Dream House — Local services in New York

Dream House is not a house and not exactly a dream, though it might mess with both. Third floor of 275 Church Street, you walk in and the world outside falls away. The room is bathed in a deep magenta light that makes your skin look like it belongs to someone else, and a continuous drone hums through the air, a sound that seems to move around you, inside you, and through the floor. It has been running since the early 1990s, the work of La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, two artists who turned sound and color into architecture.

There is no start or end here, no program, no playlist. The sound shifts depending on where you stand, what angle your head tilts, maybe even what you had for breakfast. You can sit in the middle for five minutes and swear nothing changes, then realize the tone in your teeth is different than the one in your ears. The floor is carpeted, the air still, and after a while you forget the city is three stories down and roaring.

It is open only a few afternoons a week, which feels deliberate, like they are not running an exhibit but a secret club for people who want to get lost without leaving town. Walk out and you hear the street again, but it sounds like a cheap recording of itself. For a few minutes the city will feel wrong, like you just woke up in someone...

This is a holy site for art music. The one-star reviews miss the whole point: La Monte Young is the only living connection to the pre-Velvet Underground experimental/improvised music scene in New York City. I was enthralled to see the installation in person, which has been running in various iterations for 40+ years, and on the way out bought a signed copy of the Black Record—an insanely hard to find relic. Yes, the space has weird vibes. It is austere and does not explain itself (unless you read the program notes). It is also a living, breathing piece of history. If you are looking to experience general meditation, or looking for an “immersive experience” without learning about the artist or the history of experimental music in New York from 1960 to now, don’t go! But for those who are open to it, it is the pilgrimage...

Used to volunteer here... glad to see this place is still surviving in a world of ever increasing commercialization of art. This place is truly a gem, an inspiration for so many artists that IVE been inspired by - and a true NYC institution. For those hyper stimulated folk of our generation you might be disappointed if you expect an interactive experience like a VR room. No - this is a meditative experience and an invitation to explore yourself and your relationship to space and sound. It’s not a playlist in the background, it’s a synthesizer that generates the sounds in real time. SO technically a live concert? There is nothing like this anywhere! Used to be donation based but in the interest of surviving NYC rent $10 is a fair price to...