Summer FridaysA guide to enjoying the best of the city every weekend. Good morning. It's Friday. Today, and on Fridays through the summer, we'll focus on things to do in New York over the weekend.
You'll probably hear the phrase "vive le 14 juillet" — French for "long live the 14th of July" — on a four-block stretch of Madison Avenue on Sunday afternoon. On the 14th of July in 1789, a Parisian mob stormed the Bastille, a prison that had come to symbolize everything that was wrong under the Bourbons' despotic monarchy. That first victory against the "ancien régime" has long been celebrated as Bastille Day. "We always refer to Bastille Day as 'la prise de la Bastille," or "the taking of the Bastille," said Tatyana Franck, the president of L'Alliance New York, which is organizing the Bastille Day street fair on Sunday. "This is 'la prise de Madison,' a celebration of the values that France holds dear" — including "liberté, égalité, fraternité." For Francophiles and Francophones in New York and elsewhere, this Bastille Day is especially meaningful. Not only is 2024 the 235th anniversary of the uprising at the prison; it is the 200th anniversary of the Marquis de Lafayette's return visit to the United States (he arrived in August 1824). Franck, a former Alpine skier and former director of the Picasso archives in Paris and Geneva, mentioned the longstanding friendship between France and the United States that was underscored during the recent D-Day commemoration. And the world will be watching, as the Olympics get underway in Paris in a couple of weeks. Franck said there would be a nod to the Olympics with soccer and games organized by Asphalt Green, a Manhattan nonprofit that provides sports and fitness programs, along with fencing demonstrations. And there will be places to play pétanque, or boules, which Franck acknowledged is not an Olympic sport but is very French. (The game is somewhat similar to bocce.) The celebration on Sunday, which starts at noon and runs until 5 p.m., will stretch from 59th to 63rd Street on Madison Avenue, and along 60th Street from Fifth to Madison Avenue. Even the cars on 60th Street will be French, once the Greater New York Citroën & VéloSolex Club's annual Bastille Day cavalcade arrives. The drivers — fans of old French cars that had distinctive sideways-teardrop styling — will first gather at West 122nd Street and Riverside Drive at 10:30 a.m. By the time they pull up in front of L'Alliance New York's headquarters, they will have driven around Columbus Circle and through Times Square. If you've always wanted to paste your picture on a poster on Madison Avenue, stop at "Inside Out Project" truck between 59th and 60th Streets. People who are photographed in the truck can put their images on posters that will form a blocklong mural as part of a participatory project called "Les visages de la Francophonie" ("Faces of the French-speaking World") by the photographer and street artist known as JR. If you want wine or Champagne, there will be rosé and bubbly parties in Le Skyroom on the eighth floor of L'Alliance New York's headquarters at 22 East 60th Street at 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. The schedule for the afternoon also calls for a performance of "Blank Placard Dance, replay" by the French choreographer Anne Collod at 12:30 p.m. It's a re-enactment of a demonstration created by the choreographer Anna Halprin amid the civil rights and antiwar protests of the 1960s, with performers carrying blank signs. L'Alliance New York says that people at the Bastille Day celebration can suggest what should be written on the signs. At L'Alliance's headquarters, the animated film "Chicken for Linda!" ("Linda veut du poulet!") is to be screened at 2 p.m. At 5:30 p.m., the lights will go down for the 2023 film "Daaaaaali!" It's a comedy about a journalist who has several encounters with the surrealist Salvador Dalí for a documentary that never quite comes together. L'Alliance New York is the new name for the organization long known as the French Institute Alliance Française. It was created in 1972 through a merger: Alliance Française, which was formed in 1898 to teach French, joined forces with the French Institute, which dated to 1911 and was set up to organize exhibitions of French art. Franck said the four-word name was "not clear," and — voilà — it became L'Alliance, which is the same in French and English. "It's also a very chic, very elevating word," she said, "'Alliance' embraces our inclusivity, our innovation and our curiosity, and it's a very modern name." WEEKEND WEATHER On Friday and Saturday, prepare for a chance of showers and thunderstorms throughout the morning and evening. Temperatures will climb to the high 80s. Sunday will be mostly clear and free of rain, with temperatures in the low 90s during the day and, at night, in the mid-70s. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Aug. 13 (Tisha B'Av). What Else to Do This Weekend
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For more events in New York, here's a list of what to do this month. We hope you've enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. METROPOLITAN DIARY The reminder
Dear Diary: A dear friend visited me from California. After our visit, she was going to the Bronx to see her mother. She hailed a taxi, and I hugged her as the driver loaded her luggage into the trunk. "Call me when you get to your mom," I said. A half-hour later, she called. "I am calling to tell you I arrived," she said, "and the cabdriver reminded me to call you." — Mary Fox Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you Monday. — J.B. P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Geordon Wollner and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
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N.Y. Today: Bastille Day in Manhattan
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