How did the Bronx Museum of the Arts, an institution on the Grand Concourse that is far removed from the tourist precincts of Manhattan’s Museum Mile, boost its attendance by 50 percent last year? Not by staging a blockbuster exhibition or opening a grand new wing. It simply stopped charging admission. Now the free admission [...]
Afrika Bambaataa On-Board to Help Create National Museum of Hip Hop
August 23, 2012 | Posted by
Hip Hop pioneer, Godfather, icon, Afrika Bambaataa is putting his substantial weight behind a new proposal to transform the abandoned Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx into a community cultural, recreational and market center that would include a National Museum of Hip-Hop. Bam, a Bronx native, has signed a letter-of-intent to help create a National Museum [...]
Paying Respects to Billie Holiday Can Be a Journey
July 19, 2012 | Posted by
Fans looking to pay their respects to legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday are surprised when they find out just where they have to go to do so. When Billie Holiday died in 1959, thousands of mourners attended her funeral at St. Paul the Apostle Roman Catholic Church in New York City. The overflow crowd lined [...]
NY Ghanians Install New Chief in Elaborate Ceremony in the Bronx
June 4, 2012 | Posted by
The elders had poured libations, the holy men had delivered invocations, and all had sworn allegiance to the Ashanti kingdom. A battery of percussionists, glistening with sweat, started pounding out waves of rhythm that brought hundreds of guests, draped in elaborate kente cloth, to their feet. A scrum of men formed at one end of [...]
Chameleon Actor Giancarlo Esposito is ‘Breaking Bad’ in New Play at the Atlantic Theater
June 4, 2012 | Posted by
Most actors create one or two memorable characters in a career, if they’re lucky. The portraits etched by the mercurial Giancarlo Esposito, on the other hand, are so distinct that you can imagine them playing scenes off each other. It’s tantalizing, for instance, to imagine Buggin Out, the Brooklyn gadfly who led a pizzeria boycott [...]
