vip in the city

CultureFest 2007

In Battery Park this brisk Autumn afternoon for the seventh annual CultureFest — a “celebration of the City’s magnificent and diverse cultural offerings.” More than 125 cultural organizations were on site to showcase their new exhibitions and offer performance highlights at this weekend-long festival, complete with two stages, a park full of exhibits, scientific demonstrations and interactive activities — sort of one-stop-shopping for upcoming cultural events.

Giant bubbles:

The human graffiti wall:

Among the usual scads of glossy brochures, postcards and magnets, several of the tables were sprinkled with colorful metal enamel pins. I picked up my first from the French Institute Alliance Française (a hot pink “Bisous!”), which I attached to my new knitted scarf, eventually adding a “Gaga” from the Goethe-Institut New York, one from the New Museum of Contemporary Art (reopening at 235 Bowery on December 1, 2007), an “I *heart* Orpheus” from the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and a square green one from StoryCorp, the national oral history archive project (“tell your story, pass it on”). The motherlode, though, was to be found at the NYC Visit booth which had bins and bins of brightly-colored pins emblazoned with the names of neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs, as part of the new “Just Ask The Locals” tourism campaign. Almost every area I could think of… except for mine. (Spuyten Duyvil is represented but not the Upper West Side? What’s up with that?)

By afternoon, I had built up quite a collection of flair.

Of course, no family-friendly festival is complete without clowns:

Performers like Empire Opera soprano Jamila Amala Sockwell entertained us all through the park, while on the dual stages, a roster of live acts cycled through. Here, on the “Kids Stage,” spritely Irish step dancers from The Niall O’Leary School of Dance moved at least one member of the audience to her feet.

Despite having lived in New York City all my life, I continue to be amazed at the diversity of offerings around the city: the sheer number of museums, music, theater and dance companies, educational and historical organizations, is staggering. I only very recently came across the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden on the Upper East Side; the historic carriage house is just a mile and half from my apartment, and according to the website, one of the seven oldest buildings in Manhattan. And I never knew The Museum of American Finance existed until this afternoon; the collection will be moving to 48 Wall Street in January 2008, just a block’s walk from my office.

New discoveries: that’s what keeps us coming to these events.

Check out the rest of the CultureFest set on flickr.

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