The New York City Traveler

Exploring the West Indian restaurants and markets along Nostrand and Flatbush Avenues is like taking a mini vacation to the Caribbean without having to venture further than Brooklyn. This is a world of rotis, pones, macaroni pie, cou-cou and mounds of tropical produce. Concentrated roughly in a square mile bounded by Empire Boulevard, Nostrand Avenue, Cortelyou Road and Flatbush Avenue, just take the B or Q subway line to Prospect Park and head south on Flatbush for your excursion.
Head to Culpepper’s, a take-out at 1082 Nostrand Ave. where you can pick up a Barbadian (or Bajan) consisting of Cou-cou, …read more

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Five miles north of Midtown overlooking the East River’s fast moving swirling eddies, historic Gracie Mansion has gone through many lives first starting out as a country estate built in 1799 by Archibald Gracie, a prosperous New York merchant. It then became an ice-cream parlor, first home of the Museum of the City of New York, and most famously, a residence for some of New York’s mayors beginning with LaGuardia and ending with Giuliani. Situated on 11 acres that are now a part of Carl Schurz Park, this ornate yellow showpiece is now "The People’s House" open for tours by …read more

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Long before MTV, multi-media artists combined musical concepts with visuals. The 1960s and early 70’s marked a nation high on the Apollo launch and promises of limitless technological innovations. Artists depicted this exuberance using newly available portable video equipment to capture the "here and now" presenting it in a futuristic backdrop. Musicians found themselves at the forefront of this interdisciplinary experimentation. Looking At Music, an exhibit on the second floor of MOMA gives some good examples like Yoko Ono’s 1968 slow motion (51 min.) montage of John Lennon’s face and David Bowie’s abstract Space Oddity from 1972. Recorded and released …read more

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After more than a decade in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg, Galapagos Art Space couldn’t afford the rent in its prime North 6th St. location so it moved to over to DUMBO (Down Under The Manhattan Bridge Underpass).  This new location and lower rent will allow them to focus on nurturing budding artists rather than hosting profit generating club-style parties.  Right around the corner from St. Ann’s Warehouse, on the corner Water and Main Streets, the 2 story space features a mezzanine, reflecting pool and larger stage.  More art-centric events are planned including theater, dance, performance art, cinema, puppetry, lectures, literary events, and …read more

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Candle 79 is a warmly elegant escape in the heart of Manhattan’s Upper East Side.  A duplex with floor to ceiling windows not far from the Metropolitan Museum of Art offers superior alternatives to institution cafeteria food with attentive service and some of the best organic vegan cuisine in NYC.  Don’t miss their Seitan (wheat gluten) Picatta served with mouth watering lemon-caper sauce, velvety creamed spinach, lavishly prepared oyster mushrooms and perfectly carmelized shallot mashed potatoes.  Or try a side of polenta (boiled cornmeal) fries.  Truly to die for!
Their local ingredients come from as many as 10 small farms …read more

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Over the past 35 years, the Indo-American population and its cultural influence has increased exponentially in the U.S. and nowhere more prominently than NYC. So it’s only fitting that this year, marking India’s 60th Anniversary of Independence celebration, The Dance Festival of India will be held on Sept. 20th at Carnegie Hall.  Featuring a pre-performance celebration dinner and a six-part evening concert lasting three hours, the festival will begin at 8PM showcasing six internationally recognized dance troupes from across India performing the following classical dance styles: Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kuchipudi, Manipuri, Odissi, and Kalaripayattu. A little knowledge of this art form’s …read more

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Hey summer isn’t over yet….so all the hot weather treats are still in!  It’s still safe to wear shorts, flip flops, and take your time with your favorite frozen yogurt.  That’s right, I didn’t say ice cream cone because Red Mango is in town!  They keep it simple at first with 2 flavors: either green tea (as flavorful as the liquid variety) or a real creamy vanilla.  After that, your topping options expand exponentially. You can either take the high road with healthy fresh blueberries, raspberries, bear naked granola, mochi (sweet rice cake), red beans, or sliced almonds. Alternatively take …read more

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The Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, New York’s largest artist-run non profit exhibition space features more than 700 paintings and photography spread over 25,000 square feet of a Civil War era warehouse. Located at 499 Van Brunt St. in Red Hook, this 1869 complex of storehouses is constructed with rough-cut schist on reclaimed marshland and is now a work of art and heritage destination in itself.  Settled by the Dutch in 1636, Red Hook’s docks increasingly bustled with maritime trade, especially after the Erie Canal connected New York harbor to the Midwest.  Inside the galleries, you can easily imagine hard scrabble …read more

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Its third season in NYC, Spiegel World, often described as "neo-carnival", actually represents many experiences.  As a traveling circus, it resembles Cirque du Soleil but it also includes a 25,000-square-foot open air venue encompassing a restaurant, bar, and beer garden with cabanas, hammocks, and nightclub under the stars, all with spectacular views of the three downtown bridges, East River and the Olafur Eliasson waterfall under the Brooklyn Bridge.  This year, two Spiegel tents, The "Salon Perdu" and "The Deluxe", an intimate 350-seat tent with circular stage, crown this site at South Street Seaport’s Pier 17.  These Spiegel tents (Flemish for …read more

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Building on the noodle craze that’s been taking Manhattan’s Chinatown by storm, Lan Zhou Handpull Noodle in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, elevates noodle making to a loftier and consequently tastier level. Noodle masters prepare the goods from scratch right before your eyes. Lumps of dough are cut off from the giant mother lode batch and kneaded a little bit with oil. Next, the noodle master flours the table and starts stretching the dough into amazingly long strands, usually in batches small enough for just a few servings. The resulting noodles are then slapped against the table to remove excess …read more

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