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It’s officially time to drink outside, and one of the city’s best outdoor bars for large groups and local craft beer is returning for the season: Torch & Crown Brewing Company will reopen its summertime pop-up to the public at the Union Square Pavilion on Wednesday, May 1. 

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The Torch & Crown Beer Garden first debuted in Union Square Park last year, marking the brewery’s first offshoot outside of its Soho brewery and restaurant. This year it returns not only with locally brewed beers but also a slate of events and programming to the open-air NYC Parks’ concession venue in Union Square Park. On the warm-weather calendar is morning yoga, live music, and jazz brunch, happy hours, weekend cookouts, and more, some of which will be in partnership with local businesses. Torch & Crown will also celebrate PRIDE this June, followed by an Oktoberfest-inspired Torchfest coming in late September. 

Along with new and returning draft options (from their flagship Almont Famous to crisp lagers like Tenement), the beer garden will feature a revamped food menu this season, overseen by Executive Chef Michael Citarella—expect bar-food staples like homemade pizza, fried chicken sandwiches, and burgers. The seasonal venue will feature both indoor and outdoor dining, so you can enjoy beers and bites rain or shine.  

“We are thrilled to welcome back Torch & Crown Beer Garden for its second year in Union Square Park,” said Julie Stein, Executive Director at Union Square Partnership. “We are proud to work with the Torch & Crown team ahead of a fun-filled 2024 season. Torch & Crown Beer Garden exemplifies the unique, authentic, and immersive New York City experiences that residents, workers, and visitors can find in Union Square, and we look forward to supporting their team in delivering a community-centric approach to hospitality that adds to the overall vibrancy of our neighborhood.” 

After officially opening its doors tomorrow, Torch & Crown Beer Garden will be open through Thursday, October 31; hours of operations are Monday to Wednesday from 1pm to 9pm, Thursday to Saturday from 1pm to 10pm, and Sundays from 1pm to 8pm. Check out photos of the space as well as some of the food and drink offerings below: 

* This article was originally published here

Good news for West Siders: The Macy’s Fourth of July Fireworks are returning to the Hudson River side of Manhattan this year after a long stint on the East River. 

This year’s location will open offer miles of prime viewing to see the nation’s largest Independence Day celebration on Thursday, July 4, 2024. The display will feature thousands of shells and an array of effects that will illuminate the Manhattan skyline. Fireworks will launch from barges positioned along the Hudson River with multiple viewing opportunities in Manhattan between West 14th and West 34th Streets and in New Jersey.

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“This year’s Macy’s 4th of Fireworks display will launch an inspiring spectacle of patriotic color, light and sound from the Hudson River for the first time in more than a decade,” said Will Coss, executive producer of Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks, said in a press release. “Following last year’s first of its kind drone display, our team has been hard at work developing new ways to surprise and delight our fans.”

The team at Macy’s Studios works with Pyro Spectaculars by Souza to come up with creative ways to decorate the night sky and awe spectators. While it’s incredible to see the show in person, it’s also broadcast across the country on NBC. 

This year, New Jersey will one again get in on prime fireworks viewing.

“New Jersey is proud to celebrate Independence Day this year with a dazzling display of fireworks planned in collaboration with our neighbors across the Hudson,” said New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. “For the first time in recent years, Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks will light up our sky above the Hudson River.”

The annual fireworks display has been a beloved New York City tradition since 1976. More details about this year’s show, including viewing locations and timing, will be announced in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

* This article was originally published here

Growing up, César Álvarez, a Mexico City native, was obsessed with magazines. Raised in the neighborhood of Anahuac smack-dab in the middle of the city, he’d spend hours flipping through issues of Eres, a Mexican media brand for young people interested in design. “I loved the fashion, the expression, the idea of creating narratives and stories around music, fashion, photography, looks,” Álvarez tells Time Out.

One thing about Álvarez is that he’s always been the type of person to put his ambitions into action. He started simply by getting some of his friends together and shooting looks for them. Through those shoots, he began to build an online magazine that he named Tótem, a reference to Indigenous totems found throughout North America. Like those fixtures of Native culture, Álvarez hoped to create a record for his community and give a sense that they were worthy of being built up and displayed as pillars for others to revere. Tótem magazine became a fast success, and Álvarez decided to host pop-ups where the designers from the magazine could actually sell their work, thereby creating an ecosystem of emerging Mexican talent. 

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Eventually, Álvarez sought to explore fashion beyond his home city and moved to L.A., where he wanted to build a cultural bridge between the fashion and aesthetic languages of L.A. and Mexico City. In L.A., Álvarez ran a successful show room that was visited by celebrity stylists wanting to source from the hottest designers coming out of Mexico City

In 2022, VANS reached out to Álvarez and asked him to be their global ambassador, offering him resources to work on any projects he wanted. His mind immediately went to his dream of making Tótem a print magazine, and the first issue featured Julio Torres from the comedy Problemista. To Álvarez, Torres represented everything that he identified with: A Latino person doing his best to build a creative life in the U.S..

In recent years, Álvarez has found himself getting positions and opportunities that people like him don’t often tend to get. “Growing up in Mexico in the hood, you don’t even realize what opportunities you’re missing out on because nobody tells you,” Álvarez says. “In Mexico you can see a lot of nepotism, and there’s a lot of people who have amazing talents but have no access or opportunities.” His own background as an underdog in the fashion world informs how he chooses the designers he highlights, who tend to be extremely talented and hard working creatives with zero idea about how to access a bigger audience through marketing or media. In many ways, Álvarez’s most important role for them is to create a thread that connects those designers from the underground and pull them within view for the larger public.

We’re Mexican and we’re proud of that, but we’re also part of the larger world. We deserve to be in the mix. 

Tótem magazine is a way for Álvarez to push out a different vision of Mexican creativity that is not just rooted in stereotypes and tradition. “As a Mexican person, we are our culture: Mariachis, the food, all of that,” he says. “But we’re also affected by globalization. We’re Mexican and we’re proud of that, but we’re also part of the larger world. We deserve to be in the mix.” Arriving at a different vision of Mexican design is also about finding a balance between embracing the things that make Mexican culture unique, while also showing others that Mexican creativity doesn’t have to just draw from the same tiny pool of references (Frida Kahlo as an overused motif comes to mind). 

Throughout Álvarez’s long creative journey through Mexico City and L.A., he had his sights set on New York for a long time. “New York has always been the city I’ve always been in love with because it was the closest to Mexico City in terms of fashion and all of these creative scenes,” says Álvarez. He finally made the big move here last year and has been constantly inspired by all the people he sees on the street. “People in New York are not afraid to be themselves, you can just take the train and see so many people with different styles that just go for it.”

People in New York are not afraid to be themselves.

Álvarez says that living in New York has already begun to inform Tótem’s new creative direction: It’s bolder, more elevated, and more high fashion than it’s ever been. At his pop-ups, Álvarez plans to showcase Mexican designers from the cities he’s lived in and propel them into a new era that folds creatives from Mexico City, L.A., and New York into the same narrative thread. As disparate as these places are geographically, they each seem to have the same concern: How do we display our Mexicanness on our bodies in a way that not only reflects our past, but also imagines our future?

Although Mexican designers will continue to draw from traditional Mexican fashion—from the elaborate, colorful fabrics to iconic footwear (who doesn’t love a good huarache?)—I also want to know what young Mexicans should be wearing to, for example, a club in Bushwick, which, for better or worse, is my more immediate concern when it comes to fashion. To embrace our entirety, we can’t just confine ourselves to what others want to see from us. We have to be bold enough to dictate what direction we want to go in ourselves. In order for this to happen, it feels necessary to put Mexican-Americans and young Mexicans from Mexico in the same room. Or, if you’re Álvarez, to feature them in the same magazine.

Álvarez’s next pop-up is a collab between Tótem Tienda and Assembly New York at 168 Ludlow from 11am-7pm on May 4 and 5. Featured designers will include Paloma Lira, Ese Chico, Anthony Rivera, MUSMIN, Tanamachi, Lick Diablo,  Flubbies, and others. 

* This article was originally published here

Given how much New Yorkers love tacos and guacamole and margaritas, and all of the other wonderful culinary gifts that Mexico has given the world, Cinco de Mayo in NYC is a pretty big deal. To celebrate the spirited occasion, Astral Tequila has been hosting the first-ever MargaritaCon, a month-long celebration that brings Astral margaritas to 170-plus participating bars and restaurants across the country, with each cocktail contributing towards building homes for those in need. And on Saturday, May 4, MargaritaCon is taking over New York’s East Village (as well as Chicago and Charleston) for a boozy day of fun.

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Join the tequila brand from 4pm to 8pm on May 4th for complimentary samples of Astral-splashed margaritas while supplies last at local spots like Onieals, Virginia’s, The Hidden Tiger and The Blind Barber. Other NYC spots like Mood Ring, Golden Wuish, Boske, Hold Fast Kitchen and Spirits, Asset, Monarch Rooftop and Blinky’s Bar will also be pouring Astral margaritas as part of the campaign. (You can check out the full map of participating bars nationwide at the Astral Tequila website.)

Astral Tequila upcycles spent agave from tequila distillation into bricks to build homes, so every margarita made with the brand’s booze goes toward a good cause. Along with partnering with Hábitat para la Humanidad México to build homes through their ongoing sustainability program, the Adobe Brick Project in Jalisco, Mexico, the tequila company will also be donating a total of $50,000 to Habitat for Humanity affiliates across the country, including Habitat NYC and Westchester, all in honor of MargaritaCon.

Equally exciting is the fact that at each participating NYC bar, you can enter a Cinco de Mayo Sweepstakes for a chance to win an all-expenses-paid trip for you and three amigos to Mexico. If you sadly can’t make it out to the fiesta in person, you can also enter the sweepstakes via the Astral Tequila website but, really, why would you want to miss a minute of this tequila-fueled fun? 

* This article was originally published here

It’s the soundtrack of summer—no, not “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter. We’re talking about that iconic Mister Softee jingle, tempting New Yorkers young and old alike with the promise of soft serve and sweet treats. The ice cream vans are ubiquitous on New York City streets when the temperatures start to rise, but you won’t have to strain your ears trying to hear for that whimsical jingle next time you’re craving a King Cone or a Chocolate Dip—the Mister Softee app makes it way easier to track down a truck. 

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Though Mister Softee is a throwback that’s been serving the New York area since the 1950s, the ice-cream truck company is solidly in the digital era with its own smartphone app, available on both the App Store and Google Play. You don’t even need to set up an account to utilize the application, which grants user the ability to plug in their zip code (the app assures that it won’t save your location data) and track down the nearest Mister Softee trucks in the area.

“Looking for the popular Mister Softee ice cream truck? Look no further, our popular and beloved trucks are now easier to find with our mobile app,” reads the app’s description. “Find the closest Mister Softee truck to you, set up your next ice cream party and more all from the app!”

Even more convenient, the mobile app allows sweet tooths to see exactly how long each truck has been parked at a given location by simply tapping on the truck icon, so you can gauge whether you have enough time to walk over before the vehicle gets moving on. Along with mapping the closest trucks to you, the app allows you to view the entire Mister Softee menu (and maybe expand from that basic vanilla cone with rainbow sprinkles?), reserve a truck for your next ice cream-themed party and more.

That’s all much easier than physically chasing that Mister Softee truck down the street, right?

* This article was originally published here