Things To Do In Cliffside Park

For 35 years, artists, gallery owners, and publishers have travelled from all over the world to showcase their talent and favorite work in Artexpo's large exhibition space during an event lauded by the L.A. Times, Fine Art magazine, Wall Street Journal, and NBC. A diverse palette of renowned artists and their masterpieces have shown at Artexpo, including Robert Rauschenberg, Keith Haring, and Andy Warhol, whose work was overshadowed by the much-anticipated appearance of his beloved soup can. Today, Artexpo New York serves as an innovative marketplace where artists can garner attention and generate buzz.

Urban Sherpa assists thrill seekers yearning to explore gorgeous slopes by guiding them through adventurous outdoor getaways. Escape the banality of indoor living at Hunter Mountain, a quick 2.5-hour jaunt from the city, featuring snowy streams of verticals, moguls, and run-outs for experts and beginners alike. With the first deal, aspiring mountain-surfers can take advantage of Hunter's Learn-to-Ride center, where they'll be trained in the basics of skiing or boarding before practicing their new skills on one of Hunter's 14 trails specially designed for beginners and families. Beginners can also toss aside their makeshift skis made from jumbo popsicle sticks and get premium skis or a board for their day on the mountain.

Argentina–born soccer enthusiast Gustavo Szulansky opened Super Soccer Stars to provide the boroughs with a program that championed the personal development of youngsters rather than solely a skill-based focus. Since its debut in 2000, it's grown throughout the city, helping countless youngsters learn teamwork, boost confidence, and decrease arguments during home games played on the dining-room table. This rapid growth is due in part to the positive values Gustavo instilled from the first class. His coaches are carefully selected for their ability to cultivate a noncompetitive, sensitive approach to learning the game, and they dole out their knowledge in both classes and camps.

Super Soccer Star's Kick & Play program features family-friendly classes that help tots 12–24 months old develop pre-soccer skills and physical skill sets simultaneously. During classes, a team of talented and enthusiastic instructors and an athletic duo of puppet friends named Mimi and Pepe buoy budding soccer players with positive reinforcement, individual attention, and the merry clickety-clack of cleated tap dances. Designed with the help of early-childhood specialists, each age-specific class helps players build skills at their own pace with positive reinforcement, individual attention, and engaging original music.

John González, founder of New Amsterdam Fencing Academy, brings his skills as a nationally ranked athlete to the piste, where he works with enthusiastic instructors to demonstrate European fencing techniques. He and the coaching corps teach foil, épée, and saber disciplines during classes that take advantage of the group's collective energy. They lead students through progressive learning approaches—group footwork and conditioning, individual lessons, and bouting sessions— in hopes of preparing students for traditional competitions and unconventional kebab parties.

A Class-A PGA professional with more than 25 years of experience, Rick Nielsen applies his time-earned expertise to help golfers shave strokes during lessons at Randalls Island Golf Center, where he's been the head pro since 1998. Rick employs the latest technologies to aid in instruction, including The Golfing Machine system⎯which takes a geometric approach to swing mechanics⎯as well as digital-video analysis and FlightScope 3-D doppler radar launch monitor. These sensitive instruments measure each shot on a number of parameters, from club-head speed and launch angle to total distance and nougat ratio of the ball’s core. Meanwhile, Rick observes and isolates specific areas in need of improvement so that players can develop muscle memory and consistently repeat a successful swing motion. Ultimately, with Rick's pointers, players leave lessons equipped with the tools to reach their full potential on the course without temptation to modify their 9-iron into a bedazzled baton.

Presiding over the oldest museum in the city, the New-York Historical Society cultivates a massive collection of artifacts and living history exhibits. Members amble through the museum and library into a world where Alexander Hamilton rubs shoulders with exhibits on the Hudson River School, civil rights, and the lineage of Santa Claus. The New-York Historical Society interprets the nation's history through city and state events and encourages continued analysis of the past through public lectures and programming. The Patricia D. Klingenstein library houses more than 3 million archival documents, and current exhibitions explore themes of revolution, American traditions, and memory. Paintings by Rembrandt and Peale share wall space with surveys of American folk art and representational sculpture, and guests attempt to catch and tag all 435 of John James Audubon's watercolors for Birds of America.