The Midtown Gazette

A Columbia Journalism School newsroom covering Midtown Manhattan in the heart of New York City.


Category: Culture
  • Ticket Promoters Lure Broadway Attendees

    Ticket Promoters Lure Broadway Attendees

    Paid ticket promoters stand outside of the TKTS booth at Times Square to sell same-day performance tickets to loyal customers. Their opinion can be easily bought or found on the list of 10 to 16 shows they have been paid to promote.

  • Developer Clears Hurdles for Demolition of Historic Building

    Developer Clears Hurdles for Demolition of Historic Building

    After a two-year delay, a new office building is set to go up in the Meatpacking District, though no timetable for start of construction has been set.

  • I Saw The Book of Mormon for $28, On The Day I Wanted To Go

    I Saw The Book of Mormon for $28, On The Day I Wanted To Go

    I waited over six hours in line to understand the culture of obsessed South Park followers and Broadway fans alike, who put their lives on hold to get tickets to The Book of Mormon, even if it means standing up inside the theater as well.

  • Clinton Theater Seeks ‘Legal’ Status

    Clinton Theater Seeks ‘Legal’ Status

    The Emerging Artists Theatre Company has been trying to lease a space on 45th St. since last February. But first, it must change the building’s decades-old certificate of occupancy.

  • Harry Potter Comes to New York

    Harry Potter Comes to New York

    Quidditch is an imaginary sport in the Harry Potter books, or is it? The Badassalisks, a New York quidditch team, sees things differently. They, along with a hundred other teams, attended the Quidditch World Cup this past weekend at Randall’s Island.

  • Herbie Hancock Performs For Launch of New Canon Product

    Herbie Hancock Performs For Launch of New Canon Product

    Jazz legend Herbie Hancock performed a five song set, including the 1973 hit “Chameleon,” for a crowd of Canon executives and photographers, who transformed his classic into a new kind of music video.

  • Busting Through the Lavender Ceiling

    Busting Through the Lavender Ceiling

    Everyone knows about Rosie and Ellen. But have you ever heard of an equally successful gay male comedian? Probably not. Here, professors and professional comedians sound off about the issue.

  • “Watch The Throne” Takes Over The New Garden

    “Watch The Throne” Takes Over The New Garden

    Jay-Z and Kanye West took over the renovated  Madison Square Garden for two nights last week to promote their new collaborative album Watch The Throne.  The sold-out performances featured an amalgam of songs off the new album and old favorites, over 50 songs in all.  The setlist for the November 8 show can be found here.

  • The Gold Angel of the Helen Hayes Theater

    The Gold Angel of the Helen Hayes Theater

    At 255 West 43rd Street, two cupids and one angel coated in gold paint live in the lobby of the Common Ground Community’s residence, The Times Square. Saved from the façade of the original Helen Hayes Theatre, the figures keep a protective watch over the residents, according to 10-year tenant Jim Davis. Davis arrived some…

  • Conan in Art at Coco’s MoCA

    Conan in Art at Coco’s MoCA

    AUDIO SLIDESHOW: Late-night funnyman Conan O’Brien is holding an exhibit of his fan art on Columbus Circle promoting his brief return to New York for a week of filming.

  • What Ever Happened to Helen Hayes?

    What Ever Happened to Helen Hayes?

    With a cornice of frowning faces, a tapestry of alternating terra cotta panels, and a 10 feet by 80 feet mural, the First Helen Hayes Theatre was truly fabulous. It was torn down in 1982 to make way for the Marriot Marquis, but remnants of it may still have a chance to live on: the…

  • Bits of an Old Theatre Slip Through a Salvager’s Grasp

    Evan Blum helped to salvage the Helen Hayes Theatre before its demolition in 1982. Thirty years later, he got a chance to win back some of the theatre’s remains.

  • Where Theatre Once Stood, a Hotel Looms

    Where Theatre Once Stood, a Hotel Looms

    The Marriot Marquis in Times Square is known to many as one of the largest hotels in Manhattan, but to theatre-lovers it is known as the former site of the Helen Hayes Theatre. We revisit what made the theatre special — so special, in fact, that it inspired protests when developers announced it was going…

  • Where In The World Is Little Brazil?

    Where In The World Is Little Brazil?

    Little Brazil has undergone many changes in past few decades. Today the once buzzing section of West 46th Street between Fifth and Seventh Avenues takes up no more than a quarter of that space.

  • Wu Talks Gowns and Grants at Fashion U

    Wu Talks Gowns and Grants at Fashion U

    This month, Teen Vogue gave 500 students the opportunity to ask Jason Wu, Betsey Johnson, Michael Kors and other top tier designers about the industry and their work.

  • New York Learns How to Stay Relevant From Europe Fashion Centers

    New York Learns How to Stay Relevant From Europe Fashion Centers

    New York looks to other global fashion cities like Paris, Milan, and London and to the continuing influence of Asia to help sustain its dominant place in the fashion world.

  • Crowd-Pleasing Detour Spotlights Anita’s Way

    Crowd-Pleasing Detour Spotlights Anita’s Way

    Times Square just turned the spotlight on Anita’s Way. Artist Adam Frank unveiled his newest installation, a simple spotlight in a passageway — hoping to brighten people’s days as they pass by.

  • Unusual Grant Program Pays For Babysitting at the Theater

    Unusual Grant Program Pays For Babysitting at the Theater

    Over the past two years, a fee on certain transactions between theaters and high-rise developers has funded a city grant program that contributes to theater-related programs.

  • Mayor of the Garment District: Using FourSquare to Track Designers

    Mayor of the Garment District: Using FourSquare to Track Designers

    Researchers at Columbia University spent two weeks in July tracking designers and others in the fashion industry how they moved about the Garment District. Their trick for keeping track of the designers? Having them check in on their smartphones with Four Square, a popular social media application.

  • Chelsea Galleries Remain Strong Despite Development

    Chelsea Galleries Remain Strong Despite Development

    Condo and retail developers have spent the past decade following artists from other parts of New York to west Chelsea. But the rapid development has yet to eat away at the vibrancy of the Chelsea art scene.