NYC Confidential, Insider Secrets of NYC - Time Out New York

Other Music

WHY ESSENTIAL:
One of NYC’s premier spots to buy actual prerecorded music—not just compact discs but also vinyl (7-, 10- and 12-inch)—has added a digital-sales outlet to its website. But you can get OM’s singular rush of stimuli only by heading down to 4th Street. What’s just released? Whose photos are hanging on the walls? What upcoming shows can I buy tickets for? Oh, what is that over by the magazine rack? The out-there indie-rock decadence free-jazz electronica section? Awesome.

The secret:
“We were super psyched when we got our first gold record plaque from local boys done good the Strokes, right after their Is This It album had broken 500,000 copies in sales,” says the store’s Josh Madell. “But anyone who’s seen the shop knows that we don’t have much wall space in the front or the back. Rather than one of the Other Music owners taking it home to keep it to themselves next to their old bowling trophies, we hung it in the only spot in the shop with wall space—the staff toilet, where it hangs to this day.” 15 E 4th St between Broadway and Lafayette St (212-477-8150, othermusic.com)

Oscar Wilde Bookshop

WHY ESSENTIAL:
Not that you’d know it by counting the number of LGBT publishers and indie bookstores in existence, but queer lit is alive and well. For proof, just slip into this tiny but packed-to-the-rafters bookstore, which turns 40 this month. Owner Kim Brinster may be surrounded by superstores, but her shelves—rich with everything from rarities and classics to hot-off-the-press fiction—show no sign of caving.

The secret:
Katie Holmes swung by the store and bought two DVDs right before it went public that she was dating Tom Cruise. No word on what the titles were. 15 Christopher St at Gay St (212-255-8097, oscarwildebooks.com)

Hayden Planetarium

WHY ESSENTIAL:
We’re dorks. Gifted with a major face-lift in 2000, the American Museum of Natural History’s astronomical amphitheater dazzles audiences with stellar productions, like the current Robert Redford–narrated “Cosmic Collisions,” which reveals the explosive encounters that created the Milky Way and altered the course of life on Earth.

The secret:
On the model of Jupiter, you’ll find a little black circle, which represents where a comet struck. “I left it in there to remind us all of how tenuous life is, how it could all disappear,” says planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson. Central Park West at 81st St (212-769-5100)

Anthology Film Archives

WHY ESSENTIAL:
Led by the indefatigable Jonas Mekas, this East Village treasure, which opened in 1970, is a mandatory destination for all lovers of—and newbies looking to explore—avant-garde film and video.

The secret:
Before it was screening retrospectives of Hollis Frampton and Alexander Kluge, the AFA building was home to the Second Avenue Courthouse. Holding cells occupied the current location of the 72-seat Maya Deren Theater, and the 192-seat Courthouse Theater was the magistrate’s courtroom from 1917 through the early ’60s. In an odd twist of fate, Mekas and his filmmaker brother, Adolfas, were arraigned at the courthouse in 1955 for not paying their printing bill on issue vol. 1, no. 2, of their seminal magazine, Film Culture. They stiffed a group of Franciscan monks who owned a printing press in Brooklyn. 32 Second Ave at 2nd St (212-505-5181, anthologyfilmarchives.org)

St. Ann’s Warehouse

Photograph: Joshua Kristal

WHY ESSENTIAL:
In ten years, all New Yorkers who are serious about theater will head to Brooklyn. Don’t believe us? Susan Feldman’s Dumbo outpost has outdone many of Manhattan’s best venues for exciting music and international acts (Tiger Lillies, Mark Rylance’s Globe Theatre and National Theatre of Scotland’s sensational Black Watch). Second only to BAM, St. Ann’s thrilling programming and cool location (as we went to press, bar–performance joint Galapagos was preparing to move in across the street) is the top reason we want to move to Brooklyn, where the real New Yorkers live.

The secret:
You may have seen the Gate Theatre London production of Woyzeck at St. Ann’s, in which peas rained onto the stage for a full minute, but you didn’t know that they used 500 pounds of the green orbs (which were painted to make them even more green)—or that a few of them have been found scattered around the city (like on the L train). 38 Water St between Dock and Main Sts, Dumbo, Brooklyn (718-254-8779, stannswarehouse.org)