Music:

Catalpa Festival

Kicking off its first year, the Catalpa Festival offers yet another chance to see top-tier musical acts playing outdoors within city limits. The fest will feature more than 40 performers, including blues rock superstars The Black Keys and Snoop Dogg rocking his seminal album Doggystyle in its entirety. Other highlights include NYC faves TV on the Radio, Girl Talk and hip-hop instrumental wizard AraabMUZIK. There will also be a reggae stage sponsored by High Times magazine, a “sculpture” that belches fireballs in the air and various other novelties (inflatable “sham marriage” church?) included to distract from the fact that music lineup is mostly weak, aside from the headliners.

July 28-29; $140–$180 for the weekend. Randall’s Island Park, www.catalpanyc.com.

Electric Zoo

This is for those who dance. A lot. It’s three days; an all-night(s) blitz of modern dance music from the likes of David Guetta, A-Trak and more. If you appreciate the contemporary offshoots of what we used to call techno, this fest will be something of great joy. A zoo—of dancing people. 

Aug. 31-Sept. 2; $299 for all three days. Randall’s Island Park, electriczoofestival.com.

Washington Square Music Festival

Consisting of four Friday night concerts in July, the Washington Square Music Festival is now in its 54th year of entertaining New Yorkers in one of our most beautiful parks. This year, the festival will include a night of music and poetry, a night of Viennese chamber music, a night of music for strings and wings and one of the West African sounds of the Deep Sahara Band. Seating is first-come, first-served, so get there early to enjoy a night of music beneath the stars—and the park’s famous arch—or at St. Joseph’s Church, where the first two concerts will take place.

July 10, 17, 24 & 31, 8 p.m.; free. St. Joseph’s Church, 371 6th Ave. at Waverly Place and Washington Square Park, 5th Ave at Waverly Place, washingtonsquaremusicfestival.org.

Theatre:

Shakespeare in the Parking Lot

Tired of waiting in the stifling heat for Shakespeare in the Park to no avail? Fear not; there’s another free outdoor option to view the Bard’s work. The Drilling Company’s LES staple, taking place in the municipal parking lot at the corner of Broome and Ludlow streets, will present The Merry Wives of Windsor in July, followed by Coriolanus in August. Keep in mind that these productions are prone to interruption; the action occurs around parked cars whose drivers sometimes return and drive away mid-performance. Now that’s something performers never needed to concern themselves with during the Elizabethan era!

Thursdays-Saturdays, July 12-28 & Aug. 2-18, 8 p.m.; free. Broome St. at Ludlow St., shakespeareintheparkinglot.com.

Fringe Fest

Even at 16 years old, this annual marathon of offbeat, cutting-edge theater—which birthed Rent, among other memorable shows—is devoted to the new and the strange. This year’s performances will include From Busk Till Dawn: The Life of an NYC Street Performer, Love Death Brains (A Zombie Musical), Occupy the Constellations: A Collaborative Revolutionary Puppet Tale and, all the way from California, a show called What I Learned From Porn. Not everything you’ll see at the Fringe is great, but it’s always done with humor and spirit, making it more interesting—if not quite as professional—than most other festivals.

Aug. 10-26. fringenyc.org.

New York Musical Theatre Festival

Featuring live music, workshops and full productions of brand-new musicals, the NYMTF has been giving New York audiences a chance to experience exciting musical theater without Broadway price tags (or tourists) since 1994. This year’s lineup is particularly strong, with 30 musicals including A Letter To Harvey Milk, about a butcher sending a letter to Milk; Baby Case, Michael Ogborn’s take on the Lindbergh baby’s disappearance; and Prison Dancer, a show based on the Filipino prisoners who became a worldwide sensation thanks to their YouTube performances.

July 9-29. Various locations, nymf.org.

By Penny Grey

Battery Park becomes an increasingly vibrant neighborhood every day. Billy Parrott, library manager of the Battery Park City Library, discusses the importance of the library to the community and the joys of being a librarian.

How long has the Battery Park branch been open?

We opened on March 15, 2010, so just about a year and a half ago now.

This is a green LEED-certified building; is it the first such branch in the New York City Public Library system?

It’s the first green library in Manhattan. In 2007, the Bronx library center was built, and that’s a LEED silver building. But this is a great facility. We’ve got 26 desktop computers and 10 laptop computers for patron use. When we first opened, I thought we might have more supply than demand, but these days, everything is occupied. We have really become a destination branch. Some people will come from across town just to work and enjoy the space. One patron wrote an entire book upstairs.

Being a green library, is there an effort to move to more electronic publications rather than paper?

Regardless of being green, the world is moving that way in general. With e-books and the ease of access to electronic material, a lot of what we do here at the library has nothing to do with paper. But going green doesn’t hurt.

Does being green affect the mood and atmosphere of the space?

A lot of thought went into the design of the building. We wanted to create a bright, big, open space. The light here is beautiful, particularly in the upstairs reading area. Often people have an idea of green architecture and how that might translate visually, but [the library] doesn’t scream “recycled” by any means.

Who has made the most use of the library since its opening last March?

It’s definitely the community using the library, no doubt about it. This is a residential neighborhood, so we have families in here all day long. But we’re also a business neighborhood, so we get the World Financial Center crowd, and lots of people use the space from noon to two on their lunch breaks. Stuyvesant High School is just up the street, so we get lots of students and young people. And Hallmark Assisted Living is just around the corner, so we also attract the senior population.

What sort of programming have you generated to meet the needs of such a diverse group of patrons?

Our children’s programming is definitely the most popular. Baby Story Time for newborns to 18-month-olds is such a hit that we continue to add new days and times. We also have Toddler Story Time for 18-month-olds to 3-year-olds and Regular Story Time for 5- to 12-year-olds, as well as crafts, puppet shows and other outside programming. We’ve also got a Teen Advisory Program, which gives teens a chance to provide input and generate programming. And then we offer adult programming as well, most notably computer classes and author readings. Recently, we hosted a talk on journalism in the world post-9/11. So we stay pretty busy.

What’s the best thing about your job?

Probably the teaching moments, when you can really guide someone to something they’ll love and remember. It’s not that people aren’t expecting to get answers, but when you can really help them in that way, it’s incredibly rewarding.

And the worst thing about your job?

There’s nothing bad about libraries! I really can’t think of anything I don’t love about my job. After all, people love to read—and anyone who comes to the library is sort of self-selecting, aren’t they? They’re here because they love the idea of a place where reading and learning is possible.

What’s the difference between being a librarian now and being a librarian in, say, 1950?

The ease of access to information, most definitely. It used to be that there were three encyclopedias to search, but now a good librarian really needs to be aware of all the possible sources, and of those sources, the best possible resources.

That must be pretty overwhelming.

It’s not overwhelming at all, actually. The Internet has changed the way people think and the way people read, but librarians still help people to get to the bottom of it and find what they need.

The New York City Public Library system has been a cornerstone of New York City culture for such a long time. How do you see yourself shaping that cornerstone in the Downtown area with the Battery Park branch?

First, I don’t really do anything individually. It’s really a team effort. There are seven full-time and two part-time staff members here at the branch, and I encourage everyone to come up with ideas. When there’s one idea, we all work to implement it.

Just to give you an example, in the last four months we’ve been working on a paper crane project. Every Friday, we held workshops to teach kids how to make origami peace cranes in honor of September 11. The community participation was so positive; kids would bring the supplies home and teach their neighbors, the security guards, you name it. So this project that started out just for kids turned into something for our entire community. The paper cranes started out as a display for September 11, but I think we’ll keep them up. Having those paper cranes suspended from the ceilings is a great reminder of what we’re doing in the community.

Photos by Penny Grey