Entertainment

If You Can Make It There: Acts Try Out for NY Subway Spots

Published

11 years ago

May 20, 2015

Seth Myers of Receta Secreta, carries his bass away from the stage after auditioning for judges in Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall in New York, Tuesday, May 19, 2015. About 70 musicians and others showed up Tuesday at the station to vie for official permission to set up their acts on an underground platform or walkway. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s a rite of spring: performers auditioning for the privilege of doing their thing in grubby, noisy subway stations.

Seventy showed up Tuesday at Grand Central Terminal, vying for permission to set up their underground acts for tips. They appeared before a jury of musicians and transit employees in the elegant Vanderbilt Hall above the train tracks.

This year’s motley musical crew, from countries around the world, will soon find out who won the right to be part of the Music Under New York program run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the nation’s biggest mass transit system.

“I always dreamed of arriving in New York City,” said Oliver Dagum, a Philippine-born U.S. Air Force sergeant stationed in New Jersey who left the military last week. “I always believed that there’s something between me and the city. It’s amazing. It’s grandiose. I feel uplifted.”

He said playing in the subway system is a gauge of how good he is.

“If you’re able to convince one or two rushing people to take the time to listen to you, that’s the biggest acknowledgment,” he said.

Dagum switched his military uniform for a woolen cap and guitar at Grand Central, a long way from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan where he once served. He sang a mellow “Sunday Morning” by Maroon 5.

Drummer Louis Conselatore, an Ivy League law school graduate who worked as an ordained Unitarian minister, played his five-minute stint with two other musicians who call themselves the Viva Vallenato Badass Accordion Band.

“Two of us are Italians, one of us is Puerto Rican, and we’re all from New Jersey and we fell in love with Colombian music,” said Phil “Felipe” Passantino, the accordionist. “It has a rhythm that’s very infectious and makes people dance and laugh. It’s a peasant’s music, poor people’s music that springs from the soul.”

Three hundred performers entered the Music Under New York contest months ago to even be selected for Tuesday’s live, six-hour contest. The jury picks about two dozen winners, who’ll rake in up to hundreds of dollars a day when they’re dispersed at subway spots around the city. It’s illegal for unapproved artists to perform in the subway system.

Jacinta Clusellas, a Brooklyn resident from Buenos Aires with a guitar, wore giant blue wings on Tuesday to reflect a short story by the Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario.

“It’s about a man with a brilliant mind who had a hard time expressing himself, and he said, ‘I have a bluebird trapped inside my head,'” she explained.

The man kills himself, she said, leaving a note that reads, “I leave the door open to let my bluebird fly away.”

Clusellas attended Boston’s elite Berklee College of Music.

After all, some of New York’s finest musicians don’t appear at Carnegie Hall. They also practice and practice to get to a subway station.

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Oakland Post: Week of December 31, 2025 – January 6, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – December 31, 2025 – January 6, 2026

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5 days ago

January 2, 2026

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Oakland Post: Week of December 24 – 30, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – December 24 – 30, 2025

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2 weeks ago

December 25, 2025

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Alameda County

Bling It On: Holiday Lights Brighten Dark Nights All Around the Bay

On the block where I grew up in the 1960s, it was an unwritten agreement among the owners of those row homes to put up holiday lights: around the front window and door, along the porch banister, etc. Some put the Christmas tree in the window, and you could see it through the open slats of the blinds.

Published

2 weeks ago

December 21, 2025

Oakland Post

Christmas lights on a house near the writer’s residence in Oakland. Photo by Joseph Shangosola.

By Wanda Ravernell

I have always liked Christmas lights.

From my desk at my front window, I feel a quiet joy when the lights on the house across the street come on just as night falls.

My father, the renegade of the block, made no effort with lights, so my mother hung a wreath with two bells in the window. Just enough to let you know someone was at home.

Two doors down was a different story. Mr. King, the overachiever of the block, went all out for Christmas: The tree in the window, the lights along the roof and a Santa on his sleigh on the porch roof.

There are a few ‘Mr. Kings’ in my neighborhood.

In particular is the gentleman down the street. For Halloween, they erected a 10-foot skeleton in the yard, placed ‘shrunken heads’ on fence poles, pumpkins on steps and swooping bat wings from the porch roof. They have not held back for Christmas.

The skeleton stayed up this year, this time swathed in lights, as is every other inch of the house front. It is a light show that rivals the one in the old Wanamaker’s department store in Philadelphia.

I would hate to see their light bill…

As the shortest day of the year approaches, make Mr. King’s spirit happy and get out and see the lights in your own neighborhood, shopping plazas and merchant areas.

Here are some places recommended by 510 Families and Johnny FunCheap.

Oakland

Oakland’s Temple Hill Holiday Lights and Gardens is the place to go for a drive-by or a leisurely stroll for a religious holiday experience. Wear a jacket, because it’s chilly outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, at 4220 Lincoln Ave., particularly after dark. The gardens are open all day from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. with the lights on from dusk until closing.

Alameda

Just across the High Street Bridge from Oakland, you’ll find Christmas Tree Lane in Alameda.

On Thompson Avenue between High Street and Fernside drive, displays range from classic trees and blow-ups to a comedic response to the film “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Lights turn on at dusk and can be seen through the first week in January.

Berkeley

The Fourth Street business district from University Avenue to Virginia Street in Berkeley comes alive with lights beginning at 5 p.m. through Jan. 1, 2026.

There’s also a display at one house at 928 Arlington St., and, for children, the Tilden Park Carousel Winter Wonderland runs through Jan. 4, 2026. Closed Christmas Day. For more information and tickets, call (510) 559-1004.

Richmond

The Sundar Shadi Holiday Display, featuring a recreation of the town of Bethlehem with life-size figures, is open through Dec. 26 at 7501 Moeser Lane in El Cerrito.

Marin County

In Marin, the go-to spot for ‘oohs and ahhs’ is the Holiday Light Spectacular from 4-9 p.m. through Jan. 4, 2026, at Marin Center Fairgrounds at 10 Ave of the Flags in San Rafael through Jan. 4. Displays dazzle, with lighted walkways and activities almost daily. For more info, go to: www.marincounty.gov/departments/cultural-services/department-sponsored-events/holiday-light-spectacular

The arches at Marin County Civic Center at 3501 Civic Center Dr. will also be illuminated nightly.

San Francisco

Look for light installations in Golden Gate Park, chocolate and cheer at Ghirardelli Square, and downtown, the ice rink in Union Square and the holiday tree in Civic Center Plaza are enchanting spots day and night. For neighborhoods, you can’t beat the streets in Noe Valley, Pacific Heights, and Bernal Heights. For glee and over-the-top glitz there’s the Castro, particularly at 68 Castro Street.

Livermore

The winner of the 2024 Great Light Flight award, Deacon Dave has set up his display with a group of creative volunteers at 352 Hillcrest Avenue since 1982. See it through Jan. 1, 2026. For more info, go to https://www.casadelpomba.com

Fremont

Crippsmas Place is a community of over 90 decorated homes with candy canes passed out nightly through Dec. 31. A tradition since 1967, the event features visits by Mr. and Mrs. Claus on Dec. 18 and Dec. 23 and entertainment by the Tri-M Honor Society at 6 p.m. on Dec. 22. Chrippsmas Place is located on: Cripps Place, Asquith Place, Nicolet Court, Wellington Place, Perkins Street, and the stretch of Nicolet Avenue between Gibraltar Drive and Perkins Street.