BY Terese Loeb Kreuzer
Winter Garden Silent Film Festival:
From February 2 through February 4, film buffs will have a treat at the World Financial Center’s Winter Garden with three evenings of silent films featuring several of the masters of early filmmaking: Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks. The Alloy Orchestra, a three-man musical ensemble, will accompany the films.
The festival opens on February 2 with three slapstick films including, “One Week,” with Buster Keaton about a newly married couple and their misadventures, “Back Stage,” with Arbuckle and Keaton as stagehands who end up as performers when the real performers go on strike, and “Easy Street” with Chaplin as a homeless tramp who becomes a policeman.
Harold Lloyd’s last silent feature, “Speedy,” from 1928, will be screened on February 3. The plot concerns a horse-drawn trolley car belonging to an old man named “Pop” Dillon, a villainous syndicate of robber barons who want to take over the trolley route, a beautiful damsel (Dillon’s granddaughter), and the young lady’s boyfriend, played by Harold Lloyd. To save the trolley route, the trolley must be kept on the tracks for a certain number of hours per day. The syndicate does all it can to prevent this, but Lloyd saves the day by driving the trolley at breakneck speed through Lower Manhattan, past Bowling Green, the U.S. Custom House (now the National Museum of the American Indian), and the stunning Produce Exchange, a red brick building that was torn down in 1957 and replaced by 2 Broadway.
The festival concludes on February 4 with the 1926 film “The Black Pirate,” with Douglas Fairbanks — an adventure film about murder and revenge. Fairbanks wrote the script and helped to finance the film, which was shot in two-tone Technicolor.
All of the screenings are free and start at 7 p.m.
Valentine-making Workshop:
After the success of its wreath-making workshop just before Christmas, the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy is offering a “Green Valentine Workshop” on Saturday, February 5 from 10:30 a.m. to noon. The Conservancy will supply recycled materials such as salvaged paper samples, old maps and postcards, cancelled postage stamps, dried flowers and bits of fabric and ribbons.
Participants are urged to bring something of their own to make their valentines more personal. The Conservancy suggests ticket stubs, matchbook covers, photographs and fabric remnants — or anything that is resonant and meaningful.
The holiday wreath-making workshop was striking for several reasons. For one thing, there were people of all ages from toddlers to grannies. Also, unlike store-bought wreaths, the wreaths were expressive and personal. They were adorned with elements that spoke to those who made them and to those who would receive them. The valentine workshop is likely to be equally satisfying.
The workshop, which will be held at 75 Battery Place, is free, but pre-registration is required. Space is limited. Call (212) 267-9700, ext. 348 or 366 to register.
Year of the Rabbit:
There has been quite a lot of confusion recently about astrological signs commonly used in the West, with some news reports asserting that shifts in the Earth’s axis have altered the Zodiac sufficiently and put people who thought they were born under one sign under the influence of another. Chinese astrologers, whose system is based on different calculations, have remained aloof from this discussion. According to the Chinese system, 2011 is the Year of the Rabbit, and it begins on February 3.
There are two Chinese restaurants in Battery Park City where residents can celebrate without having to leave the neighborhood. Liberty View restaurant is at 21 South End Avenue facing South Cove, and Au Mandarin is at 2 World Financial Center.
However, Chinatown is not very far from Battery Park City. It’s a brisk 30-minute walk, or one can take the free Downtown Alliance Connection bus to the last stop at Water Street and Fulton and then catch the M15 bus heading north.
