The Newark Museum at 49 Washington Place in Newark, NJ.
I have been a member of the Newark Museum for 29 years and have enjoyed the experience. There is a lot of things to do at all times of the year.
During the Summer months, I enjoy “Jazz in the Garden” where local and international jazz musicians perform in the beauty of the back garden of the museum under the trees. These almost hour and a half performance can be enjoyed on sunny, clear days in the gardens and in the auditorium on a rainy afternoon. It is something I look forward to every summer.
Jazz in the Garden at the Newark Museum. The gardens are amazing in the summer months.
The Newark Garden in the back of the museum.
Jazz in the Garden was a big event before the pandemic. It is on hiatus for now. It had resumed after COVID with a fee and did not happen in the Summer of 2023. Still, I had enjoyed these concerts for years.
The video celebration of the new entrance reopening
Entering the foyer of the museum
During December of 2019 I attended a holiday afternoon tea at the Ballantine House, the historic home attached to the museum. The Ballantine’s were one of the oldest families in Newark, NJ and were once major brewers in the city. They were considered High Society in Newark and the home, and its renovation reflect that.
The outside of the Ballantine House in 2019.
A new tradition was started this year with a Holiday Afternoon Tea and tour of the mansion. The caterer did a nice job with the food and their was plenty of it. We had finger sandwiches, various scones and pastries and different varieties of teas.
After the tea, we had a tour of the house and a talk about how the Ballantine’s and their crowd celebrated the holidays. They would be an open house for the neighbors during the holidays and then on Christmas day were church services in the morning and then a lunch afterwards with the family.
Ballantine House set for the neighborhood open house
Entering the newly renovated Ballantine House.
Another nice event is the Members Mornings of specialty tours of the galleries on a Sunday morning and a light breakfast afterwards. These are really nice, and you get a more in-depth view of the galleries with the docents. This is where I highly recommend membership.
The Ballantine House model
The Ballantine House reopened after a two year renovation of the property and I toured it in January of 2024 to see the redesign of the home. The home had been cleaned and new signage and carpeting had been added to the site. They were new signs with interpretations of the house with some major design changes.
The Ballantine children in portrait.
The house had gotten some much needed renovation work and cleaning and the house looked sparkling and looked like someone had just moved in. In 2024, the house continued its tradition of being decorated for the Christmas holidays but with a twist to it
The Foyer of the Ballantine House
The fireplace in the Foyer of the home at the holidays
The front door ablaze with colors
The Reception/Receiving Room for guests.
The Receiving Room at the Ballantine House.
The Reception Room decorated for the holidays
We started the tour clock wise through all the rooms on the first floor starting with the Reception Room where guests would be received for a visit and would wait until the Ballantine’s were ready to greet you. We then moved onto the Library where the whole family would gather in the evenings to read and converse with one another in a more casual setting.
The Library
The Library at the Ballantine House
Mr. Ballantine’s chair and desk in the Library of the Ballantine House.
The Library decorated for the Christmas holidays:
The Library decorated for the Christmas holidays:
The Library decorated for the Christmas holidays:
The Dining Room
The Dining Room set for dinner.
The Dining Room sideboard.
The Dining Room decorated for the Christmas holidays:
The Dining Room decorated for the Christmas holidays:
The Billiard Room across the hall from the Dining Room.
The Billiard Room at the Ballantine House.
The Parlor at the Ballantine House.
The Parlor for receiving guests for afternoon tea
The other side of the parlor.
The Parlor set for tea.
The Parlor set up for the Christmas Eve Tea:
The Parlor set for the Christmas Eve Tea service of the neighbors:
The Parlor would have been set for a light reception on Christmas Eve for the neighbors in the immediate neighborhood to stop in and join the family for a casual conversation and have a light snack. No one would stay more than an hour and it was in bad manners to stay longer than that.
The reception foods would be replenished as they ran out and this would take place for about two to three hours on Christmas Eve night as people would be leaving for church services or on their way to other celebrations.
The tour took us next upstairs to see the renovated bedrooms on the second floor and the galleries where some of the jewelry and art objects were on display.
The Staircase decorated for the Christmas holidays
The beautiful stained glass window on the landing to the second floor.
Mr. & Mrs. Ballantine’s Bedroom
The Boudoir where Mrs. Ballantine did her work.
The Boudoir where Mrs. Ballantine worked.
Alice’s bedroom on the second floor that was adjoined to her parents room by the way of the Boudoir.
Alice’s bedroom on the second floor looking over Washington Park.
The staircase to the Third Floor to Alice’s family apartment.
This was the main room of the apartment that was used by the family for entertaining friends and family. Alice, her husband and their four children lived in this apartment until 1919 at the time of Mrs. Ballantine’s death. Then her daughter moved to another part of Newark and then onto Morris County.
The Third floor apartment for Alice and her family that Mrs. Ballantine build for Alice and her family.
The beautiful skylight in Alice’s apartment on the Third floor of the Ballantine house.
The decorative fireplace that worked in Alice’s family apartment on the third floor of the house
On my most recent trip to the museum, I attended the opening of the new ‘Norman Bluhm Metamorphosis’ exhibition on February 11th, 2020.
Artist Norman Bluhm
Norman Bluhm: Metamorphosis celebrates six decades of painting by post-war American artist Norman Bluhm (1920-1999), who combined action painting with a lavish sense of color and formal experimentation on a grand scale.
Paintings and works on paper dating from 1947 to 1998 are on view in the Museum’s Special Exhibition Gallery and the Traphagen promenade galleries surrounding the Charles W. Engelhard Court (Newark Museum publication press release).
These large works showcase the artist’s work over a fifty year period.
Norman Bluhm’s work is quite dramatic
In 2022, I went on the first Members Morning that we had in almost two years. We toured the “Carlos Villa: Worlds in Collusion” exhibition featuring the works by American San Franciso born artist of Philippine decent Carlos Villa.
Artist Carlos Villa in the exhibition “Worlds in Collison”
Video on the Exhibition “Carlos Villa: Worlds in Collison”
What made this exhibition interesting was the feather work that he used in his art. He was trying to capture the ethnic history of identity not just of the Asian but the Pan-Pacific cultures of Hawaii. He used robes and other costumes to show the dynamic of the background of these cultures. Not just that but what describes Americans who are not of white decadency and where their role plays in society. The impression I got from his work and from the tour was feeling like an outsider in the country he was born in.
One of the feathered cloches that are in the exhibition
I also visited the interactive exhibition “Endangered”, showing video screenings of nature on the walls of the Natural Science Galleries. The exhibition highlights how human behavior is affection the natural environment and what we can do to stop it.
In the Summer of 2022, we had a member’s tour of one of the ongoing exhibitions at the museum and the docent described the works of local Brooklyn based artist Saya Woolfalk.
I joined the membership one morning to tour the exhibition on artist Saya Woolfalk who is based out of Brooklyn. Her current exhibition “Tumbling into Landscape” is being featured on a long-term exhibition. The works are a communication with nature and our relationship with nature and with one another. When you walk through it you are so relaxed between the music and the lighting. The artist ‘uses science fiction and fantasy to reimagine the world in multiple dimensions’ (Newark Museum).
The videos in the Saya Woolfalk exhibition
Her look at nature is very interesting. She looks at our relationship with the natural world and to each other and where we belong. Here works have a calming effect on the visitor and our interaction with the art.
‘The Four Virtues’ (Justice, Prudence, Temperance and Fortitude)
She even did a study of the Hudson River School and how her art worked into that perspective of nature. She included between six paintings from the School of Art with a self-portrait of herself.
It was interesting how she used her own self to compare to the stylized view of nature taken on by these past artists.
Recently, I joined other members for a special “Members Morning” that happen every third Thursday entitled “The Art of Collecting Abstracts”. It was a look at the contemporary works that have been collected by the Newark Museum over the years. We got a look at works from the early part of the last century to today. Each of the pieces chose were a way for us to think about the artist and what they were trying to convey. Some used bold strokes and colors to tell their story. I thought they were quite colorful.
The group of us on the tour walked through various galleries, admiring and learning about the contemporary collections of abstract work from artists from various periods. Each docent took their take on pieces they admired in the collection.
Abstract by Ilya Bolotwosky “Study for Mural for Hall of Medicine, Public Health Building, New York World’s Fair.
We had the first Solar Eclipse travel across the United States since 1979 and at first, most people did not make a fuss over it but as the time approached, everyone started to ‘freak out’ that they must see it. I just wanted to avoid New York City that day and see it somewhere else.
I had a member’s invitation to see it at the American Museum of Natural History, but I wanted to avoid the city today and that museum as I knew it was going to be packed and we would all be shoved into Rose Hall where the planetarium was located. It was not that I thought it would be done wrong, but I did not want to deal with the crowds at the AMNH.
At the last minute, the Newark Museum in Newark, NJ (See review on TripAdvisor and my blog “VisitingaMuseum”) had a special function for the day where you could get the eclipse glasses and see the show. They did not know what they were in for as the crowd at the museum swelled into over 500 people. They did not have enough of anything for all the people that came. The line was still going on when I got to the front of the line. They ran out of glasses when I got there but they provided me with a ‘pin-hole’ paper so that I could see the eclipse though the hole. I was lucky people were willing to share their glasses.
In New Jersey, we were so far from the path of the moon that we only got to see about 75% covering of the sun, so it was still bright out by us. So, you really needed the glasses. It was so interesting to see the moon cover the sun and it moved ever so slowly. The display started at around 2:45pm EST and like I said you would never know it was happening because of the light of the sun. Some people said they noticed the difference, but I didn’t see or feel anything different.
Horizon Plaza and the Garden area were mobbed with people from 2:45pm to about 3:30pm and they had the path of the sun and moon on TV on live stream inside the museum at the auditorium. I swear, the dopey things people will say on camera just to be on TV.
What the Eclipse looked like down South where the eye of it was
The reporters didn’t even know what to ask once it was over. Some people really got into it and most seemed to care less. I thought it was interesting to see this cosmic display. When it happened in 1979, I was in high school and I don’t even remember anyone talking about and thinking back to it, I think it was a cloudy day that afternoon.
This is a documentary by NASA
I left around 4:00pm when the path crossed, and people got tired looking up. I could also feel the strain on my eyes. The nice part was I took the bus from home and did not have to tackle their parking lot. Lunch was at Central Restaurant, 30 Central Avenue, Downtown Newark, for an amazing meal (See review on TripAdvisor and my blog ‘DiningonaShoeStringinNYC’).
Central Restaurant at 30 Central Avenue in Newark, NJ
The next time this will happen will be in 2024 so we have some time and will travel from Texas to Maine. So maybe we will get a better view next time. Otherwise, I thought it was pretty awesome.
Places to Visit:
The Newark Museum
49 Washington Street
Newark, NJ 07102
(973) 596-6550
Open: Wednesday-Sunday 12:00pm-5:00pm/Closed Monday and Tuesday
In 2017 before I left for Brooklyn, I had a busy day running around Newark and then in Brooklyn visiting both the Newark Museum and Coney Island. I love how everything gets planned on the same day. Everyone was preparing for the Solar Eclipse on Monday, so both the Newark Museum and the American Museum of Natural History are getting ready for the viewings. So I stopped at the Newark Museum first today to see what they were planning knowing that New York was going to be very busy.
The Newark Museum is running a series of members mornings with a early morning tour of the museum and a light breakfast that seems to be catching on with the membership. We had a early morning tour of the kinetic sculpture of Uram Choe, a Korean artist who specializes in metal working sculptures that move on motion. His one piece upstairs in the Asian galleries opens up like the sun would in the morning and his downstairs on the second floor piece is a serpent eating itself, which is based on an old legend.
Mr. Choe’s is a South Korean born artist from an architect background. He was educated at the Chungang University in Seoul and graduated with both a B.F.A and M.F.A. from the college. Choe’s works push the genre of moving kinetic art toward its newer-generation iterations, such as robotic art (Wiki).] Each one of his pieces moves on a series of motors based on motion and is placed with such detail and the way it moves is so intricate.
The Newark Museum (See TripAdvisor review) is going though a major renovation where they will be opening the original entrance to the museum in the Fall after twenty years and hopefully a new beginning for a museum with a major identity crisis.
The museum has such amazing works to see in a beautiful setting but the problem is that Newark still has a negative image to most suburbanites. No one I know wants to go there and that is a real problem for the city. The museum in a great area of the downtown that is being rebuilt and refigured with all sorts of new housing and lofts but it will take time to shake the riots of the 60’s from people’s minds.
They just opened the new American Indian exhibition and refigured the American Art wing to reflect the development of the United States from Native American time to the present. Their Asian and African galleries are very detailed but the biggest problem they have is the imagine of an ‘African’ museum which they can’t seem to shake. It is such a gem and try not to miss going there.
We had a long talk in the gallery about the artist and about the development of Korean Art from Ancient times until today and then the museum had a beautiful Continental breakfast on the top floor of the Ballentine House. This was Mrs. Ballentine’s daughter’s section of the house that was built in the late 1890’s when they moved in after her husband’s death. The room, now used as the trustee’s room, is a look back on the Gilded Age and the invention of electricity in modern homes. It really showed me the treasure trove of artifacts that exist in this small museum.
After the tour, there was a quick tour of the museum and then a train ride to Manhattan and then a long subway ride on a beautiful clear sunny day to Coney Island. The whole thing took about two hours and I got there by three o’clock.
The contest was gloomy at both times I visited but everyone was eager
The Annual Sandcastle Building Contest in both 2017 and in 2024, I thought would be much bigger than it was. Only about twenty people were competing in it in 2017 and in 2024 about the same amount. With all the artists living in Brooklyn and in the Metropolitan area, I thought this would be a bigger deal than it was but still the works coming from it were spectacular. Several mounds of sand in one section of the beach outside of Luna Park were used but still the imagination of the work was spellbound.
The piles were set with numbers along the beach
Artists and families starting to work around 12:30pm
Getting ready to start
By 1:00pm, everyone was getting to work for the 4:00pm deadline
Most of the works that I saw were some forms of castle which seemed to be the object that everyone based their idea on but some people were a little more creative. There were bears, mermaids and in 2017, one artist even dug out a complete hole and had the imagine of a woman lying in the sea.
In 2024, the creativity was the same with themes of brownstone neighborhoods to mermaid queens to just a simple smile in the sand. There were professionals whose sand creativity was part of their artistic employment to families just having fun and spending time together.
This simple face just appeared on one of the piles at the end of the contest
The creation of the Shark sculpture
The Shark Sculpture in process
The Shark almost finished
The finished Shark Sculpture
Another artist created this Shark display
The Coney Island Alliance hired an artist to create this masterpiece. It just shows the creativity of some artists.
The Coney Island Alliance sculpture in form in the beginning
He kept carving and sculpting
The piece took form
Almost finished
The finished sculpture for the Coney Island Alliance was just beautiful
The final work that represented the Coney Island Alliance. This was the ultimate piece done by a professional artist. I loved the details on this. Some of the professional artists did works to welcome everyone to the contest and their detail work was interesting as you see in the picture above. This was not done by a group of ten year old’s.
Still there were all sorts of works of art created by people of all ages and they showed their stuff by creating their interpretations of their views of New York City and mythical animals that roam the woods, beaches and streets of the big City. Some were fun, some were whimsical and some just stood out in their creativity.
The ladies putting the final touches on the Rat with Pizza sculpture
My favorite sculpture of the contest the rat with a slice of pizza
The start of Beware of Dog sculpture done by this mother and son team
The finished Beware of Dog sculpture
The final touches of Beware of Dog. The details were very clever
These artists created their own affordable brownstone neighborhood in Brooklyn
Then there was the Tales of Two Coasts, New York and Los Angeles, which had real estate details of their own.
I loved this look of Los Angeles, CA
This was the New York City side of the sculpture
Home ownership continued with this kitchen sculpture
Some of the mythical creatures included mermaids, animals and creatures large and small.
This family was sculpting the most clever cat
The finished Cat Inquiry sculpture
Another family was finishing this Hammerhead Shark towards the end of the contest
This Sea Maiden appeared in the sand
Rebirth and Birth Sculpture
This penguin found a home in the sand
This Heart with a Sunflower was in its final stages when I saw it last
The Magical Train was one of the first sculptures done
A Castle with a Moat was created
The mighty Elephant was being worked on towards the end of the contest
The iconic New York Hot Dog is happily served
The Shellebrity Sightings sculpture
The Phoenix sculpture on the beach
One of the most detailed sculptures I saw the creation of the Mermaid Queen.
The creation of the Mermaid Queen
The Mermaid Queen takes shape
The finished Queen Mermaid with her Crown
The finished Mermaid Queen
There was also the creation of the Sand Witches with their big smiles.
Creating the Sand Witches
Creating the main character
The Sand Witches sculpture
The creation of Do Not Feed the Bears
The finished Do Not Feed the Bears sculpture
Another Mermaid appears
Here and there during the contest and for the rest of the day, the sun peaked out now and then giving us some sun but the rest of the day remained cloudy. Still that did not dampen the spirits of our artists and by 4:00pm the winners were announced. The Winners were sculptures numbers 63, 07 and 39 with the People’s Choice being 01 (I am not too sure I have everything numbered) but the ones above are my favorites and worthy of all the picture taking.
In 2017, I walked along the beach to relax my feet and as I walked, I could not believe how empty the beaches were for a Saturday afternoon in August. By the water it was full but towards the back by the boardwalk it was empty. In 2024, the incoming hurricane weather kept people away as the beaches were closed for swimming. The surf was really rough that morning and afternoon and the weather was gloomy. Even when I visited on the 4th of July, the beaches were not as crowded as I would have thought. Not the Coney Island of yesteryear when every spot was full. I guess its just not that place anymore.
Taking a walk along the gloomy and almost empty Midway by Luna Park
After a long walk along the beach, I dried off and walked the boardwalk to the end to Seagate, a private community at the end of the boardwalk. Along the way, I passed by the Coney Island Houses, one of the more dangerous housing complexes in Brooklyn. I don’t know whose brilliant idea it was to build low-income housing along the shore front but that made no sense to me.
It looked like the complex was having a barbecue, that is until two guys went after each other in the basketball court area as the DJ was announcing a kids dance. She was beside herself to tell them to calm down. Then you had two groups of people trying to calm the situation down. It was not a pleasant scene.
I got to the end of the boardwalk and decided I wanted to see all of Surf Avenue to see the real changes on the island since the closing of the amusement area. I agree with an article I read years ago; it still is like a war zone.
They built all this public housing outside Seagate and as you walk along Surf Avenue until you get to about where the rehab center is, it just looks like Beirut. The whole area is full of rundown looking public housing and the street itself is a shell of the once glorious resort if it ever was that. If there are ever going to get this island back into shape, the city seriously needs to rethink this part of the island.
I walked the entire length of Surf Avenue down to Brighton Beach and really looked at the stretch of the island facing the shore. By Brighton Beach, the area got so much nicer and more built up. Even in some of the pockets before the amusement area, they are building new condos along the boardwalk in between the projects. Even still, even when you reach Nathan’s, there is just too much wasted opportunity along the shore front.
Walking on the Coney Island Boardwalk in 2017
I turned around and walked up Stillwell Avenue by the subway spot and there they are starting to knock down the block and replacing it with low rise apartment buildings. This is where all the hipster people must be living. It looks like more of this area is about to come down.
In 2024, I got to the beach at 12:30pm and walked around the shore until about 2:00pm watching everyone build their creations. Then I walked around Deno’s Wonderwheel Park, watching the patrons on the Wonderwheel and going into Spookarama, their haunted house ride.
Spookarama in Deno’s Wonderwheel Park
The haunted display by the ride
The haunted display in the park
In 2017 for dinner, I went to Totonno’s Pizzeria Napolitano at 1524 Neptune Avenue between 15th and 16th Streets (See TripAdvisor review). This place is harder to get into than any trendy restaurant in Manhattan. They only make so much dough and as a matter of fact the smaller pizzas sold out before I got there and it was 4:30pm when I ate my lunch/dinner. The place was busy the entire time I got there. The only bad thing about the restaurant is the seating. They need to reconfigure their tables to accommodate more people. You can’t seat a single person like myself at a six top table.
The menu is so simple. Either you get a small or large pizza with a choice of ten toppings for $2.50 extra. The drinks were pricey with a bottle of Coke being $2.50. The pizza was $20.50 for the large or $18.50 for the small. The place is cash only.
The pizza was wonderful and with the size and the quality of ingredients, well worth the money. You get a large pizza that is a large pizza with fresh tomato sauce and fresh mozzarella, which gives it a different flavor from the shredded processed cheese most places use giving it a creamy flavor. The whole thing was topped with fresh basil and I added sausage to it. Cooking it in a coal brick stove gave it a nice smoky flavor. Needless to say, the owner could not believe I ate almost the entire pie at one sitting.
Totonna’s Cheese Pizza
I met Louise Ciminieri, the current owner and the granddaughter of the original owner. She told me how the business passed down from her grandfather to her uncle and then to her. Her uncle had a habit of only making so much dough and after it was gone, the restaurant closed for the day. A little strange for a business to make money.
Owner Louise Ciminieri of Totonno’s Pizza
She could not have been nicer or more welcoming to me and seemed to get a kick at the fact that I made such a fuss in meeting her. I told her of all the reviews online and the fact that my own mom had eaten here probably when her uncle first owned the business. She has not changed the place much over the years and she explained how the neighborhood has changed so much since they opened. What was once an Italian neighborhood is now all car repair places.
After dinner in 2017, I took once last walk around Surf Avenue and then headed back to Manhattan where I ended up spending the rest of the evening at an outdoor concert in Bryant Park. It was nice to just relax and listen to the music.
In 2024, I passed the pizzeria and it still has not opened for in house dining but people were buying pizzas to go. I thought I saw the owner sitting at the only booth left inside but I was not sure. I have to say that without in house dining, there is no reason to go. There is no place to eat around the restaurant (it is not the best part of Coney Island) and I don’t want to drag a pizza three blocks back to the beach to eat it on a bench. The pizzeria is only open on the weekends as well, so I searched around Mermaid Avenue for someplace else to dine.
Here I found Pizza on the Run at 1627 Mermaid Avenue near the side entrance to the subway station. I had passed the place many times but the outside always looked a little shoddy and I avoided it. Big Mistake! The pizza is amazing!
I have to admit that the pizza was a little pricey at $3.50 a slice but the slice was oversized and their sauce on the pizza was delicious. It was so well spiced and gave it so much flavor that I enjoyed every bite.
The Cheese slice was amazing and I plan on going back in the future and trying more items here.
After lunch was over, I gave myself some time before the contest was officially over and walked around this section of Coney Island. Little by little it is getting better. As the luxury rentals along Surf Avenue are getting ready to open for residents, I can see that they are trying to fix up Mermaid Avenue behind it. A lot of the businesses that had been there a few months ago are now closed and the side walks from the subway station down three blocks are being fixed. Along the walls was a bright mural welcoming people to Coney Island from the subway side.
The Welcome to Coney Island mural by Mermaid Avenue
Danielle Mastrion is a Brooklyn-born, New York City based painter and muralist who specializes in large scale, brightly colored murals (Artist bio).
Coney Island Surf Avenue businesses next to Nathan’s
On the way back to the beach, four other murals stood out as well. These are located on the walk down the sidewalk to Nathan’s on Surf Avenue.
Mural One
Mural Two
Mural Three
Mural Four
After the contest winners were announced in 2024 at 4:00pm, I left to head back to Manhattan. It was such a gloomy day. There was not much else going on that afternoon and people were leaving the beaches. As I took a look back at the shore, the waves were really coming in meaning the storm was on its way up the coast (we did get hit in Sunday).
I headed back to Manhattan to see the movie “The Funhouse” at the MoMA. They were having a retrospect on director Toby Hooper’s movies so I had already seen “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Poltergeist” .
The trailer for “The Funhouse” by director Toby Hooper
After the movie was over, trying to find a restaurant for dinner was trying in of itself. I had not realized how many restaurants in Midtown were closing at 9:00pm even on Friday night post-COVID.
I went into Murray Hill and the restaurant I had planned to go to had already closed at 8:45pm so I looked at my dine around program and found that Dim Sum Garden at 338 Lexington Avenue. I was really in the mood for Chinese food that evening and it came highly recommended.
I was able to order before the kitchen closed and it was a nice dinner. The food was so fresh and it looked like everything was made to order and homemade in the kitchen. The Shrimp Balls were especially good. They were made with sweet shrimp meat, nicely coated with rice flour and deep fried perfectly. It was one of the best Dim Sum meals I have had in a awhile.
My dinner of Soup Dumpling, Shrimp Balls and Roast Duck Rolls
The Shrimp Balls
The Soup Dumplings
The Roast Duck Rolls
It was a fun and very productive day and a great way to end the trip to Coney Island. The weather may have been a bit gloomy both times I visited Coney Island for the contest but it did not damper the spirit of the event. It looked like everyone had fun.
The Coney Island Sandcastle Building Contest is held each August.
Please check out my recent blog on the Coney Island Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on July 4th, 2024:
mywalkinmanhattan 