Best of Manhattan 2024: Arts & Culture
| 12 Dec 2024 | 01:45
Metropolitan Opera. Photo: Instagram
Village Vanguard
Rodney’s. Photo: Brian Berger
Perelman Performing Arts Center. Brian Berger
McNally Jackson. Photo: Brian Berger
McNally Jackson. Photo: Brian Berger
The Julliard School. Photo: Instagram
Argosy Books. Photo: Instagram
BEST LIVE MUSIC
Brandy’s Piano Bar
235 E. 84th St.
212-744-4949
A very gay-friendly piano bar on the Upper East Side, what? That’s right cabaret fans, musical fans, jazz fans and more—if you’ve ever had a song in your heart, read Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie, seen brilliant New York show biz movies like All The Jazz or Broadway Danny Rose, then Brandy’s is for you. The concept is this: a bar like any other bar with a rainbow pride flag displayed which, whatever one’s sexual orientation, generally means all sorts of hospitable things. Come nightfall, things get more serious—and seriously fun as a panoply of singing bartenders, waitresses and stage performers belt it (pop and showtunes mostly) out and encourage the crowd to join them. Afterwards, they also encourage the audience to tip and, if you know this ahead of time, makes everyone’s life a little easier. No admission charge, two drink minimum. Don’t stop believing!
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza
212-362-6000
People from all over the word come to New York City just to attend the Metropolitan Opera. Mingling with that crowd in and around Lincoln Center is one of the thrills of attending, though hardly the only one. Opera fans love to complain, or to put it more kindly, to appreciate and to criticize, and we are no different. That said, while one might question this or that production decision, the level of performance and execution at the Met is generally staggering—that’s why pilgrims flock here and New Yorkers who live here should too. Turn off the sports game, news station, podcast and internet a while because look, Verdi’s back in town—Aida! Rigoletto! Il Trovatore! (Together they’re as great as Goodfellas.) Tchaikovksy “The Queen of Spades—that’s a Pushkin story. Strauss “Salome”—that’s an Oscar Wilde story. Will she get naked? Wear your own seven veils this spring and find out.
Village Vanguard
178 7th Ave. S.
212-255-4037
villagevanguard.com
An international landmark of music the Village Vanguard was opened by the Lithuanian-born Jewish jazz lover Max Gordon in 1935. After his passing in 1989, it carried on by his jazz loving wife, Lorraine (nee Stein, of Newark, New Jersey) until her death, at the age of 95, in 2018. To call the Vanguard legendary or beloved is to be coy. There is no place exactly like it, that’s why people from around the world—especially jazz-mad Japan—flock here. Classic live albums were recorded by Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Keith Jarrett, Art Pepper, Dexter Gordon and Geri Allen, among others. The Vanguard today is run by the Gordons daughter, Deborah. Recent and upcoming performers include Christian McBride & Inside Straight; John Zorn’s New Masada Quaret; Kenny Barron Quintet Fred Hersch; Chris Potter; and Vijay Iyer.
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BEST COMEDY CLUB
Rodney’s Comedy Club
1118 1st Ave.
212-256-0961
With a name like Rodney’s, after Dangerfield, born Jacob Cohen on November 22, 1921—this place better be funny, and happily it is. First opened by Dangerfield himself and partner in 1969, the club went through various highs and lows until like too many nightspots, it was felled by COVID in 2020. Reopened under new ownership on December 31, 2023, Rodney’s has brought the funny home ever since. Political correctness, it will be noted, has no place here—nor should it, as comedians of all ethnicities and backgrounds seek their truths and occasional transcendence through impolitic jokes and laughter. In addition to its headline acts, Rodney’s features regular Comedy Mob open mics, and the occasional storytelling slam.
West Side Comedy Club
201 W. 75th St.
646-973-1300
Still the standard bearer for neighborhood yuks, the West Side Comedy Club consistently brings the funny home—and can bring some pretty decent Mexican fare or burger smash to your table too. Overseen by vivacious Felicia Madison, herself both a comic and a manager of comics, the club features an invigorating of new and established comedians, as well as many comic training classes and virtual events, such as satire writing with stand up and literary funny woman, Ginny Hogan.
Village Underground
130 W. 3rd St.
212-777-7745
Once the home to legendary 1960s music venue Gerde’s Folk City and later, in the 2000s, an important musical club under its current name (this reporter saw both John Cale and the Fugs there), the Village Underground today is all comedy, all the time—don’t ask why, it’s not a funny story. What is amusing, or at least eyebrow raising in a “how they do dat?!” kind of way is that The Village Underground is a sister club to the renowned Comedy Cellar at 117 Macdougal Street. Between the two, you’ll never go without laughing, which reminds of us the old Wallace Markfield routine, “Call us old fashioned... that’s all right... For the Rosa Lexemburg Club would rather have an old-fashioned Marxist-Leninist discussion than waste proletarian time folk singing. Because we’re not like the Young Communist League. We prefer ideas to guitars. We know that all the corn that Jimmy may crack won’t drown out the screams of Stalin’s suffering millions!”
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BEST PERFORMANCE SPACE
Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave.
212-616-3930
armoryonpark.org
Once they prepared for wars here, the home of the 7th New York Militia, aka the “Silk Stocking Brigade” because its members were so affluent. Because the building is so large and conflicts requiring the militia so relatively few, the Armory also other community and social functions: it’s been an indoor sports venue; the wakes of General Douglas Macarthur (1964) and Louis Armstrong (1971) were held here; and later, bold face names attended the Armory Art Show. The Armory’s evolution hasn’t been perfect: a deeply unpopular plan to evict Knickerbocker Greys military cadet group was recently thwarted by both local politicians and NY State Assembly and Senate. That error aside, the Armory—like the Greys—is a remarkable institution deserving of support (The great jazz pianist and composer Jason Moran is a curator there). Among the upcoming 2025 events are electronic pop musician Jamie XX; an installation of artist Yoko Ono “Wish Tree”; an instrallation titled “Doom” by artist Anne Inhof; and a massive Diane Arbus photography show “Constellation.”
The Julliard School
60 Lincoln Center Plaza
212-799-500
www.juilliard.edu/stage-beyond/performance/calendar
Not that it’s a great secret, but anything but the brilliant array of performances that one can see at Julliard—many of them for free—should not be overlooked. It’s not just that the students and faculty there are excellent performers in music, dance or drama, though they surely are. Rather it’s the fact that the school’s educational mission substantially, it not entirely, frees it from the commercial considerations that are an anchor on art and culture. The western classical repertoire alone— including the composers of many other cultures who are influenced by it—is immensely more diverse and exciting that one would gather from the press or radio. Here’s your chance to hear a brilliant violist like Yi-Fang Huang play Hindemith, Haydn, Stamitz, Bach, Vieuxtemps or conductor Gemma New lead violinist Hankyoung Linda Chang in Salina Fisher’s Kintsugi. Check the calendar often: treasures await!
Perelman Performing Arts Center
251 Fulton St.
212-266-3000
An imposing white-and-black marble cube steps from the 9/11 Memorial and World Trade Center might be downtown’s most dynamic arts space. This achievement is entirely intentional but still surprising to those who lived through the horror of 9/11 and the two decades it took to design, construct the building, which opened on September 23, 2023. (Perelman is billionaire banker and philanthropist Ronald, who contributed $75 million to its construction; another billionaire, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg chipped in a cool $130 million himself.) There’s a lot going on here: a constant schedule of free musical performances in the building’s lobby, as well as musical theatre, film and multi-media art events. Intriguing in January 2025: “Cockoo” by Jaha Koo, described as “a journey through the last 20 years of Korean history told by a bunch of talkative rice cookers” and “Tipi Tales from the Stoop” by Murielle Borst-Tarrant, “a taprestry of tales from here youth – growing up in the only Native family of a Mafia-run Brooklyn neighborhood.”
BEST BOOK STORE
Argosy Books
116 E. 59th St.
212-753-4455
Listen East Siders: if you need a normal, new independent bookstore, try the Corner Bookshop or Shakespeare & Co. The former leans towards locals and tourists, the latter towards Hunter College; both have their virtues and limits. The same can be said for the Argosy except that its virtues are so extraordinary even book haters will be charmed and perhaps converted. First is the location, occupying the entirety of a six-story townhouse, with floors dedicated to first editions, Americana, antique maps and more. How does this even exist? The question isn’t just rhetorical. In 1940, 59th Street was a honkyt-tonk strip, and the Argosy (founded in 1925), occupied a five-story brownstone with a large neon sign affixed/ Among its neighbors were the Caravan Dance Hall and the Margarita Bar & Grill. Today, all that’s gone. Among the many television shows and movies shot here, our favorite is Martin Ritt’s 1976 blacklist comedy, The Front. Free the Rosenbergs!
BOOK CULTURE
2915 Broadway: 646-403-3000
536 West 112th St.: 212-865-1588
Sports fans often talk about dynasties or successful team’s “dominance.” The same holds true for serious bibliophiles. Scratch a long-time Upper West Side book lover and they’ll still eulogize Coliseum Books, which stood for decades at 57th and Broadway. Likewise the Gotham Book Mart, a midtown oasis at 41 47th St. from 1920 to 2007. Times change, however, and the book business is especially tumultuous. There have been success stories and—oh baby!—is Book Culture one of them. Or make that three success stories, with two complementary locations two blocks apart in Morningside Heights and for the venturesome, a third also excellent store in Long Island City.
MCNALLY JACKSON
4 Fulton St.
646-964-4232
While all McNally Jackson locations are well worth patronizing—it’s two other Manhattan stores are at 134 Prince St. in Soho and 1 Rockefeller Center—this one, way down on the cobblestones of South St. seaport is extraordinary. Indeed, shelf for shelf, seat for seat, brick for brick in what was once a working industrial waterfront building, it might be the single best destination bookstore in the city. Besides books upon books upon books (reporter’s choice for fiction: Flannery O’Connor short stories; Charles Portis Norwood; Ishmael Reed Mumbo-Jumbo; Harry Crews The Knockout Artist), there’s a cafe that turns into a bar at night, frequent events, including Morgan & Enzo’s Batshit Book Club (that’s really its name), dedicated to literature that’s “decadent, debased, degenerate.” (Marquis de Sade readers unite!)