By Laura L. Griffin 8/17/12 1:00pm

the eight-day week

(Photo by flickr.com/PaulSteinJC)

To Do Sunday: All That Jazz

Today we’re hitching a ride back to the city, slipping into a drop-waist dress, grabbing a parasol and lazing across the river on the ferry—and before you can say, “Is anyone actually disappointed by the yearlong delay of the release of Gatsby?” we’ll be on Governors Island for the 7th Annual Jazz Age Lawn Party. Help yourself to live music from Michael Arenella and His Dreamland Orchestra, dancing lessons on a temporary parquet floor, records hand-cranked on a phonograph, vintage portraiture and more twee retro fashions for sale than you could sneeze at through your newly purchased hand-embroidered organic cotton gingham hanky! (But don’t kid yourself—it’s all about the St-Germain cocktails.) Read More

By Christine Chen 7/23/12 3:50pm

poetic license

photo 1

New York City Poetry Festival on Governor’s Island as Quirky as You Might Expect

“Because I could not stop for death,” read one sign for the New York Poetry Festival chalked into the pavement on Governor’s Island on Saturday, “I KEPT WALKING.”

If you kept walking, you’d run into the festival, sponsored by the Poetry Society of New York, as it stretched across the lawn at Colonels’ Row, fenced with white banners and food trucks. In front of each of the three small stages bearing the names “Chumley’s,” “The Algonquin” and “The White Horse,” around 20 attendees sat cross-legged or mermaid-style on blankets.

Those who were not inclined to pay the $5 entrance fee leaned against the fence as a bizarre medley of voices echoed through the space, either floating into ears of passersby or slammed their senses with the extra oomph of the amps. Read More

By Jessi Rucker 6/18/12 9:00am

Weekend Festivals

A couple of revelers on the ferry to Governor's Island. (Photo: flickr.com/kapkap)

Jarred from the Fantasy of the Governor’s Island Jazz Age Lawn Party by Facebook

“Why are people all dressed up?” a pig-tailed blonde wearing an oversized baby blue tee asked while tugging on her mother’s gray biker shorts.

As masses of sweaty and restless participants from New York City’s Brain Tumor Walk waited for their ferry back to Manhattan to empty, they watched in awe as a gaggle of new inhabitants on a considerably more lighthearted pursuit unloaded onto Governor’s Island looking like time travelers.

The Observer was there to catch the 7th annual Jazz Age Lawn Party, hosted by Michael Aranella and the Dreamland Orchestra. This Gatsby affair celebrates the Roaring 20′s and all of that decade’s fashion, cars and Charleston-inspiring melodies. Read More