Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim was celebrating his 80th birthday during last night's gala performance of Sondheim On Sondheim, a new musical by the Roundabout Theatre Company. To top off the celebration, Roundabout had a little surprise for the birthday boy: During the curtain call, it was announced that Henry Miller's Theatre on West 43rd Street will be renamed the Stephen Sondheim Theatre in July. It's a rare honor, and artistic director Todd Haimes was thrilled he was able to keep it a secret, telling NY1, "Nobody knew, including Stephen Sondheim, that the theater was going to be named after him. We managed, for once in this world, we kept it a secret. And I think he was really, really surprised, as was everybody in the audience." more ›

The Landmark Preservation Commission voted unanimously yesterday to make Fillmore Place in Williamsburg a historic district. The one-block street holds 29 mid-19th-century rowhouses, including Henry Miller's boyhood home, which will now be protected from any major alterations. The LPC's chairman told the Brooklyn Paper they were “Constructed for working class-tenants, the architecture of the buildings in this district has more in common with fashionable middle- and upper-class single-family rowhouses than the tenements that were typically built to house them. The district is an evocative reminder of this period in Brooklyn’s history.” Last year there was a machete attack on the block, but hopefully this designation will shine a positive light on what Miller himself once called “the most enchanting street I have ever seen in all my life." more ›

On a brutally hot day like this, it’s not too hard to appreciate this priceless rant from the late author Henry Miller as he tears into “that old shithole New York where I was born… the ugliest, filthiest, shittiest city in the world.” The clip comes to light today thanks to Save Vs. Death (via Boing Boing), and it’s excerpted from Henry Miller Asleep & Awake, a short film made in 1975 by Tom Schiller that takes place almost entirely in Miller’s bathroom.

After questions about whether Con Ed would be able to maintain objectivity when testing equipment from the area of July 18's Midtown steam pipe explosion, a State Supreme Court judge ruled that the utility could test a steam trap. Earlier, a state regulator suggested there could have been build-up in the trap, caused it to malfunction and causing the explosion. more ›

"People create because they feel what everyone else is thinking." In 1964, Tommy Trantino was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of two New Jersey police officers. In 1971, the death penalty was over turned and Trantino was sentenced to life in prison. During that time, Trantino wrote to Leonard Weinglass, the lawyer who defended the Chicago Seven, which included social and political activist Abbie Hoffman. Through Hoffman, Trantino's letters were seen by an editor at Bantam, who commissioned him to write Lock the Lock, a collection of poetry, drawings, and autobiographical stories detailing Trantino's youth, the events that led to his incarceration, and the harrowing experiences he'd witnessed in prison. The book was praised by the likes of Howard Zinn and Henry Miller. more ›