of car explosions after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks inspired the project.
Whether you’re on the ground floor looking up at the swirl of cars or peering down into the tornado-like shape of metal and flashing lights, it’s as if you’re inside a massive bomb about to go off, with Wright’s cylindrical museum as the bomb’s exterior casing.
I’ve always thought of the beige museum on the trash-less Upper East Side of Manhattan as peaceful. That’s no accident. Wright created the seashell-like building with an interior circular design. You take the elevator to the top and wind down a spiral ramp as you enjoy the art seamlessly.
But by installing his art – cars, stuffed wildlife, sculptures -- in the middle of the museum’s atrium and winding ramp – Cai interrupts the spatial peace. Throughout my visit I felt the push-and-pull of the beautiful building against the violence often depicted in the art. Indeed Cai has said his work explores both the beauty and violence human beings are capable of.
BEAUTY AND VIOLENCE This beauty-violence juxtaposition is a recurring theme for Cai. In his gunpowder drawings, also on view at the Guggenheim, his images are made with gunpowder, fuses and traditional materials such as ink. The explosions left behind on canvases have a blurry, eerie death quality. It was as if Cai was forcing me to imagine my own gunpowder-y body silhouette, in essence my own humanity, and asking, "What are you capable of? Do you know? Do you want to know?"
Cai created many of the gunpowder drawings on multi-part panels meant to resemble Asian paper scrolls. The long, continuous images stretch and fill the museum’s ramp, another clever move by Cai to meld his art with the space it inhabits.
The exhibition features paintings, videos, sculpture, photographs and installations -- including one made up of giant boobie bean bags -- from 20 Icelandic artists.
Eliasson's work here is made up of a series of photographs, the Green River series, (pictured, above) and a light installation called "Limbo Lamp for Petur," (video, top.)
The Icelandic Love Corporation take part as well, with "Nest," a mixed-media sculpture that includes black-licorice type tubing, a tire and shiny baubles all weaved into a home for a family of birds.
The exhibition, which runs until August 15, is free. It's open Tuesdays through Saturdays from noon to 6 p.m. The Scandinavia House is located at 58 Park Ave., map.
The four waterfalls, which could start flowing as early as late June are positioned at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge (on the Brooklyn side,) at Manhattan's Pier 35, between Brooklyn's piers 4 and 5 (where the floating pool was docked last summer,) and at Governor's Island, facing Manhattan's Staten Island Ferry terminal.
The 90- to 120-foot waterfalls will flow from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day -- and will be lit after sunset. They'll come down mid-October.
Statue of Liberty's insides twisted, but no beating heart
In Grand Theft Auto IV's Liberty City, which is apparently New York City in a parallel universe, a number of things in the video game are cleverly inspired by the real.
Serious Eats has charted the places to eat in Liberty City (including the "Steinway Beer Garden,") while Gawker points out that the "Statue of Happiness" in the harbor "contains at its heart... a beating heart, chained to the exterior walls."
But since NewYorkology dwells in the travel blog realm, it would be proper to proffer some pictures of what the inside of the Statue of Liberty actually looks like.
Also, keep in mind that if you're planning a trip out to the Statue of Liberty, it's key to buy your time-specific ferry tickets in advance and tick the box for the free monument pass (otherwise you can't see up inside the statue or gain access to the museum.)
Bon Jovi to play Central Park in mid-July or later
Jon Bon Jovi will play Central Park this summer sometime in mid-July or later, he told Sports Illustrated in an interview.
The magazine was talking to the Jersey-born rocker mainly about his ownership of the Philadelphia Soul Arena Football League team and then this came up:
SI.com: I know the Spectrum and the Wachovia Center serve as the homes of the Soul, but if Bon Jovi were a team, Giants Stadium would certainly be its home. What are your thoughts on Giants Stadium being torn down in 2010? You always close out your tours at Giants Stadium, do you plan on having a couple last shows there before it's demolished?
Bon Jovi: Actually I'm not going to do it this year. We always end every tour at Giants Stadium, but we're going to do Central Park this year. That hasn't been announced yet, there you go, we're doing Central Park. I think it's a great stadium, but in this day in age when it's all about those sky boxes and those revenue streams, I could see why they would want to get rid of it, but it's too bad. I think it a great place and a great place to play and I have nothing but good memories there.
Bon Jovi's concert schedule currently lists his final tour dates as July 14 and 15 at Madison Square Garden, where tickets are on sale for $49.50 to $304.50.
This summer, Central Park SummerStage and other Rumsey Playfield shows are already set to include performers including Sheryl Crow (May 29,) Duran Duran (May 30/31,) Mavis Staples (June 13,) Vampire Weekend (June 14,) Santogold (July 20,) Crosby, Stills & Nash (July 29,) Sonny Rollins (August 6,) and Battles (August 16.)
Mary Whalen leaves Brooklyn Navy Yard for Red Hook
NewYorkology contributor Vidiot commits journalism by night and explores NYC by day. He's especially interested in the infrastructure, transit, architectural wonders, drinking establishments, and hidden corners of the greatest city in the world. This past weekend he was onboard the Mary Whalen for something of an East River repositioning cruise.
The 70-year-old Mary A. Whalen, a retired oil tanker slated to become a floating museum, was moved Sunday from GMD Shipyard in the Brooklyn Navy Yard to its current home in Red Hook, Brooklyn. PortSide New York, the non-profit that owns the 176-foot ship and is converting her into a museum and event space, invited NewYorkology along for the ride.
It was a gray day, but the crowd of guests was in high spirits as the tugboat June K. nosed alongside and hauled the Mary A. Whalen stern-first out of the Navy Yard and into the East River. We passed under the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, and into Buttermilk Channel before docking at the American Stevedoring terminal in Red Hook.
Related: The Brooklyn Navy Yard, which is normally closed to the public, will be the subject of a June 1 tour organized by the Center for the Urban Environment. A guided bus tour will be led by Richard Drucker, senior vice president for external affairs of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, followed by a walking tour of Vinegar Hill, home to Irish immigrants and other ethnic groups who worked on the Brooklyn waterfront in the late 19th century.
