If you have three days off this Labor Day weekend, so don’t let them go to waste. Here are our picks for sending out the summer right.
Coney Island Cockabilly Roadshow
You can always count on Coney Island to supply some burlesque, sideshow and rock and roll. And the Cockabily Roadshow delivers all three on Sept. 2 at Sideshows by the Seashore. The night will feature sword-swallowing and other sideshow acts by Viola LaLa Mia and Chelsea NoPants; burlesque by New Orleans’s BeBe Baker, Marigny Boheme and Hazel Mae; and foot-stomping jams from Everymen, all until the wee hours of the morning.
Coney Island Cockabilly Roadshow at Sideshows by the Seashore [1208 Surf Ave. between Stillwell Avenue and W. 12th Street in Coney Island, (718) 372-5159], Sept. 2 at 10 pm. $15. For info, visit coneyisland.com.
Disco Bowl
Get down at Brooklyn Bowl’s Disco Bowl on Sept. 3, featuring the Boogie Wonder Band. The 11-person group’s been getting people moving for 15 years, thanks to its plundering of the biggest hits from the 1970s and ’80s, including songs by Kool and the Gang, Donna Summer, and the Bee Gees. Don’t forget your bell bottoms and platform shoes.
Disco Bowl with the Boogie Wonder Band at Brooklyn Bowl [61 Wythe Ave. between N. 11th and N. 12th streets in Williamsburg, (718) 963-3369], Sept. 3 at 9 pm. Tickets $5 to $7. For info, visit www.brooklynbowl.com.
Brooklyn Bridge Park
Brooklyn Bridge Park has become quite the foodie destination this summer, thanks to Bark Hot Dogs’ rooftop concessions, including its signature franks and Sixpoint beer cans, and the Milk Truck’s grilled cheese sandwiches at Pier 6. Up river, Pier 1 isn’t lacking either, thanks to its Calexico cart, Blue Marble ice cream, and Ditch Plains outpost. But you can only enjoy the food for one last weekend, as the concessions are available through Labor Day.
Pier 1 (Old Fulton Street at Furman Street in DUMBO, (718) 802-0603); Pier 6 (Atlantic Avenue and Furman Street in Brooklyn Heights).
West Indian Day Parade
It wouldn’t be Labor Day in Brooklyn without the West Indian Day Parade. The festive celebration, which falls on Sept. 5 this year, features scantily clad revelers and stilt-dancing moco jumbies for one of the biggest festival draws in the city. More than three million spectators are drawn to the Caribbean music, dancing and tasty fare. If you haven’t yet, it’s about time you’ve joined them.
West Indian American Day Carnival [along Eastern Parkway starting at Schenectady Avenue in Crown Heights to Flatbush Avenue Extension in Prospect Heights, (718) 467-1797], Sept. 5 from 11 am-6 pm, For info, visit www.wiadca.com.
Weekend concerts
Barbes and Jalopy are your music headquarters all weekend long, with Barbes hosting The Spokes, a jazz band; Banda Sinaloense De Los Muertos playing Spanish brass; and Chicha Libre, a psychedelic pop band. If you want something a bit more, how you say?, American, then head to Jalopy, which will present the M Shanghai String Band, and Marty Jimmons’s bluegrass supergroup.
Barbes [376 Ninth St. at Sixth Avenue in Park Slope, (718) 965-9177] For info, visit www.barbesbrooklyn.com; Jalopy, [315 Columbia St. between Hamilton Avenue and Woodhull Street in the Columbia Street Waterfront District, (718) 395-3214]. Shows are $10. For info, visit www.jalopy.biz
Up on the roof
This weekend is your last chance to catch Porpentine Theater Co.’s rooftop production of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” (beer and music for ticketholders who get there a half-hour before curtain!). Sure, “The Tempest” has been done over so many times that it looks like a mannequin in a fashion reality show, but Peter James Cook’s decision to recast the show as a modern roof party — hence the beer — really heightens the isolation and desperation of Prospero.
“The Tempest” (242 Green St. between McGuinness Boulevard and Provost Street in Greenpoint), Sept. 2 and 4–5 at 8 pm; and Sept. 3 at 9 pm. Tickets, $10. For info, visit www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=179108588823891
Classic film
Maybe you don’t think of Labor Day as the big movie weekend, but we do — so join us at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for the opening of “The Debt,” a gripping tale of three Israeli secret agents (go on!) who are haunted by the ghosts (go on!) of their past transgressions (sold!). Make it a double feature (additional admission fee required, alas) and check out Michelangelo Antonioni’s masterpiece, “Red Desert,” featuring Monica Vitti as a neurotic housewife who can’t find comfort and solace (you had us at “Monica Vitti”). Sure, critics love Antonioni’s use of color in cinematography, but we know who the real draw is.
“Red Desert,” Sept. 2-5, at 4:30 pm, 6:50 pm and 9:15 pm; “The Debt,” Sept 2-5, 2 pm, 4:30 pm, 7:30 pm and 9:30 pm at Brooklyn Academy of Music [30 Lafayette Avenue, between Ashland Place and St. Felix Street in Fort Greene, (718) 636-4100]. Tickets, $12. For info, visit www.bam.org.
Honor the freak!
The Coney Island Hall of Fame pays tribute to Lady Deborah Moody, who basically discovered Coney Island three hundred years ago. Also, the venerable shrine of greats will honor the historic Shore Theater, built in 1925 at Surf and Stillwell avenues, where it stands today. But this isn’t all talk — the “induction ceremony” features a glimpse of the inside the theater, which finally turned off the ghost light in the 1970s.
Induction Ceremony at the Coney Island Hall of Fame [3059 W. 12th St. between Neptune and Surf avenues in Coney Island, (347) 702-8553], Sept. 3 at 1 pm. Free. For info, visit www.coneyislandhistory.org.
Game on
The Brooklyn Cyclones are in a final push for the last playoff spot — and at press time, it could go either way. So head out to MCU Park this weekend for the last two games of the season — both against the hated Staten Island Yankees, who happen to also be the best team in the New York–Penn League this year (damn Yankees!).
Brooklyn Cyclones vs Staten Island Yankees at MCU Park [1904 Surf Ave. at W. 17th St, in Coney Island, (718) 449-8497], Sept. 2, 7 pm; and Sept. 4 at 5 pm. Tickets, $9-$17. Visit www.brooklyncyclones.com for info.
