At first glance, the Magic Gardens in Philadelphia looks like the world’s most impossible game of Jenga. The towering jumble of brick, tile, and flea market junk travels along half a block on South Street, practically daring an errant wind gust to knock it down. Closer inspection reveals a playful, but sturdy bricolage–bricks, bicycle wheels, clay figures, and dinner plates jut from tiled cement or appear to balance on glass bottles. But really the most astonishing part is that it just keeps going. (more…)
How you feel inside the Dream House, a 20-year-old light and sound installation located in a Tribeca rowhouse, may ultimately come down to your opinion of wall-to-wall carpeting that’s steeped in Nag Champa smoke. But it’s the noise, that inescapable mind-scrambling drone, that you’ll remember after long after your clothes and hair have aired out. (more…)
The Tompkins Square Dog Halloween Parade attracts a bigger media frenzy every year, and 2013 was no different. But somewhere in among the TV cameras and puparazzi, pooches were rocking some major costumes, or looking a little confused by the fuss. This year’s highlights included visits from Banksy (or several of his doggelgängers), Vivienne Westpug, Stay Puft Marshmallow Dog, a sassy pumpkin spice latte and Zoltar the Magnifipup. (more…)
Let’s say that you just spent years perfecting a single sandwich. You might open a little shop with the sandwich as the sole menu item. You might, on the shop’s signage, alert your customers that they’re about to have the best sandwich they’ll ever experience. You might even design a logo with a determined pig astride a rocket, in case they had any doubts that they’re about to blast off to new heights in sandwich excellence. (more…)
When a man sidles up to you at a bakery and tells you to squeeze the babka, there might be a couple of things going on. Either this is some kind of creepily carb-focused flirting or he’s pretty damned excited about fresh babka. After I’d selected the most pliant loaf I knew he had given me good advice. (more…)
If I were stranded at a desert island cocktail bar that served just one drink of my choosing, I’d make it an old fashioned. I suppose that would be a little like using your last genie-granted wish to ask for more wishes, since an old fashioned can take numerous guises. The basic ingredients are always booze, sugar and bitters; the cardinal sin is making it too sweet. (more…)
Poseidon Bakery is a testament to the deliciousness of homemade phyllo that’s lavished with honey. This family-run Greek bakery opened in Hell’s Kitchen in 1923, and remains one of the few bakeries in the US that still makes their phyllo dough by hand. (more…)
You may have noticed a few of your beer nerd friends in Brooklyn behaving strangely over the past week—perhaps skipping out of work early, or not answering text messages in the evenings, or looking jetlagged in the mornings (though I assure you I’ve done none of these things!) If you know someone who fits this description, it’s a safe bet they were at Tørst, the most eagerly anticipated beer bar to open in North Brooklyn in recent memory. (more…)
The 11th annual Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden looks like it’s just one hookah smoking caterpillar short of Wonderland. Housed in the vast Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, the exhibition includes tens of thousands of orchids which float in pools, cling to palms, and hang from tangled vines in explosions of vivid color. (more…)
East Village pizza fans, meet your new go-to pizzera. Famous Joe’s on Carmine Street has opened a location on 14th Street and Third Avenue, marking the first time the family-run business has expanded in its 37 years. The Carmine Street pizzera is legendary, and I’ve been a fan for many years. It serves one of the best no-bullshit, high-quality New York style slices out there, something that’s been missing from the neighborhood. (more…)