The Brooklyn Museum's Steinberg Family Sculpture Garden features an array of salvaged sculpture that managed to triumph over the wrecking ball. The preserved work on view points back through time to sculpture's architectural prominence before the advent of Modernism, when it was as bountiful on building facades as in museums.Beyond the significance of individual works, the collection as a whole demonstrates the Museum's agile response to the destruction of architectural treasures even before the historic......

Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner wasn’t the only one causing controversy at the Brooklyn Museum’s gala celebration for the Takashi Murakami retrospective last Thursday night. Some attendees say Jamie Snow, wife of Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, was rather boorish in her accumulation of freebies at the event. Each diner at the gala was entitled to one special edition technicolor fiberglass placemat designed by the trendy artist, but it seems Snow’s sense of entitlement was......

As anticipated, last night's gala event at the Brooklyn Museum honoring real estate developer Bruce Ratner attracted protesters opposed to the $4 billion Atlantic Yards stadium and residential development proposed for a 22-acre site just a stone's throw from the museum. Atlantic Yards Report was at the scene and writes: "The protest organized by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn last night outside the museum was notably angry, with some 80 people gathering at one point, many......

Brooklyn community groups opposed to the Atlantic Yards project are outraged developer Bruce Ratner will be honored tonight at a gala at the Brooklyn Museum. Ratner's Forest City Foundation gave $100,000 to the museum in ’05 and again in ’06; now the museum's is giving him their highest honor, the Augustus Graham Medal. Brooklyn resident Michael White is organizing a protest, and tells the Daily News, "A museum should be a good neighbor to its......

During a conference call with investors yesterday, Forest City Enterprises CEO Charles Ratner acknowledged that a window of opportunity had all but closed for the ambitious, 22-acre housing, retail and stadium project proposed for Brooklyn. But he also insisted that the delay – brought on by recession and dogged opposition from community groups – was just temporary: The economy sometimes alters the timeline, but we have demonstrated our ability to see these projects through to......

© MURAKAMI, a retrospective of the work of Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, opens Saturday at the Brooklyn Museum. Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles, where it was on view until February, the exhibit primarily focuses Murakami's work between 1991 and 2000, when the artist began exploring "his own reality through an investigation of branding and identity." (One additional work, Murakami's 6,613 pound, 18 foot-tall Oval Buddha sculpture, will be on......

Today marks International Women's Day; in 1908 more than 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights (IWD didn't officially begin until 1911). 100 years after the march, women are not only voting, but they're running for president. Hillary Clinton isn't the first woman to run, Victoria Woodhull (also the first female Wall Street broker) ran for the position in 1872. The Brooklyn Museum has now put the......

Buildings, clockwise from upper left corner: Prada Store Soho, American Museum of Natural History's Rose Center, Hearst Building, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Morgan Library expansion, Apple Store Soho, Conde Nast Building, and Seagram Building; in the center, Grand Central Terminal interior and the Chrysler Building The Chrysler Building. The Seagram Building. The Apple Store Soho? The Center for Architecture's executive director Rick Bell made a list of 10 great buildings to see in New......

THEATER: Wolf Lane Productions presents Victims of the Zeitgeist (The Tragedy of Martin Luther King, Jr.), written & directed by Ellwoodson Williams. The production "offers an exciting and telling insight into just who Martin Luther King, Jr., was as leader and simply as a sensitive and intelligent human being who loved life and who had a sense of humor, a deep understanding of the human condition - its strengths and weaknesses - and a profound......

Zagat's updated Best of Brooklyn 2008 guide was released yesterday, filled to the brim with all that the city's largest borough has to offer, including 216 restaurants, 141 nightspots, 355 shops, 25 tourist attractions and more. Like all Zagat guides, this one is a complilation of surveys from the public and each entry is rated on a scale of 1-30. The guide is broken up into five sections: Dining, Nightlife, Shopping, Gourmet Shopping & Entertaining,......

ArtCal calls him, "the most controversial and downright interesting graffiti artist at large in the UK today" and whether or not you agree -- Banksy is decorating our streets, galleries...and even Brangelina's household walls. In New York he has pranked his way into the Met, MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum and the American Museum of Natural History. Recently it was announced that his images would be used to sell luxury condos in Williamsburg...and just yesterday......

Photo via Hamevugar's Flickr. The Brooklyn Museum housed a Ron Mueck exhibit that we pointed out last year and CubeMe just reported on. The exhibition, now closed, included "about 15 mixed media works on loan from the artist’s collection, major museums, and private collections..that explore the ambiguous relationship between reality and artifice, creating figures that express the contradictions between the real world and the imaginary. The figures seem to be alive: every detail -......

These photographs were garnered from the Brooklyn Museum's holdings to create an exhibit titled: Goodbye Coney Island? The collection "traces the evolution of this fabled part of New York over the past 125 years," over which time it has undergone many transformations. The most prominent of which is still in the future -- with Thor Equities redeveloping the area. The above ride looks terrifying! If you'd like to revisit the glory days, head over......

This week, the NY Times has some suggestions for wedding gifts from stores affiliated to museums, reasoning that those stores have wonderful gifts that are appealing to "people who are tired of shopping in the same old places — and might enjoy spending a couple hours in a museum as well." We wholeheartedly agree - when you know the couple well, that is. If you are wedding gift shopping for a couple you're vaguely acquainted......

Two years ago, we wondered if there was a big list of all the fountains in New York City. We haven't made that much progress with the list, but at least now we have a list of the "display fountains" the Parks Department maintains. And it's interesting - Brooklyn only has three while Staten Island has eight. Of course, there are many fountains outside of the Parks Department's jurisdiction (for instance, the fountain outside......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a large fight on Fordham Rd. and Jerome Ave. in the Bronx, police activity in the employee parking lot at JFK Airport in Queens, and a pedestrian was struck on East 57th St. and Madison Ave. in Manhattan. Donald Trump owns almost 20% of Brooklyn's Starrett City that his dad bought for him when he graduated from business school. He now advises lower-income residents of the development that "This......

MOVIE: The new Hairspray has set up special Sing-A-Long screenings! They begin nationwide today, and there will be three right here in New York. If you don't like rowdy theaters, skip this one! All Weekend // Various Times // Regal Union Sq 14; Clearview Chelsea 9; AMC Empire 42nd 25 MUSIC: Head down to the Seaport for an evening of Billie Holiday tunes. Turntables on the Hudson will be celebrating the release of Billie Holiday......

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, also known as the shark in a tank by British artist Damien Hirst, will be shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Labor Day, according to the NY Times. The artwork, bought by hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen for $8 million, isn't the exact same one that was exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum of Art's Sensation show in 1999 - the shark has......

It's a big outdoor weekend, so good thing there are 51 outdoor pools opening up for the season around the city today (here's a "best of" list). If you prefer to stay dry, here are some options... EVENT: The Afro Punk series begins at BAMcafé tonight. The series kicks off with a spotlight on the Black Panthers, including "an Opening Night discussion with Black Panther co-Founder Bobby Seale, Gloria Rolando’s Eyes of the Rainbow (1997),......

Last May a bunch of Brooklyn College MFA graduates exhibited their work at the War Memorial, only to have it banned by the Brooklyn Parks Department. In the process of hauling off the artwork the Parks Department deemed inappropriate, college officials managed to damange some of it. Two Trees Management (who is moving Galapagos to Dumbo) saved the day and exhibited their show at 70 Washington Street. Meanwhile, the students sued the Parks Department, the......

Day Night Day Night (directed by Julia Loktev) Living in New York and going about your daily life post-9/11 you really can't help but have the possibility of a further terrorist attack lurking in the back of your mind. This morbid potential tragedy is the subject of Julia Loktev striking first feature which played at this year's New Directors/New Films Festival and gets a theatrical release this weekend. However instead of making a big budget......

Across the East River, those with more distaff artistic sensibilities can visit the newly opened Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art that has become a permanent addition to the Brooklyn Museum.The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art is an exhibition and education facility dedicated to feminist art—its past, present, and future. Among the most ambitious, influential, and enduring artistic movements to emerge in the late twentieth century, feminist art has played a......

THEATER: We could try to describe Neal Medlyn's Coming In The Air Tonight, but why bother when there’s this: “The show features a variety of Phil Collins and Genesis music and is about how Neal is starting to slowly fall apart due to how he's all torn up inside from getting his heart broken into tiny pieces. It is also about how Neal steals a lot of stuff from people. Like their belongings and house......

ART: Running through March 7th at Gavin Brown's enterprise at Passerby is "Radical Living Papers". Some of the passionate writers of forty years ago will have their words become a part of this exhibit, which serves as a snapshot of the Vietnam War era and a history of counter-culture and alt press. Publications (all from the 60s and 70s) include Rolling Stone, The Black Panther, Freep, The Seed and the Los Angeles Free Press. Friday......

Yesterday, officials welcomed Barclays as the winner in the $400 million naming rights derby for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. The NY Times reports that the Nets looked at various entities to pitch the idea of becoming lucky one to pay lots of money to have its name on the Frank Gehry-designed arena and decided Barclays Bank "needed a game changer, that they don’t have as big a presence or brand recognition here as......

Assuming an arena for the Nets ever gets built in Downtown Brooklyn, it will bear the name of Barclays Bank. The Post is reporting that the Nets and Barclays have reached a record setting, multi-year agreement for the naming rights of the proposed arena. No specific dollar amount was mentioned in The Post's article, but it does say that the rights will cost Barclays more than the $9.3 million-a-year figure that Philips is paying......

THEATER: Survey: Do women actually, um, enjoy Playgirl magazine? It’s a timeless question, and one that - according to former editor Ronnie Koenig - even haunted the boss herself. Her multimedia play Dirty Girl, now in previews, is about her “quest to find a woman who actually likes the beefcakes in the magazine.” The cast has been blogging and a book deal is in the works. (Brace yourself for The Devil Wears Nothing.) - John......

From the Gothamist Newsmap: A check cashing joint robbery in Brooklyn, a confined space rescue in the Bronx, and an evidence search in Queens Ugh, a lawyer asked a client for a blow job in return for taking her case; the client is trying to sue him but says the Manhattan DA's office won't take the case, even though she recorded the lawyer admitting he propositioned her! Gowanus Lounge predicts the Red Hook will......

The holiday season is upon us, and with shorter work hours and more days off, it often seems like the perfect time to hit up those museums you never have a chance to. Beware the holiday hours, however. Below is a little cheat sheet of what to expect at the (major) museums over the next month. • MoMA Closed on Christmas day and Thanksgiving day, closes at 4:00 p.m. on December 24. The Museum......

Lots of news out of the Shake Shack today. First, the "Z" in the "Frozen" sign collapsed, nearly killing a man, and then they announced that the Shack will be closing its doors for winter on December 1. These pictures from the Ron Mueck show at the Brooklyn Museum are freaky! Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a Hazmat condition with victims on Warren Street in Brooklyn, an aircraft emergency at JFK, and a fire......