how to spend a hot weekend in New York City

with all the things that are still cool

coolstuff.nyc

Jun 20, 2025

Bottega

Your newest café and sandwich shop in Crown Heights is here!! Bottega's founders & couple, Nico and Syv, opened their new spot with the goal to gather, share and slow down. More than just a café, Bottega aspires to become a modern-day social club to gather, connect and create community. Sister spot to East Village's Maretta, the Crown Heights cafe will be serving up seasonal and fresh dishes like hanger steak & tomato paninos paired with sides of candied nuts, grain bowls and every summery spritz you can imagine. Open daily at 7a-4p at⁣⁣ 215 Rogers Ave. See you there?

WatchHouse Chrysler Building

The cult-favorite Modern Coffee brand from the U.K., WatchHouse, has touched down again in NYC with its second location, this time in the iconic Chrysler Building. The new WatchHouse offers the same obsessive attention to craft, detail, and atmosphere that has earned WatchHouse a devoted following across the U.K. Head over for a classic cold brew while you're in the neighborhood, or for a tasting of the coffee in their Rarities collection (which we can personally vouch for - DO IT!)

Westmoreland

The Frick Collection recently opened the first café at its Fifth Avenue home and it's giving us even more reason to start our visits to the gallery with a glass of white wine and a snack. The café takes its name from the Westmoreland, the private Pullman railway car of museum founder Henry Clay Frick. Designed by Bryan O’Sullivan Studio, Westmoreland features a custom mural from artist Darren Waterston and a cozy interior filled with walnut and floral patterns. Stop by the cafe for an all-day, table-service menu before you head steadfast into the museum's collection.

This is for our friends heading "out east" this summer...Paris and NYC-based gallerist Amélie du Chalard is debuting a vibrant curation of contemporary artworks from her eponymous gallery at 1818 Collective, the Hamptons design studio and concept store helmed by Kristin Fine and Analisse Taft-Gersten in Sag Harbor. This season-long installation is designed to reflect the ease of summer living with work at the intersection of art and interior design. With playful colors and organic materials that echo the natural landscape, the collection was assembled to feel lived-in and approachable, like art that enhances the rhythm and atmosphere of a summer home. If you find yourself in the beauty of Sag this summer, stop by at 43 Madison Street.

Brooklyn Summer Zine Fest

Brooklyn Art Book Fair and Secret Riso Club are teaming up to present Brooklyn Summer Zine Fest hosted by Other People's Clothes in Wburg! This Sunday at 150 Marcy Ave, shop with some of the coolest favorite small presses and artists. PSA - you can bring a T-Shirt and get it silkscreened with SRC to raise funds for the art book fair, and bring a zine or print along with you to the fest for their zine swap! Stop by the outdoor event from 12-6p.

Maison Jar Refill Happy Hour

Greenpoint's refillery & grocery store, Maison Jar, is hosting a "refill happy hour" in collaboration with Dona, next Wednesday the 25th from 4-6p! Stock up on all of your pantry staples (sans packaging and plastic!) and try out some of Dona's new spiced sodas while you shop. All Maison Jar refills will be 20% off during the happy hour - the perfect HH precursor before dinner at Bernie's around the corner.

Everything Must Go Sale

This Friday from 2-8pm come out to 172 Herkimer St in Brooklyn for a super stoop sale, put on by glassmaker Gayle Forman (Forman Function) and baker Austin Bowes (Austin Doughs) - they are moving out of their apartment and clearing some serious space! In addition to the typical stoop sale items like clothes, house goods, and assorted furniture, there will be handmade glass at big discounts and seasonal delights to snack on.

Grand Street's Dead Letter No. 9, is opening their doors for something a bit quieter, deeper, but just as electric. PMS: Philosophical Musing Sessions is a new monthly talk series, devoted to the parts of us that don’t behave: the feral, the messy, the “too much.” Curated and hosted by Ilana Gilovich, this series dares to trust the wild feminine as intelligent and worthy of a voice. Ilana invites guests into unscripted conversations about life’s biggest questions. Each session features new special guests and new plant co-hosts lovingly offered by Geometry Gardens, Dead Letter’s botanical neighbor. This month’s guest is Debbie Millman - writer, design visionary, and host of Design Matters, one of the world’s first and longest-running podcasts. Grab a ticket, arrive early, grab a cocktail, and let the musings begin - next Wednesday night!

Ask us a question, recommendation, or well…anything in the comments section of the newsletter & we’ll reply within 24 hours. This is your chance for personalized NYC recommendations - from a date night spot in the West Village to the coolest shops in Cobble Hill - we’ve got you covered! All you have to do is click the comment icon at the top or bottom of this week’s newsletter to get your questions over to us :)

See you in the comments?

How did your career as an art curator begin?

It really began in grad school. I studied art history at NYU, and the program was structured so that we only had six hours of class per week. Rather than studying in the library nonstop, I decided to use that time for internships. My first day of class, I made a friend who was working part-time in the digital media department at The Met and she got me an interview. I ended up interning there for 10 months (this was back when The Met was closed on Mondays—I’ll never forget wandering around the museum when it was completely empty!). From there, I went on to the Guggenheim, MoMA, and Art in America magazine—experiences that helped me consider what my career could look like in art. But those internships weren’t in curatorial departments; I was working on digital, publications, and editorial teams.

At a point when I was finishing up school and trying to find a job, I asked a curator for advice about pivoting into a more traditional curatorial path and was told, pretty bluntly, that I’d have to start over. I was not about to do that. Shortly after, I got my first role at Artsy and I’ve been there ever since, for 12 years!

While the bulk of my work has been editorial—writing and editing stories and features about contemporary artists—I’ve come to realize that curating can take many forms. Through all of that writing and editing, and seeing and learning about a vast amount of art and artists, I’ve developed my own curatorial voice.

Over time, I’ve curated in all kinds of ways—whether it’s selecting artists for The Artsy Vanguard, our annual feature on the most promising artists working today; or choosing artworks for our weekly Curators’ Picks collection; or helping the team choose the art and artists we’re promoting across curated collections, editorial, social, and other marketing channels. To me, curating is about choosing inspiring artists to elevate through Artsy’s reach, and finding resonant themes and stories—entryways—through which people can connect with art more meaningfully.

Tell us about your role as Artsy’s Chief Curator and Editor-in-Chief!

Having been at Artsy for more than a decade (the company launched in October 2012, just about a year before I joined), I’ve been really lucky to evolve my role as the company has grown. I lead our content team—spanning editorial, curatorial, and social media—and we sit within a tight-knit marketing team focused on helping collectors and new art buyers discover and buy art.

A big part of my job is supporting my team as they develop stories and features that help people fall in love with art and artists. A great example is Queer Art Now, our new Pride month campaign that features 30 artists, one per day throughout the month. We also curate monthly campaigns in New York City subway stations that New Yorkers have likely seen; it’s a really fun collaboration we do with the media company Outfront. I also lead several projects of my own, including our weekly newsletter The Artsy Edit (more on that below) and major annual features like The Artsy Vanguard.

The Artsy Vanguard is one of our biggest moments each year. It’s a global list of 10 emerging artists who we believe are shaping the future of art. The project is part editorial, part curatorial, and part data-driven—we start with nominations from our gallery partners, then I supplement those with picks based on what I’m seeing on the platform and in the wider art world. We also use Artsy data to identify artists who are gaining traction with collectors or showing clear signals of momentum.

This year, I started with a pool of over 700 artists. From there, it’s a deep dive: I look at the work itself, but also at CVs, Instagram accounts, press coverage, and online presence to get a sense of what kind of attention and staying power an artist is building. I’m always looking for artists making work that’s visually striking, emotionally resonant, and conceptually rich—but also for artists who seem poised to break through and connect with audiences in a lasting way.

Outside of content creation, I travel often to stay on the pulse of contemporary art—visiting galleries, going to art fairs, and connecting with artists and gallerists. I’m about to head to Switzerland for Art Basel, which is one of the best places to see what’s happening across the global art market.

What I love about this role is how it lets me jump between zooming in—spotlighting individual artists—and zooming out to consider how art intersects with broader cultural conversations. It’s also a very social and collaborative job: I get to work with an amazing team, but also often engage with artists, galleries, collectors, publicists, and others.

What’s your favorite part about the New York art community?

I love how committed the New York art community is. You’ll see the same faces at shows, talks, and openings—it creates a real sense of community, even in a city as massive as New York. I’m often in the office all day before racing out to see a new show, attend a talk, catch a performance—or sometimes all three in one evening. And it’s comforting to know so many others are doing the same. There’s this shared obsession with art and artists that makes us do silly things, like meticulously planning out every minute of the 6 to 8 p.m. gallery opening window on a Thursday to hit a dozen shows across Chelsea and the Upper East Side—or pop into 20 openings in Tribeca in under an hour. It’s fun!

I feel incredibly lucky to live in a place where you can spend an entire afternoon gallery-hopping and still you’re not even close to seeing it all. I’m especially obsessed with galleries. They’re free, low-pressure, and filled with art that often ends up in museums. Even though they’re open to the public, they still feel like hidden gems—you can walk into a gallery and have a quiet, personal encounter with an amazing work of art.

I’m particularly fond of Tribeca galleries. Many of the spaces are just steps from Artsy’s office. When I first started at the company, there were only a handful of galleries in the neighborhood. Now there are over 60 within a few blocks. The spaces themselves have so much character—creaky wood floors, lofted ceilings, old columns, big windows that look out onto the street. They feel like New York in a way that the pristine white cubes elsewhere often don’t.

We love that you're relaunching both Artsy's Podcast + Artsy's weekly "Artsy Edit" newsletter! Can you tell us what listeners and readers can expect from the line-ups ahead?

Yes! The Artsy Edit is our weekly newsletter where I highlight what’s happening in the art world—openings, fairs, trends, artists to watch. I think of it as the list I’d send a friend who asks, “What’s going on in art this week?” or “Who’s a cool new artist I should know about?” It’s meant to be sharp, fun, and not too insider-y. In the weeks ahead, I’ll be spotlighting Art Basel, our Pride feature, and Foundations, our summer showcase of emerging art.

In late March, we brought back The Artsy Podcast, which had been dormant since 2018. I felt like the timing was right to revive it—but in a way that feels fresh and current. Even though art is a visual medium, it’s also deeply conversational. We’re using the audio format to have conversations about art that expand beyond the art world and dig into overarching conversations and themes that feel relevant to culture more broadly today.

Our most recent episode featured writer Kyle Chayka, in a conversation about how AI and algorithms are shaping the art world. Next up is the amazing artist Michaela Yearwood-Dan, whose rise over the past decade has been very impressive. In addition to being a brilliant painter, she’s been creating exhibitions that feel like sanctuaries—intentionally warm, welcoming spaces that push back against the intimidation that the art world can sometimes convey.

And this fall, we’re lining up a conversation with an exciting fashion designer, diving into the exciting collaborations we’re seeing between art and fashion.

Can you give us a sneak peek as to what's next in the art world (rising artists, galleries to know, trends)?

Right now, I’m seeing a lot of work that’s tactile and making us slow down. This includes sculpture—lots of wood carving, ceramics, fiber art, even mobiles—as well as performance and lush, cinematic painting. It’s definitely a response to this thirst for art that offers a counter to digital screens—work that really shows skill that can only be accomplished carefully by hand.

One artist I’ve been especially excited about is Melissa Joseph, who was featured in The Artsy Vanguard 2025. Her work explores memory, family, and care—often through needle felting—and she just debuted a moving new installation that’s taken over the outside of the Brooklyn Museum. She also shows with Charles Moffett gallery in Tribeca, which consistently supports emerging and undersung artists working in thoughtful and conceptually rich ways.

There’s also a whole wave of painting that leans into escapism and narrative—work that feels cinematic, transportive, and quietly luxurious. Alexis Ralaivao’s current show at Kasmin is a great example: he painted these stunning, film noir–inspired scenes that are tightly cropped, evoking fleeting moments of intimacy and opulence. It’s like looking at stills from a film you wish existed. There’s a whole generation of painters offering these lush glimpses into imagined lives—works that pull you into a very attractive, suspended reality.

What really excites me about the future of art, though, is how interdisciplinary things are becoming. You see that clearly at the East Williamsburg gallery Carvalho. They recently launched a new performance series this summer, where a dance piece called Echoes on the Wall, choreographed by Ingrid Silva, will take place at the gallery, set within a shimmering, ethereal installation by artist Rosalind Tallmadge. It’s going to be a fantastic convergence of visual art and performance.

You also see this spirit of collaboration at places like The Future Perfect, which has a beautiful townhouse in the West Village where they blur the line between art and design. They show incredible work by artists and designers like Lindsey Adelman, Jane Yang-D’Haene, and Faye Toogood. Their shows blur the lines between art, design, and interiors in a way that feels thoughtful and aspirational. Walking through the space feels like stepping into a dream home.