We’re having withdrawal symptoms for NYC and it’s not difficult to explain why. We miss the vibrance, the people, the food, the culture … the sheer magic that the five boroughs exude. Understanding that there are many like us out there in the world that is missing their city, the brainiacs at NYC & Co, the city’s tourism board hatched a plan called Virtual NYC. After all, they call New York the “city the doesn’t sleep” and by giving folk 24-7 access to NYC culture, we think they’ve managed to live up to that reputation.
We’ve been fortunate to be able to get to New York City a lot over the last few years. After all, it is and remains the favourite world city for OutThere travellers. Also not so long ago, we created a whole edition about it: The Monumental NYC Issue, so we miss the city that we spent so much time getting under the skin of. As OutThere contributor Omar Nasir penned in his article for us about the Arts in NYC, you cannot “help but feel instantly connected to the electric pulsations and vibrant art scene that are so unlike any other in the world,” in this “vortex of cross-cultural forces.”
So it’ll come as no surprise that over the last few months, the folk at NYC & Co, the city’s tourism organisation, has been busy pulling together hundreds of virtual experiences from the city’s cultural institutions. Virtual NYC encompasses museums and galleries, Broadway, performing arts and tours; and naturally coming to NYC, online experiences of LGBT+ interest, to keep our culture-vulture thirsts quenched and help us keep our fingers on the pulse on all the arty goings on there.
They’ve also pulled together some of the city’s cultural aficionados in their Virtual NYC Curator Collections, where individuals from various Arts organisations have hand-picked some of their favourite online experiences. From Kamilah Forbes at the Apollo Theatre to Christoper Y. Lew at the Whiney Museum of American Art, these cultural practitioners give us the NYC low-down of what keeps them inspired in lockdown. We feature Matthew López’s – the Tony-nominated playwright of “The Inheritance” – choices below.
Our own highlights would include Black Rabbit NYC Walk’s “Uncovering NYC Queer Urban Ecology” online tour, The Classical Theater of Harlem’s “Behind the Curtain” and the Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Artists in Conversation Vimeos. Frankly, you’re going to be spoilt for choice!
Photography by Alex Eckerman and courtesy of NYC & Co
