French NYC includes the Statue of Liberty and ballet.
Bastille Day on 60th St is New York City’s big New York celebration. Mardi Gras is our big international celebration. FIAF is NYC’s French cultural center and biggest French library.
The concept of “Latin America” is French. New York Latin Culture Magazine began publishing in Paris, France as Tango Beat® in 2009. English is just French badly pronounced. Oh là là.
Rendez-vous with French Cinema 2021 Makes the Virtual Film Festival a Little Brighter
filmlinc.org 🇫🇷🎞🎪 Thursday, March 4 – 14, 2021
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star: Frédéric Zaavy
February 26, 2021 🇫🇷🎨📚 Photographers John Bigelow Taylor and Dianne Dubler on their newest art book “Stardust: The Work and Life of Jeweler Extraordinaire: Frédéric Zaavy”
Continue Reading Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star: Frédéric Zaavy
NYC Restaurant Week “TO GO” Winter 2021 is Extended by Popular Demand
TO GO 🍽🎪 January 25 – EXTENDED to February 28, 2021
Continue Reading NYC Restaurant Week “TO GO” Winter 2021 is Extended by Popular Demand
French Festivals NYC
New York City’s big French fesivals are Bastille Day on 60th St produced by FIAF, and the Rendez-vous with French Cinema film festival at Film at Lincoln Center.
Rendez-vous with French Cinema 2021 Makes the Virtual Film Festival a Little Brighter
filmlinc.org 🇫🇷🎞🎪 Thursday, March 4 – 14, 2021
Celebrate Mardi Gras From Home
Tuesday, March 1, 2022 🇫🇷
Bastille Day on 60th St goes online in 2020
FIAF FACEBOOK & ZOOM
Saturday-Tuesday, July 11-14, 2020
#United4BastilleDay
Continue Reading Bastille Day on 60th St goes online in 2020
Bastille NYC ~ French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF)
60th Street
Fifth Avenue to Lexington
Upper East Side, Manhattan
Sunday, July 15, 2018
Continue Reading Bastille NYC ~ French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF)
French New York City
The Statue of Liberty, the icon of New York City and the United States, is a gift of the French people. The French Consulate/Embassy is in the Upper East Side.
- Albertine is a French bookstore in Manhattan.
- Chanel is a French luxury goods house with a flagship store on 57th Street in Midtown.
- FIAF, French Institute Alliance Française, is NYC’s French cultural center and biggest French library.
- Givenchy is a French luxury goods house on Madison Avenue in the Upper East Side.
- Hermès is the luxury goods house of the French elite. It has a flagship store in the Upper East Side.
- International Academy is a French and Spanish immersion grade school in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.
- Le District is a French food court in Battery Park City.
- Louis Vuitton is a French luxury goods house with a flagship store in Midtown.
- Lycée Français is a French grade school in the Upper East Side.
- PSG NY is a Paris Saint-Germain soccer supporter’s club.
- Rendez-vous with French Cinema is a French film festival at Film at Lincoln Center.
Manhattan’s French community is in the Upper East Side around FIAF and the Lycée Français. Brooklyn’s French community is in Carroll Gardens around the International Academy and in Greenpoint.
Barbès
Barbès is an eclectic French-owned underground night club in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Barbès Tickets No…
Met Cloisters
The Met Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park is the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s museum of…
The Met Cloisters is Reopening
Saturday, September 12, 2020
FORT TRYON PARK, NYC
🇫🇷 🇪🇸 🇺🇸
French Consulate NYC
UPPER EAST SIDE, NYC
Closed weekends
[France also has an embassy in NYC]
Hermès
UPPER EAST SIDE, NYC
MEATPACKING, NYC
FINANCIAL DISTRICT, NYC
The brand of the French establishment is getting down with the next generation
Chanel
Madison Avenue, Upper East Side
57th Street, Midtown
SoHo
Louis Vuitton
MIDTOWN EAST, SOHO & BATTERY PARK CITY, NYC ~ The flagship store is the one in Midtown at Fifth and 57th
Givenchy
Daily
UPPER EAST SIDE, NYC
The house of the French couture designer who defined 1950s elegance
French New Yorkers
The Statue of Liberty is French.
The French World
Remember Carlos Gardel, the Iconic Tango Singer
Saturday, December 11, 2021 🇫🇷 🇦🇷
Continue Reading Remember Carlos Gardel, the Iconic Tango Singer
William Ropp ‘Tafari: He who Inspires Awe’ Ethiopia
May 3 – June 23, 2018
THROCKMORTON FINE ART
Midtown East, NYC
Continue Reading William Ropp ‘Tafari: He who Inspires Awe’ Ethiopia
French Culture
Paris was the world capital before New York, “Oh là là.”
Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivé!
Thursday, November 18, 2021 🇫🇷
Celebrate International Tango Day!
Saturday, December 11, 2021 🇦🇷 🇺🇾 🇫🇷
FIFA World Soccer Rankings
February 18, 2021 ⚽️🇦🇷🇧🇷🇨🇱🇨🇴🇨🇷🇫🇷🇮🇹🇲🇽🇳🇬🇵🇾🇵🇪🇵🇹🇷🇴🇪🇸🇺🇾🇻🇪
The Paris Opera House is Haunted by the “Phantom of the Opera”
March 12, 2020
MAJESTIC THEATRE
Times Square Theater District, NYC
Continue Reading The Paris Opera House is Haunted by the “Phantom of the Opera”
World Ballet Day 2019
Wed, October 23, 2019
The world’s leading ballet companies take you behind the scenes to see a day in the life of a professional ballet dancer on Facebook Live
Ballet
Ballet is an Italian court dance that was developed in France.
Champagne
France is famous for its wine and champagne.
Circus
Cirque Nouveau (as in Cirque du Soleil) is French-Canadian, but its mime circus culture is very French.
The Slave Plantation Model
France colonized much of West Africa and ran a major slave trade from there. In the Americas, French controlled the waterways. French pirates took over the western part of the island of Hispaniola from the Spanish. It must have been a real paradise, because the French always chose the best land.
The French sugar colony of Saint-Domingue (1625-1804, now Haiti) practiced the cruelest form of industrial slavery. It was the richest French colony and the richest Caribbean colony. It became a business model with a highly developed literature and guidebooks you could use to run your plantation. It was sort of a “Farmer’s Almanac.”
Because it was so profitable, the French slaving model was copied around the Caribbean. It was also carried around by French plantation owners, including those who settled in Spanish Trinidad. It also went with the diaspora from Saint-Domingue during the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804).
The British eventually copied the model from the Bahamas, and used it as the model for slavery in the United States. That highly structured business model became the foundation of American slavery and American big business.
There are French footprints everywhere in the Caribbean, even in places that aren’t French. The first family of bomba, the Puerto Rican folk music and dance, says their family tradition comes from a French plantation in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.
The Caribbean Carnival Model
Caribbean Carnival is indirectly French. It developed in Trinidad in response to French masquerade balls on Mardi Gras. It went really wild after abolition. The term “mas” for a Carnival group comes the French “masquerade.”
Voodoo and Vodou
Voodoo and Vodou are Orisha faiths based on the Indigenous faiths of West Africa.
There is nothing bad or scary about any of this. These are beautiful folk faiths based on nature. Colonizers demonized everything African and made up a bunch of nonsense stories that people still associate with Voodoo and Vodou today.
The modern country of Benin is the home of Vodun. The old Dahomey capital Porto-Novo was a major slave port. The French called it the “côte des esclaves” (the Slave Coast) and brought Africans from there to Saint-Domingue and other parts of the French Caribbean.
In Haiti, Vodun faith was syncretized (blended) with French Catholicism into Voodoo and in New Orleans into Vodou. We get interesting blends like “Bondyé,” the Voodoo supreme God. The name derives from the French, “Bon Dieu” (Good God).
Jazz
Jazz isn’t directly French, but there are some roots. Jazz is from New Orleans, before that the Caribbean, and before that Africa. The Saint-Domingue/Haitian Diaspora brought a stronger level of syncopation to Cuba and New Orleans.
For a time Africans were allowed to have a market and sing and dance at Place Congo (Congo Square) in New Orleans. Jazz and African American culture both begin in Congo Square.
Pornography
Pornography is universal, but modern pornography begins with French postcards with pictures of prostitutes.
High Heel Shoes
High heel shoes come from the boots of Turkish cavalry. They are like cowboy boots. The heel prevents the rider’s foot from falling through the stirrup which can be deadly.
This style was copied by European courts when the Turks were one of the great military powers. For a time both sexes wore high heels. Red soles were a mark of royalty. Christian Louboutin copied that.
Eventually men’s clothing changed to be easier to work in. French postcard makers put high heels on the prostitutes they photographed. That sexualized the heels and they’ve been with us ever since.
French culture was long considered the world’s high class culture. It remains with us in many ways that are just not well taught in the United States. Vive la France!
France
Celebrate Bastille Day, Vive la France!
Wednesday, July 14, 2021 🇫🇷
Celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes!
Friday, February 11, 2022 🇫🇷
Continue Reading Celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes!