New York City (Fodor's, 2012) - Fodor's [108]
Performance Center
Well-known soloists, jazz musicians, show-tune stylists, and chamber music groups perform in the 92nd Street Y’s 905-seat Kaufmann Concert Hall. But the Y’s programming is hardly limited to music—purchase tickets early for their popular lectures-and-readings series featuring big-name authors, poets, playwrights, political pundits, and media bigwigs. Also worth the Upper East Side trek here are the Harkness Dance Festival, film programs, and all manner of family-friendly events. (1395 Lexington Ave., at E. 92nd St., Upper East Side | 10028 | 212/415–5440, 212/415–5500 tickets | www.92y.org | Subway: 6 to 96th St.).
Readings and Lectures
Insight into the creative process is what the superb Works & Process (Guggenheim Museum,1071 5th Ave., at E. 89th St., Upper East Side | 10128 | 212/423–3587 | www.worksandprocess.org | Subway: 4, 5, 6 to 86th St.) program is all about. Often drawing on dance and theater works-in-progress, live performances are complemented with illuminating discussions with their (always top-notch) choreographers, playwrights, and directors.
CENTRAL PARK
Theater
The Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre (Swedish Cottage,West Dr. at W. 79th St., Central Park | 10019 | 212/988–9093 [reservations required] | www.cityparksfoundation.org | Subway: B, C to 81st St.) was originally part of Sweden’s exhibit at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia (park designer Frederick Law Olmsted had it moved here the following year). The charming wooden 100-seat (and technically modern) playhouse presents classics like Hansel and Gretel and Cinderella.
UPPER WEST SIDE
A comfortable subterranean multiplex with four good-size screens, Lincoln Plaza Cinemas (1886 Broadway, at W. 62nd St., Upper West Side | 10023 | 212/757–2280 | www.lincolnplazacinema.com | Subway: 1 to 66th St./Lincoln Center) is especially big on foreign-language film.
Live piano music accompanies all screenings in the Silent Clowns Film Series (New York Public Library for the Performing Arts,Lincoln Center, 111 Amsterdam Ave., between W. 63rd and W. 64th Sts., Upper West Side | 10023 | 212/712–7237, 917/275–6975 NYPL | www.silentclowns.com; www.nypl.org | Subway: 1 to 66th St./Lincoln Center), which are held on the first Saturday of every month in the library’s well-appointed 215-seat Bruno Walter Auditorium. Newbies and serious buffs enjoy the rarely seen prints of the silent era’s comedy masters; a film historian Q&A follows, and the entire program is free.
Music
Anything you come to hear at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine (1047 Amsterdam Ave., at W. 112th St., Upper West Side | 10025 | 212/316–7540 performance line | www.stjohndivine.org | Subway: 1, B, C to 110th St./Cathedral Pkwy.) will likely be an unforgettable experience, but the seasonal programming of the Early Music New York (212/749–6600, 212/280–0330 tickets | www.earlymusicny.org) ensemble is essential.
An outpost a few blocks south of the Lincoln Center main campus was dedicated to Jazz at Lincoln Center (Time Warner Center,Broadway at W. 60th St., Columbus Circle Upper West Side | 212/258–9800 | www.jalc.org | Subway: 1, A, B, C, D to 59th St./Columbus Circle) in 2004. Stages in Rafael Viñoly’s crisply modern Frederick P. Rose Hall feature the 1,100-seat Rose Theater (where a worthy Jazz for Young People series joins the buoyant adult programming a few times each year).
Also here is the Allen Room, an elegant and intimate 310–460-seater, and the even more intimate 140-seat Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola.
Merkin Concert Hall (Kaufman Center,129 W. 67th St., between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave., Upper West Side | 10023 | 212/501–3330 | www.kaufman-center.org | Subway: 1 to 66th St./Lincoln Center), which was freshly refurbished for the 2008–09 season with the artful touch of architect Robert A. M. Stern, is a lovely, acoustically advanced 450-seater that presents chamber pieces;