Salvaging With the Stars
Charlotte Moss, Iman, Andy Cohen, and Lara Spencer are some of the 56 celebrities and designers lending their talents to Housing Works this week, outfitting entire rooms with donated furniture and wares available for purchase. All proceeds for the “Design on a Dime” show benefit Brooklyn’s 874 Jefferson Avenue Residence Project for formerly homesless New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS. Designs go public this Friday, but you can get a sneak peek by purchasing a $150 ticket for Thursday’s opening-night reception (Metropolitan Pavilion, 123 W. 18th St., nr. 6th Ave.; 347-473-7457; 5/5, 7 p.m.; from $150; 5/6-5/7, free)
A Four-Year-Old With Great Taste
SITE, Astoria’s purveyor of colorful knickknacks and home goods, is celebrating its fourth birthday this evening by knocking 20 percent off everything in-store. A trunk show selling goods from local designers like glass jeweler Megan Holleran and baby-clothier Wonder Threads will be accompanied by food, drink, and music (3511 34th Ave., at 36th St., Astoria; 718-626-6030; 5/4, 6–9 p.m.).
Brain Food on the Bowery
Aiming to spur some creativity and progressive thinking about where we live, the Bowery’s Festival of Ideas for the New City includes five days of lectures and more than a hundred artistic projects. Starting today, the avenue will be enlivened by the installation “After Hours: Murals on the Bowery,” wherein seventeen artists have spruced up Bowery storefronts by painting murals atop roll-down gates. The festival’s biggest attraction will be Saturday’s StreetFest, an outdoor fair of more than a hundred grassroots organizations and small businesses. Rather than using tents, many will be housed in the Worms, fluorescent tunnels snaking about in front of the New Museum (see festivalofideasnyc.com for times and locations; 5/4–5/8).
Investments in Décor
Hone your art-collecting tastes at the Affordable Art Fair, where over 75 galleries, from Brooklyn’s Concrete Utopia to Buenos Aires’ Consorcio de Arte, will peddle works from $100 to $10,000. The event, which includes workshops on art-curating your home, starts on Wednesday with a private preview. Admission is free from 6–8 p.m. on Thursday (7 W. 34th St., at Fifth Ave.; 212-255-2003; 5/4–5/8; $20).