Old man winter is playing some catch-up here the last few weeks. He’s dispensing chill pills which is fine by me except when water lines on the airplanes freeze up and disrupt the AM get-em-out routine at the airstrip.

I made a long overdue visit to Silent Barn on the off day Sunday for a four-band bill to benefit Smash It Dead Fest. Silent Barn’s Liz Pelly put the event together. Smash It Dead is an annual gathering in Cambridge, Mass that raises money for the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center.

Silent Barn’s performance space on the ground floor of its building in the heart of Bushwick, Brooklyn welcomes visitors of all ages. The Barn’s music calendar has added substantial heft since the DIY venue closures along the river late last year. Credit also must go to Pelly’s booking efforts. She’s widely respected for her deep connection to the city’s music scene.

I attended Sunday’s show mainly to see Shellshag. They were great. Jen Shagawat played acoustic guitar rather than assuming her usual stand-up position behind a drum set. Shagawat and bandmate Johnny Driver have wonderful chemistry in part likely from their long romantic linkage away from the stage. They’re constantly looking, admiring and laughing at each other while they perform. It’s really cool to see. On “Face to Face,” Shagawat’s harmonies perfectly complemented Driver’s compelling case for keeping the couple routine simple – just the two of them. Sang Driver: “What could be better (than) to grow old together?” At times during the set, Shagawat couldn’t suppress her percussive urges and patted her guitar’s topboard as if it were a bongo. It should also be noted that both Driver and Shagawat watched attentively as each of the bill’s three previous bands played before them.

The most exciting surprise of the day came when Katherine played in the slot before Shellshag. The punk duo from Columbus, OH boasts a uniquely talented drummer named Catherine Elicson. Ferocious but somehow still rapidly precise, Elicson’s drum parts add great intrigue to the sight and sound of Catherine’s show. Passers-by on Bushwick Avenue stopped to look into Silent Barn’s storefront window to watch Ericson as she belted her kit. The heavy cinder block in front of her set had no chance of staying in place.

Admission to the show was eight bucks. Sixteen-ounce cans of Narragansett were $5. Silent Barn stalwart Lucas Crane was walking in as I was walking out. What he and the other young artists, musicians and community conceptualists who built this Barn (and its previous incarnation) have done with it is nothing short of remarkable considering all the barriers to the idea‘s execution.

Given the daylight component of this performance, the aforementioned picture window behind the non-elevated stage at Silent Barn served as a real-time visual backdrop to the show. Residents doing errands walked past. Through that glass you see the neighborhood’s real and original characters doing their thing; offsetting the unfortunate reality that Bushwick is losing the fight against gentrification. Rents are said to be shooting up beyond reason. Still, the dynamic pulse of the immediate vicinity near Myrtle and Broadway feels much as it did 15 years ago as I saw and experienced it on Sunday. The slow creep of displacement is subtle and hard to see I guess unless you live in the neighborhood. Silent Barn’s stake in Bushwick is functioning as a very pure and powerful form of urban renewal aligned with forces of the type that will hopefully slow the kind of ugly transition that unfolded in Williamsburg over the last decade plus.

-I may need to eat my words on St. John’s and the Big Dance. The Johnnies have three regular season conference games remaining and need to only win one (plus one more in the conference tourney) to make a good case for an at-large berth. I’ve said twice in the last couple months that St. John’s would not get in. But Sir Dom has stepped up really big on both ends and the core five is gutting out big minutes. With games against Georgetown, Marquette and Nova left to go, it’s no given they’ll find the win they need to break even in the league but the game in Milwaukee on March 4 is the most winnable one if they can continue to limit turnovers. I’d love to see them Dance. The last we saw the Johnnies go dancing was in 2011 for a one-and-done loss to Gonzaga (Lavin‘s first season).

A recent op-ed piece in the Daily News lamented the sky-high price of admission for the new observation deck at One World Trade (opening this spring). It tried to make the case for providing free public access to the terrace of the Manhattan Municipal Building a few blocks to the east. That’s an excellent idea. It would give the regular joe a shot at a panoramic view of NYC’s dense greatness.

It got me thinking about the few times I got freebie views of this great city. Flying into LaGuardia on a clear day is perhaps the best, most exhilarating look at the city from above but you can’t really bank on it. And you only get a short glimpse if any at all.

My aunt had an upper floor room at that Marriott hotel just south of ground zero and I was dazzled by her view when she visited last December. That view wasn’t free for her but it was for me on the short visit I made to her room.

A few months before that, I had a restaurant week lunch at Gannouri which sits on the 39th floor of a building at Broadway and 32nd. The look uptown from the windows in that place is pretty incredible and you can look and linger for nothing as long as you square the dining tab.

The Rosie Island Tram is a kick-filled ride of high-from-above views and that’ll cost you the price of a Metrocard swipe.

If you have any suggestions on additional places to get great urban landscape views for cheap – or for nothing – please comment here so I can try ’em.

Here’s a list of popular, touristy observation decks and their regular adult admission prices using info from each site’s web page.

One World Observatory (opening in a few months) – $32

Empire State Building (main deck) – $29

Rockefeller Center (Top of the Rock) – $29

Willis Tower Chicago – $19.50

John Hancock Chicago – $19

CN Tower Toronto – $29 (Canadian)

Space Needle Seattle – $19

-The Democratic National Committee’s choice to stage the party’s 2016 convention in Philly instead of Brooklyn is consistent with how Democrats will approach the selection of its nominee. It’s about taking the safe route. I disagree with Mike Grynbaum and Alexander Burns of the Times who blamed Brooklyn’s failure to get the nod on “logistical difficulties” created by Brooklyn’s location “far from the ample hotels and amenities of Manhattan.” That’s ridiculous. Most U-S political convention sites feature far worse commutes between lodging clusters and the host arena. Philly will be no better in that regard. The Dems chose Philly for its optics. It’s a battleground state. The DNC may have ducked Brooklyn to avoid some of the nonsense that could emerge 18 months from now including both a governor and assembly speaker in the crosshairs of a federal criminal investigation. It didn’t help that NYC police unions made noise about their discontent during the bidding process. And yes, the mayor of this city is left of the party and may not provide Hillary the visuals she’ll want – and get – with Brotherly Love moderates. Madison Square Garden is not an option as long as Jim Dolan is attached to it. And so Brooklyn made a lot of sense. It would have worked great. Don’t blame it on location. Delegates would have loved it more than anywhere else but this is about a pre-ordained candidate wanting a safe stage in a theatre that’s aligned with the strategy.