Arts & Entertainment >>

• Best Arts Venue Conjuring Avenue A in the ’80s
  GlassLands Gallery
  The reunion of a 1970s San Francisco–based drag troupe, a 1930s Berlin-style cabaret, music acts ranging from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to Matisyahu, a soul-dance competition, and a lecture by conceptual-art philosopher Henry Flynt are just the beginning at GlassLands Gallery. The tchotchke-filled,... More >>
• Best Octogenarian Impresario on the Bowery
  Tony Amato
  Perhaps it’s a testament to the timelessness of classical music, or the fact that no one’s ever used the expression “Sex, drugs, and opera,” but there’s something to be said for the fact that CBGB is now a John Varvatos boutique while its neighbor, the venerable Amato Opera—which has made its... More >>
• Best MixTape Exchange
  Sound Fix's Fix Tape Exchange
  While we don’t think anyone is lamenting the demise of the cassette, it’s a little sad to think that no one will agonize over making a mixtape for that BFF or new crush ever again. But—hang on—the art form isn’t dead just yet, thanks to Steven Reker, founder of the Fix Tape Exchange, a monthly... More >>
• Best Museum to See on Your Lunch Break
  New Museum
  It was no accident that the inaugural show at the New Museum’s new location on the Bowery was called “unmonumental.” That goes for the building (a silvery, offset, seven-story pile), its ambitious but unfussy curators, and, most of all, the institution’s pleasingly ramshackle aura. Leaving the... More >>
• Best Underground Movement
  The Roundabout and the Atlantic
  Hey, you’ve apparently got to hide your love away, which might explain the new trend toward theaters building little spaces deep in the basement. These spaces, at the Roundabout and the Atlantic, provide a subterranean environment for plays that delighted the literary department but couldn’t... More >>
• Best Local Arts Organization
  Creative Time
  They’ve been doing it forever now, but Creative Time is still the best arts organization in town. A 2001 rousting from their longtime spot in the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage has proved to be something of a blessing for the group: As nomads, they’ve colonized everything from Times Square to MOMA... More >>
• Best Fall from Local Rap Grace (1 Comment)
  The Diplomats
  Those who spent this summer listening to New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne’s “A Milli” crank out of car stereos from Harlem to Brooklyn could be excused for feeling a bit sad. It wasn’t so long ago that we had our own indigenous ways of making SUVs (er, hybrids) thump—years after D-Block and Wu-Tang... More >>
• Best Overhyped Brooklyn Music Duo
  High Places
  Brooklyn art-rockers High Places took until September to release a full-length album, but they’ve been the most beloved band in the city since sometime last year. This status, in New York, is often pretty much the equivalent to Sports Illustrated’s cover jinx—adulation, followed by a blown-out... More >>
• Best Stage Technology
  3LD Art and Technology's Eyeliner
  In a recent radio interview, cosmetics expert Bobbi Brown, asked for her one piece of makeup advice, answered: “Eyeliner—never leave home without eyeliner.” Lately, performance groups are taking that counsel to heart. 3LD Art and Technology center has laid in a lovely little toy called Eyeliner,... More >>
• Best New Gallery District
  The East Village and the Lower East Side
  The New Museum is the most visible—but far from the only—art space to recently revisit the East Village and the Lower East Side. As Chelsea rents continue to go up (and certain Chelsea artists continue to ossify), a splinter group of galleries is rediscovering the joys of the east side of town.... More >>
• Best Reason to Go Down a Bushwick Side Street at Night
  Bushwick Starr
  To keep from being harassed, one friend of ours walks home from the Jefferson L-train stop in Bushwick, talking to herself like she was batshit crazy. Another friend who lives off DeKalb carries nunchucks. Such is the price of living in one of Brooklyn’s most volatile neighborhoods. Still, Sue... More >>
• Most Dastardly Local Book Press
  Felony & Mayhem
  Softly—the game is afoot! Amid the scores of small specialty presses in New York, which might we choose to recognize? Elementary, my dear Watson: The honor this year goes to Felony & Mayhem, a pint-size house headed by Maggie Topkis, co-owner of the Partners in Crime bookshop. In its three... More >>
• Best Move from Living Room to Legitimate Theater
  Dixon Place
  They’ve teased and they’ve taunted, but on October 20, the new Dixon Place will finally open. Downtown’s most supportive works-in-progress space has inhabited something like a living room for the past 22 years, with mismatched couches, dubious air conditioning, and lots of heart. The new... More >>
• Best Theater Test Site
  Laboratories are typically sites for exploration and discovery—and retching, if it’s the day that fetal-pig dissection is assigned. Soho Rep’s Writer/Director Lab certainly fits that definition, minus the dry heaves. For the last 10 years, it has lent its scientific method to writers like Anne... More >>
• Best Space Uniting Hippies and Dance Artists
  Center for Performance Research
  As if they weren’t already one and the same, contemporary dancers/choreographers and crunchy-culture lovers have a 4,000-square-foot space to be thankful for. Housed on the ground floor of Williamsburg’s LEED-certified Greenbelt—Brooklyn’s first “green” residential building—the Center for... More >>
• Rowdiest Old People
  Museum of Modern Art
  Feel that Buster Keaton film is just too silent? Want a little real-life combative action to go with your Iraq documentary? Then hobble over to the Museum of Modern Art, where the classic films shown at the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters and the Celeste Bartos Theater attract crotchety old people... More >>
• Best (and Least Likely) New Noisy Venue
  Central Branch of the Brooklyn Library
  Typically, a librarian’s response to clamor is a vigorous “Shhh!,” but now those bespectacled professionals might respond by clapping, cheering, and perhaps even waving a cigarette lighter. The Central Branch of the Brooklyn Library has taken to sponsoring a series of free outdoor concerts on... More >>
• Best Music Producer
  Dave Sitek
  The news that Hollywood queen Scarlett Johansson would record an entire album of Tom Waits covers triggered much teeth-gnashing and garment-rending among both Waits diehards and those generally averse to movie stars masquerading as rock stars. This would not go well. Parsing the result (Anywhere... More >>
• Best Brooklyn Firebrand
  Santogold
  The eclectic style . . . the fashionista street cred . . . the flair for marketing . . . the Diplo mixtape . . . you can’t rightly blame those who tag Santogold as the second coming of M.I.A.: sonically adventurous, sociologically fascinating, critically beloved. But both on record (the... More >>
• Best Album, Vituperative Backlash Be Damned
  Vampire Weekend
  As a new band, would you rather that people hate to love you or love to hate you? Why not both? Vampire Weekend dropped from the sky last year with an infectious, jittery, joyously awkward merger of Ivy League frathouse pop and jaunty African guitar-god rhythm, a mixture they ill-advisedly... More >>
• Best Moderately Snooty Concert Series
  Wordless Music Series
  On a Wednesday night in January, the filled-to-bursting crowd gathered to absorb some challenging orchestral works at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle was split neatly down the middle. Half were suave, elegant folks typically into the “new music” thing; the other half were scruffy,... More >>
• Best Disco Revival
  Hercules and Love Affair
  The deep-seated bias against disco that many of us who were unlucky enough to have missed disco’s heyday carry around is often difficult to overcome. But a new breed of NYC dance-music artists, ranging from Escort to Baby Oliver to DFA-label heavyweights like Shit Robot and Still Going, are... More >>
• Best Showcase of Trans Talent This Year
  Justin Bond's Lustre
  Tranny performance isn’t all Eddie Murphy in a fat-suit. Why, it can be a fat tranny in his birthday suit doing a reverse strip (Glenn Marla), a troupe of thin and muscular contemporary dancers in tight dresses (the Pixie Harlots), or a beguiling New York City schoolteacher on piano (Our Lady... More >>
• Best Way to Learn Wig-and-Eyelash Care for Your Burgeoning Burlesque Career
  Jo Weldon’s School of Burlesque
  Whether you want to make a few extra bucks or just want to take your clothes off in front of strangers for the fun of it (we won’t judge either way), a burlesque career might be a good option. Sure, it may look easy—but have you ever actually tried to jump up and down without a bra on in the... More >>
• Best Way to Compensate for the Lack of Roots-Music Radio
  Down Home Radio Show
  Everyone complains about how the local airwaves suck, but instead of bitching, you should go online to find a Gotham-based program that actually has good roots music—the podcast-formatted Down Home Radio Show, hosted by guitarist Eli Smith since its start in 2006. DHR provides folk-music... More >>
• Best Off-Off-Off-Broadway Musical Theater
  Rev. Jen’s Really Cool Neighborhood
  Even after her punk-band days and her years of “anti-slam” variety performances, Jen Miller has kept a busy schedule. When she’s not doing her cable-access show, or working out of her home as the curator of a troll-doll museum, or writing columns for artnet.com, or lecturing at USC about... More >>
• Best Old-Timey Venue
  Jalopy
  With the shrinking number of Gotham music venues—who’re mostly worried about surviving—it’s getting harder to find interesting places. That’s why it’s a relief to come across a locale like the Jalopy Theatre and School of Music. Situated within the confines of the Columbia Street Waterfront... More >>
• Best Online DJ
  David Byrne
  It’s not like he has a lot of free time, what with his playable-building exhibit, Imelda Marcos theater piece, record label, book of sketches, articles about the music industry, a recent album with Brian Eno, and a fall tour. Still, as a certified music nut, Gothamite David Byrne can’t help... More >>
• Best Video Artist Based in a Bar
  Donald O’Finn
  If you happen to wander into a cozy bar in Prospect Heights called Freddie’s, one of the first things you’ll notice are the small screens along the wall displaying a series of bizarre images. Even if you venture into the adjacent music area, you’re still greeted by these extended video... More >>
• Best Art Gallery Benefiting People with Disabilities
  United Cerebral Palsy of New York City
  On the outskirts of Gramercy Park, directly across town from the many Chelsea art galleries, is a small but elegant window display of stirring abstract and landscape paintings—the works of participants in the programs of United Cerebral Palsy of New York City. For the last 15 years, UCP has... More >>
• Best Way to Look Fashionable and Recycle at the Same Time (1 Comment)
  AuH2O Boutique
  What’s an environmental seamstress? Ask Kate Goldwater, who’s done all the sewing work at her AuH2O Boutique for the last year and a half. With her trusty sewing machines, Goldwater is able to transform “old T-shirts, slips, ties, vintage dresses, costumes, curtains, and other unwanted fabric”... More >>
• Best Non-Hetero Monthly Music Series
  Queers, Beers & Rears
  Starting as a 2007 DJ party in Williamsburg, Queers, Beers & Rears expanded into a band showcase at the Cake Shop for all shades of homocore, dykecore, and queer punk; participants have included members of the Lunachiks, L7, Bratmobile, and Pansy Division, among others. Though they don’t... More >>
• Best Band-Initiated Package Shows that Avoid the Usual Promoter Crap
  Zombieville
  Last year, when Adam Schatz was booking his experimental pop group War Canoes at the Knitting Factory, he came up with an interesting idea: Instead of having everyone stream in and out for their favorite band and get bored between sets, why not provide some entertainment throughout? Thus,... More >>
• Best Art Organization Centered Around Recycling
  Analogous Projects
  Throughout its five-year history, the not-for-profit group Analogous Projects has instituted some fascinating activities, corraled by executive director Marie Evelyn. For “Scrapcycle,” AP asked competing participants to craft instruments from discarded materials—the winner made a wind... More >>
• Best Girl-on-Girl Theatrical Action
  Room for Cream
  Admittedly, Room for Cream is a much more decorous title than one might find at an adult-entertainment emporium. But don’t be fooled: With this weekly serial, Dyke Squad—an offshoot of Theater of a Two-Headed Calf—has launched a raunchy event showcasing many of downtown’s most nubile cuties. Set... More >>
• Best Way to Ring in the New Year with a Rock Legend
  Patti Smith Group’s Bowery Ballroom NYE Shows
  Instead of freezing your ass off in Times Square, a saner annual tradition has sprung up to ring in the new year—the Patti Smith Group’s Bowery Ballroom NYE Shows, a two- or three-night tradition since 1998. Most any show with Smith and her band—including longtime collaborators guitarist Lenny... More >>
• Best Oldies Not By Oldies
  The Fabulous Soul Shakers
  The Fabulous Soul Shakers proudly proclaim that “this ain’t no oldies group,” and, 30 seconds into their finger-popping take on the likes of “I Want a Love I Can See” or the aching joy of “I Found a Love,” you’ll agree. These five young men, three of them out of Harlem and all dressed to the... More >>
• Best Jazz DJ’s (2 Comments)
  Phil Schaap
  Now that The New Yorker (with David Remnick, no less, doing the honors) has paid lengthy homage to Phil Schaap, WKCR’s jazz disc jockey/historian extraordinaire, we’d like to slip in a few words to herald the other DJs that make this bottom-of-the-FM-dial radio station such a rare and continuous... More >>
• Best Country Radio (1 Comment)
  Columbia University’s WKCR
  New York and country music have long been a tough fit; for years, programmers have tried and failed to keep all-country radio stations afloat in New York. But the one station you can count on to play the classics of Merle Haggard, Jimmie Rodgers, Ernest Tubb, George Jones, Porter Wagoner,... More >>
• Best Theater Concessions
  Ars Nova
  If a glass of lukewarm wine or a packet of stale Chips Ahoy! is your bag, then you should be utterly satisfied by the concessions available at most of our New York theaters. But Ars Nova satisfies those few disconsolates among us: In addition to reasonably priced cocktails, it features snacks... More >>