kathrynyu

TWA Flight Center on Flickr.

Special Members-Only Event
Membership Launch Reception

TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport

Friday, June 21, 2013
5:30–7:30 pm

Join OHNY today for an invitation to a special members-only tour and reception at the TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport. A rare opportunity to tour Eero Saarinen’s iconic building followed by refreshments outside under the swooping eaves–just one of the many programs you’ll enjoy as an OHNY member.

Admission is free and open to OHNY members only. Space is limited to the first 350 members. Please note: While OHNY will make every effort to accommodate all requests, your annual membership does not guarantee a reservation for this event.

Click here to become a member of OHNY.

Once your membership has been processed, you will receive an email notification with information about how to reserve for the Membership Launch Reception. Reservations are first come, first served.

evenghostandhorse:

One Day in the Life of Henri Shnuffle

This was a well written and touching piece. Unfortunately: it’s not immersive, as advertised. It’s more alternatively seated with two instances of breaking the fourth wall (and one incidence of accidentally spitting on kathrynyu). I did enjoy it, though. Dementia runs in my family, and both my grandmother and great grandmother succumbed to it fully and for a long while before dying, so the content of the play is something that hits me personally, right in the emotions. James Williams was spectacular as Shnuffle. He did amazing movement work and brought touches of welcome physical comedy to the piece. Nicolas Cerkez as Young Shnuffle and Elizabeth Holiday as multiple characters were also very good. I liked that Cerkez was seated among the audience under photographs of himself from Shnuffle’s past for most of the show. The cat was played by a living human, which is something I did know going in, and the actor was excellent at mimicking cat physicality. I found him a little weak in his scenes as a non-cat. Also, theater producers who may be reading this, I desperately want an immersive production with an actual cat. Excellent costuming, especially on the cat. Mitten hands. Set design was okay: I would have liked to see the space more fully dressed. It was clearly not an actual apartment. The angle the bed was set at bothered me in particular.

I do think it was worth seeing, I just wish they had edited their press release to reflect the show in its current state. “The audience will touch Shnuffle’s belongings. […] The audience will hear music from diverse, international musicians, each commissioned to make a single song for the play – using the sounds of a decaying apartment, unusual instruments (accordion, violin bows on guitar, clocks) and scattered French dialogue. The audience will taste and smell a dish designed specifically for intermission. All of these elements combined create a harmonious, interrelated whole, where the audience can interact with the performance more fully.” None of this occurred. I would have liked a few minutes to look around Shnuffle’s apartment more closely, but we were lead immediately (and charmingly) to our seats on entry. Shnuffle did cook some food (again, entertainingly), which I suppose we did smell a little. I’m very wary of the idea that we might have been allowed to interact more within the play, but were never given the indication that this would be acceptable (Shnuffle cooks an extra plate of food, for example, and sets it across the table from himself, but there was no chair and no utensils that an audience member might have taken up), so that the conceit that we distance ourselves from the elderly would be automatically actualized, because that’s just cheap. I don’t think this is the case; I think this was just a production that they had grander plans than money for. I hope advertising it as immersive doesn’t end up hurting it (it was clearly not an accident: the producer was an associate producer of Sleep No More, and the quoted copy is from their official website), because it was one of the better original plays I’ve seen lately. I would have called it avant-garde instead, which has the added bonus of being French, like Shnuffle himself.

A few weeks ago, I went to The Night Heron Speakeasy. (It’s closed permanently now, which is why I can finally write about it.)

We met a woman at a random Starbucks near Midtown. She took us to an abandoned building on a busy street. We were hiding in plain sight, a small group of strangers. We were led inside, by a dapper-looking gentleman, entering with confidence and purpose. We filed in, quickly, silently.

The inside of the building was crumbling, with peeling paint and rubble. Pieces of the ceiling periodically fell. A construction crew had stopped, mid-renovation. It used to be an office building, we were told. Dust permeated the air.

Turn your phones off, we were instructed.

We were given small flashlights and told to help the person behind us if they needed it.

Be very quiet. The neighbors can hear you. Don’t worry if the police show up. We have a plan. 

My eyes were wide as we climbed over a railing and skittered quietly along a tall ledge, almost as if we were burglars in a movie. I tried not to look down, my heart pounding. We climbed up flight after flight of stairs to the top of the building. Some of the steps were loose and the handrails were dusty from neglect. We climbed up to a floor where none of the walls were still standing.

Flashlights off, please. Watch your step. 

I saw the Empire State Building and all the buildings around us, with only the night air and a few piles of rubble between us and the sidewalk below. I listened to the story of the crotchety owner who refused to take advantage of his prime piece of real estate, and the renovations, stopped partway through, leaving piles of cables and rocks. 

Then we climbed up another level, onto the roof. It was completely dark except for the buildings around us. I saw people watching television in their hotel rooms and empty offices with the lights left on. Apartment dwellers in the buildings nearby who, had they looked out the window at the right moment, could have seen us. The rooftop floor was uneven. There was no guardrail, no safety net.

Another well-dressed man emerged from one of the water towers on the roof and invited us inside. 

One by one, we climbed up a rickety ladder, through a trap door, into the empty water tower. The ladder shook and swayed as I climbed up. I could see the lights of the city all around me.

White knuckled, I emerged into the water tower. Into soft lighting, quiet jazz, and the sound of cocktails being made.

Welcome to The Night Heron.

The Night Heron from Brooklyn Laboratories on Vimeo.

———

More about the creators of Night Heron in The Atlantic and The New Yorker.

Join the Wanderlust School of Transgressive Placemaking every Tuesday in Williamsburg, Brooklyn this June. This series is part of Wanderlust’s residency at Atlas Obscura.

Rain Room (2012) on Flickr.

This exhibit was awesome. The above photo is probably my favorite out of the many I took. It was very, very dark inside, except for a single spotlight.

Former Williamsburg Bridge Railway Terminal on Flickr.

untitled on Flickr.

Taking down the Tiles for America on 7th Avenue before Hurricane Irene, August, 2011.

meredithmo:

Speakeasy business cards.

Source: the Time-Life series This Fabulous Century.