After Work Music with Dan Wilensky Quartet

Bryant Park After Work
Music to start the end of your day.

Dan Wilensky is a multi-talented musical savant, specializing in piano and saxophone. His career highlights began with Ray Charles, and have included performances and recordings with David Bowie, Joan Baez, and the Four Tops just to name a few. He'll be performing in the park tomorrow as part of After Work with his group arrangement the Dan Wilensky Quartet.

Right click below to download and save the sounds of Bryant Park After Work Now with Pepsi. Then stop every Wednesday evening to catch the free concerts at After Work Music in the perfect outdoor setting. The schedule features a few more New York area jazz musicians and singer-songwriters before the series wraps on August 29.

Dan Wilensky Quartet - Jazzapalooza

Dan Wilensky Quartet
Wednesday, 6:00pm - 7:00pm
August 1
Fountain Terrace

Bryant Park Blog Q&A with Debut Authors

Each year, we showcase the work of several debut authors at one of our Word for Word Author events. This Wednesday, four new novelists will join us in the Bryant Park Reading Room sponsored by HSBC for a discussion of their works, new author growing pains, and the literary scene. Wednesday will feature Cristina Alger with The Darlings, Karl Taro Greenfeld with Triburbia: A Novel, Karen Thompson Walker with The Age of Miracles, and Jean Zimmerman with The Orphanmaster.

Jean Zimmerman (JZ) and Cristina Alger (CA) were kind enough to fill out our Blog Q&A to give you an inside look. Read on to find out their preferred writing atmospheres and dream 7th grade English teachers.

What was your inspiration for this book?
JZ: A real person, Margaret Hardenbroeck, a 17th century fur trader on Manhattan, who made me want to develop my heroine Blandine Van Couvering in a novel.
CA: I began writing The Darlings during the fall of 2008.  The financial crisis was in full swing, and the press was filled with headlines about massive financial crimes: the Madoffs, Samuel Israel, Allen Stanford to name just a few.  I become fascinated with the people behind the headlines: what would drive men – particularly men who were in many cases already wealthy and successful - to commit such acts?  Did their families know what they were doing? Could someone be a financial criminal but still have a likable, human side to their character?  It was these questions that originally inspired  The Darlings.

Where do you do your best writing?
JZ: At a desk with a window overlooking the reed marsh in front of the 1800 log cabin where I reside with my husband.
CA: At home, in my pajamas, surrounded with snacks. 

Did you have an “a-ha!” moment that made you want to be a writer?
JZ: I recall being around 8 and scrawling my signature over and over, absolutely filling a lined notebook – wanting to see my name in print or practicing to sign autographs in books, not sure which.
CA: I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a writer.  Before I was able to write myself, I used to dictate stories to my mom while I was in the bathtub.  She wrote them down into a spiral-ring notebook and I would illustrate them once I was dry.  That’s probably the best writing set-up I will ever have.  

Which author do you wish had been your 7th grade English teacher?
JZ: Henry James. He wouldn’t have patience, but I’d love to hear him speak.
CA: Sara Houghteling, who is both a dear friend and a brilliant author (her first novel, Picture at an Exhibition is tremendous).  Sara has taught me more about writing than anyone.  She teaches high school English in San Francisco, and I’ve always been so envious of her students!  They are so lucky to have her.

What is your secret talent?
JZ: The best fried chicken in New York.
CA: My husband’s response to this question was: “You come up with a lot of seven-letter words in Scrabble.”   I’m actually quite proud of that.

What is your favorite book?
JZ: Two: Tristram Shandy, by Lawrence Sterne. Hilarity, poignancy, and a rollicking pace, all in a luxurious 520 pages. And Domestic Manners of the Americans by Fanny Trollope, same attributes, with ascerbic observation of 1830s America to boot.
CA: Oh, my.  That’s tough.  If I really only get one, I’d have to say F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

Who reads your first draft?
JZ: Gil Reavill, my husband, a superb writer.
CA: My mom read the first draft of  The Darlings.  She’s a terrific editor.

Do you read your books after they’ve been published?
JZ: Only to go back and check on things: did I really say that?
CA: Well, I’ve only written one, but I haven’t read it since again since publication.  I think if I did, I’d probably be tempted to pull out a pen and start editing again, and really, no good can come of that. 

Do you prefer writing on a computer or longhand?
JZ: I take notes longhand – and that’s notebooks and notebooks of notes on history – and do the writing on my Mac.
CA: Computer.  My handwriting is illegible.

What book are you currently reading? (Old school or e-Reader?)
JZ: The End of the Wasp Season, by Denise Mina. Plus the Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry on my e-reader, great to dip into on long plane trips (most recently my heart was pierced by Eliot’s “Prufrock” for the 100th time).
CA: I’m reading The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson, which is absolutely terrific. I always bring my Kindle on trips, but at home I’m an old-school book kind of gal.

What word or punctuation mark are you most guilty of overusing?
JZ: The em dash – it always comes along to ambush me.
CA: I recently instated a “no exclamation point” policy after re-reading an email where I used one after every sentence (!).  I think I was highly caffeinated at the time I wrote it.  There’s really almost never a need for an exclamation point, I don’t think.  v

If you weren’t a writer, what would you be?
JZ: Cultivator of heritage roses, each strain of which carries mystery and history in its color, texture, scent and name.
CA: I imagine I’d still be practicing law.


Word for Word Author
Wednesdays, 12:30pm - 2:30pm
May 16 - August 22
Bryant Park Reading Room sponsored by HSBC

Classic Film Reviews: Rebel Without a Cause

Spend a night in the park swooning over James Dean at the 2012 HBO Bryant Park Summer Film Festival Now with Pepsi and presented with Ralph Lauren this Monday, July 30. Sit back, relax and enjoy the "fairly exciting, suspenseful, provocative, and occasionally far-fetched, melodrama of unhappy youth," as our critic Robert J. Landry describes it.  

Rebel Without a Cause

By Robert J. Landry
Variety
Published: October 25, 1955

Warner. Director Nicholas Ray; Producer David Weisbart; Screenplay Stewart Stern; Camera Ernest Haller; Editor William Zeigler; Music Leonard Rosenman; Art Director William Wallace. Tradeshown in N.Y., Oct. 14, '55.

Jim - James Dean Dad - Jim Backus Mother - Ann Doran Grandmother - Virginia Brissac Judy - Natalie Wood Judy's Dad - William Hopper Judy's Mother - Rochelle Hudson Buzz - Corey Allen Plato - Sal Mineo Goon - Dennis Hopper Servant - Marietta Canty Psychiatrist - Edward Platt Lecturer - Ian Wolfe Moose - Nick Adams Chick - Jack Grinnage Mil - Steffi Sidney Harry - Tom Bernard Cliff - Clifford Morris

Here is a fairly exciting, suspenseful and provocative, if also occasionally far-fetched, melodrama of unhappy youth on another delinquency kick. The plot bears no resemblance to the content of a book of the same title published a few years ago. The book was a clinical study of a withdrawn boy. The film presents a boy whose rebellion against a weakling father and a shrewish mother expresses itself in boozing, knife-fighting and other forms of physical combat and testing of his own manhood.


"Rebel Without a Cause" cannot escape comparison with Metro's recent "Blackboard Jungle." Each film depicts modern highschool student bodies as ruled by sadistic elements given to switch-blade knives, bullying and generally unpleasant notions of fun. There is in each a suggestion of pitiable waste of human material and promise. Finally "Rebel" may draw upon itself, as did the earlier release, outcries from academic, ecclesiastic and civic bodies.

The shock impact in "Rebel" is perhaps greater because this is a pleasant middleclass community. The boys and girls attend a modern highschool. They are well fed and dressed and drive their own automobiles. Does the contrast between their healthy-seeming exteriors and their restlessly cruel natures occasionally strain credulity? The debate could go on long into the night with newspaper clippings and police court statistics arrayed on one side and belief in goodness on the other.

Although essentially intent upon action, director Nicholas Ray, who sketched the basic story developed by Stewart Stern and Irving Shulman, does bring out redeeming touches of human warmth. There is as regards the hero, if not as regards the highschool body generally, a better-than-average-for-a-psychological thriller explanation of the core of confusion in the child. And that is paying the typewriter craftsmen a considerate compliment. The police court psychiatrist (Edward Platt) also helps balance things for humanity.

The performance of the star, James Dean, will excite discussion, especially in connection with the irony of his own recent crash death under real-life conditions of recklessness which form a macabre pressagent frame as the picture goes into release. In "East of Eden," under Elia Kazan's direction, the 24-year-old actor was widely thought to be doing a Marlon Brando. But freed from Kazan's evaluations of character, this resemblance vanishes. Almost free of mannerisms under Ray's pacing, Dean is very effective as a boy groping for adjustment to people. As a "farewell" performance he leaves behind, with this film, genuine artistic regret, for here was a talent which might have touched the heights. His actor's capacity to get inside the skin of youthful pain, torment and bewilderment is not often encountered.

There are a number of other arresting performances. Jim Backus for one. His mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy, self-deprecating parent is the soft pillow against which the boy beats his fists, demanding manhood, leadership and a father he can respect. There is one powerful scene on a staircase. The boy stands between his mother (Ann Doran), who confronts him from above, and the father who is behind him. Never turning to look at his dad, the youth repeats several times, "Stand up for me, dad. Tell her off." This bit delineates the whole background of man-and-wife failure which has been the emotional ripsaw in the son's growing up.

Natalie Wood as the girl next door should add professional prestige. Here, too, there is teenage maladjustment. She, too, asks more of her father than he can give. The father (William Hopper) is seen as embarrassed by the girl's becoming a woman. Unable himself to relate to his new creature of bosoms, lipstick and sex feelings, he tries to whip away the embraces she wants to go on giving him as she has from babyhood. This time the mother (Rochelle Hudson) is not a shrew but pinhead who understands neither the daughter nor the husband.

Sal Mineo is one of two essentially love-worthy youths to lose their lives in the story. He is the abandoned child of a big Greek tycoon. The boy lives alone in a large villa with only a Negro servant (Marietta Canty) for mother, father and family. Young Mineo stands out on performance and is an important value in the film.

The various highschool "menaces" are briefly and surfacely depicted, often hardly more than a cardboard cutout. Which is not to deny that they serve well as the symbol of hostility against which the suspense develops. They and their gals form the automobile alley of death down which the two feuding youths, Dean and Corey Allen, drive the two old jalopies in a contest to prove who will lose nerve and jump first before the cars go over the bluff. This "Chicken Run" sequence comes early in the picture and results in the death of Dean's antagonist. It is a punch scene, a novelty, an insight into madcap youth. It also drives home the insanity of frightened youth lest the stigma of being called "chicken" go uncontradicted.

As with the delinquency kick generally, the switch-blade stuff and the unhappiness of kids (typically the fault of their parents in such screen fiction) there are newspaper clippings and other evidence in support of the "Chicken Run" phobia. The sequence is rooted in ghastly reality.

Adults may well come away from "Rebel Without a Cause" as from "Blackboard Jungle" and "The Wild One" and other films which spotlight the compulsive cruelties of youth, with a need to believe the facts hideously exaggerated and a silent prayer that they never meet such youths except upon the motion picture screen.

Land.

1955: Nominations: Best Supp. Actor (Sal Mineo), Supp. Actress (Natalie Wood), Motion Picture Story

Painter in Residence: Andrea Arroyo

We're giving you a sneak peek of Andrea Arroyo, our second Painter-in-Residence, who is completing her term this week. Working primarily in watercolor and acrylics, Arroyo describes her work as representative of nature, the urban environment, and community. Here you see her sketching the Carousel in pencil before beginning to work on the painted piece. (Click photos to enlarge.) Her production comes in steps, which is just as interesting to watch, however quite different from Walter Lynn Mosley, who worked in the park during the first time frame. 

Two painters remain in our program this summer. Plan to find them in the park in the coming weeks.

July 30 – August 10:  Patti Mollica

August 13 – August 24:  Yuka Imata

Guess the Gold for a Chance to Win Southwest Air Tickets

Representatives from nations around the world will gather in London this weekend to compete in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. As the rest of us wait for the action, we're offering up a little competition stateside at the Southwest Porch in Bryant Park with our 2012 Summer Olympic Games coverage and ballot.

Watch in the Park
We're giving you the opportunity to watch the action from the park, when you visit the Southwest Porch over the next two weeks. Many of the Olympic events, including Opening and Closing Ceremonies, will be televised on our brand new 55" screen at the Porch, so you can stop by on your lunch break or between meetings to get your Olympic fix.


Guess the Gold
While you're here, be sure to make your gold medal predictions on the Guess the Gold Ballots available at the Porch. Take your best guess as to which country will win the most gold medals in each category, and try to guess how many golds they'll take home. The participants with the most correct answers will be entered into a drawing to win a pair of tickets on Southwest Airlines.


The Rules
Can't make it to the park? You can also cast your ballot here online. Ballots will be accepted online through Sunday, August 5 at 11:59pm EST, and accepted in the park at the Southwest Porch through close of business on Sunday, August 5. We will announce the winner on Monday, August 13 and notify them via email. There will be one winner, and you must provide a valid email address to be eligible. Limit one entry per person.

Guess the Gold

Cast your Ballot Online

Southwest Porch Viewing Schedule
Friday, July 27:  4pm to close (Opening Ceremonies)
Saturday, July 28:  12pm to 5pm
Tuesday, July 31:  12pm to 5pm
Friday, August 3:  12pm to 5pm
Saturday, August 4:  12pm to 5pm
Tuesday, August 7:  12pm to 5pm
Friday, August 10:  12pm to 5pm
Saturday, August 11:  12pm to 5pm
Sunday, August 12:  4pm to close (Closing Ceremonies)
*May be subject to change. Weather permitting.

Word for Word Poetry with Blue Flower Arts

We have the help of some very special guest bloggers at the Word for Word Poetry series this summer. They capture a first-hand account of the poetry readings, as well as help to interpret the work of the talented poets who present in the Bryant Park Reading Room sponsored by HSBC.

Jason Schneiderman for Word for Word Poetry, July 24, 2012
Featuring the poets of Blue Flower Arts

Gerald Stern & Galway Kinnell are such celebrated fixtures of American Poetry that they hardly need an introduction. Kinnell’s Selected Poems won a Pulitzer and a National Book Award, and he has received a long list of awards and honors. Stern has a similarly long list of publications and awards, including the Ruth Lilly Prize and the Wallace Stevens Award. Both born in the 1920’s, these elder statesmen of American poetry continue to write and publish with remarkable energy and vibrancy. The Bryant Park Reading Room was filled to capacity with loyal fans, many of whom had been following their poetry for decades.

Kinnell’s poems focused on nature and love. He opened with “Astonishment,” a poem that recently appeared in the New Yorker. The poem makes observations about the human condition while reflecting on the natural world:

 A woodpecker, double-knocking,
keeps time. I have slept in so many arms.
Consolation? Probably. But too much
consolation my leave one inconsolable.

Kinnell’s voice is at once soothing and engaging, bringing the listener into a kind of trance as he meanders through the wilderness, through love, and through observation. Kinnell inhabits both the voices of animals and of men who live in close proximity to those animals. He conjures a kind of primal truth. Kinnell read with very little explanation or embellishment, allowing the poems to speak for themselves.

Stern read from two new collections—one a collection of prose, and the other a collection of poetry. Stern is an avuncular charmer. After he opened with a piece of prose, he welcomed a friend in the audience whom he hadn’t seen when he started reading. He added, “Had I known you were coming, I would have read that section.” Stern’s poems are both wise and wise-cracking, full of wry humor and patient knowledge. His sentences often wrap across a whole poem. He read love poem, “Counting,” he describes the beginning of a relationship. The poem ends:

…I climbed into your car and two weeks later
though neither of us gave it a thought we walked
across the street for breakfast where there was an ocean
nearby and that’s the morning we started counting.

Stern ended with a set of short love poems from his newest book In Beauty Bright. Stern had received the books that day, so this reading marked the entry of his new book into the world.

At the end of the evening, the bookseller did a brisk business, and Stern and Kinnell were occupied signing books for quite a while. It was a beautiful summer evening, and we lingered in the shade.


Jason Schneiderman is the author of Sublimation Point (Four Way Books) and Striking Surface (Ashland Poetry Press). His poetry and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry, Grand Street, Bloom, Court Green, The Penguin Book of the Sonnet, The Story Quarterly, the Virginia Quarterly Review and Tin House among other publications. Jason has received fellowships from Yaddo, The Fine Arts Work Center, and The Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference. He was the recipient of the Emily Dickinson Award from The Poetry Society in 2004. A graduate of the MFA program at NYU, he is currently completing his doctorate at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Breakfast Briefings with Rent the Runway

Envy those celebrities strutting down the red carpet in designer wares and expensive jewelry? It's easy for famous people to gain access to the big fashion houses, but it hasn't always been so easy for the rest of us. That was until Rent the Runway came along. They've revolutionized outfitting yourself for parties and events (even if they aren't the Oscars), by giving the public access to designer dresses with their simple and affordable online rental system.

We'll get the inside scoop into this clever business model at the next Breakfast Briefing at the Southwest Porch with founding member and Vice President of Marketing Lara Crystal. Register now for the event on Tuesday, July 31 at 8:30am. Breakfast will be provided by 'wichcraft, and discussion will be moderated by Andrew Simon of Fast Company. 

Come early next Tuesday. Rent the Runway will be giving out a few gift cards for their site to several very lucky attendees in the park. Interested in more Breakfast Briefings? See the full schedule of events, made possible by Southwest Airlines.

Breakfast Briefing with Lara Crystal, 
VP of Marketing for Rent the Runway
Tuesday, 8:30am - 9:30am
July 31
Southwest Porch

After Work Music with The Alternate Routes

Bryant Park After Work
Music to start the end of your day.

The Alternate Routes perform a little bit of everything. Think tear-jerking ballads, in-your-face rock anthems, bizarre, experimental songs, campfire sing-alongs, futuristic space jams - it's all fair game. They're a hard band to label, but an easy one to like. Get a sample now, and see them in the park on Wednesday.

Each week, we'll be giving Bryant Park Blog readers an exclusive track from our After Work featured artist. Right click below to download and save the sounds of Bryant Park After Work Now with Pepsi. And then stop by on Wednesday evenings to catch a free concert at After Work Music before the end of August. The schedule features an eclectic selection of New York area jazz musicians and singer-songwriters.

The Alternate Routes

The Alternate Routes
Wednesday, 6:00pm - 7:00pm
July 25
Fountain Terrace

Bryant Park Blog Q&A with Emily Giffin

From the author of Something Borrowed and Something Blue, comes another tale of love, life and relatable human experiences. Destined to be a surefire hit after a laundry list of best sellers, Where We Belong has already been ranked among the hottest reads this summer. Emily Giffin's story follows one successful woman, as plot twists force her to delve into a secret past. We put Giffin on the author hot seat for a few insider questions, before she's in the Bryant Park Reading Room sponsored by HSBC on Wednesday with host and fellow author Katie Lee. Read on to discover her secret talent and get a look at her summer reading list. 

What was your inspiration for this book?
At its heart, the book is about secrets and what happens to us and those closest to us when we keep them. I’ve always been intrigued by the power of secrets.  When is it justifiable to keep them from the ones we love? And does keeping them irrevocably change who we are? Adoption (under the secretive circumstances in Where We Belong) seemed to be a great way to explore some of the broader themes.

Where do you do your best writing?
I usually write in my office, located in a small, detached carriage house in my backyard. It is such a happy place—there’s so much sunlight and the décor is all white, pink, and orange. On rare occasions, when I need a change of scenery, I write in a coffee shop or bookstore. I also love writing in airports and hotels and on planes. It’s so much easier to focus when you feel anonymous and detached from your regular life.

Did you have an “a-ha!” moment that made you want to be a writer?
There was no “a-ha” moment because for as long as I can remember I wanted to be a writer (since I was five or six).  So the real question is why did I go to law school! Looking back, I think I had the sense that I had to get a “real” job first—that I couldn’t graduate and promptly sit down to write a novel. I took a lot of history and political science classes—so law school became a logical next stop. If I’m completely honest, I also think I went to school because it felt safer—a more certain path to measurable success. I think it always feels riskier and scarier to go after something you really love and want because the rejection and failure hurts more. On the brink of thirty, I decided that I wasn’t happy and that I needed to pursue my real dreams. I quit my job, moved to London, and began writing full time.

Which author do you wish had been your 7th grade English teacher?
Elinor Lipman. Not only is she one of my favorite writers, but if she is even half as witty as her stories, I think she’d be so much fun.

What is your secret talent?
Baby naming (which is why I also enjoy naming my characters so much).  It seems that a lot of couples choke when making this huge decision. They choose a name that doesn’t go with their last name. Or they pick names for their two children that don’t go together. It drives me nuts… Another random talent: I can say the alphabet backwards with lightning speed!

What is your favorite book?
To Kill a Mockingbird. My mother got me a signed 40th Anniversary edition for my 40th birthday. Other than family photographs, it is the thing I’d save first in a fire!

Who reads your first draft?
My mother, my sister, my best friend, and my cousin read chapters as I write them. They are all big readers but very different from one another so it’s great to get their perspectives. They are also very honest with me. There is no point in having an early reader who is afraid to give you constructive criticism.

Do you read your books after they’ve been published?
I’ve read them so many times before they’re published (probably a dozen) that by the time they come out, I’m finished with them forever. The only exception was Baby Proof because I wrote the screenplay with a friend and had to reread it to remember some of the nuances of the story.

Do you prefer writing on a computer or longhand?
A computer. I wish I wrote longhand on legal pads or spiral notebooks. I’d feel so much cooler.

What great book have you recently read? (Old school or e-Reader?)
Honestly? I just finished Groundswell--the perfect summer read! [Bryant Park Note: written by her moderator, Katie Lee] I also recently enjoyed The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, a very moving and beautifully-written baseball story about how one error in a game profoundly impacts the lives of five people. I’m a sucker for a good sports story. I was the manager of the men’s basketball team for Wake Forest during the Timmy Duncan era, and have sometimes contemplated writing a basketball-related book. And when it comes to books versus e-readers, I’m “old school” all the way!

What word or punctuation mark are you most guilty of overusing? 
A reader on Facebook recently called me out about overusing a word in Love the One You’re With, but I forget what it is now. I am guilty of beginning too many sentences with “And”. My husband always strikes them when I finally give him the book to read. I’m also a big fan of the semicolon; it’s such a satisfying little mark

If you weren’t a writer, what would you be?
A therapist. My friends always come to me with their relationships issues and I think I give pretty good advice.


Word for Word Author
Wednesdays, 12:30pm - 2:30pm
May 16 - August 22
Bryant Park Reading Room sponsored by HSBC

On-site we'll have two special treats. Giffin will be giving away a few of her custom designed "eg" logo t-shirts, in addition to our usual Foursquare book giveaway for checking-in to Bryant Park.

Classic Film Reviews: The Maltese Falcon

Come see detective Bogart unravel a mystery in The Maltese Falcon this Monday for the 2012 HBO Bryant Park Summer Film Festival Now with Pepsi and presented with Ralph Lauren at sunset. According to Bosley Crowther, a critic from the New York Times, the film was the best mystery film of the year back in 1941.

The Maltese Falcon (1941)
'The Maltese Falcon' a Fast Mystery-Thriller With Quality and Charm, at the Strand

By Bosley Crowther
New York Times
Published: October 4, 1941

The Warners have been strangely bashful about their new mystery film, "The Maltese Falcon," and about the young man, John Huston, whose first directorial job it is. Maybe they thought it best to bring both along under wraps, seeing as how the picture is a remake of an old Dashiell Hammett yarn done ten years ago, and Mr. Huston is a fledgling whose previous efforts have been devoted to writing scripts. And maybe—which is somehow more likely—they wanted to give every one a nice surprise. For "The Maltese Falcon," which swooped down onto the screen of the Strand yesterday, only turns out to be the best mystery thriller of the year, and young Mr. Huston gives promise of becoming one of the smartest directors in the field.

For some reason, Hollywood has neglected the sophisticated crime film of late, and England, for reasons which are obvious, hasn't been sending her quota in recent months. In fact, we had almost forgotten how devilishly delightful such films can be when done with taste and understanding and a feeling for the fine line of suspense. But now, with "The Maltese Falcon," the Warners and Mr. Huston give us again something of the old thrill we got from Alfred Hitchcock's brilliant melodramas or from "The Thin Man" before he died of hunger.

This is not to imply, however, that Mr. Huston has imitated any one. He has worked out his own style, which is brisk and supremely hardboiled. We didn't see the first "Falcon," which had Ricardo Cortez and Bebe Daniels in its cast. But we'll wager it wasn't half as tough nor half as flavored with idioms as is this present version, in which Humphrey Bogart hits his peak. For the trick which Mr. Huston has pulled is a combination of American ruggedness with the suavity of the English crime school—a blend of mind and muscle—plus a slight touch of pathos.

Perhaps you know the story (it was one of Mr. Hammett's best): of a private detective in San Francisco who becomes involved through a beautiful but evasive dame in a complicated plot to gain possession of a fabulous jeweled statuette. As Mr. Huston has adapted it, the mystery is as thick as a wall and the facts are completely obscure as the picture gets under way. But slowly the bits fall together, the complications draw out and a monstrous but logical intrigue of international proportions is revealed.

Much of the quality of the picture lies in its excellent revelation of character. Mr. Bogart is a shrewd, tough detective with a mind that cuts like a blade, a temperament that sometimes betrays him, and a code of morals which is coolly cynical. Mary Astor is well nigh perfect as the beautiful woman whose cupidity is forever to be suspect. Sidney Greenstreet, from the Theatre Guild's roster, is magnificent as a cultivated English crook, and Peter Lorre, Elisha Cook Jr., Lee Patrick, Barton Mac-Lane all contribute stunning characters. (Also, if you look closely, you'll see Walter Huston, John's father, in a bit part.)

Don't miss "The Maltese Falcon" if your taste is for mystery fare. It's the slickest exercise in cerebration that has hit the screen in many months, and it is also one of the most compelling nervous-laughter provokers yet.

THE MALTESE FALCON; based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett. Screen play by John Huston; directed by Mr. Huston; produced by Hal B. Wallis for Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. At the Strand.
Samuel Spade . . . . . Humphrey Bogart
Brigid O'Shaughnessy . . . . . Mary Astor
Iva Archer . . . . . Gladys George
Joel Cairo . . . . . Peter Lorre
Detective Lieutenant . . . . . Barton MacLane
Effie Perine . . . . . Lee Patrick
Kasper Gutman . . . . . Sidney Greenstreet
Detective Polhaus . . . . . Ward Bond
Miles Archer . . . . . Jerome Cowan
Wilmer Cook . . . . . Elisha Cook Jr.
Luke . . . . . James Burke
Frank Richman . . . . . Murray Alper
Bryan . . . . . John Hamilton

Spring Cleaning... In July

After a relatively warm winter, we ended up with more firewood at the Southwest Porch than we were able to use in the porch's cozy fire pit. Instead of throwing the excess logs away, we thought we'd offer them to the public first, as we did with the flower bulbs earlier in the spring.

You'll find the wood in the southwest corner of the park, behind the Southwest Porch and the Bryant Park Chess area. We're happy if you can put the wood to use, since we can't store it anymore. Please bring your own equipment to take the logs, and be respectful of the park and its property as you leave. The firewood is only available while supplies last, and remember, we aren't giving anything else away! Please help us keep the park tidy, as we recycle and reuse.

Word for Word Poetry with Poets and Writers

We have the help of some very special guest bloggers at the Word for Word Poetry series this summer. They capture a first-hand account of the poetry readings, as well as help to interpret the work of the talented poets who present in the Bryant Park Reading Room sponsored by HSBC.

Anne Lovering Rounds for Word for Word Poetry, July 17, 2012
Featuring the poets of Poets and Writers

Prefacing her first poem for the Word for Word poetry series on Tuesday, July 17, Tina Chang told the crowd she had “tried really really hard” not to write a poem about Leiby Kletzky, the 8-year-old Hasidic Jewish boy murdered in Brooklyn a year ago this July. But she found that she had to, she said. Chang didn’t feel compelled to treat the horrific details; instead she wrote “Milk,” a tender poem that meditated on the title word, on “milk trousers,” a “milky life,” and that wished for childhood rewritten, a world in which “this version [could] be true.” By beginning with “Milk,” Chang set the tone for an evening showcasing the insistent power of surprising inspirations: the sometimes strange-seeming (even to the poets!) images and scenes that become expressions of desire, yearning, need.

For Chang, for instance, the Empress Dowager of China became a figure through which she could voice post-9/11 powerlessness  (“Empress Dowager Boogies,” “Self-Portrait as Empress Dowager”); the poem “Praise,” written “for Haiti” in the wake of the 2010 earthquake, came from a request she received to write a poem for Brooklyn after she became the borough’s poet laureate. We don’t always get to choose what must be written about, Chang suggested. But by the same token, in “Praise,” weeping can give way to “something that sounded like celebration”; or, as in “Love,” intimacy can be haunting, a family secret, but can also manifest itself in the “pale fleshy bead” of a peeled grape. Maybe Brooklyn can be vested in Haiti, tragedy in tenderness, love in the flesh of fruit.

After Work Music with Chuck Braman Trio

Bryant Park After Work
Music to start the end of your day.

Chuck Braman leads up this jazz trio on drums with the help of guitarist Khabu Doug Young and bassist Matt Clohesy. You can expect an unsual arrangement of original music and jazz standards, including homage to the legendary jazz pianist Thelonious Monk.

After Work Music Now with Pepsi continues through the end of August, featuring an eclectic selection of New York area jazz musicians and singer-songwriters. Each week, we'll be giving Bryant Park Blog readers an exclusive track from our featured artist. Right click below to download and save the sounds of Bryant Park After Work.

Chuck Braman Trio

Chuck Braman Trio
Wednesday, 6:00pm - 7:00pm
July 18
Fountain Terrace

The King of Folk Music

It is a rare circumstance for a legendary musician and activist to have the foresight to write his own biography in the twilight of his life. Lucky for us, the illustrious Pete Seeger has done just that with his new book, aptly titled Pete Seeger: His Life, in His Own Words. Mr. Seeger is a figurehead of the American Folk music movement, defining the genre with his songwriting, and exemplifying the tradition of protest music intertwined with activism. He wielded his music for justice, peace and patriotism. He is an American treasure, and we're honored to host him at the Bryant Park Reading Room sponsored by HSBC this Wednesday, along with the co-editors of his new book, Rob and Sam Rosenthal.

Visitors will also be treated to a musical performance by another music legend. Fellow activist, David Amram, known as the composer of countless movie scores and orchestral works, will perform a special tribute for the occasion of Seeger's book release. Seeger and Amram collobarated throughout their careers, as their politics united them through music. Expect some folk classics, like "If I Had a Hammer," or "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?".


Not familiar with Seeger? Get a primer with the trailer for this documentary that came out about him in 2007.

Word for Word Author
Wednesdays, 12:30pm - 2:30pm
May 16 - August 22
Bryant Park Reading Room sponsored by HSBC


And don't forget to check-in to Bryant Park on Foursquare for the chance to win a free copy of Seeger's book.

Classic Film Reviews: Roman Holiday

Steal away to Rome next week. No need to take vacation days or suffer from jet lag. The 2012 HBO Bryant Park Summer Film Festival Now with Pepsi and presented with Ralph Lauren will transport you to Europe on holiday, while you watch from a cozy spot on the lawn with your summer picnic. As the original New York Times review points out, Roman Holiday has the breezy airs of a great summer movie, with the ever classic Audrey Hepburn at the helm, paying homage to another european classic - Rome with stunning visuals and cinematography. Enjoy this fun, romantic lark on Monday in Bryant Park. 

Roman Holiday (1953)
'Roman Holiday' at Music Hall Is Modern Fairy Tale Starring Peck and Audrey Hepburn

By A. W.
New York Times
Published: August 28, 1953

There has been a long hiatus between that day when history wore a rose, when princesses and knights-errant in mufti could get into a lovely scrape or two and when the movies could do something about it. That day apparently has passed. For "Roman Holiday," which arrived at the Music Hall yesterday, is a royal lark in the modern idiom about a regal but lonely young thing who has her moment of happiness with an adventurous newspaper man. It is a contrived fable but a bittersweet legend with laughs that leaves the spirits soaring.

Call "Roman Holiday" a credit to William Wyler's versatility. The producer-director, who has been expending his not inconsiderable talents on worthy but serious themes, is herein trying on the mantle of the late Ernst Lubitsch and making it fit fairly well. He certainly is dealing with the formal manners of ultra-high society and, if the unpolished common man is very much in evidence, too, it does not matter because his cast and the visually spectacular backgrounds of Rome, in which this romantic excursion was filmed, also are necessary attributes to this engaging story.

Tender, Amusing Yarn

A viewer with a long memory might recall some plot similarities between "Roman Holiday" and "It Happened One Night." This is not important. Mr. Wyler and his associates have fashioned a natural, tender and amusing yarn about the heiress to the throne of a mythical kingdom who is sick unto death of an unending schedule of speeches, greetings and interviews attendant on her goodwill tour and who suddenly decides to escape from these bonds of propriety. Her accidental meeting with Joe Bradley, the American journalist, and the night she spends in his apartment are cheerful, untarnished and perfectly believable happenstances in which romance understandably begins to bloom.

The director and his scenarists, Ian McLellan Hunter and John Dighton, have sensibly used the sights and sounds of Rome to dovetail with the facts in their story. Since the newspaper man is anxious to get the exclusive rights to the princess' adventures in the Eternal City, and since he is also anxious to keep her in the dark as to his identity, a Cook's Tour of the Eternal City is both appropriate and visually edifying.

This is not a perfunctory trip. Mr. Wyler and his camera crew have distilled chuckles as well as a sightseeing junket in such stops as the Princess getting a new coiffure; a perfectly wild motorscooter ride through Roman streets, alleys and market places winding up with a session in a police station, and an uproarious dance on one of the barges on the Tiber that terminates with the princess and her swain battling and escaping from the sleuths sent to track her down. The cameras also have captured the raucous sounds and the varied sights of a bustling, workaday Rome; of sidewalk cafes; of the Pantheon; the Forum; and of such various landmarks as the Castel Sant' Angelo and the rococo, mirrored grandeur of the Colonna, Brancaccio and Barberini Palazzi.

Although she is not precisely a newcomer to films Audrey Hepburn, the British actress who is being starred for the first time as Princess Anne, is a slender, elfin and wistful beauty, alternately regal and childlike in her profound appreciation of newly-found, simple pleasures and love. Although she bravely smiles her acknowledgment of the end of that affair, she remains a pitifully lonely figure facing a stuffy future. Gregory Peck makes a stalwart and manly escort and lover, whose eyes belie his restrained exterior. And it is altogether fitting that he eschews the chance at that exclusive story considering the circumstances.

Eddie Albert is excellent as the bewildered, bewhiskered and breezy photographer who surreptitiously snaps the unwitting princess on her tour. Hartley Power, as the bureau chief of Mr. Peck's news agency; Paolo Carlini, as an amorous barber; Claudio Ermelli, as a janitor; Alberto Rizzo, as a timorous cabbie; Harcourt Williams, Tullio Carminati and Margaret Rawlings, as Miss Hepburn's official aides and an echelon of actual Rome correspondents, help give the proceedings authenticity and flavor. It is a short holiday in which they are involved but an entirely pleasureable one.

Featured on the Music Hall stage are Anne Harvey, Patricia Rayney, George Sawtelle, Clifford Guest, The Rockettes and the Corps de Ballet.


ROMAN HOLIDAY, screen play by Ian McLellan Hunter and John Dighton; from a story by Mr. Hunter; produced and directed by William Wyler for Paramount. At the Radio City Music Hall.
Joe Bradley . . . . . Gregory Peck
Princess Anne . . . . . Audrey Hepburn
Irving Radovich . . . . . Eddie Albert
Mr. Hennessy (editor) . . . . . Hartley Power
Ambassador . . . . . Harcourt Williams
Countess Vereberg . . . . . Margaret Rawlings
General Provno . . . . . Tullio Carminati
Mario Delani (the barber) . . . . . Paolo Carlini
Giovanni . . . . . Claudio Ermelli
Charwoman . . . . . Paola Borboni
Taxicab Driver . . . . . Alfredo Rizzo
Hennessy's Secretary . . . . . Laura Solari
Shoe Seller . . . . . Gorella Gori
Dr. Bonnachoven . . . . . Heinz Hindrich
Master of Ceremonies . . . . . John Horne
Embassy Aides . . . . . Count Andrea Eszterhazy
Col. Ugo Ballerini
Ugo De Pascale
Bruno Baschiera

Painter in Residence: Walter Lynn Mosley

Earlier this summer, we set out to commission several artists for our inaugural Painter in Residence Program, in an effort to create a visual record of the park through representational artwork. We put out a request for applications, and received 39 qualified candidates. Of these, our panel narrowed the artists down to four.

You may have seen the first painter in residence around the park, over the last week and half. Walter Lynn Mosley has been hard at work creating impressionistic oil paintings of the parks terraces, plantings, and scenic landscapes.

Mr. Mosley's tenure ends tomorrow, but he'll be followed up by three more distinguished talents. Usually you can catch the painters in action Monday through Friday, with a morning session from 9am to noon, and an afternoon session from 1pm-5pm. Each will spend two weeks here, and you may see them outside of these hours if they try to depict any special lighting effects. We encourage you to wander the park and see these artists in action.

July 2 – July 13:  Walter Lynn Mosley
July 16 – July 27:  Andrea Arroyo
July 30 – August 10:  Patti Mollica
August 13 – August 24:  Yuka Imata

Word for Word Poetry with Spiritual Poets

We have the help of some very special guest bloggers at the Word for Word Poetry series this summer. They capture a first-hand account of the poetry readings, as well as help to interpret the work of the talented poets who present in the Bryant Park Reading Room sponsored by HSBC.

Anne Lovering Rounds for Word for Word Poetry, July 10, 2012
Featuring spiritual poets

Rachel Snyder and Robert Cording, the two poets reading in the Word for Word poetry series on Tuesday, July 10, were a study in counterpoint. These two writers (three were slated originally: Emanuel Xavier, we missed you!) allowed us to hear the profoundly different ways poetry takes on life’s big questions and range of emotional experience. How do we practice forgiveness? Is faith worth it? What happens in and after death? Admitting to an identity as a spiritual or metaphysical poet is risky business; Snyder and Cording showed us both the risk and the reward.

Rachel Snyder practices a doctrine of fearlessness. A self-taught poet, she is mesmerized by the way words seem to take on a life of their own; as she put it, she strives to “be the instrument” for expression. Her willingness to acknowledge and to submit to the power of language comes across in the litany-like form of her long, intentionally inspirational poems, in the way she returns to such phrases as “Forgive me” (“Prayer for Radical Forgiveness”), “It’s that easy,” or “I will” (“Now for the Unbound”).  Written in defiance of self-consciousness, Snyder’s prayerful poems were big, bold, and outright.

If Snyder’s poems live large, Robert Cording’s can start small. As apparent in the poems he selected, Cording’s gift is to take ephemera and passing thoughts—a moth, a chair—and persist in spinning them out, so that, almost without noticing, we end up in another world altogether, sometimes painful, always transformative. What would happen, he mused in “Parable of the Moth,” if there were a moth in your ear? Or why does grief make itself so sharply present in the form of a chair, left in the backyard, covered with snow? A dream vision, “The Chair” takes us from nondescript furniture to “my waking sense / of everything missed, and missing again”; “Last Things,” from the distractions of dust, afternoon sun, or a dog’s barking to “all of it / part of a world so hard to finish loving.”

Cording told us that he frequently finds himself compelled to write about death, as a way of trying to fathom the change he knows it must bring. But his last poem of the evening was, in fact, about joy. “1964,” a meditation on the Beatles’ appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, starts as a family portrait of the age (parents on the couch, a TV set, Sullivan’s voice) and ends with the poet “shaking himself alive,” “armed with nothing more than joy and wonder.” I’d thought of elegy as the default mode of writing about the Beatles: Mary Jo Salter’s “John Lennon,” in which “The music was already turning sad, / those fresh-faced voices singing in a round, / the lie that time could set its needle back / and play from the beginning”; Valzhyna Mort’s lines in “maybe you too sometimes fantasize,” where “a boy from the neighborhood […] / says look even the Beatles die.” Maybe a poem like “1964” is itself not so far from these elegies. Even so, Cording can laugh at the scene as he remembers it, as if asking, “Was hearing, on TV, the yeah yeah yeahs of ‘She Loves You’ really something sublime? Even today, 40 years later, is that still worthy of celebration?” Yes, his poem tells us. Yes it was. And yes it is.      

Starting in August, Anne Lovering Rounds will be Assistant Professor of English at Hostos Community College, City University of New York. She blogged previously for the Reading Room in summer 2010.

NYPL Lunch Hour Exhibit

Lunch hour is a daily necessity for most, a well-deserved break for others, and something well spent outside in Bryant Park if you're lucky. Now The New York Public Library has immortalized this daily ritual with their new exhibit Lunch Hour NYC. To grab some attention for the display inside the building, as well as write some modern day history while reflecting on the past, the folks at NYPL have teamed up with The New York City Food Truck Association to host some of the best food truck options around.

The best on wheels will be parking their operation right in front of the Library on the terrace closest to 5th Avenue and 40th Street. Five different food trucks are participating on a rotating basis, so you're guaranteed to enjoy a variety of mobile options without leaving the neighborhood. Here's the schedule for your lunch planning pleasure. Just remember, trucks are open 11am - 3pm through Labor Day, and food is available while supplies last.

Monday: Mexicue 
Down-home barbeque meets spicy Mexican food

Tuesday: Milk Truck 
Gourmet grilled cheese

Wednesday: Red Hook Lobster Pound
The best lobster roll in NYC

Thursday: Rickshaw Dumplings 
Inventive, fresh dumplings

Friday: Eddie’s Pizza 
A New York classic gone mobile

After grabbing a bite, don't forget to check out Lunch Hour NYC inside the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. The exhibit explores every facet of the New York City midday meal including the evolution of the 'power lunch', the history of the Automat, school lunches, displays of menus, quintessential NYC eating destinations and more. The exhibit is free and open through February 17, 2013. 

After Work Music with Aunt Martha

Bryant Park After Work
Music to start the end of your day.

Aunt Martha defies the image of any stale old relative that their name might imply. The band, led by Tim Noyes, takes folk music to new heights, combining acoustic guitar with synths and keys. Enjoy this hauntingly good tune before they play in the park on Wednesday. You've been forewarned. This song will stick with you, and you'll be singing along already at the concert tomorrow. 

After Work Music Now with Pepsi will continue all summer long, featuring an eclectic selection of New York area jazz musicians and singer-songwriters. Each week, we'll be giving Bryant Park Blog readers an exclusive track from our featured artist. Right click below to download and save the sounds of Bryant Park After Work.

Aunt Martha - Blue Buildings

Aunt Martha
Wednesday, 6:00pm - 7:00pm
July 11
Fountain Terrace

Bipartisanship at the Reading Room

A Democrat and a Republican unite for an epic cross-country journey to get a picture of the citizens that make-up this great nation. No it's not a movie, although we would have liked to follow this pair around the USA. Daughter of former-presidential hopeful, Meghan McCain and stand-up comedian Michael Ian Black crossed party lines for a real life road trip through the heart of America. This pair set out to talk to real Americans and discover the political beliefs that divide, or unite, us as a country. 

What they discovered is chronicled in their book America, You Sexy Bitch: A Love Letter to Freedom, and they'll be in the Bryant Park Reading Room sponsored by HSBC on Wednesday to share tales from their journey. The discussion will be moderated by another of our favorite funny authors, A.J. Jacobs, who was featured at Word for Word last summer. Jacobs regularly puts his life, body and mind to the test for the sake of a good book. 


Word for Word Author
Wednesdays, 12:30pm - 2:30pm
May 16 - August 22
Bryant Park Reading Room sponsored by HSBC

Classic Film Reviews: On the Waterfront

Technically not a classic review, but a modern review of a classic film, J. Hoberman reviewed On the Waterfront for the Village Voice in 2004 when the film was re-released for its 50th Anniversary. Hoberman calls the film a classic, citing Brando's performance, Kazan's direction, and fortuitous timing with current events. If you haven't seen the film, now's the time to check it off your to-do list, outdoors in the park at the 2012 HBO Bryant Park Summer Film Festival Now with Pepsi and presented with Ralph Lauren. If you've already seen the movie, it will certainly be different viewed en masse on Monday evening.

Curious about more the elements of this classic film and its history? Check out Reel Talks before the film in the gravel area around the lawn at 7pm.

Still a Contender
Guilt, self-justification, and Brando's career performance in Kazan's 50-year-old classic
By J. Hoberman Tuesday, Oct 26 2004

Re-released on the occasion of its golden anniversary, On the Waterfront is the supreme success story of '50s Hollywood—eighth on the AFI poll of the "greatest American movies," ahead of Schindler's List but behind The Graduate. And like many cult films, it is also less than the sum of its parts.

To whom does this triumph belong? Elia Kazan's Oscar-winning direction? Marlon Brando's career performance as the ex-boxer, longshoreman bum Terry Malloy? The three Stanislavskians who support him, Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, and Rod Steiger? Screenwriter Budd Schulberg's pungent dialogue and didactic speechifying? Producer Sam Spiegel's willingness to bankroll a project turned down, per Schulberg, by "every studio in town"? Leonard Bernstein's moody clarion-call score? The polished grit of Boris Kaufman's open-air Hoboken cinematography? The historical moment that was the summer of 1954?

In karmic terms, On the Waterfront had the enormous good fortune to open only weeks after the nation's leading anti-Communist and reigning demagogue went down for the count in the televised Army-McCarthy hearings. But it is thanks to Brando that this posthumous Popular Front classic is a heart-clutcher from beginning to end. The greatest and most influential actor of post-war Hollywood, Brando would here redefine movie stardom with the eloquence of his strangled inarticulation ("one glorious meathead," per Time). The scene of scenes, in which Terry reproaches his smarter brother (Steiger) for selling him out, is the most triumphant expression of failure in American movies.

Always on the verge of unshed tears, his face a smooth mask of tragedy, Brando's Terry is as soulfully stupid as he is beautiful—a male Marilyn Monroe (who achieved sex deity status in 1954). No other actor ever made more poignant use of what, pace John Steinbeck, might be called the Lenny factor. Terry is a sort of brute yet vulnerable animal trembling on the brink of consciousness. In class terms, he embodies what culture critic Harold Rosenberg once called "the pathos of the proletariat." On the Waterfront reaches its climax not with the outrageous grandstanding of Terry's beating (a scene criticized as "fascist" by future director Lindsay Anderson) but rather with his breakthrough declaration: "I'm just gonna go down there and get my rights."

On the Waterfront, which begins with Terry fingering a courageous stoolie, is also—quite famously—the first movie that Kazan directed after appearing as a "friendly" witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee to ritually identify his former Communist Party comrades (and then make his own requisite anti-Communist film, Man on a Tightrope). Never mind that Terry's heroic testimony against the gangsters who control his union is nothing like Kazan's opportunistic naming of names—On the Waterfront unavoidably evokes the director's potent mixture of guilt and self-justification. Kazan's HUAC performance fueled this movie as it did the five subsequent features on which his reputation rests: East of Eden, Baby Doll, A Face in the Crowd, Wild River, and Splendor in the Grass. All are films about betrayal. (By the time he wrapped the last in 1961, the blacklist had been broken.)

At the same time, however, On the Waterfront is deeply evocative of Kazan's aesthetic heritage—which is to say the left-wing theater of the 1930s. The look is less faux neo-realism than the bittersweet naturalism of the Workers' Film and Photo League. It takes no great familiarity with Pop Front rhetoric to grok Malden's waterfront priest as a crypto-Communist labor organizer or at least a two-fisted improvement on the anti-fascist priest in Rossellini's Open City—or to imagine Depression-era slum-goddess Sylvia Sidney in the role played by Eva Marie Saint.

Working from a prizewinning piece of journalistic muckraking and the 1952 New York State Crime Commission hearings, Schulberg, another ex-Communist who cooperated with HUAC and replaced Kazan's erstwhile scenarist Arthur Miller, came up with the best screenplay that Clifford Odets never wrote. According to Schulberg, the part of Terry wasn't conceived for Brando but lefty street kid John Garfield, who died before the movie was made but had his own screen apotheosis in an earlier, no less primal tale of brother-against-brother corruption in the urban jungle, Abraham Polonsky's 1948 Force of Evil.

Another possible Terry was a real son of Hoboken. In the short run, On the Waterfront inspired Arthur Miller's answer play A View From the Bridge and provided John Cassavetes with his first major role (as a Brando clone in the Waterfront clone Edge of the City); in the longer view, it would enable Rocky, refract itself in Raging Bull, and underscore GoodFellas. But history would have sung a different song had Frank Sinatra managed to swing the role of the Christ-like stool pigeon.

Broadway in Bryant Park Returns

Broadway in Bryant Park dances, kicks and sings back into the park next week for the annual series, showcasing some of the best musical acts on Broadway. For the next six Thursdays, you'll get a taste of Broadway's biggest numbers at lunchtime, as the casts of your favorite shows take the stage in the park. They'll sing a few songs from each show with modified choreography. You'll get to see a few of the big name stars from the shows too. Each show is moderated by hosts from 106.7 LiteFM.

Check out the schedule now on our website, and we'll see you on the lawn for the show!

Bryant Park in the News: Fully Booked at the Park

Ralph Gardener of the Wall Street Journal stopped by the park last Friday for a look at our brand new Scandinavian game Kubb, as well as a host of other small attractions taking place in the park. Read about his visit with Dan Biederman, and get an idea of the hundreds of free things to do this summer.

The game of Kubb as demonstrated by Dan Biederman, president of the Bryant Park Corp.
Bryan Thomas for The Wall Street Journal

URBAN GARDNER
July 1, 2012, 11:00 p.m. ET
Fully Booked at the Park
By RALPH GARDNER JR.
Wall Street Journal


The conditions in Bryant Park weren't ideal for a game of Kubb Friday morning. The temperature was in the 90s and the humidity not far behind. And the park's lawn, typically home to some of the most furious lunchtime sunbathing in midtown, was virtually deserted, proof that even New Yorkers are capable of putting comfort before vanity, at least when the city starts to feel like Venus.

Never heard of Kubb? Neither had I. It's a lawn game imported to the park from Scandinavia by Dan Biederman, the president of the Bryant Park Corp. Mr. Biederman, perhaps the only person dressed in a suit and tie on that sweltering afternoon, explained that he and his family were visiting Sweden in 2005 when they saw some locals playing it.

"They played it with a sense of humor," he remembered. His kids, ages 17 and 11 at the time, came up with a name for it—Woodhaven. Which is actually better than its real name. Then again, for all I know, Kubb may translate into something extremely descriptive, poignant or hilarious in Swedish.

"We came back and went to the embassies," he continued. "'Do you know about this?' We've always had interns researching it. We like Bryant Park to have things no one else has."

I suppose that's what interns are for, especially if they're of the unpaid variety. I did an Internet search and the game, its history and rules, came right up. Then again, Mr. Biederman is a stickler for detail. A disciple of the sociologist William "Holly" Whyte, he's an urban engineer par excellence, a maestro of municipal minutiae. I wrote about him back in 2010 when he, or rather a couple of staffers, went around the park with clickers counting the ratio of females to males. Mr. Biederman even formed focus groups to learn how women differ from men in their bathroom habits. I could have saved him some time with that, too.

In any case, the game, sometimes known as "Viking chess," is played with wooden pegs. You take turns trying to topple your opponent's pegs, which are standing maybe 20 to 25 feet away, by flinging attractive Scandinavian-style wooden sticks, or batons, at them.

After failing to knock over a single peg of Nicholas Kattar, the Bryant Park recreation manager whom I was competing against (though quickly building up a profound sweat and coming close to winging a parkgoer seated on a nearby chair) I invited Mr. Biederman to take my place.

"A lot of Bryant Park is trial and error," he explained as he threw the sticks, hardly more successful at hitting the pegs than I was. "We're up to about 14 games in the park."

He started to list them. "Petanque. Chess. Backgammon. Ping pong. Checkers. Dominos. Chinese checkers. Chinese chess. Jenga. What am I leaving out?"

"Apples to Apples," he went on. "Mancala, I didn't mention."

I wondered aloud whether they really needed another game, especially one that monopolized precious lawn space, and that stood at least an outside chance of injuring innocent passersby with an errant toss. I suppose what I was really asking is whether games are the point of a park? I was under the impression that a park's primary purpose was for quiet contemplation, as a refuge from the chaos, from the noise and carbon monoxide of the surrounding city.

Mr. Biederman—between tosses—insisted that it was possible to have both.

"Look at these people," he said. He was referring to some of the 1,200 people who were using the greensward at that very moment. (He knew the number because one of his clicker guys walked by and announced the total.) "All they hear is the tinkling of the piano in the background. And when the carousel starts, the bell ringing."

He seemed to be making my point for me. A park where a pianist passes for tranquility—he was speaking of Joel Forrester, who was performing boogie-woogie music for the lunchtime crowd—and a carousal summoning riders—seems less park than theme park, a vestpocket Disneyworld wedged between the New York Public Library and Avenue of the Americas. And on a stage in the distance professional dancers were practicing for some upcoming event. "I don't even know what's going on, on that stage," Mr. Biederman admitted.

I don't mean to deny Dan Biederman's accomplishment. (He also runs the 34th Street Partnership and three business improvement districts.) Before he and other like-minded civic leaders, such as the Parks Council in the early '80s, came along, Bryant Park was best known as a destination for illicit drugs and prostitution. This is immeasurably better. It's just not really a park.

Or rather it's a park more along the lines of the Tuileries or the Luxembourg Gardens, which Mr. Biederman confessed he admires; he travels frequently to Europe in search of new ideas (such as Kubb). It seems to me those parks are under no illusion that they're recreating nature, as Olmsted and Vaux set out to do in Central and Prospect parks.

Instead, they're taking some of nature's best inventions—trees, for example—and using them as manicured window dressing. They're called "gardens" rather than parks for a reason.

Indeed, after Mr. Biederman lost his game of Kubb to Mr. Kattar—it went on forever – he took me on a tour of the nine-acre space. I was reminded of the park scenes of Renoir, with their dappled light and dancing bourgeoisie. Except in this case they'd been replaced by brown-bagging 21st-century office workers.

"I forgot to say juggling," Mr. Biederman said, adding to his aforementioned list of divertissements, as we passed a professional juggler leading a free class. We also encountered an accordionist playing Edith Piaf's "Under Paris Skies."

"Accordionists are expensive," Mr. Biederman confided. "One accordionist can cost the same as an entire music group. They're either in demand or good negotiators."

He added that his staff was unhappy with the money he was spending on accordionists. I suspect they have a point.

Red, White and Blue in the Park

It's a red, white and blue summer at Bryant Park this year. Last month the United States Army celebrated their 237 birthday in the park with a performance by the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) and the U.S. Army Band "Pershing's Own." This month, Tide will celebrate the Olympics and the Fourth of July with their My Story. Our Flag event.

Did you know that besides being Flag Day, June 14 is also the birthday of the United States Army? This year, the Army turned 237 (that’s one year older than the U.S.A. itself) and celebrated with a full-scale military tattoo in Bryant Park. With Chief of Staff of the Army General Ray Odierno looking on, the USO Liberty Bells began the festivities by singing some American standards. Then the Old Guard Traditional Fife and Drum Corps thrilled onlookers with a traditional ceremonial performance using authentic period costumes and instruments, and the Army Drill Team followed with a rarely-seen exhibition of precise movements that included an exciting and dangerous finale involving a thrown rifle.

After the Army band ‘Downrange’ entertained with a selection of pop songs and patriotic tunes, the proceedings wound up with a dedication to NYC’s Finest and Bravest. You can see some footage of the proceedings here. The soldiers seemed to enjoy the day as much as the spectators and many of them lingered at the park afterwards, checking out the amenities and enjoying the scenery. We at BPC were absolutely thrilled and honored to host this special event. We thank the U.S. Army for its participation and salute its members for their service.

And tomorrow, Tide presents a nationwide project, in which they asked thousands of people the question, "What Do the Red, White and Blue Mean to You?" These stories have been collected and printed on pieces of red, white, and blue fabric to create a 13,000 square foot artistic interpretation of the American flag. The flag will be on view from 8am to 8pm this Tuesday, July 3.