The Ford Foundation Atrium houses a miniature tropical rainforest. Its glass walls create a temperate environment for the garden, while also creating a seamless flow of green space between the atrium and Tudor City Park to the east.
The Ford Foundation Gallery shines a light on artwork that wrestles with difficult questions, calls out injustice, and points the way toward a more fair and just future.
The atrium is open to the public Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. when the gallery has an exhibition on view.
I love this excellent independent arthouse theater in the Lower East side. Metrograph projects archive quality 35mm and independent films. Tastefully decorated, there is also a candy store, bookstore and restaurant.
Sometime in 2016 Sprout Home garden center sprung a second, even larger space on Grand Street. Like many of the converted warehouse buildings in the neighborhood, this space offers a soaring ceiling, exposed rafters, and the warmth of unfinished brick walls. All this serves as a lofty and inviting backdrop to the real stars—the plants (!) of all sizes and species. This verdant space (complete with a stunning, fresh-cut "flower bar") is cleverly curated to feel more like a botanic garden, than your typical nursery. Incredibly you could take it all home with you! Oh! And while you’re there, don’t forget to choose a planter from their inspired selection. They have a gorgeous pot for every plant and plant-lover, no matter how green(ish) your thumb may be.
Bill Brand presents an animated movie to passengers on the B and Q subway trains coming into Manhattan from Brooklyn. The project was modeled after the zoetrope, a 19th-century optical toy, which animated images inside a revolving cylinder, so that they appeared to move when viewed through narrow slits. Brand mounted 228 hand-painted panels in self-contained, illuminated units along the three-hundred-foot platform.
Hop on a Manhattan-bound B or Q train at the Dekalb Avenue stop (corner of Dekalb Avenue and Flatbush Avenue Extension). Look out any window on the right side of the train.