“Why Can’t You Write Normal?”
Kathy Acker’s journey from daughter of Sutton Place to genre- and gender-bending cult novelist
Neighborhood Watch
Michael Kimmelman, the New York Times architecture critic and lifelong New Yorker, discusses the old Village and new downtowns
Ludlow, Lady Gaga, and Me
In 2006, Pianos, on Ludlow Street, was a divey service-industry spot attracting the likes of Sweetbitter author Stephanie Danler—and a pre-fame Lady Gaga
Singing the Lady Electric
In the five decades since Jimi Hendrix founded Electric Lady, on West Eighth Street, the music studio has kept its look—and caliber—intact
Metaphysical Graffiti
For the last decade, Blake Kunin has photographed members of the city’s prolific tag crews at work. His pictures memorialize their conquests—and a city whose street-art scene lives on
Bohemian Rhapsody
The artist Duncan Hannah’s unpublished 1980s diaries chronicle his run-ins with everyone from Bowie and Basquiat to Warren Beatty and a precocious call girl
What Makes a Neighborhood?
Debbie Harry, Woody Allen, Cat Marnell, Ian Schrager, Diane von Furstenberg, and others weigh in
The Downtown Set
A list of the 50 young New Yorkers who are remaking Lower Manhattan in their own image
The Music Man
From the stage of the San Francisco Opera, Jakub Józef Orliński’s Orpheus enchants the Golden Gate
Acquired Taste
The granddaughter of the River Cafe’s Ruthie Rogers discovers the thrill of cooking, one page at a time
The King of Lies
Separating fact from fiction in the latest, heavily fabricated season of The Crown
The Jewel Is The Crown
Even though Season Five of Netflix’s hit series is a laughable portrait of Princess Diana and Prince Charles, the show’s critics will keep watching
Hollywood’s Lost Stories Come to Light
Sam Wasson discusses a new oral history of movies, told by the people who made them
Dreams in Progress
A new book celebrates Hollywood’s greatest behind-the-scenes photographer
Pauline Chalamet
Although the star of The Sex Lives of College Girls grew up in a family of actors, writers, and directors, she resisted a life in the arts for years
The Secret Life of Hotels
Before doing the Madeline children’s books and the murals for New York’s Carlyle-hotel bar, Ludwig Bemelmans worked at the Ritz—and kept notes
Crime Pays
He’s written 37 books and sold more than 80 million copies—yet The New York Times still won’t give Michael Connelly’s well-crafted and timely whodunits a proper review
A Class Act
The producing artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater pays tribute to his friend James McMullan, a brilliant artist who has designed its posters for nearly four decades
The Bike Picture
How a long-haired band of outsiders with a 16-mm. camera, $300,000, and “a hell of an idea” re-invented American movies with Easy Rider
Luca Guadagnino
Introducing our new Seasoned Traveler feature, a questionnaire devoted entirely to travel routines. First up: the Italian director behind A Bigger Splash, Call Me by Your Name, and the new film Bones and All
Broken Images
T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” is the rare modernist masterpiece that still feels modern