DON’T MISS!: WALK THIS WAY!
New Yorkers can meet the streets under their feet this weekend when 70 walking tours honoring urban-planning activist Jane Jacobs cover neighborhoods in every borough tomorrow and Sunday. It’s free to take a Jane’s Walk with the Municipal Art Society of New York.
“[Jacobs] was a neighborhood advocate who took on Robert Moses,” says MAS president Vin Cipolla, who will serve as tour guide Sunday for part of the 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. walk along the entire length of Broadway from 240th Street to the bottom of Manhattan. Jacobs, he says, “stopped traffic from going through Washington Square Park. She helped us understand the value of New York neighborhoods and how people make cities great, not planners.”
Highlights include tomorrow’s 11 a.m. tour of Jacobs’ former Greenwich Village neighborhood and the 11 a.m. stroll through Harlem. For a complete schedule go to mas.org or call 212-935-3960.
— Brian Niemietz
Alamy
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SEE THIS!: BRUSH WITH PASSION
French artist Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940) adored many things — the theater, impressionism, Japanese woodblock prints — but he never forgot his first love: “My mother is my muse,” he said, and he lived with her until she died. His other muses were the wives of wealthy patrons — these patrons, in thrall to his genius, looked the other way. “Anybody who can paint pictures like [these] has emotional depths most people don’t come close to,” says Stephen Brown, who curated the lovely Vuillard show opening today at the Jewish Museum. Here are the fruit of 50 years of work: luminous landscapes, psychologically astute portraits, even video of photos Vuillard took with his Kodak. Don’t miss his painting “Lucy Hessel at the Seashore,” her dreamy face an invitation to love. They were lovers for 40 years; Vuillard was still painting her, white hair and all, just before he died. Admission, $7.50 to $12 (free on Saturdays) at 1109 Fifth Ave., at 92nd Street; thejewishmuseum.org
— Barbara Hoffman
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WATCH IT!: ADDICTIVE
When “The Connection,’’ opened in Manhattan in 1962, it was pulled after just two showings when it was banned as obscene by the New York State Board of Regents (then responsible for such things) for its gritty, frank and sympathetic depiction of heroin addicts, some of them jazz musicians. Post film critic Archer Winsten wrote at the time that pioneering filmmaker Shirley Clarke, “displaying commendable courage and a strong stomach, does not pull back from degradation or disgust. Her use of the forbidden word is peculiarly appropriate, one might even say, ‘moral,’ in relation to this topic.’’ That word was “s – – t.” ‘‘The Connection” was later ruled not obscene by appellate courts. It opens today at the IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave.; ifccenter.com.
— Lou Lumenick
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LISTEN UP!: THE BOYS ARE BACK
All you need is Love . . . and Jardine and Wilson — as in original Beach Boys Mike, Al and Brian. After decades of legal wrangling and separate touring bands, the Boys (Mike’s 71, Al and Brian, 69) have reunited and are at the Beacon Theatre Tuesday and Wednesday.
“It’s like harmonic déjà vu,” Love says of harmonizing again on such classics as “Good Vibrations” as he and the guys (with early bandmates Bruce Johnston and David Marks) mark the California group’s 50th anniversary. Touring back then, Love recalls, “it was us, a station wagon and a U-Haul.”
About their new single, “That’s Why God Made the Radio,” Love says, “When we all sang on it and listened to it back in the studio, it was just like 1965 or ’66 again.”
Love says their personal relationships were “never acrimonious.” So when they sing “Fun, Fun, Fun,” they mean it. Tickets start at $59; Broadway and 74th Street; 212-465-6500; beacontheatre.com.
— Billy Heller
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CHECK IT OUT!: TAKE FLIGHT
For a reminder of a time when the words “air travel” prompted visions of grandeur and excitement rather than delays and lost baggage, the place to be this weekend is Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, the site of the city’s first municipal airport. Doors open tomorrow on the William Fitz Ryan Visitor Center, housed in an old passenger-terminal building that’s been returned to its former art-deco glory after a three-year renovation.
The new center houses aviation-themed exhibits, including newsreels from the airfield’s heyday. Visitors can also check out historic aircraft at nearby Hangar B, including a new full-sized replica of the “Winnie Mae,” the plane that made the first solo around-the-world flight. It will be christened in a ribbon-cutting at 12:30 p.m.; other festivities will include paper-plane design and flying, music and swing dancing.
Free, tomorrow and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m, 50 Aviation Road., Mill Basin, Brooklyn, nps.gov/gate.
— Chris Erikson
Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images
