Reference

An Outsize Influence
Cranbrook Academy of Art (www.cranbrookart.edu) was home to many midcentury design legends, from Eero Saarinen to Charles and Ray Eames. But its influence has hardly been confined to the 1950s and ’60s. Indeed, the prestigious school—which admits just 75 applicants each year—has more than a few notable former students and faculty members who are very much alive and active today. Fumihiko Maki (www.maki-and-associates.co.jp) just designed Tower 4 at the World Trade Center. Masamichi Udagawa is at the helm of Antenna Design (www.antennadesign.com). Other notable alumni include Katherine and
Michael McCoy (www.highgrounddesign.com), Lorraine Wild (www
.greendragonoffice.com), Jesse Reiser (www.reiser-umemoto.com),
and Hani Rashid (www.asymptote.net).

Brand New World
Boston’s Bodega isn’t the only secretive retail hangout on the East Coast. New York City is home to an invitation-only literary speakeasy so covert that we can only give you the barest of details. We can tell you that Michael Seidenberg’s Brazen Head Books (www.youtube.com/watch?v=zACg6OgSyro) is somewhere on the Upper East Side. And we hear that it has three rooms and some kind of a nook. But, alas, we don’t know which street the damn place is on and we can’t score you an invite. We would if we could. Feel free to extend us an invite once you’ve nabbed one. Please?

Collaborations Welcome
Brooklyn may be the preferred home of annoying, fedora-clad hipsters, but you have to hand it to the borough—it’s booming with community-oriented work spaces. Alpha One Labs (www.alphaonelabs.com) dubs itself a “community hackerspace” where $40 a month grants members 24-hour access to a workshop stocked with tools and supplies. Nearby, 3rd Ward (www.3rdward.com) offers classes in cardboard-furniture making, glass-jewelry fabrication, and DIY Super 8 filmmaking, among other things. Your circa-1980s boom box broken? The Fixers Collective (www.fixerscollective.org) is a community of Brooklynites who—surprise, surprise—fix things in regular group sessions. And the Madagascar Institute (www.madagascarinstitute.com) advertises itself as the perfect place to not only work on projects but “partake in chariot races, jet engine building, wine tasting, and choreographed paddle boat dance-offs”—for $600 a year, why not?