Madison Square Park

The Big Apple Barbecue Block Party in Photos

Pitmasters from all over the country descended on Madison Square Park this weekend for the city's annual celebration of smoked meats. The 11th annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party again netted massive crowds for two days of pulled pork, beef brisket, and rack of ribs, plus an array of cooking demon ... More >>

Barbecue, Shortcake, and Egg Rolls: What to Do This Weekend

Outdoor concert? Graduation party? Whatever your friends are up to, you can probably bet they're not going to eat as well as you. Here's a look at what's happening in the city this weekend, all good reasons why you should keep the charcoal in storage for another week and just go out (especially beca ... More >>

A WORLD PROJECTED

TWO ARTISTS OBSCURE 
REALITY IN REAL TIME

Tickets Go on Sale for 2013 Big Apple Barbecue Block Party

Just look at the size of that smoker! Today at noon, FastPass tickets ($125) go on sale for this year's Big Apple Block Party, one of the city's signature food events. The two-day weekend festival, now in its 11th year, will be held June 8th and 9th in Madison Square Park. FastPasses, which work o ... More >>

A Water Main Just Broke, 23rd Street Station Evacuated (Updated)

Updated 1:00 p.m.: The DEP has now revealed that the flooding started when a 36" pipe broke beneath 25th and Fifth Avenue. They say they're still investigating why the pipe in question burst, but we're pretty sure we already know the answer -- the thing was from 1915! Apparently 98-year-old pipe is ... More >>

Education Supplement: Education Listings

Greenmarket Returns to Union Square After Sandy

Since Sandy, the overwhelmingly abundant Union Square Greenmarket has been closed down (and infiltrated by) swarms of Con Ed workers and other utility professionals. Reports now suggest that the market will reopen this week. Grab your reusable tote bags -- it's shopping time.

Madison Square Eats Is Open Again For The Fall

Madison Square Eats is back for another round for the fall season. For those who didn't have a chance to stop by during their summer season, the outdoor food vendor event is located at Worth Square, across the street from Madison Square Park, and features approximately 30 merchants. The opening da ... More >>

What's Happening This Week: Crab Boil and Cooking Class

Tuesday, June 5 Crab Boil Back Forty kicks off their annual Chesapeake Crab Boil season, hosting weekly Tuesday dinners through August. Get a pile of spiced blue crabs, potatoes, string beans, and seasonal fruit cobblers for dessert. ($45, reserve in advance). 7th Annual Taste of LIC The celebr ... More >>

Come Rain or Shine, A Few Eating Options For Memorial Day Weekend

Hopefully this rainy week will turn into a stunningly sunny weekend. No one wants a washed out Memorial Day weekend, so we'll keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best as we make our plans. We're mostly half-glass-full types anyway. With that in mind, we'll offer up a few outdoor eats for the c ... More >>

SPACE INVADERS

Get cozy with some colorful blobs

OWS Free University Rocks Madison Square Park, Draws Bigger Crowd Than Shake Shack

Somewhat ironically, it's the Occupy Wall Street May Day event that is the least controversial that is most reminiscent of the best of Zuccotti Park's heyday. The Free University of New York -- largely sponsored by CUNY students and faculty who chose to take their classes into Madison Square Park to ... More >>

Shake Shack, Yelped

This week, the Times' Pete Wells reviewed Danny Meyer's Shake Shack chain and gave it one star, writing that its food is inconsistent and its burgers unremarkable. Most Yelpers would beg to differ. They have come out in numbers (2,548 reviews have been posted for the Shake Shack in Madison Square Pa ... More >>

HOLIDAYS ON WHEELS

Get in shape for 2012!

Smoke Billowing From 25th and Madison

​A large, dark plume of smoke billowed out of a building near Madison Square Park around 3pm this afternoon. The FDNY told us it was from a "defective oil burner" located in a building at 25th Street and Madison Avenue. Given the recent terror threat and significance of the weekend, an inciden ... More >>

Here's an Easy Way to Profit From the Shake Shack Line

​In retrospect, it's amazing that it took this long, but someone has come up with a way to make money off of the Shake Shack's constant and interminable lines.

Tonight, CB5 Will Hold a Public Hearing on the Fate of the Big Apple BBQ Block Party

​Last month, two committees of Community Board 5 voted in favor of expelling the annual Big Apple BBQ Block Party from its home in Madison Square Park. Their beef, as it were, is that the event, which is organized by the Union Square Hospitality Group, is just too much for the park and its gre ... More >>

Checking Out the Upper East Side Shake Shack

​Is that butter on the Shack Burger's bun? When the first Shake Shack opened in Madison Square Park in 2004 - with some grumbling about public space being appropriated for private uses - it was a revelation and an instant hit. Burgers, fries, hot dogs, frozen custard, all like you might find ... More >>

The John Dory Oyster Bar Resurrection

A noted seafood restaurant returns from the deep

CB5 Tells Big Apple BBQ to Get Off Its Yard

Sarah DiGregorioNo Big Bob Gibson's pulled pork shoulder for you.​Now that the flames of controversy surrounding the San Gennaro Festival have died down, they've been ignited by another open-air festival of hedonistic consumption, the Big Apple BBQ Block Party.

Manhattan Grimaldi's Is 'Hoping' to Open by Next Monday

arnoldinuyaki/Flickr​After months of delays, the Manhattan outpost of Grimaldi's may finally open as early as next week.

People Who Love Meat and Frostbite Now Converging at Shake Shack

For those who are both carnivorous and impervious to the cold, here's some timely news: at 1:30 p.m. today, the Polar Brrrger Club will convene at the Madison Square Park Shake Shack to eat burgers and dress up in Hawaiian shirts and other weather-inappropriate garb. The above video was shot at th ... More >>

Dorky Tech Snowball Fight Today at Madison Square Park

via ceonyc on Four Square​In news of extreme things that nerdy people like, New York's tech elite will be gathering at Madison Square Park today at 2:30 p.m. for an old fashioned snowball fight (#techsnowball) to be followed by a group meal at Shake Shack. We can't wait to see how many iPhones ... More >>

Fat Pants Friday: Shake Shack's Salted Peanut Butter Hot Chocolate

​ Hot chocolate is a beverage that inspires fierce and unshakable allegiances. The thick-and-sludgy vs. thin-and-milky debate shows no signs of abating, just as the comparative merits of bittersweet vs. milk chocolate are one of the dessert world's hoariest old chestnuts. And now, we can now ... More >>

The Best Thing I Ate Yesterday

Welcome to The Best Thing I Ate Yesterday, where we endeavor to remember the very best thing we stuffed down our gullets over the past 24 hours. Why? Because the only thing better than enjoying a meal is wallowing in the memory of one savored in the recent past. Today's fond reminiscences ... Vic ... More >>

Small Dairies Thriving Once Again; Food Trucks as Marketing Stunts

​Decades after many small dairies were forced to close, new boutique dairies, like Finger Lakes Dexter Creamery and Heamour Farm in Madison, N.Y., are on the rise. [Wall Street Journal] Ever wonder why you overeat around the holidays? Neuroscientists say the stomach and intestines detect the ... More >>

Tabla Will Close on Dec. 30

Photo courtesy of Tabla.​Well, this is sad but not entirely surprising: Tabla is closing.

Fatty Crab & 'Cue, Roberta's, ilili Among Vendors Slinging Snacks at Mad. Sq. Mark't

OMG: Mad. Sq. Mark't​The Mad. Sq. Mark't, in all its abbreviated glory, returned to Madison Square Park this past Saturday for the second year in a row. It will run through Saturday, October 23.

Mad. Sq. Mark't Returns With Fatty 'Cue, Hill Country, and Roberta's

Robert SietsemaFatty 'Cue's coriander bacon.​On September 25, Mad. Sq. Mark't is returning, sans useful vowels, to the west side of Madison Square Park for its second year. While the vegan handbags and cotton tunics on sale will undoubtedly be an attraction for some, we're more interested in w ... More >>

New York's Missing Restaurant Chains; Irrational Fear of Peaches

This week in food blogs... Eater rounded up the top 10 restaurant chains it wishes would set up shop in New York City. Grub Street had a run in with a furry little crumb thief outside Shake Shack in Madison Square Park. Feast listed its favorite pasta places, including Scarpetta, Marea, and Convi ... More >>

We Experience Every Public Bathroom in New York City, So You Don't Have to

​Here at the Voice, we care about the state of the public spaces where we shit and piss. There are roughly 78 New York City public restrooms in Manhattan, and we want to know how well they're kept up and stocked, which attract things that fly and crawl, the general culture surrounding them, an ... More >>

Latest "Take Back the" Cause Involves Lunch

​Well, if you're looking for a good cause but protesting BP or getting involved with PETA or, say, human rights or something seems a little excessive, you can always start a little closer to home. Like, with your lunch. The Energy Project, which "offers organizations and individuals a ground-b ... More >>

Where Can I Eat Out With My Dog?

Jacket magazine​Welcome to this week's installment of Ask the Critics. If you have a question you'd like answered in a future column, email us or leave the query in the comments. Today, we deal with a question that always comes up with the advent of warm weather: Which restaurants will allow ... More >>

Video: The Most Epic Marriage Proposal Ever, Starring Madison Square Park, a Chorus Line, Clowns, Cameras, and That "Shake Shake" Song

​Game. Changed. All of us who have yet to propose to our One and Only are very, very unlikely to step it up to a level of production you're about to see. Some people just have talent, and you can't teach that kind of thing. This is incredible.

New York Parks Have Gotten Too Fucking Nice

via Cresny​A few years ago, I started noticing that Central Park was getting too, you know, nice, with its perfectly groomed flora and flawless looking landscaping.

Big Apple Barbecue Will Return: Crowds, Meat, Madison Square Park

Pulled pork from Big Bob Gibson ​ The Eighth Annual Big Apple Barbecue Block party will return to Madison Square Park this summer, on June 12th and 13th. The event has become so crowded that it feels like a sauce-splattered cattle drive, but it remains one of the best food events in the city f ... More >>

Our 10 Best Hot Chocolates

MarieBelle's hot chocolate will coat your stomach like it coats the side of this cup.​ With the snow that's still festering on the ground about to be augmented by another deposit from the heavens, it seems an ideal time to consider the merits of hot chocolate. The cups available in New York a ... More >>

Yet Another Hotel Coffee Bar Comes to the Flatiron District

Per Madison Square Park Neighborhood, Stumptown's going to be getting another hotel coffee bar neighbor a few blocks to the east. Birch Coffee is under construction at the Gershwin Hotel and will open sometime this fall. According to the Birch blog, which includes painstaking descriptions of all of ... More >>

Stumptown Opening on Monday

Madison Square Park brings news that Lower Midtown caffeine fiends have been waiting for: Stumptown's opening in the Ace Hotel this Monday. Though the Portland import is sold at an increasing number of coffee shops throughout the city, this will be its first dedicated location in the city.[Via Eater ... More >>

Tonight! Regina Spektor, Loudon Wainwright III, Tinted Windows, and Raekwon

Next week, Regina Spektor will release her first new album in three years. What we've heard of Far is more cinematic than her often bare 2006 breakthrough, Begin to Hope, which may or may not be a good thing. Take a peek at the Beacon tonight. Loudon Wainwright III, patriarch of the venerated Wai ... More >>

Loudon Wainwright III

Sikh Day Eats

This is a PSA, calling your attention to Joey DiStefano's fantastic coverage of the Sikh Day parade and associated enormous buffet of free food to serve 50,000 in Madison Square Park. I really wish I could have been there myself to sample those roti and pakoras--although the heat and the large crowd ... More >>

Shacking Up For Spring

The Best Places To Find '80s Prices!

Great deals on illicit sex, waffles

Rust Never Weeps

Recommendations by R.C. Baker

This Weekend: Eat Pig and Garlic

Now Hiring: A Guy Named Lorenzo, and Some Brats

Pitcher Perfect

Outdoor drinking and grilling courtesy of a bar near you

Flippin' Out

What does the collar on a summer shirt signify? Interpretations go neck and neck.

Eyewitness News

Cops, Clubs, Chaos, And Camaraderie At The Vigil