One of the things I like most about living in New York and working in immigration law is my exposure to a diversity of languages and dialects. As a global capital, New York is lucky to have thriving language communities representing languages from all over the world. And yet it cannot be denied that migration plays a role in some major language shifts and language loss.
Read moreFata Morgana
Fata Morgana by Teresita Fernández.
Madison Square Park has been transformed with the largest and most ambitious outdoor sculpture in the park to date. Fata Morgana, by New York-based artist Teresita Fernández, consists of 500 running feet of golden, mirror-polished discs that create canopies above the pathways (which, by the way, all lead to the newly renovated and re-opened Shake Shack). A "fata morgana" is a mirage seen above the horizon line, and this sculpture "perforated with intricate patterns reminiscent of foliage, will create abstract flickering effects as sunlight filters through the canopy, casting a golden glow across the expanse of the work, paths, and passersby." It really is quite lovely, and in the park until this winter.
Our Recommended Summer (Immigration-Related) Reads
There are few things in life as pleasurable as a good book. Add to that a lovely park or a beach with soft sand and a cold beer, sangria, or, why not, a margarita beside you—that’s practically perfection. So as the lists of recommended summer reads start coming out, we thought we’d share our immigration-related ones. Happy summer reading!
Read moreSay Hello to the New Whitney
The new Whitney Museum of American Art at 99 Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District.
As if our neighborhood wasn't already cool enough, The Whitney Museum's new location opened today. Designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, the building includes approximately 50,000 square feet of indoor galleries (making it the largest "column-free" museum gallery in New York City) and 13,000 square feet of outdoor exhibition space and terraces facing the High Line. As part of the opening day festivities, The Whitney and The Empire State Building have partnered to celebrate the opening of the new location and also the eighty-fourth anniversary of the Empire State Building. Beginning tonight at 8pm, lighting designer Marc Brickman will interpret pieces by artists Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Hopper, and Andy Warhol, among others, utilizing the Empire State Building’s LED tower lights. Many of the pieces inspiring the light show are also part of the museum's inaugural exhibition, America Is Hard to See (part of which can be seen through the window in above photo). And there's a free block party tomorrow!
New York Fashion Week F/W 2015
Despite the frigid conditions and harsh arctic winds sending wind chills to twenty below, fashion week goes on. It's a good thing turtlenecks are back (and cross body stoles)! What else is trending at fashion week this season? Hat hair, stompy boots, and—at least at fashion label Opening Ceremony—throwback fashion references to the 1990s. Their collection featured unseen Spike Jonze photographs from that time period as well as "slouch trousers, skater belts, excellent layering and a Kodak-moment colour palette."
Meanwhile, Tommy Hilfiger constructed a football field for his catwalk and put leather football jersey dresses on his models, which was sure to please New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who was in the audience. Diane von Furstenberg (her company is across the street from us so we feel a special connection) titled her collection "Seduction" and had "elements that ranged from the boardroom to the bedroom in a veritable blizzard of offerings." Designer Thom Browne staged a funeral show featuring a white-clad corpse laid out on a gurney and models in all black. Iconic fashion house Oscar de la Renta, which is dealing with the loss of their founder last year, have their first show under successor and new Creative Director Peter Copping.
In the creative world of fashion, diversity and new talent is always a good thing, which is why The New York Times was right to discuss fashion's racial disparity. And also good to see Asian-born talent on the catwalk as well as Navajo designer Jolonzo Guy Goldtooth. In another win for diversity, Italian label FTL MODA enlisted a group of disabled models including those in wheelchairs as well as amputees for their catwalk, following Jamie Brewer's historic walk during the Carrie Hammer "Role Models Not Runway Models" show as the first woman with Down syndrome to walk at New York Fashion Week. And then there was Yeezus.
Beating Heart
Heartbeat in Times Square.
Just in time for Valentine's Day, Brooklyn-based art company Stereotank unveiled this sculpture titled Heartbeat (everyone goes, awwww) at Father Duffy Square. This nine-by-six foot interactive installation (on display until March 8) features lighting effects and six instruments including a xylophone and a South American drum called a tumbadora, all of which visitors can use. Sara Valente, who created the sculpture with her husband Marcelo Ertorteguy, said: "'It’s like a melting pot of heartbeat sounds, just like New York City.'"
The Best of Chelsea Market
As long-time employees of Daryanani & Bland, we have both visited the nearby Chelsea Market (on 9th Avenue between 15th and 16th Streets) many, many times. It's quite a busy spot, however, and tourists swarm with good reason—Chelsea Market boasts over thirty-five vendors; the High Line is right outside; and there are sample sales going on all the time (something that’s proven to be an unfortunate blow to our savings account).
While we are very excited to hear about new lunch options in our neighborhood (hello, Gansevoort Market!), we set out one week to review some of the lunch spots of Chelsea Market (including vegetarian options). Our comments are geared toward the busy (and budgeting) work person—you’ll find no discussion of ambiance or mood here, but rather about what tastes good, what’s cheap, and when best to beat the crowds (even though really, you can’t).
Read moreA Walk on the High Line
It’s one of the last warm mornings in September. Fall is coming, I know, but today is hot and humid, and I’m going to enjoy it. I begin my walk on the High Line in the Meatpacking District near our office—Gansevoort and Washington Streets, where workers are finishing up construction on the new Whitney Museum of American Art building, scheduled to open in 2015. I ascend the “slow stairs” (called this because of the long and gradual ascent through the beams and structure) and enter the High Line at the Gansevoort Woodland, which has raised planting beds with greater soil depth for the Pennsylvania sedge and redbud trees that grow in this area—at least so says the High Line Field Guide published by Friends of the High Line.
Read moreKiller Heels
Healing Fukushima (Nanohana Heels) by artist and designer Sputniko! with shoe designer Masaya Kushino. Created in response to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, the seeds of the flowers on the shoe are known to absorb radioactive substances from the soil. As one walks, these seeds in the high heel are planted into the ground.
This September's New York Fashion Week is over but high fashion lives on at Brooklyn Museum's new exhibit: Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe. What I learned at this recently-opened exhibit: high heels were first worn by aristocratic men in the sixteenth century; in both East and West high heels were worn by the powerful and wealthy to show prestige and communicate power and to signify their "life of leisure rather than labor"; Salvatore Ferragamo is recognized for inventing the wedge heel; and fashion photographer Steven Klein makes some really interesting films--in his short film, one of six inspired by high heels specifically commissioned for the exhibition, a woman in very expensive high heels walks over the chest and face of an attractive and muscled man who is lying on his back, another woman scrapes the hood of car with her stiletto, and a third uses her very beautiful heels (Manolo Blahnik's, I believe) to stomp on a motorized toy car. Featuring over 160 heels from such designers as Balenciaga, Chanel, Tom Ford, and Marc Jacobs (as well as one of my favorites, surrealistic wool "heel hat" meant to be worn on the head by Elsa Schiaparelli in collaboration with Salvador Dali), the exhibit shows the evolution of the high heel from 17th century Italian chopines made of silk, leather, and wood to Iris van Herpen's 3-D printed heel. Check out the exhibit through February 15, 2015--just follow the sound of high heels clicking on floors coming over the speaker at the exhibit's entrance.
The Museum of Moving Image
How many YouTube videos do you watch per day? What are your favorite classic films? How many episodes of Breaking Bad have you crammed into one weekend? The subject of these questions, however diverse, is moving image, and this, as the name suggests, is what The Museum of Moving Image is all about. Located in Astoria, Queens in New York, the museum takes visitors on a journey to discover the history of filmmaking as well as modern phenomena and trends in the medium of moving image.
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