Page 66 - Westchester Magazine - January 2011

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Kudos to PepsiCo for not lock- ing up its impressive art collection in some employees-only location— and instead making it free and open to the public. There are few places in the world where you
can see sculptures by Alexander Calder, Max Ernst, Henry Moore, and Auguste Rodin without paying a dime (even for parking). Plus,
the layout—the 45 works of art
are spread out across 168 acres of sprawling lawns, wooded paths, serene ponds, and other beautifully manicured landscapes—makes it the most perfect picnic spot.
GRAND PRIX NEW YORK (1) Mount Kisco
(914) 241-3131; gpny.com
Grand Prix New York is a great place to visit when you need a little (or big) thrill. Visitors suit up like NASCAR drivers, get behind the wheel of a 6.5 horsepower Honda kart, and speed down
the quarter-mile tracks the way they wish they could do on our highways. It’s the quickest way to inject some adrenaline into the daily routine. Kids get to race, too, on kid-sized tracks, in kid-sized vehicles.
HUDSON RIVER MUSEUM (2) Yonkers
(914) 963-4550; hrm.org
Of course, the Hudson River
is inspiring to artists—Hudson River School of Painting, anyone? So it makes sense that there’d be a museum dedicated to the area and the artists it influenced. It’s the place to go to gawk at our own beauty—even the parking lot
has a terrific view of the River. (Check back soon for an exhibi- tion of Susan Wides’s Hudson Valley photographs, inspired by Hudson River School painters.) The Museum also has one eye out for our skies, being home to the county’s only planetarium.
JACOB BURNS FILM CENTER
Pleasantville
(914) 747-5555 burnsfilmcenter.org
The Jacob Burns Film Center
is not just the best film center in Westchester—it’s one of the best anywhere. Otherwise, how else would it have attracted more than a million visitors since its open- ing in 2001? And it’s easy to see why crowds of cinephiles flock to it. Not only does it present the most engaging independent mov- ies, foreign films, and documen- taries—it also brings filmmakers in to keep the discussion rolling. (Visitors to the center have in- cluded Werner Herzog, Harvey Weinstein, Danny Boyle, and Salma Hayek.) And, just down the street, it recently opened a state-
of-the-art Media Arts Lab to train future filmmakers and to ensure great programming for years to come. Consider yourself lucky.
KYKUIT (3)
Sleepy Hollow
(914) 631-8200; hudsonvalley.org
Man, those Rockefellers sure knew how to live. And aren't we fortunate that we can live out
our Rockefeller daydreams by touring Kykuit, home of John D. Rockefeller and the next three generations of the Rockefeller family? If you’re not into seeing how the other half lived, the tour is worth it just for the collection of art that can be found on the property. It rivals many museums, with works by Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder, Isamu Noguchi, and Louise Nevelson.
LAZY BOY SALOON
White Plains
(914) 761-0272 lazyboysaloon.com
One word: beer. If you’re a beer drinker, there’s no greater variety in Westchester than at the Lazy Boy Saloon. On tap, in bottles, from Japan or the Czech Republic, Lithuania or Louisiana, there's
a beer for every mood, taste, or desire (yes, even if you just want to sit back with a Michelob Light). Because the massive beer list is
constantly in rotation, it’s never quite the same experience twice.
NEWS 12 WESTCHESTER
Yonkers
(914) 378-4855; news12.com
News 12 Westchester is indis- pensable. Tune in to this hyper- local news source at any time
for a primer on the good (and, sometimes, bad) stuff: headlines, weather reports, traffic updates, and school closings—covering places like Vista and Mount Kisco, not Manhattan and Hoboken.
OLD CROTON AQUEDUCT STATE PARK TRAILWAY Yonkers to Croton-on-Hudson (914) 693-5259; aqueduct.org
We don’t need a treadmill or
a gym card when we have the
Old Croton Aqueduct Trailway,
a favorite of hikers, bikers, and dog-walkers from Northern Westchester to the Bronx border. Along the easy-to-hike, 26-mile path, you’ll pass Irvington’s cool Octagon House, the Rockefeller State Park Preserve, and plenty of Hudson River vistas. The family- friendly walk is also absolutely free—something else you can’t say about your gym membership.
PARAMOUNT CENTER FOR THE ARTS (4) Peekskill
64 / JANUARY 2011 / WWW.WESTCHESTERMAGAZINE.COM
GRAND PRIX NEW YORK PHOTO BY KEVIN BIRMINGHAM; KYKUIT PHOTO COURTESY OF HISTORIC HUDSON VALLEY; PARAMOUNT CENTER PHOTO BY DAN SHEARER