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

The nominations for the 2024 Tony Awards have now been announced, setting off a six-week period of campaigning, complaining and arguing before Broadway’s biggest prizes get handed out on June 16. We’ll have more Tonys coverage for you before then, including our predictions of who will win. But here are a few quick reactions to today’s crop of nominations.

RECOMMENDED: A full guide to the 2024 Tony Awards

The Tonys have Stereophonic fever.

David Adjmi’s long, beautiful play about a 1970s British-American rock band that is definitely not Fleetwood Mac recording an album that is totally not Rumours racked up an astonishing 13 nominations—the most of any play in Tony Award history. In large part, this accomplishment was made possible by the original music that Will Butler created for the show, which put it in two races usually reserved for musicals: Best Score and Best Orchestrations. (It’s the first play ever nominated in the latter category.) But Stereophonic also dominated elsewhere, earning noms in all four design categories as well as featured acting nominations for five of its seven cast members. 

There are now two front-runners in the race for Best Musical.

The 2023–24 season was notable for its large number of new musicals: 15 in all, the most of any season in decades. The Tony nominations have put two of them at the front of the pack in the race for Best Musical, the biggest prize of the season: Hell’s Kitchen, a jukebox show drawn from the catalog of Alicia Keys, earned 13 nominations, including for four cast members and all of its designers; The Outsiders, a musical adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s young-adult novel, earned 12, including one for Best Score. The season’s other contenders for Best Musical got significant but smaller tallies across the board: seven nominations for Water for Elephants, six for Suffs and five for the dance show Illinoise. That doesn’t mean they’re out of the race, but the other two shows have pulled noticeably ahead. 

The lead acting categories for plays are star wars this year.

More and more, nonmusical productions tend to rely on big names to draw audiences, and that’s reflected in this year’s nominations. The Best Actress category is a face-off between American Horror Story mainstays Jessica Lange and Sarah Paulson, with Rachel McAdams a potential dark horse. Best Actor is a battle between HBO stars Jeremy Strong (Succession) and Michael Stuhlbarg (Boardwalk Empire), but I wouldn’t rule out Hamilton‘s Leslie Odom Jr.

Tony nominators and theater critics don’t always agree.

Although this year’s Tony nominations matched my own choices exactly in only two categories—Best Revival of a Play and Best Lighting Design of a Play—I can’t object to most of this year’s Tony nominations, which recognize fine work. That said, there are interesting points of divergence, in the aggregate, between the nominations and the overall critical consensus on certain productions. The Outsiders, which was met with mostly middling notices, received more nominations than the reviews might have suggested—as did the outlandish Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, which sharply divided critics but earned eight nominations, including for stars Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin. Conversely, the flashily designed reimagination of The Who’s Tommy, which critics loved, got a nod for Best Revival but nothing else. (A desire to support current shows may also play a role in this crowded season for musicals; there’s no way to know, but I suspect that the critically lauded Here Lies Love and Days of Wine and Roses would both have gotten more love if they were still running.)

It may finally be Michael Greif’s year…

As far as the Tonys are concerned, director Michael Grief can’t get no respect. He did not win Best Director for Rent, which won Best Musical in 1996. Nor did he win for Next to Normal or Grey Gardens, two of the best Broadway musicals of the 2010s. Nor did he win for Dear Evan Hansen, which won Best Musical in 2017. But this year—when he directed or co-directed three new musicals, an unprecedented feat in modern Broadway history—he may finally get his flowers. He’s nominated for Hell’s Kitchen, but his very fine work on Days of Wine and Roses and The Notebook could help give him the edge over Merrily We Roll Along’s Maria Friedman and his other competitors this year. 

…but other prolific contenders got overlooked.

I tend to dislike talk of snubs because there are only so many nominations to go around, and many worthy candidates are always going to be left out—especially in perpetually overcrowded categories such as those for featured acting. But I will single out two people whose omissions seem especially egregious because, like Grief, they had more than one worthy contender this year: Lorin Latarro, who choreographed The Who’s Tommy and The Heart of Rock and Roll; and Paul Tate dePoo III, the scenic designer for The Great Gatsby, The Cottage and Spamalot. Both should have been shoo-ins, I think.

Category sizes still confuse many people.

A quick glance at the nomination list raises an obvious question for many people, which I’ve seen a lot on social media: Most categories have five nominees, so why does one have only three and another has only four, but one has six and another two have seven? The answer is mostly straightforward, and has to do with the number of eligible candidates. When there are at least nine candidates, as in most races, there are five slots; when there are fewer (as is usually the case for revivals), the number of nominees shrinks. There were only five play revivals this season, so Best Revival of a Play has three nominees; there were six musical revivals, so Best Revival of a Musical has four nominees. But here’s where it gets more complicated: If there is a tie for the bottom slot in a category, the category expands to accommodate it. That’s why there are five nominees for Best Actress is a Play this year, even though there were only eight candidates, and it’s also why there are six nominees for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. But the categories can only expand to seven at most: If there is still a tie at that point, it triggers a somewhat complicated tie-breaking vote on weighted ballots.So we don’t know exactly what happened in the two categories—the very competitive fields of Best Featured Actress in a Play and Best Scenic Design in a Musical—that have seven nominees; all of the tying candidates may have been included, or there may have been others who tied on the first round but were subsequently cut. Either way, though, the expansion of a given category is the result of an automatic process determined by Tony rules, and does not reflect a conscious decision by nominators to widen the field. 

Let the bickering begin!

* This article was originally published here

Heroes get remembered, but legends never die. New York Yankees MLBbros are being immortalized for heroics that have made them legends forever.

Dave Winfield was honored on April 24 for his incredible accomplishments while wearing the pinstripes with a mural a few blocks away from Yankee Stadium.

The mural, titled “Exhibiting Possibilities: Legendary Yankees,” was a collaboration led by The Bronx Children’s Museum, The Players Alliance, the Yankees and the Bronx Terminal Market to feature historically great Black Yankees players.

“We hope that every boy or girl that sees these murals will have their own dreams of greatness on the field and, more importantly, in their communities. We will continue to support the storytelling of excellence surrounding the Black players in our game, and we look forward to continuing to honor our history, particularly our history of Black players,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said during the unveiling of the mural.

An uber-athletic outfielder, Winfield played for the Yankees from 1981-1990, during which he was an All-Star for all but the last two seasons of his stint in the Bronx. He also won five Gold Gloves and five Silver Sluggers over his time as a Yankee.

Winfield played the first eight seasons of his career with the San Diego Padres, for which he is a member of the franchise’s Hall of Fame and has his No. 31 retired. The native of St. Paul, Minnesota was a standout for the University of Minnesota’s baseball and basketball teams before being drafted by four organizations in 1973: He was taken by the Padres with the fourth overall pick in the MLB draft, the Atlanta Hawks in the fifth round of the NBA draft and the ABA’s Utah Stars in the sixth round. And despite not playing college football, Winfield was a 17th round selection by the Minnesota Vikings in the NFL draft.

In addition to the Padres and Yankees, the 6-6, 225 pound Winfield also played for the Los Angeles Angels (formerly the California and Anaheim Angels), Toronto Blue Jays, Minnesota Twins and Cleveland Indians. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001 in his first year of eligibility. Winfield was the first Padres player ever to make it to the venerable HOF in Cooperstown, New York.

Even with the unforgettable accomplishments he had in his first 18 seasons with the Padres and Yankees, Winfield didn’t win a World Series title until 1992, in his one year with Toronto, when he was 41. During that season, he hit the game-winning, two-run double in the 11th inning of Game 6 of the World Series that clinched the title, forever earning him the nickname “Mr. Jay.”

Over the course of his career, Winfield, now 72, batted .283, with 465 home runs, 1,833 RBI, a career on-base percentage of .353, and a slugging percentage of .475. He also has 3,110 career hits, which is 23rd all-time. He was a 12-time All-Star, seven-time Gold Glove winner, and a six-time Silver Slugger award winner throughout the entirety of his playing career.

The post Hall of Famer Dave Winfield honored with a mural near Yankee Stadium appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

A new large-scale sculpture exhibition opens in Harlem this week, with eight featured locations to host the sculpture installations, bringing public art to residents uptown in a welcome change. It’s the first large-scale sculpture exhibition in the neighborhood. “We don’t have a lot of galleries in Harlem,” said Savona Bailey-McClain, executive director and chief curator for the West Harlem Art Fund. “But what we do have is a lot of park spaces.”

Bailey-McClain explained that while art is frequently confined to lavish spaces like museums and galleries, the Harlem Sculpture Gardens seeks to disrupt that practice by making art publicly accessible.

Several historic parks will be utilized for the exhibition, running from Morningside Park to Jackie Robinson Park. Visitors are encouraged to stop by every venue, including Harriet Tubman Triangle, Frederick Douglass Circle, and the City College of New York Campus.
“[Public art] gives the opportunity for those who don’t always feel welcome in institutions, the possibility to see, to engage, and to experience,” said Dianne Smith, a multidisciplinary artist presenting her work in the exhibition.

Smith’s piece,“Echoes of the Path,” incorporates small aluminum wire sculptures for a commentary contrasting the urban and natural environment.

The metal, she said, mimics the shape of trees in nature, while the aluminum signifies the urban environment through its concrete composition. It’ll be featured at St. Nicholas Park. 
She identified her geographical and cultural background as major artistic influences.
“I’m a child of the diaspora, so my work responds and connects to the cultural landscape of Harlem,” she said.

For Bailey-McClain, capturing the cultural diversity of New York City is a goal of the exhibition, as illustrated by the roster of artists and the variety of art on display.

“We have several artists, Latino artists. We have two Asian artists,” she said, offering examples. “We also incorporated abstract works that deal with contemporary art in New York City.”

The exhibition further aims to increase traffic and visibility to the venues. Michael Gormley, executive director of the New York Artists Equity Association, noted that these spaces are often underutilized, reinforcing the importance of accessibility.

Tyreese Nacho photos

“If you’re going to make art accessible to everyone, you take it to their communities,” said Gormley.

The Harlem Sculpture Gardens is a year-long project headed by the West Harlem Art Fund and New York Equity Artists Association in collaboration with the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, local community boards, and other neighborhood groups. 

The exhibition is a reform of an existing artistic vision by Bailey-McClain, a veteran within the public arts sphere. Years ago, the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation approached her to carry out a project presenting sculptures in all four historic parks in Harlem. Years later, they approached her again for another iteration. This time, she wanted to create something on a bigger scale.

“We made sure that different organizations and artists in all five boroughs were aware of what we were doing,” she said. “We’re trying to create a new scene in Harlem that’s contemporary that can be seen as more relevant with young people, and so we reached out to various groups.” After initiating an open call for proposals and receiving fewer submissions than expected, she accepted all of them.

Now, as the project comes to fruition, Bailey-McClain is optimistic about the impact it will have on the community.

“I had a resident across the street come over and shake my hand. She was so happy. She felt like the art was making her day,” she said. “So we want people to see that what’s normally downtown, or maybe in downtown Brooklyn, can happen uptown. We can have sculptures on a large scale in Harlem, and people would respect it, and they would welcome it, and they can understand. And they can ask questions.”

The Harlem Sculpture Gardens will run from May 2, 2024, through October 30, 2024.
For more information, visit https://harlemsculpturegardens.com/ 

The post Public Art comes to Harlem with new large-scale sculpture exhibition appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

A recent study found that one of NYC’s most iconic restaurants was also one of the most Instagrammable restaurants in the whole country. (That would be the 136-year-old Katz’s Deli, of course.) And now a more modern entry into the city’s pantheon of great restaurants has been dubbed one of the most popular restaurants in the world, thanks to new findings from Solopress. 

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Solopress conducted a comprehensive study to identify the most social media-friendly restaurants around the world, looking at the number of TikTok and Instagram posts associated with the restaurant’s hashtag. Picturesque Paris had the strongest showing on the list, with three venues hailing from the City of Lights: Le Meurice, Pink Mamma and Le Train Bleu. And a London dining room, that Insta-favorite Sketch, came out on top as the most social media-friendly restaurant in the world, boosted by its popularity on Instagram, with a whopping 93,849 posts. 

But New York was no slouch, coming in ninth thanks to the social-media popularity of Le Coucou, the graceful French spot from the prolific restaurateur Stephen Starr (Buddakan, Morimoto) and chef Daniel Rose. The beautifully appointed Soho dining room—which we wrote looked like “a scene out of Ratatouille” in our review, “the open kitchen lined with copper pots and hand-glazed tiles, churning with chefs whose two-foot-high toques blanche skim the range hoods as they plate hazelnut-freckled leek vinaigrettes”—garnered 15,824 Instagram posts as well as 208 TikTok posts at the time of the study, which clinched Le Coucou’s top-10 status. 

See Solopress’s popularity findings below:

* This article was originally published here