Museums, zoos, ice rinks, clubs open Thanksgiving Day
In case you find yourself in New York City on Nov. 26, 2009 looking for something to do besides share a bird with your beloved family members, here are some places that will be open on Thanksgiving Day in NYC:
The Macy’s 83nd Thanksgiving Day Parade will begin at 9 a.m. at 77th Street and Central Park West. The new route this year starts out the same, traveling south down Central Park West to Columbus Circle. But this year it will skip Broadway,and instead turn onto Central Park South and then south on 7th Avenue. Once it reaches, 42nd Street, the parade will head east until it reaches Bryant Park at 6th Avenue. The parade will continue south on 6th (Avenue of the Americas) until it reaches 34th Street, where it will turn towards Macy’s at herald Square.
Cirque du Soleil’s “Wintuk” at Madison Square Garden - performances at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m.
Broadway Thanksgiving Week schedule includes Thanksgiving Day performances of “Hamlet” at 7:30 p.m. as well as “Chicago,” “Oleanna,” “Phantom of the Opera” “West Side Story” and “White Christmas” at 8 p.m.
Yankee Stadium tours resume after World Series win
Tours of the new Yankee Stadium resumed today, after a short hiatus for a little post-season play that resulted in the 27th World Series win for the Bronx Bombers.
The $20, 45-minute Classic Tour includes visits to the dugout, Monument Park, the New York Yankees Museum, and sometimes - the clubhouse.
The tours are offered several times a day through mid-March.
The USS New York arrived in New York City this morning, passing the Statue of Liberty before heading toward the World Trade Center site to offer a 21-gun salute in honor to those who died September 11, 2001.
The USS New York warship is a San Antonio-class LPD (Landing Platform Dock.) Its bow stem includes seven and a half tons of steel recovered from the World Trade Center towers.
The video:
Later today, the USS New York will dock at Pier 88 on the Hudson River to be formally inducted into the United States Navy at a shipboard ceremony Nov. 7.
The USS New York will be open to the public, free of charge from Nov. 4 though 11. The opening times:
NY's ghost tours, cemetery treks, and a free 'Phantom'
There are a few upcoming haunted tours, cemetery treks and other Halloween-themed events on the calendar:
The Merchant’s House Museum which claims bragging rights to the title “Manhattan’s Most Haunted House” leads Candlelight Ghost tours through the end of the month. This Sunday, it will lead the annual procession to New York City Marble Cemetery, re-creating a funeral from 1865.
Trinity Wall Street will toast resident Alexander Hamilton (“Non-alcoholic beverages will also available.”) in the graveyard on Oct. 30, followed by a screening of Phantom of the Opera” in the Gothic cathedral with live organ accompaniment by Robert Ridgell. Both events are free.
Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx will lead three flashflights-required tours of sites associated with its most tragic guests.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum today marks its 50th anniversary on Fifth Avenue by opening its doors for free all day.
The museum, which was first known as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, is currently mounting a major exhibition of Vasily Kandinsky, whose art is fundamental to the Guggenheim collection.
Today, the museum also opens Anish Kapoor’s “Memory.”
The celebrations today will include family activities, a 4:30 p.m. architecture tour via Twitter, as well as a screening of the documentary “Art, Architecture, and Innovation: Celebrating the Guggenheim Museum.”
The Guggenheim today will be open for free from 10 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. It’s worth noting that the museum offers pay-what-you-wish admission every Saturday from 5:45 to 7:45 p.m. Regular adult admission is normally $18.
(A few blocks up the street, the Cooper-Hewett is free every day through this Saturday for Design Week.
The Empire State Building will also mark the anniversary by tonight lighting up “in the museum’s signature red,” according to a news release issued by the skyscraper’s publicity team.
El Museo to reopen with more space, free Saturdays
After a $28 million renovation, El Museo del Barrio will reopen Saturday with a free open house to debut its 10,000 square feet of new space filled with Latino art with a very strong connection to the New York City experience.
“It’s a long tme coming, but we finally look like a museum,” Tony Bechara, the chairman of the board of trustees of El Museo, said Wednesday during a media preview.
The museum, now 40 years old, started in a classroom, migrated to a storefront and in 1977 moved into its current multi-use Fifth Avenue building, which was originally an orphanage. Twelve years ago it drew fewer than 20,000 visitors anually; before it closed for renovations last year, more than 125,000 people came through the museum’s doors, El Museo director Julian Zugazagoitia said.
The renovation not only provides extra gallery space, but has opened up the Central Park side of the building with more glass and a redesigned courtyard with an entrance to El Cafe, (which has a Pan-Latino menu culled from 17 cultures.) The goal is for the courtyard to serve as a gathering spot for East Harlem and the Upper East Side at the top of the Museum Mile, said architect Jordan Gruzen. (Although Zugazagoitia noted they’ll cede the “top” title to the Museum for African Art when it opens at 110th Street.)
The art itself is as much about New York City as it is Puerto Rico, Latin American or the Caribbean. The inaugural exhibition, “Nexus: New York: Latin/American Artists in the Modern Metropolis,” focuses on the avant-garde art produced from 1900 to 1942 in NYC as well as Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Peru and elsewhere.
Displayed in airy galleries featuring bold colors and text in Spanish and English, the walls are filled with works by Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and the caricatures of Miguel Covarrubias, (who Al Hirschfeld credited as an influence.)
Now in its fifth year, Open House New York this weekend will open hundreds of sites for free tours, allowing the public to wander through cheese caves, a subway power station, the abandoned hospital buildings of Ellis Island, and into well-appointed private apartments, hotels and offices.
And while all the events are free, not all the sites are accesed with equal ease.
While there is a free printed OHNY guide (also available online in PDF) there have been many changes since its publication, including cancelations, new sites, and altered hours. Official updates can be found on the OHNYwebsite and its blog. (Yes, you need to go to three different locations to get a full list of changes.)
Open House NY reservations-required free tour list
Open House New York will open hundreds of sites for free tours during the weekend of October 10 and 11. Several locations will require reservations. Here’s the list of some of the most interesting OHNY tours that promise to fill up fast.
(Editor’s note: The final update to this list was Thursday night.)
Lefferts Historic House - cellar-to-attic tours from noon on Saturday and Sunday. (718) 789-2822 ×10. Update: Only two spots remain noon on Sunday, all others full.
Betances Community Center - Saturday tours with the architects in the Bronx. info@syarch.com. (All tours still have openings as of Thursday at noon.)
Trinity Church Cemetery & Mausoleum tours of Manhattan’s only active cemetery with historian Eric K. Washington. (212) 939-0994. All four tours — Saturday and Sunday at 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. — still have a few spots open (as of Thursday at noon) with the Sunday at 1:30 p.m. most likley to fill soonest.
Wild Project - weekend tours with Alive Structures landscape architects. (Spots still open on Sunday at 10 a.m.,noon and 4 p.m.) marni@alivestructures.com
W hotels - tours of the Times Square, Union Square and Lexington Ave properties. rebecca.snyder@bbg-bbgm.com for Lex; nychappeningsrsvp@whotels.com, for others, specify which hotel. (As of noon Thursday, there are confirmed openings for W on Lex.)
The New School: Orozco Room - Saturday at 11 a.m. tour with Silvia Rocciolo, cocurator of the New School Art Collection, and James Wechsler, an independent scholar. Updated RSVP info.
Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church - Saturday and Sunday tours of the Romanesque Revival Church with Tiffany stained-glass windows. lrogers@lapcbrooklyn.org. Update: Reservations not required. “Just simply arrive during the allocated time (Sat. 12-1 pm, Sun. 1-5pm).”
Louis Armstrong House Museum - weekend tours still available (as of Thursday afternoon.) info@louisarmstronghouse.org
Brooklyn Museum - Saturday and Sunday 11 a.m. tours of the Sackler Wing with Polshek architect. A few spaces are still available both days (as of Thursday afternoon.) grouptours@brooklynmuseum.org
Woodlawn Cemetery - weekend tours of private mausoleums by designers McKim, Mead & White, Carrere & Hastings, John Russell Poper, Tiffany, and Hunt & Hunt. Update: Reservations are preferred; spots available on the Saturday at 10 a.m. tour and Sunday at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. tours. (718) 920-1470
Locations that may still have spots open: (NewYorkology has reached out to each of these groups to confirm availibility.)
Sullenberger, Skiles reunite for USAirways LGA flight
Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger III and co-pilot Jeff Skiles today will fly US Airways Flight 1427 from LaGuardia Airport, the second time they’ll share the cockpit since their heroic Hudson River landing after hitting a flock of fat Canadian geese.
(Update: The pilots first shared a cockpit this morning according to the Daily News, which had a reporter on board the flight to LaGuardia from Charlotte, N.C.
“It’s good to be back in New York. It’s good to be back at work,” Sullenberger said at a news conference ahead of today’s flight to Charlotte, scheduled for 12:59 p.m. “New York and New Jersey have been very good to us. Not only on Jan. 15, but since.”
Sullenberger also singled out the private ferry company that was the first on scene to help with the rescue. “I want to mention in addition to the crew and the first responders, NY Waterway. The first ferry was there within less than four minutes after we stopped in the river, and it was largely due to their efforts that the outcome was so good.”
Earlier this year, NY Waterway repackaged its skyline cruise to include “the actual site of the dramatic rescue when US Airways Flight 1549 ditched into the icy Hudson.”
Correction as of 12:45 p.m., Oct. 1: This story was changed to state the afternoon flight will be their second since January, not the first as US Airways earlier announced.)
Tickets on sale for New Yorker Festival, Oct. 16-18
Tickets go on sale at noon today for The New Yorker Festival, which this year will include Rachel Maddow, Salman Rushdie, Tyler Perry, Steve Earle along with book signings, music and theatrical stagings.
And Calvin Trillin will again lead his popular “Come Hungry” food tour from Greenwich Village to Chinatown.
The New Yorker Festival runs from Oct. 16 through 18.
