Awesome New York City

(PG-13: Language) Artist and “clay squisher” Jack Cox is known for making weirdly exaggerated sculptures based on human heads. This documentary short by Benjamin Berman introduces us to the head sculptor who discusses his sources of of inspiration on the streets of New York City, his insecurities, and how he embraces imperfection.

Artist Sy Goldstein uses generative AI tech to create wild and imaginative street scenes from 1980s and 1990s New York City. Created in collaboration with Lenski, The Last Head Shop envisions a wild time when The Big Apple’s head shops sold human skulls – at least until the mayor came through and cleaned up the city to make way for The Disney Store.

Based on the autobiography of Jonathan Shaw (son of bandleader Artie Shaw and starlet Doris Doling), Scab Vendor examines the renegade life of now-legendary tattoo artist who plied his illicit trade in NYC before it was legal. Longtime clients like Johnny Depp, Iggy Pop, and Jim Jarmusch spill the dirt. Drops on VOD 7.27.24.

Look out, massage therapists — robots are coming for your jobs. We foolishly didn’t fight them when they started making cars, acting as security guards, and delivering sodas, but now there’s one that literally has us in its soulless clutch. Robotics start-up Aescape debuted automated robotic massages from a mantis-looking thing with two mechanical arms.

Arist and filmmaker Max Kolomatsky has been using his talent to be a sneaky Good Samaritan to his fellow New Yorkers. He makes better versions of flyers and signs posted by individuals or small businesses around the city, replacing the original ones free of charge and without telling the people who posted them.

Like most longstanding structures, the New York City Subway is an urban Ship of Theseus, gradually expanded and reshaped over the last 120 years. This evolution inevitably led to several once coveted corridors and tunnels being rendered obsolete. It’s History takes us through some of these forgotten paths and the stories behind them.

Infiniti revealed its fancy new 2025 QX80 high above Manhattan on The Edge observation deck. To get the 6,000 pound, three-row luxury SUV onto the outdoor sky deck, a crew spent weeks carefully taking apart then reassembling the vehicle, and took 100 elevator rides to bring the QX80 to the top, piece-by-piece.

Filmmaker Jordan Studdard grew up with dreams of living in New York City. Now that he’s been there for a few years, he created an homage to The Big Apple with a wall-sized map of the city, dotted with tiny lights to mark locations made famous by the movies and TV shows that inspired him.

Stanley Kubrick created cinematic masterpieces like 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange. Before his work in motion pictures, he was a staff photographer for Look magazine. Taschen’s coffee table book Through a Different Lens showcases nearly 300 of his black-and-white stills, which he started shooting in New York City at age 17.

This CG video from InfoGeek illustrates the history of NYC from 1524 through 2023. The story unfolds through the evolution of its man-made structures, accompanied by the year and approximate population count. It was sad to see the Twin Towers vanish in 2001, and it failed to mention the indigenous population prior to the arrival of Europeans.

(PG-13: Language) Amber Schaefer and Yoni Lotan’s exceptional short film paints a realistic portrait of an aspiring travel and lifestyle influencer and how reality threatens to interfere with his bubbly on-screen persona and undying dedication to his followers.

Created by ShaneF Motion Design, this incredible CGI rendering replaces the windows at the Zara SoHo NYC store with visuals that create the illusion that the store has been flooded with some kind of alien swarm. We’d love to see this done in real life using transparent LED screens.

NYC’s Chrysler Building is over 1000 feet tall, offering sweeping views of the city from its top floors. Now see what it’s like to stand outside of its spire, as steeplejack James Marksbury works on the Art Deco skyscraper. His job is every bit as dangerous as it looks. In 2011, Marksbury’s rope snapped, and he fell nearly 80 feet.

Paletas and flan are two of the greatest sweet treats on the planet. In this video from Eater’s Sugar Coated, host Rebecca DeAngelis visited NYC’s Newyorkina, where she and chef Fany Gerson experimented to create a yummy flan-paleta hybrid, melding the frozen summer treat with creamy egg custard and runny caramel.

New York City sees many of its stop signs and other street signs vandalized or stolen each year. Between replacements and other projects, the Department of Transportation’s Queens sign shop makes over 100,000 new signs each year. Insider takes us inside the facility for a look at the work that goes into this laborious process.

Many of Improv Everywhere’s public pranks and experiments have involved large crowds of people. But in this time of social distancing, they went the opposite direction with their latest stunt. While the idea of working from a floating office in the middle of NYC’s East River has a certain appeal, but it might be a little distracting.