The best underground shows you will find will have free pbr and models as far as the eye can see. They are rarely announced, so keep your eyes out for promising openings, especially with Milk Underground coming up.
This is a pro tip, but also a summer tip, take the ferry from Lower Manhattan to Rockaway and spent the day. The beach is great and the area is impossible to gasp that it's 30 min from Manhattan (without traffic) - Eat as many tacos you can, cause it's the best in the state of New York!
It’s photographer Jay Maisel’s studio building on the Bowery. The fact that he hasn’t sold out to the manic gentrification of everything in New York is even cooler. Makes me happy that the whole place is covered in piss stains and graffiti when everything around it is all polished and shiny and expensive. It’s like a giant middle finger raised to those disgusting, bloodthirsty, city-raping real-estate developers. Awesome.
Fav art bookstore in the city (and the world?). Great place for inspiration and reference art, both new and vintage finds. Not very cheap but mostly quite worth it.