Street food is a big part of New York City food culture.   The Vendy Awards (now in their fourth year) recognize excellence in the field of mobile food preparation and vending.  The event features all you can eat food from an assortment of this year’s finalists and culminates with the announcement of the year’s best street food vendor.  Epicurious called it “One of the most bizarre and exuberant food events this city has ever seen.”  Proceeds benefit The Street Vendor Project, a New York City-based non-profit advocacy for street vendors.  The Vendy Awards are on Saturday, October 18th.  TICKETS.

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2. The Future of the Hood

The West Village in New York City is far from the greenest place on earth. But, thanks to the efforts of Futurehood, a NYC-based non-profit that uses outdoor events to drive awareness of important community and environmental issues, it’s going to get a little bit greener. As part of a program called “GELL” (for Greenroof Environmental Literacy Laboratory), PS41 is slated to acquire the first full green roof on a New York City public school. Described as a planted oasis, the 22,000-square-foot roof will provide a laboratory for the elementary school students to study plants and nature, and will also help keep the school cool in summer and warm in the winter. Part of the budget is being allocated to the purchase of butterflies! To help support the greening of PS41, Futurehood is hosting an outdoor event featuring music, food and a rooftop presentation. All proceeds benefit GELL and PS41’s Greenroof.

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2. Rental Car Rally gets underway

At midnight on August 15th, in a dim-lit Long Island City parking lot, an estimated sixty driving teams will get into their rented cars, start their engines and proceed north to Montreal as rapidly as possible. No, this is not the first page of a bad Burt Reynolds script that never got made in the seventies. This is something called the Rental Car Rally, a real event that a few lucky, lucky people are going to get to be a part of and remember for the rest of their lives. The description reads like something from Hunter S. Thompson: “The rally starts Friday, Aug 15th, at midnight, at Water Taxi Beach — a popular suds shack and burger joint with a panoramic view of the Manhattan skyline, including the Empire State Building. When the ESB dims its tower lights at the stroke of midnight, drivers and their crew will begin leaving from the parking lot, rally across Manhattan into Jersey, and then proceed north towards Montreal. Unlike traditional rallies, and in order to ensure the majority of travel is via non-interstate roads, RCR will require teams to stop at four pre-determined rally points.” Non-interstate roads?! Now, if that doesn’t sound like a dose of genuine experience, I don’t know what does. Best of luck with the race, boys!

Thrillist on the Rental Car Rally

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