For more than four years, the COVID-19 pandemic and its after-effects have gripped the world and changed so much. During that time, nearly 1.2 million people across the country—including 83,000 in New York City—have lost their lives to the virus.

To honor their memories, there’s a new installation at Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery called A Big Slow, Majestic Covid Memorial. It’s on view now through Friday, June 3, and consists of tributes made by 22 community groups from across New York City.

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The memorial took over a section of Green-Wood’s historic wrought-iron fence, near the main entrance at Fifth Avenue at 25th Street. The monument stretches horizontally for 200 feet and includes a dedicated space for public participation where New Yorkers can add nameplates to remember their lost loved ones. Pieces include paintings, drawings, floral displays, and words like “not forgotten” interspersed with names of the deceased.

The artwork also pays tribute to those suffering from long COVID. “The mounting toll of death and diminished health has inflicted immeasurable pain but also brought communities together to provide support and comfort to those suffering the reverberating effects of the virus,” event organizers said in a press release.

The theme of this year’s memorial comes from disability justice writer Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, who wrote in The Future is Disabled, “Everyone is holding so much grief right now, and it’s so hard, but it’s kind of created this bigger, slower, majestic space to be real with what’s going on and organize from that space.”

To create the memorial, Naming the Lost Memorials collaborated with City Lore, Great Small Works, Mano a Mano, and The Green-Wood Cemetery. The team worked with 22 community groups from across the city whose constituents have suffered significant losses from COVID-19. Some of those groups include: Bronx Documentary Center, Casa Yurumein, Vishnu Mandir Hindu Temple, Guyana Cultural Association, The Bklyn Combine, West Indian American Day Carnival Association, Yaffa Cultural Arts, Bangladesh Institute of Performing Arts, Jews of Jackson Heights, and La Colmena.

This is the second COVID memorial Naming the Lost has presented at Green-Wood. Last year’s memorial was called The Many Losses from COVID-19.

“Naming the Lost Memorials aims to create an annual, tangible wall of memory that does not allow the lives and souls of the many thousands of victims of the COVID-19 pandemic to escape our thoughts—thoughts which are needed to remember, grasp our losses, and find ways to create healthier and more compassionate communities,” Steve Zeitlin, co-director of City Lore said in a press release.

As the months go on, Naming the Lost and City Lore will continue to help communities create COVID-19 memorials through 2025. As part of The Monuments Project, its nationwide initiative to rethink the meaning and creation of monuments, the Mellon Foundation provided a major grant to support this work. Some artifacts from the memorials will be archived at the New-York Historical Society for future exhibitions and research into the impact of the pandemic. 

All are invited to join in a dedication and activation ceremony at Green-Wood’s historic chapel on Sunday, May 19. Register here for the in-person event or watch a livestream here.

* This article was originally published here

When you picture a gay bar, there’s probably a very specific set of details that come to mind: cheap, strong drinks served in plastic cups, a sticky dance floor and, more likely than not, a bathroom that looks straight out of an apocalypse film. 

And, while gay dive bars are fun for a wild night out or when you’re a college student, it would also be kind of nice to get a place where we could enjoy a nice, high-quality cocktail in a classy setting around other queer people. 

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Thanks to ANIMAL, a new queer bar at 307 Meeker Avenue in Greenpoint, we finally have that. 

Opened by Jim Morrison, who co-owns The Exley in Williamsburg, and Ashton Correa, who formerly worked as the director of People and Culture at the Ace Hotel, ANIMAL has been a dream project nearly twenty years in the making. 

“We all grew up going to gay bars, many of which aren’t LGBTQ owned, which served the lowest quality drinks and lacked a queer aesthetic,” Correa tells Time Out. “As we’ve gotten older, our standards are higher, and we want to offer our community something we didn’t have before.”

Along with their close friend and collaborator Nick Eskelinen, Morrison and Correa hope that ANIMAL will become a go-to place for queer people who want to enjoy specialty and classic cocktails.

On menu, find classics like the Negroni, Cosmo and Old Fashioned, as well as specialty concoctions like the Animal Spritz (St. Agrestis Paradiso, sparkling wine, soda) and the Animal Mezcal Marg (Mal Bien espadín, house orange liqueur, lime). A wide selection of beers, wines and non-alcoholic cocktails and ales is also on offer.

But it’s not just about the drinks: the ANIMAL team has an expansive vision of how the space should ideally be used—an elegant cocktail den, sure, but also a destination for day drinking brunches, fetish nights and dance parties. 

The destination is made up of separate areas that include an outdoor bar, a dance floor and an open-air patio. The main indoor bar boasts a skylight that brightens up the space during the day and, at night, red mood lighting and a selection of top-shelf liquor will make you feel like you’re in a classy Manhattan bar, without all the uptightness. 

Although the queer community obviously needs the sorts of dive bars that it holds dear, it also deserve a wider range of options when it comes to going out: ANIMAL is just that.

* This article was originally published here

If you find yourself walking around the Seaport in need of some respite, we’ve got just the solution for you: a newly expanded set of three outdoor lawns that are part of the 26,000-square-foot Lawn Club Terrace at 1 Fulton Street. 

The Terrace, which officially debuts today, features a trio of outside spaces that are open rain or shine and join the six others that make up the Lawn Club as a whole. 

When reserving a spot on the Terrace, guests will be able to make use of their own patio, TV screens to watch any program at all plus a “lawncierge” that we suspect will take your food and drink orders while making the whole experience that much more enjoyable.

Throughout the entire Lawn Club, folks can play games like bocce, cornhole, croquet, shuffleboard and a mini golf-pool hybrid called “putting pool” that’s a Lawn Club exclusive. 

There are two bars on premise as well, each one serving both traditional drinks and creative twists on lawn party cocktails—think Pimm’s cups, gin and tonics, martinis and margaritas.

Food wise, its’ all about the shareables: fried mac and cheese balls, lobster rolls, giant salads, burgers, wings, pings in a blanket, grilled cheese and more.

Each lawn can fit between one and 11 people at once, with rentals starting at about $75 per hour during weekdays and a bit more on weekends.

If you’re looking to throw a bigger party, consider reserving one of five private indoor porches that fit up to 300 people at once. You can read more about all offerings right here. 

* This article was originally published here