• by Karl Greenberg , Staff Writer, January 17, 2011

Last week NYC & Company held a press conference about its plans to promote our fair city during the first quarter, when it isn't so terribly fair. The organization, New York's tourism marketing arm, is really focusing its efforts on Broadway this winter, which on the surface is not a bad thing, as Broadway revenue is a bit snowed in.

I left the press conference, however, feeling a little, well, underwhelmed. I had been hoping to experience at least one "Wow, who'd've thought of that!" moment. But it felt a little too pat. I don't think I was the only one who left feeling that way. Harvey Fierstein won the obligatory laughs, but when it came time for the Q&A, I was the only person who asked a question and my question wasn't about Broadway. It was about another element of NYC & Company's winter tourism-boosting program, way down on the bottom of the press release and a sentence or two in CEO George Fertitta's speech: promoting Harlem.

A couple of days later it hit me that perhaps the problem is that the people who work at NYC & Company aren't residents of NYC, don't actually get out there themselves, and therefore aren't terribly well versed on what is actually happening here. Even Fierstein admitted he lives in Connecticut. Hmm. Surely there's got to be a galaxy of cultural and entertainment events of global significance here, even -- or maybe even especially -- in the depths of winter; things one won't see in, say, Omaha.

I was so bothered by this I decided to go to a couple of trusted sources, people whom I trust to know what's happening of real import, where it's happening and when.

Alan Lockwood is a polymathic (polymathematical?) writer on theater, music, dance, politics, literature, Polish culture, Argentina, Afro-Cuban music, polar misadventures, and just about anything you can think of besides, say, polymer chemistry. He has written for Brooklyn Rail, Time Out, NY, New York, The Journal of Performing Arts, and Europe- and Australia-based arts pubs.

Martin Johnson writes on a number of subjects including music, culture and sports for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and others, and runs his own must-do event in New York, a href="http://www.thejoyofcheese.net/home.html">"The Joy of Cheese."

Lockwood, to whom I sent the official release on NYC & Company's winter plans, was disappointed that Broadway got the spotlight while Harlem was way down at the bottom, almost an afterthought in the release, and indeed at the press conference.

"At least they mentioned the Dwyer Cultural Center on St. Nicholas Ave., which is fairly new and very important," he said, adding that some props to Queens as a destination for eating might be in order as just about every cuisine from every corner of the planet finds its way to the borough in well-prepared fashion. "And if you are talking about music, where's the Brooklyn jazz scene or programs like the Brooklyn Philharmonic's Off the Wall, or with the Grizzly Bears at the Gilman Opera House at BAM," he asks, rhetorically.

As for Manhattan, Lockwood rues the fact that the organization didn't promote the Winter Jazz Festival, which was in the first full weekend in January and involved several clubs in a tight radius along Bleeker Street, where people could buy a single ticket and skip from club to club hearing jazz performances from top musicians all day.

Also notably absent, apparently, were efforts by NYC & Company to take note of the performance events surrounding APAP (Association of Performing Arts Presenters) conference. I say "apparently" because the conference was in the first week of January, and the focus would be on events around the conference. Examples would be the New York City Music Festival. "There is a whole nexus of activity in January around APAP, so domestic presenters crowd into the city, meaning other organizations are presenting work," says Lockwood.

Also missing is mention of Mark Russell's six-year-old "Under The Radar Festival," which brings astonishing theater to New York from around the world. "It's definitely not Broadway," says Lockwood, "but it is the most weirdly interesting fare of international and domestic theater, including people like director Joanne Akalaitis, and theater artist Taylor Mac. Lockwood recounts an event at "Radar" in which playwright Susan-Lori Parks held forth in the lobby of the Public Theater, spontaneously writing for 45 minutes and talking about the process.

Johnson said some upcoming events that the city might want to promote officially are the Guggenheim Museum's "Works in Process" collaboration series involving dance and music, where Donald Byrd will show choreographed works set to John Zorn music. He points out that at "The Stone," a new artist space in the East Village of which Zorn is artistic director, has big happenings this month: January's events there are curated by Tony Malaby, who Johnson calls "the greatest sax player who emerged after the spotlight of great renown pretty much left the jazz scene." He says the events, co-curated by pianist Angelica Sanchez, feature the best off-the-radar musicians. "It's one of the rare months where you could go to The Stone any day of the week and hear great music," says Johnson.

And he points out that in February "The Lincoln Center American Song Festival" is bringing in the Carolina Chocolate Drops, three young fiddle players reviving Carolina Piedmont-style string music from early in the last century. So what about Restaurant Week, which is NYC & Company's program to get people to a variety of restaurants around the city? I asked Johnson if that was focused on mid-town restaurants, but he says no.

"People jump on that, and it's the furthest thing from the truth to say that's centered on mid-town. It's in Brooklyn, Queens, near where I live in Union Square, as well as Tribeca and Wall Street. In the past I have been as far north as Morningside Heights and as far south as the Financial District to experience it."

My suggestions? Definitely Small's jazz club in the Village, Barbes in Brooklyn where you might catch anyone from the amazing Stephane Wrembel (if you saw "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," you heard his music) to Lucia Pulido, an amazing talent from Colombia who sings there regularly. And B-Fold on 13th Street if you have the sudden urge to see the largest collection of folding bikes you're ever likely to see. Oh, if you like guitars you have to go to Retro Fret in Brooklyn, and just ask them to show you the pipe organ repair shop ...