Our perennial love affair with Toronto’s “Big Sister” to the south shows no signs of easing up, as this latest survey of the chillest happenings in New York shows. From grand opera to geeky hideouts, it’s a great time to visit – just make sure you’re bundled!
Everyone knows FAO Schwartz, but real ones know that the place to be is Astoria’s Museum of Nostalgia, a vintage toy store-cum-micro-museum featuring a wealth of geeky goods to make even the most cynical visitor cry tears of nostalgia. While the interior “museum” (really more of a mock living room displaying off-sale items, as seen in the photo above) is fun to peruse, the real joy is in digging through all the remarkably fairly-priced Ninja Turtles, Batmans (Batmen?), Trolls, trading cards (Jaws 3D! Star Trek: Deep Space Nine!), He-Men and He-Women, and oh so much more. Founded by couple, Phebe and Jeff – they’re almost always there, and both incredibly friendly and knowledgeable – it’s a wonderful place to get lost in.
Speaking of Astoria and nostalgia, the Museum of the Moving Image – founded in 1988 – has been wowing visitors for nearly forty years with its exemplary collection movie props, scripts, and other paraphernalia. Highlights include the permanent Jim Henson Collection – yes, Big Bird and Kermit are here – costumes worn by the likes of Robin Williams and Eddie Murphy, and a delightfully macabre showing of horror ware, such as The Exorcist’s notorious “vomit device”, worn by star Linda Blair. It also has a surprisingly strong assortment of classic video games and game devices – including several working arcade machines.
On a higher brow note, the Metropolitan Opera continues to draw in audiences with stellar production after stellar production, including the newly commissioner The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, a strikingly produced adaptation of Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer price-winning novel, as well as lesser-known gems like Bellini’s I Puritani (a New Year’s Eve premiere) and returning favourites like the holiday abridged The Magic Flute.
The Magic Flute is an interesting beast – truncating Mozart’s magnificent work into a single-act, sub-two-hour kid-friendly endeavour is a noble idea, and Julie Taymor’s design work is, of course, excellent. While the audiences we encountered there were never anything less than enthralled – and the singers in top form, as usual – it was hard not to question some of the Met’s artistic choices. In particular, by trying to stuff everything from the opera in – by cutting arias in half, naturally – it felt altogether too rushed. It would probably have been wiser to simply excise certain scenes (or characters – looking at you Monastatos) entirely. That said, Papageno’s (ad-libbed?) 6-7 joke was unforgivable.
Easily the highlight of this year’s offerings was an evening performance at Speakeasy Magick, newly relocated from its old home in the now-defunct McKittrick Hotel (of which more, here).
The brainchild of Emursive Entertainment, the production company which imported Sleep No More to New York and subsequently produced the short-lived Life and Trust, the conceit of Speakeasy is that you’ve been snuck into a hidden bar, where a team of magicians is rotating table to table, group to group. The individual performers can be hit or miss, but there’s no denying the thrill of witnessing feats of legerdemain up close and personal, each “set” feeling like a personalized, small-scale magic show just for you and your table of eight or so. (Definitely make sure you go with friends.)
If the magic entertained us, we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of both the food and drink. There’s an initial waiting area with a bar, but once you get to the real venue – no spoilers here! – There’s a fantastic cocktail menu and plentiful snacks, including a mysteriously seasoned popcorn which we couldn’t get enough of. Honestly, though, even just the experience of entering into Speakeasy Magick – again, no spoilers! – makes the price of admission worth it.
There’s so much more we could go on about – browsing for hours at The Strand, experiencing the recently reopened The Frick Collection, hunting for vintage finds in the East Village – but then we can’t give you all the tips and tricks. Half the fun of visiting the city that never sleeps is the exhaustion of learning that for yourself.
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For more on the Toronto Guardian’s ongoing love affair with New York, check out Rebecca Felgate’s Mother-Daughter Road Trip from a few years ago.
