Week 3 of Lower East Side History Month to Feature Tours, Film Screenings and More, 5/14-18

May continues to celebrate Lower East Side history with the Bowery Film Festival, the Sacred Sites Open House Weekend, and a number of events on the "Vanishing City" of the Lower East Side. In honor of the neighborhood's rich cultural history, Lower East Side History Month includes over 60 participating groups and organizations, with more than 100 events throughout the month, including exhibits, tours, talks, performances, discounts, festivals and more.

The week of May 14-18 features the start of several exciting programs, including two media specials - weekly screenings of short films/oral histories from Penny Arcade and the Lower East Side Biography Project,and the Bowery Film Festival, which chronicles the documented (and fabricated) history of life in the Bowery since 1897.

Beginning Wednesday, May 14, Penny Arcade, The Lower East Side Biography Project and Theatre 80 St. Marks offer the first in their weekly FREE film screening series happening every Wednesday evening at 6:30PM, during the month of May. The screening will be held in the prohibition-era William Barnacle Tavern, where Theatre 80 St. Mark's proprietor and mixologist, Lorcan Otway, will create a unique cocktail especially for the event. This week's films feature If You Were Mayor of New York, New York is Disappearing, and the biographies of writer Taylor Mead & novelist/playwright/ activist Sarah Schulman. Penny Arcade will also host a talk back to follow.

For the full screening schedule go to https://www.facebook.com/events/1478895118989401/.

On Friday, May 16, The Bowery Alliance of Neighbors in partnership with Anthology Film Archives, will present "From May West to Punk: The Bowery on Film." The festival will feature 18 films, all ranging in length, production value and decade. Highlights include She Done Him Wrong with Mae West and Cary Grant, Bowery Bugs with Mel Blanc voicing Bugs Bunny, and the documentary The Vanishing City by Jen Senko & Fiore DeRosa.

For the full schedule visit: http://www.boweryalliance.org/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/BoweryFFestFULLtextpics4Web.96173811.pdf.

ABC No Rio is also visiting the subject of lost space and culture with the opening of their latest exhibit, Vanished Spaces, honoring the work and history of the artists who lost their space in the Lower East Side, including Gargoyle Mechanique, Gas Station, Generator, Nada Gallery, No Se No, The Rivington School, XOXO. The exhibit runs May 16 - June 12, with an opening reception on Friday, May 16 from 7-9PM. More information at abcnorio.tumblr.com/.

The afternoon of Friday, May 16 will be full of young exuberance and optimism, as the Grand Street Settlement hosts Back in the Day Play, bringing back the neighborhood street games of lore, including stick ball, jump rope, jacks, and more! The Grand Street Coalition of Seniors will also be on hand to offer storysharing, neighborhood history, and a little healthy competition. Find out more at https://www.facebook.com/events/1447539882150391/?ref=br_tf.

Those curious in the religious and historically spiritual spaces of the Lower East Side should take advantage of the fourth annual weekend of Sacred Sites Open Houses, featuring free tours of the 22 grant-awarded Sacred Sites. This year's theme is "Community: How Immigration and Migration Shape New York," a topic close to the residents of the Lower East Side and its religious organizations St. Marks Church in-the-Bowery, and the Eldridge Street Synagogue. To see the full schedule visit http://www.nylandmarks.org/pdfs/events/NYC_Participating_Sites.pdf.

For the full schedule of events for Lower East Side History Month, visit www.leshistorymonth.org/events.

Featured Programs for Week Three: May 14-18

Special Events

• Tenement Museum presents Making Italian America, 5/14, 6:30-8PM
• MOCATALKS: David Henry Hwang & Huang Ruo on their new opera "An American Soldier," 5/15, 7-8:30PM
• Grand St. Settlement presents Back in the Day Play, 5/16, 1:15-3:15PM
• Manny Cantor Center presents LES Kids Rock!, 5/18, 11AM-12PM
• Over the Rainbow: Lag B'Omer for Kids, 5/18, 11AM-1PM
• Sacred Sites Open House at Museum at Eldridge Street, 5/18, 12-2PM
• Sacred Sites Open House at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, 5/18, 1-5PM
• Mann Cantor Center presents FREE Sunrise Yoga, 5/19, 7-8AM

Tours

• Synagogue Tours, 5/14 & 5/18, 10AM-5PM; 5/15-17, 10AM-3PM
• Chinatown: A Walk Through History, 5/17, 1-2:30PM
• Before and Behind the Curtain, exploring theaters of the 1850s, 5/17, 2-4PM
• Lower East Side Stories: Traditional New York Cultural & Food, 5/18, 10:30-1:30PM
• 19th Century NoHo: Glamour & Greed, Money & Murder, 5/18, 1-2PM
• Moveable Feast: An Afternoon in the Lower East Side, 5/18, 2-6PM

Exhibits

• The Real Estate Show, What Next: 2014, 5/14-18, 12-6PM
• Elizabeth Street Garden presents A Garden Clothesline Exhibit, 5/14-18, 12-6PM
• Vanishing Space, Opening reception 5/16, 7-10PM; 5/18, 2-5PM

Film Screenings

• FREE Weekly Film Screening, 5/14, 6:30-8PM
• Regeneration (1915), 5/16, 7:15-9PM
• She Done Him Wrong (1933), 5/16, 7:15-9PM
• The Bowery (1933), 5/17, 5-7PM
• On The Bowery (1956), 5/17, 7:30PM
• Selected Bowery shorts, 5/17, 9:15-10:30PM
• Slumming It: Myth and Culture on the Bowery (2002) & Bowery - Spring 1994 (1994), 5/18, 4-5:30PM
• Burning Down the House: The Story of CBGB (2009), 5/18, 6PM
• The Vanishing City (2009), 5/18, 8PM

Performances

• La MaMa Moves presents Yoshiko Chuma & Rebecca Lazier, 5/15, 8-9PM; 5/16-18, 7:30-8:30PM
• Danspace Project presents Emmanuelle Huynh: A Vida Enorme/épisode 1, 5/15-17, 8-9PM
• La MaMa Moves presents Les Communs, 5/16-17, 7:30-8:30PM; 5/18, 4-5PM
• La MaMa Moves presents Elena Demyanenko, Dai Jian, Emmanuelle Huynh, & Ellen Fisher, 5/16-17, 10-11PM; 5/18, 5:30-6:30PM
• The News, an outdoor performance by Downtown Art, 5/17 @ 2-3PM
• Danspace Project presents Conversations Without Walls, 5/17, 3-7PM
• Klezmer Travels the World with David Glukh Ensemble, 5/18, 3-4:30PM

Lower East Side History Month is an annual celebration of the rich and diverse history of the Lower East Side. Taking place during month of May, LES History month is an umbrella for a variety of public events, exhibits, tours, and learning opportunities taking place in the historical definition of the Lower East Side-which includes the East Village, Chinatown, Little Italy, and Alphabet City. Conceived and launched by LES-based cultural and community groups, LES History Month aims to connect our present to our past, exploring how our history can inform and inspire our future.

Fourth Arts Block (FABnyc) FABnyc was founded in 2001 as the nonprofit leadership organization for the East 4th Street Cultural District, a historic and vibrant arts corridor in Manhattan between Second Avenue and Bowery. Now a neighborhood-wide coalition of arts and community groups, FABnyc drives community and economic development, while also preserving the Lower East Side's rich heritage and creative energy.