While Lincoln Center across the river often represents the classical establishment canon, the Brooklyn Academy of Music—universally known as BAM—is where New York’s cultural vanguard gathers. Founded in 1861, BAM is the oldest continuously operating performing arts center in America, yet its programming consistently reads like a dispatch from ten years in the future.

Anchored at 30 Lafayette Avenue in the heart of the Fort Greene Cultural District, the Peter Jay Sharp Building (a 1908 Beaux-Arts masterpiece clad in cream brick and glazed terra-cotta) houses the 2,100-seat Howard Gilman Opera House alongside four screens of the beloved BAM Rose Cinemas.

Two blocks away at 651 Fulton Street sits BAM’s crown jewel of theatrical intimacy: the BAM Strong / Harvey Theater. Originally opened in 1904 as the Majestic Theatre and left abandoned for decades after the 1960s, the theater was restored in 1987 by architect Hugh Hardy for director Peter Brook’s nine-hour epic "The Mahabharata"—deliberately preserving the weathered, exposed plaster, faded frescoes, and raw patina of the ruin.

Every autumn from October through December, BAM mounts its flagship Next Wave Festival. Launched in 1983, Next Wave has been the New York launchpad for generational works by Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Robert Wilson, Twyla Tharp, Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal, and Ivo van Hove.

Even on a quiet Tuesday evening when no major opera or dance company is on stage, BAM Rose Cinemas curates one of the best repertory film calendars in the five boroughs—pairing new A24 and international festival premieres with rare 35mm director retrospectives, Afrofuturist film series, and live director Q&As.

Make a full Fort Greene evening of it: browse independent books at Greenlight Bookstore on Fulton Street (686 Fulton St), grab handmade pasta at Evelina or wood-fired Middle Eastern flatbreads at Miss Ada on DeKalb Avenue, and walk under the illuminated terra-cotta arches of Lafayette Avenue before curtain call.