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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and we'll finish up today with a colon on the very simple question: what's the most interesting New Yorky or New Jersey-ish or Connecticuty-type thing you did this weekend? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

And to be transparent- Adrian's first principle for dealing with artificial intelligence- to be transparent, we're asking that simple question for two reasons. One is that we had one of the most interesting New Yorky things that I did this weekend scheduled for a segment for right now, but because of a complication with the guest's schedule we had to delay it until tomorrow. That thing is the new documentary for the birth for the centennial of the birth of the iconic jazz drummer, Max Roach, which will be screened near his boyhood home in Bed-stuy this week, so we will talk about that on tomorrow show.

I was thinking this was a pretty interesting weekend in New York in some other ways, so we could just invite you to report in and we'll expand it to the three states in our prime listening area. It's a very simple question. What's the most interesting New Yorky or New Jersey-ish or Connecticuty-type thing you did this weekend? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692.

I said there were interesting things to choose from so who attended the Puerto Rican Day Parade and wants to say what your favorite part was? 212-433 WNYC. Who attended the Governor's Ball in Flushing Meadow Park and wants to say what your favorite part was? 212-433-9692. Who watched the Tony Awards last night and wants to say what your favorite play or favorite award was? 212-433-WNYC.

Those are three pretty big New Yorky things and one weekend to plant the seeds for this call-in. Did you watch or go to any of those things, or what other New Yorky or New Jerseyish because you can't say New Jersey-y, or Connecticuty things did you do this weekend worth sharing with the class and maybe recommending that they do if they are things that are ongoing? 212-433-WNYC.

You know what? I was going to give you one from me from a couple of weekends ago, but I see our lines are all full already so we're just going to go to a break. New Yorkers, New Jerseyans, Connecticutians, we'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and now to the most New Yorky, New Jersey-ish, or Connecticuty thing you did over the weekend, 212-433-WNYC. Our lines are full but we can take texts too at our same number 212-433-9692 and watch those go by. We'll start with Natalie in Manhattan. Natalie, you're on WNYC. Hi, there.

Natalie: Hello. I went to Brighton Beach with my friend Gordon. It was a little smoky but it was great. We had the most wonderful dinner at a restaurant called Tatiana, and it was absolutely lovely. Also, I wanted to thank you because I made a brief comment on your show last year about my business, Talkpower, helping people who have a fear of speaking in public, and you can't imagine [inaudible 00:03:46].

Brian Lehrer: Oh, good. Unfortunately, your line broke up just as you were saying the name of the business, so I'm going to invite you to say it one more time.

Natalie: Okay, it's Talkpower [inaudible 00:03:59] or Panic Clinic for Public Speaking. Oh, and you're just amazing. Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: Natalie, thank you very much. All right so she went down to South Brooklyn, and so did Michael. You're on WNYC. Hi, Michael.

Michael: Hi, how you doing? I told your screener a few of us went out to Coney Island on Saturday night and we got a little damp but otherwise it was good. We snuck some beers onto the beach, and stayed there way after you're allowed to be there and had a great but peaceful time sitting on the beach drinking our beers. We're all lifelong New Yorkers in our 60s and it was just same as we did in high school.

Brian Lehrer: Very nice, Michael. Thank you very much. One more from the same neighborhood. Louise in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Louise.

Louise: Good morning, Brian. We went to the Cyclones game on Friday night and it's just always so much fun to see all of the amusement parks from that level. When I was a kid, we used to go to steeple chase every Tuesday night. My dad would take us and we would see the fireworks and go on the rides. It's always great fun to go down there. Nothing that intellectual, Brian. Sorry,

Brian Lehrer: Doesn't need to be intellectual. The Brooklyn Cyclones the minor league baseball team, are they affiliated with the Mets? Do I have that right? Do you know?

Louise: Yes, I believe it's the Mets not the Yankees.

Brian Lehrer: Have you also gone to Mets games because I've never been to a Cyclones game? I'm curious if you have a comparison of the major league versus minor league experience within New York City.

Louise: Well, as a kid, we were Mets fans but then my son became a Yankees fan so any of my adult experience has been at Yankee Stadium. As kids we went to Shay Stadium. I loved going to the Cyclone game I think it's a great field. The view is fabulous from any vantage point and it's a lot of fun. They do a lot of fun things and kids get really into it.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Louise. I will cite my producer, Mary, who just wrote me a note that she goes to Cyclones games sometimes. In her experience, you can walk all the way down to the front row because the seats are not sold out, at least on a warm night when she was there last summer. There's a little tip for you baseball fans who won a more intimate experience. Isabel in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Isabel.

Isabel: Hi, Brian. Thanks so much. I love your show. My family and I went to-- I volunteer with Grassroots Grocery, which is a hyper-local. It's an organization that takes leftover food from Hunts Point Produce which is where all the food comes in. There's surplus, so we take food from that and then volunteers drive it to underserved food deserts or just neighbors who are in need. It's super New Yorky. You get in your car and drive all over the place. Sometimes there's some food that's a little bit too ripe so we compost that. We took about I don't know hundreds of pounds of bad asparagus and then compost it in community gardens.

Brian Lehrer: Very nice, worthy cause, and sounds like a great experience too. Now I mentioned in the intro that there was the Puerto Rican Day Parade yesterday in New York so that was one of the New Yorky things that took place. Andrea calling in has another one from somewhere in the region. Hi, Andrea.

Andrea: Hi, Brian. How are you? I'm a big-time fan of your show. I wanted to call and let you know that I was at the Portugal Day Parade and the feast this weekend in Newark, New Jersey. There's a big Portuguese community in Newark, especially the Ironbound section and it's been going on for several years and it became pretty small for quite a few years, and this year took up the whole Fir Street, and so it was really nice to go there with my family.

Brian Lehrer: It was Puerto Rico Day and Portugal Day in the Greater New York area. What's one thing from the parade, if you can pick out one thing to describe that you like or that represents the Portuguese community in the Ironbound or anything?

Andrea: One thing that really represents the Portuguese community is folklore dancing. It's called [unintelligible 00:08:37] and they have beautiful outfits and very unique dancing. Something that I enjoyed it was like these on chairs on horses and they were dancing. They weren't Portuguese, but they were representing other members of the community in other cultures. I believe that they were from Mexico. I really liked that there was other cultures also represented in the parade.

Brian Lehrer: Nice, Andrea. Thank you so much. Kelly in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kelly.

Kelly: Hi, Brian. Thank you. I was just calling, this weekend my partner and I went to the Bronx Botanic Gardens and were surprised to find the pride events there. Then we always go to Arthur Avenue for dinner afterwards. There was also this Feast of St. Anthony street fest, so we got to see a whole street carnival too and then have good Italian food.

Brian Lehrer: Nice one, Kelly. Thank you very much. There were various pride parades. The big one, of course, in Manhattan is later in the month, but different neighborhoods and different towns have theirs on different ones. Huntington had one this weekend I know. Kelly, you're talking about that Botanic Gardens pride event. Very cool.

Let's go to some Connecticuty ones. Listener writes in a text message, "I went to New Canaan. It's a must for modernists and the town featured in the movie Ice Storm. Go to Grace Farms, the Glass House, and the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society," suggests that listener. Here's another Connecticut one from Richard Anaya calling in. Hi, Richard, you're on WNYC.

Richard Anaya: Hi. Very long-time listener. Good to talk to you. Every Sunday, I go up to Bridgeport Connecticut to Mongers Market. It's a huge industrial building with about 75,000 square feet. Vintage and antique and industrial, everything from clothing to lighting to everything, architectural, remnants, and things like that. It's a huge fun Sunday. It's all indoors; rain, shine, year-round every Sunday.

Brian Lehrer: Nice. Mongers.

Richard Anaya: Full disclosure, I have a space there myself.

Brian Lehrer: All right, you can say. What do you sell?

Richard Anaya: I sell industrial lighting, vintage lighting, and peak lighting, and my wife has vintage clothing. We have beautiful furniture from another vendor that I share the space with.

Brian Lehrer: Very nice. All right, listeners find Richard with that lighting, et cetera, booth at Mongers Market in Bridgeport. Tell him you heard about it on the Brian Lehrer Show. Jeffrey in Brooklyn, I talked about the Governor's Ball in the intro. Here's Jeffrey who went to Governors Island. Not the same thing. Hi, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey: Yes, good morning. On Governors Island, they had the 1920 jazz age lawn party, which is a lot of fun. Everyone goes in costumes. Everyone's in the 1920s. It's a picnic. There's a band. They showed you how to do the Charleston and the Peabody, and they had a bathing suit contest and just a lot of fun. Like I said, everybody is geared up and dressed in their own ways. Obviously, in the '20s style, everyone's women wearing pearls and stringing them around. It was just like I said, just a great time.

Brian Lehrer: That is fun. Pretend you were alive in the jazz age of the 1920s. Jeffrey, thank you very much. Ben in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ben.

Ben: How are you doing? First of all, Brian, you are the greatest.

Brian Lehrer: That's so nice.

Ben: I live in Brooklyn. My brother lives in Boston. He had an attentive for two weeks at Columbia, so I met him up there. We went to Fort Tryon Park and the cloisters. He was, of course, blown away; never been there before. We got city bikes, rode down the Hudson River Greenway to the West Village, and got some pizza in the West Village. It was pretty epic.

Brian Lehrer: Very cool. That's a great ride down the west side. Off-road almost the whole way for people who haven't done that, right?

Ben: Exactly. Yes, that's right. Absolutely. It feels like you're going through Apple Orchard at one point. It's really magical. My brother said he was overstimulated, constantly taking videos and photo.

Brian Lehrer: Ben, thank you very much. Good one. Now, I mentioned, the Tony Awards as a New Yorky thing that took place this weekend. A listener writes, "I live in WAHI, Washington Heights, and went to United Palace Theater to watch the stars get out of their SUVs to attend the Tony's. They did it up there for the first time. Saw Jessica Chastain, Josh Rogan, others. Most exciting thing to happen uptown in the 35 years I've lived here," writes this listener. Well, maybe there are more exciting things in 35 years than the Tony Awards, but yes, big deal.

Maureen Upstate, telling us she came and went downstate and downtown. Maureen, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Maureen: Hi, Brian. How are you doing on Friday Friday night, I attended the screening, the premiere screening of Rather, which was sponsored by the Tribeca Film Festival. It was just a wonderful, wonderful population of [inaudible 00:14:13] All my old colleagues and I would see anyone who is inspiring to be real journalist, it's really worth watching this [inaudible 00:14:25].

Brian Lehrer: You're breaking up, you're talking about the film Rather, right?

Maureen: Just amazing. You just [inaudible 00:14:36]--

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to have to drop you because the line is just so bad. We're going to end with Craig in Riverdale, who I think is going to tell us, he did a very New Yorky thing that you could do just about any weekend, but it's special. Craig.

Craig: Hello.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, Craig, go.

Craig: Oh, I'm sorry. I couldn't hear you. How are you doing? Yes, I used to live in Manhattan. I live in New Jersey now, and I stayed at a friend's house. One of the last bastions of Manhattan Nights is when you come home late at night, Saturday night, two o'clock in the morning from a club or something, you can be the first to pick up The New York Times at a newsstand outside and you're the first ones to grab it before it hits anywhere. It's one of the last true Manhattan things you get to do, and I forgot how much I missed it.

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Brian Lehrer: The smell of fresh newsprint as the last New Yorkie thing. Thank you for all those great calls for New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut things to do that are one-offs or things that our listeners could do some other weekend. Those were awesome. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Thanks for listening today and stay tuned for Allison.

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