NEW YORK WINTER RECOMMENDATIONS
New York winter recommendations The unwritten rule of New York is that weather does not change plans, so our neighborhood tours take place all year round, even on cold days we also prefer to huddle in front of the fireplace. Our glass house does not have a fireplace, but since we turned our house into a performance gallery and we stayed 12+ years ago we specialize in Immersive experiences of all kinds, so friends and acquaintances always ask what we recommend doing in the winter. Here are some winter recommendations for special experiences on particularly cold days:
La Monte Youngש and Marian Zazeela’s “Dream House,” on Church Street in TriBeCa. Credit Marian Zazeela
Visit a good exhibition: The Blockbuster Show of Winter 2019 is undoubtedly the retrospective of Andy Warhol at the Whitney Museum. It is hard to believe that this is the first retrospective exhibition since 1989 (two years after his death) for this groundbreaking artist in America, perhaps because of its mythical dimension in contemporary American culture. Institutions have refrained from touching this explosive. The exhibition combines works from all his years of work in a variety of mediums that for a moment reminds us of how contemporary phenomena such as Salafi, celebrity, and Instagram are in fact a continuation of Warhol’s language. This comprehensive exhibition is replete with video works and archival details, and together with the other exhibit in the museum, which deals with interactive works from the 1960s until today, we can say that the Whitney is a mandatory visit this winter. Another exhibition that provides a potentially polar experience for exhibitions at Whitney is Dream House- Putting light and sound to create a meditative space of stay. This is not really an exhibition, but a long-standing project of a group of artists that has been active since the 1960s as part of the Fluxus movement.
Marissa Neilson-Pincus (as Alice) and Tara O’Con (as Alice) in “Then She Fell.” (Photo by Chad Heird)
Impressive theater, such that happens in a space where the audience is active and will not return in the chair is the hot word in the last decade. One of the classic experiences of the genre (and the most decadent) is Sleep No More. The audience is dressed in masks, darting between dramatic rooms and allowed to rummage in drawers and items in a flirty atmosphere that encourages taking breaks in the cocktail bar. When I am asked for a recommendation for a special theater that is memorable, I always recommend ” She She Fell” – a theater experience limited to 12 spectators who are placed into Alice’s deceptive world of wonderland. The players will take you to individual experiences, host you at a tea party, honor cookies or read you a letter in the closet and other experiences. While Williamsburg has to be a pleasure, but as we will learn later, Williamsburg has become a magnet for unique experiences in New York.
Eleven Madison courtesy of SIGNE BRICK
This photo provided by the Urasenke Chanoyu Center shows host Masako Soyu Miyahara purifying a tea whisk in front of guests at the institute in New York
Sign up for a traditional Japanese tea ceremony experience – one of the most delicate (and delicacy) experiences the city offers is a demonstration of the secrets of the Japanese tea ceremony. Master of tea ceremony never stops learning the job and it is said that it takes decades to be considered a master of ceremonies of this kind. The demonstration takes place once a month in an authentic traditional tea hut and takes about two hours.
Pampered in the sauna – One of the secrets of the winter of the New Yorkers is K-town – a hall dedicated to body treatments that are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and located in the center of the neighborhood of “Coria Town” (Midtown Manhattan). There is nothing like spending a particularly chilly day in the amusement park of the saunas they offer. A salt room, a red clay room, a dry sauna, a variety of baths, creams and treatments – you can spend an entire day dedicated to revitalizing your body. In the shortened version of the Extreme, which continues the line of the “Imresive” and also appeals to those who feel the need to disengage from the extra senses that the city offers, it is possible to try Sensory Deprivation, a sensory isolation tank to which the body is located in a tank that neutralizes the sense of gravity.
Bookshop and Thrift Store – Before going to New York, every time we visited (in every town we actually visited), we spent a whole day wandering through bookstores and second-hand shops. One of the most instructive ways to experience a city is through searching for books and familiar local items. So far, we remember the coat we bought by weight in Krakow that Eyal pulls out when the winter gets cold or the photobooker we bought in the book bazaar near the Louvre in Paris. Housing Works is an example of an excellent bookstore that is also a project that returns to the community. And the coffee is excellent.
Escape Rooms – Those who love computer games and group challenges will enjoy the new millennial .7 trend – escape rooms. The concept began in Japan and Eastern Europe with the blossoming of the immersible experience we mentioned earlier and provides concentrated experiences saturated with the adrenaline-style treasure hunt. There are a variety of places in the city that specialize in such experiences in all kinds of difficulty, and on of the most popular in the city is Mission Escape Games, perfect for families and groups of friends who are looking for concentrated experience in challenging weather.