Central Park summer lineup - now with free Bon Jovi
Central Park is getting crowded this summer, with the usual Summerstage sharing the spotlight with Bon Jovi free ticketed concert on Central Park’s Great Lawn on July 12 at 8 p.m., Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced today.
Tickets will be handed out starting this Wednesday “at baseball parks and events throughout New York City. The bulk of tickets distributed at the ballparks will be found at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, with others made available in Queens at Shea Stadium, in Brooklyn at the home of the Cyclones and in Staten Island at the home of the Staten Island Yankees. Tickets will also be available at MLB.com.”
The free Bon Jovi concert is tied to the Major League Baseball 2008 All-Star Game, which will be played at Yankee Stadium on July 15 but celebrated throughout the city from July 11 -15.
Here’s the remaining schedule for the mostly free 2008 Summerstage shows:
July 9 - Music & Film: Screenings of “Machito: A Latin Jazz Legacy” and “Bragging Rights: Stickball Stories” with music from Cuban vocalist Cucu Diamantes at 7 p.m.
July 10 - Music & Film: “The Harder They Come,” with I-Wayne, hosted by Dahved Levy at 7 p.m.
Summer Restaurant Week set for July 21 to August 1
Reservations are now open for Summer Restaurant Week, which this year will run from July 21 through August 1, except on weekends.
The deal gets you a a seat at some of New York's best restaurants for a three-course prix fixe lunch for $24.07, or dinner for $35. Tax, tip and drinks cost extra.
Participating restaurants include Del Posto, Le Cirque, Cipriani Wall Street, 21 Club, Bar Boulud, Telepan, Chanterelle, Delmonico's, 11 Madison Park, Le Colonial, Aquavit, Tabla, Craftbar, Asiate, Blue Fin, Carnegie Deli, The Carlyle Restaurant, Gallagher's, Indochine, Calle Ocho, Esca, Kittichai, Gordon Ramsay, Water Club, River Cafe, Tavern on the Green, and Terrace in the Sky.
Many of the tables can be booked for free on Open Table, which is also an easy way to see which restaurants have openings at the time you want to go.
Central Park tonight (weather permitting) will host two free concerts.
The New York Philharmonic will kick off its free concerts in the park series at 8 p.m. with selections from Shostakovich,Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky and Sousa. Fireworks follow.
On the weather permitting matter, you can sign up for a concert advisory from NY Phil and they'll send a message to your phone later today.
(Update: At 7:15 this message went out: "It's almost time! Tonight's NY Philharmonic concert on Central Park's Great Lawn is still scheduled to begin at 8 pm.")
The travel company is currently running an ad on TV that touts "New York from $58/night."
Considering the dirtiest hotel in America costs you $99 a night, it's worth investigating what Expedia is willing to tout as reputable for $58. (Expedia Inc., by the way, also owns Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, and TripAdvisor.) So let's turn to Expedia's own website to see what $58 gets you, mid-week in July.
It turns out Expedia will let you book a bed in New York City for as little as $30 a night.
That's for the "Columbus Studios Hostel" at 106 W. 83rd Street. What do Expedia's own readers have to say about this place?
The worst experience ever
The room was damp and dark. And you can even see mice running around during the night. I just don’t know how a hotel like this can be listed in Expedia. Anyway, escape from this hotel if you can.
Next up, Expedia offers a bed in a shared dorm room at the Gershwin (7 East 27th Street,) for $36.
Bad Condition
Basically you’re sharing a room with 10 people. That’s not he problem, but the customer service is really bad. The manager is a pain same with the employee. Worst place to stay ever.
For $38 a night, Expedia will book you into the West Side Inn & Hostel at 237 W 107th St. The reviews aren't all bed, but this is a sample from Expedia users:
This hotel is appalling!
I reserved two double beds in one bedroom but received a bunk bed instead. Evidently this is common practice for the West Side Inn as I spoke with many wary customers during my one night stay. Although the location is good (close to subway, safe neighborhood) and the price is relatively low, the nauseating smell of the room and its filthy condition offset the mentioned benefits. This place tops my list of worst Inns/Hostels in a developed country.
Barney Greengrass turns 100 today and it's rolling back its prices to 1908 rates, no asterisk included. The family-owned, "Sturgeon King," is often cited as one of the best smoked fish purveyors in New York City.
The 4th of July hot-dog contest at Coney Island sponsored by Nathan's Famous may drop the epic eating fest down to 10 minutes from the 12-minute race it's been for at least two decades, the Brooklyn Paper reports. Evidence has surfaced that it started at 10 minutes. As Major League eating announces:
Major League Eating has elected to conduct all qualifying rounds of the 2008 multi-city Nathan's Famous circuit tour as 10-minute competitions and may shift to this duration permanently, making it the official contest length. More information will follow.
Read the brutal New York Times take-down of Ago, the restaurant in Robert DeNiro's much-hyped new Greenwich Hotel. It starts with the bartendaer's "Poseidon Adventure� of wine spills on the reviewer's date during the 52 minute delay for their table that was "little bigger than a bike wheel." Oh, there's more:
This restaurant isn’t in the hospitality business. It’s in the attitude business, projecting an aloofness that permeated all of my meals there, nights of wine and poses for swingers on the make, cougars on the prowl and anyone else who values a sort of facile fabulousness over competent service or a breaded veal Milanese with any discernible meat.
Gourmet magazine has weighed in with its ode to Florent, the much-loved Meatpacking stand-by that will close forever as of June 29. Hit eBay for its CBGB-style sale of its interiors.
In the same neighborhood, Lotus will shutter June 15 according to Eater.
Alexander Hamilton's house moved to St. Nicholas Park
The Hamilton Grange finally made its move Saturday, all 298-tons of the historic house.
The national monument was the home of Alexander Hamilton from 1802 - 1804 and the new location is within part of his original property line.
In May at its old home on Convent Avenue, the house was slowly lifted nearly 40 feet in the air on a jenga-like system of steel rails and wooden towers called cribbing. It was moved out into the middle of the street and this past Saturday, rolled around the corner and down the hill where it was slipped into Saint Nicholas Park among tall shade trees, grass and rocky outcroppings.
The next step is to slide the house over onto its new foundation and complete interior and exterior repairs.It will reopen to the public in 2009. (However, the The Friends of Hamilton Grange have filed suit in hopes of forcing the National Park Service to turn the house in another direction.)
NewYorkology toured the site in May with Stephen Spaulding, the chief of NPS’ northeast architectural preservation division.
This weekend's sleepover -- along with the June 20 event -- long ago sold out, but the new open dates are set for four Fridays this summer: July 11, July 25, August 8 and August 15.
The price is $129 per person and that gets you a cot under the museum's famous 94-foot-long blue whale, or next to the Alaskan brown bear, or at the base of a volcanic formation. You need to bring your own sleeping bag and pillow.
It also comes with admission to the IMAX film, live-animal special exhibition and fossil exploration by flashlight. Plus an evening snack and light breakfast.
The sleepovers are only open to kids 8- to 12-years old, but one adult is required for every one to three children.
The Bronx Zoo also does a couple Family Overnight Safaris during the summer -- you bring your own tent for that one -- but the June 14 event has filled up and there's a waitlist for September 20.
The Central Park Zoo hopes to resume its Snooze in the Zoo program in fall, but no dates are scheduled for this summer, a spokesperson told NewYorkology.
Many New York City museums set aside at least a few hours each week when the public is allowed in for free.
That's in addition to the museums that are always free, or operate under a not-well-advertised "suggested donation� admission, which allows everyone to pay whatever admission price they like anytime. For example, at the Met Museum, you're required to pay only a penny for full access, but their website does carry this request: "To help cover the cost of special exhibitions, for which there is no additional charge or special ticketing, we ask that you please pay the full suggested amount.�
Tuesdays Brooklyn Botanic Garden - Free all day Tuesday, all year around (normally $8) China Institute Gallery - free from 6 to 8 p.m. (normally $7) Wave Hill gardens - Free all day during off-peak months (January–April, July–August, November–December) and free 9 a.m. to noon during peak months (May–June, September–October) (normally $6) Morgan Library & Museum - Free access to the McKim rooms (Mr. Morgan’s library and study) from 3 to 5 p.m. (full museum access $12)
Hamilton Grange literally up in the air for June 7 move
Hamilton Grange is on the move -- and that's no easy task for a 298-ton, 206-year old house wedged between a Romanesque church and a 1911 apartment building.
The house -- Alexander Hamilton's house to be precise -- is currently jacked up three stories in the air on thick wood beams in such a way that "it looks like they're playing Jenga," as one amused gawker pronounced into his cell phone while watching the work Friday afternoon.
The gawkers are indeed welcome on Convent Avenue, map, as the crews slide the planks in and jack up the house, slide the planks in, and jack up the house, leading up to the point this afternoon where they will slide the house out into the street. The next step is a delicate move around the corner at 141st, down a short block and then a right turn into St. Nicholas Park, map. That move, around the corner and down the hill, is set for June 7, from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
This past Friday, NewYorkology was lucky enough to take part in a tour of the exterior of the site with Stephen Spaulding, the chief of the architectural preservation division of the National Park Service's northeast region.
Here's a video clip of Spaulding explaining part of the Jenga-like process:
The Federal-style house was designed by City Hall-architect John McComb Jr. though it's clear that Hamilton himself had a hand in the process Spaulding said, as there is evidence of changes made during construction. "The house really reflects Hamilton," Spaulding said.
Hamilton, a Founding Father, first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and co-author of The Federalist Papers also founded the Bank of New York and the New York Post.
The Grange, named for Hamilton's grandfather's estate in Scotland, was the only house Hamilton ever owned, and unfortunately he only lived there two years as his plans were interrupted by that infamous 1804 duel with Aaron Burr across the Hudson in Weehawken.
The current move, which will keep the Grange on Hamilton's original property, aims to return it to a setting that replicates the original, which had front and back porches surrounded by greenery. The house - which was originally located on West 143rd Street (about a block and a half away from its current site,) was first moved in 1889 to save it from demolition. Eleven years after that first move, there was already public pressure to move it back. "It's almost a traditional use of the Grange to try to move it," Spaulding joked to his tour group, which was thick with experts in Manhattan history and architecture, including Manhattan borough historian Michael Miscione who assembled the group.
The original location afforded Hamilton views of the Hudson and Harlem Rivers, and was situated on the main road linking Albany to New York City. By carriage, it would have taken Hamilton abut an hour and half to reach Manhattan, Spaulding said. (The new location offers no river views, but you can see the cranes constructing the new Yankee Stadium.)
