Yo!
It just isn't fair. Fuck gets all the attention. Sure, it's a versatile word, applicable to just about any human situation. But all sorts of people have written about fuck, and I want to discuss something different today.
On the corner of Broadway and Myrtle, in Bushwick, are three corner stores. As far as I can tell, their most important contribution to the local economy is in the supply of Colt and Corona to neighborhood gentlemen. As is usually the case, each of the three stores had a group of men out front, when I passed at 6:55 am.
As I approached the stairs to the train, a fellow across the street yelled, “Yo!” A guy standing with one group then replied, “Yo!,” and darted in front of me, across the street, and through oncoming traffic to the other group. This set off a call-and-response, one group to the other, across the busy intersection: “Yo!,” said one man. “Yo!,” replied another. As I climbed the stairs and crossed the street on the overpass, I heard yo knocked about like a volleyball.
Fuck, I can get behind. When I hear it, no matter the context, I usually know what the fucking fuckety duckfucker means who says it. But yo? Other than “Hey,” I don't know what the hell it means. I still don't know what it was in that first yo that specifically said, “Luis! I need you over here immediately! Dodge that bus and get your ass over here!”
Chertoff tells straphangers, Just die already*
Michael Chertoff, director of Homeland Security, back-burnered, yesterday, the task of protecting mass transit from terrorist strikes, saying the onus falls on local government. Chertoff's reasoning? A plane-as-weapon might kill 3,000 people, whereas a bombing in a subway car would kill “only” 30.
Now, while I recognize that government officials perform a complicated calculus when setting national priorities, and that sometimes that calculus seems cold and cynical, I still think Chertoff's full of shit.
First of all, you send four suicide bombers into the public areas of Penn Station or Grand Central, and you're gonna kill more than 30 people. But what he's also failing to consider here is the economic impact that coordinated transit attacks would have on New York or Washington. I don't know about D.C., but knocking the MTA, LIRR, NJ Transit, and MetroNorth offline for days after an attack would temporarily cripple the city.
Perhaps that would be okay if New York were just a wretched hive of scum and liberalism, but it's the financial center of the nation, you idiots. How can that not be a federal priority?
Oh, but look here. Joe Lieberman seems to agree with me: “This has to be, in part, a national responsibility.” Really, Joe? Is that why you voted to reduce the share of security funding that goes to major cities, in favor of helping rural-state senators win pork for back home? You really think Sam Brownback will support your next loserific presidential bid?
*I know, I know. I'm pretending to be the Post this morning.
Subway etiquette
I propose a deal. If I'm so dumb or so desparate for a seat that I actually sit in front of a subway map, I'll gladly move my big ol' head over so that you can read the map, and I'll avert my eyes so I'm not watching you read the map.
However, I do think that you should live up to your part of the social compact: Don't just hover right in front of me when you finish, staring in the same general direction as the map. If you do hover and stare, I'll think you're continuing to read the map, and I'll keep holding my head in a weird, uncomfortable angle so that I'm not in your way. And then, when I finally realize you're not actually looking at the map, I'll get irritated.
So, turn away from the map so I know you're no longer looking. It's only fair.
More Brooklyn "pioneers"
Following up on the pioneer watch, I just read one of the Times' pieces about the “new” Brooklyn, in which Jeff Vandam discusses the area not far from our place where hipsters have settled into loft apartments.
Vandam profiles Glen Bingham, who is (what else?) a singer in a rock band. Bingham tells Vandam: “I was like: 'Right on! This is nothing! We can make it something!' ” Then, later, Bingham says, “I guess we're pioneers, but we're not homesteaders, you know?…I didn't move here to stay here and have it stay this way.”
At least Gideon Yago, talking to the appalling Toni Schlesinger, had the decency to say, “Oh, pioneers! Though I'm not sure I enjoy that term. There are people living here.” That's what the other “pioneers” lack: a sense that there are people already here who might not want a Brooklyn Industries and a music scene.
But then here's where I might be a hypocrite. When Vandam described the bar Kings County, I thought, “Maybe we should check that place out.” I'd love to see more hang-outs and restaurants in our area, but unlike Bingham and the other “pioneers,” I don't want to completely change what's here. We can have places here that we like without driving out all the places that are already here. Besides, does every street in Bushwick really need all the bars and galleries and boutiques that Williamsburg has?
More on the Queens high line
I first posted about this back in January, but the Times reported this week that the city is studying possible uses for the LIRR's abandoned Rockaway branch.
The Regional Rail Working Group has been studying the matter and suggests refurbishing and reopening the line to train traffic. Advocates of this plan cite several advantages, two of which really stand out to me: First, it would cut the commute from the Rockaways to Manhattan in half, from one hour to half an hour. Second, if linked to the JFK AirTrain, it could provide a one-seat ride from Penn Station to JFK, at a fraction of the cost of Pataki's proposed link from Lower Manhattan to JFK. (Pataki's plan would cost 6 billion bucks and would probably entail digging a new tunnel under the East River, along with acquiring right-of-way. This plan would cost only 400 million and could use existing tunnels and right-of-way.)
The cynic in me still feels, though, that the JFK/Lower Manhattan link is the sugar designed to coat the real medicine: increased LIRR access between the Financial District and the Long Island suburbs. As Ray Sanchez pointed out in Newsday this week, NYC usually gets the short shrift in transit funding, compared with the suburbs.
New York suck my jock
Z train runs express from Marcy (in Brooklyn, motherfuckers) to Myrtle, and today there were a group of teenagers too far up their own asses to realize that, so they missed their local stop.
Get to Myrtle, and I'm standing by the door waiting for it to open. I mean, I'm close enough to touch the door. Ugly teen girl pushes up next to me and tries to push in front of me. “I'm getting off here too,” I say, impatiently. But she's in my face: “We need to get to the other side, asshole. Let me go first.”
Doors open. Her friends all start pushing me and calling me names. I whirl and face them, and they shut up.
There's a very small space between me and the stairs down from the platform. (Yeah, Brooklyn. Elevated train, motherfuckers.) I step off the train, block their path. More pushing, more “asshole,” more shit. I get to the stairs. Walk slowly. Ugly girl tries to dodge around, I step in front of her. More “asshole.” They run through the passage and up the other steps.
I hope the shitheels missed their fucking train.
I'll drop off to sleep tonight with this fantasy in my head: She's trying to dodge past me on the stairs. I say, “In a hurry?”, reach back, grab the back of her head, and push the bitch down the stairs.
New connection on the 6 train
This is cool: The Times' Sewell Chan reports that the MTA is planning to finally connect uptown 6 service to the B-D-F-V line, at Bleecker St./Broadway-Lafayette.
One thing that confuses newbies is that the only connection available at that station is to or from the downtown 6 train. As Chan points out, if you want to get from the B-D-F-V line to the uptown 6 (or vice versa), you have to actually leave the system, go above ground, and re-enter, swiping your MetroCard again.
If you have an unlimited card, this isn't such a problem (although it's an asspain when the weather's bad). But I myself was really confused by this when I was new here, and I've seen many tourists and other new arrivals get confused. It's really bad when the tourists speak little English. The confusion will be even worse in a few months, when one of the token booths at Broadway-Lafayette is slated to close.
Building the connection is part of a $50-million project that will also renovate the Bleecker St. station and make both Bleecker St. and Broadway-Lafayette handicapped-accessible. Chan talks to some riders who question the worth of the project, since it is fairly easy to go above ground and transfer, but I think those riders aren't seeing the full value of the project.
First, Bleecker St. is in bad shape and really needs the makeover. The station is poorly lit and the beautiful tilework is grimy and, in many places, broken. Bleecker St. was among the system's first stations in 1904, and as such, it should be among the system's showpieces. As it stands now, though, it's an embarrassment.
Further, the area around these stations is seeing several new commercial and residential developments. It's likely, then, that these stations will see an upsurge of traffic, so I think riders in the area will certainly benefit from the improved facilities and accessibility.
Chan gives no timetable for the project, but it's going to be a doozy. The uptown platform of the 6 at Bleecker St. will actually be shifted south a few hundred yards, because the uptown and downtown platforms don't actually face each other. The uptown platform isn't adjacent to the B-D-F-V in the way that the downtown is, so they need to be aligned. The MTA will have to shore up neighboring buildings, tunnel under the streets, install stairs and elevators, and so on. The engineering alone makes this a cool project, as far as I'm concerned.
The Times has a diagram of the proposed changes, but it might disappear behind their subscription wall in a week or so.
Saving Brooklyn
These hipsters who want to save Williamsburg and Greenpoint from the city's rezoning plan—I have to say, they remind me of the cool kids in high school who loved U2 and R.E.M., but only until top-40 radio started playing them. Jen and I like hanging out in W-burg, but the attitudes often seem cliquish and patronizing. Consider three quotes from recent publications.
First, the Village Voice. Paul Moses wrote a good piece about the working-class folks who are being priced out of riverfront-Brooklyn, as rents climb. But he mentions something interesting. He talked to an area priest who fights for fair housing:
Reverend Jim O'Shea…said he is rankled when news accounts refer to the neighborhood as a “frontier” and the newcomers as “pioneers.” It's “like Columbus,” he said.
I hadn't thought of it that way before: This is the language of colonial oppression.
Jonathan Van Meter, writing in New York magazine, echoes this:
When I hear modern-day yuppies talk of being “pioneers” in certain Brooklyn neighborhoods—so smug in their 718 T-shirts—I want to poke my finger in their eyes. Brooklyn is not a clean slate. People who live there have a history, one that, more often than not, is of grit and forbearance. It's a history that I imagine the shabby Gentiles of Park Slope and the midwestern hipsters of Williamsburg—colonists, all!—don’t want to think about too much.
Gotham Gazette published a piece by Deborah Apsel about the New York City Teaching Fellows program, in which professionals and recent grads can earn a master's degree in education, while teaching in the public schools and earning a salary and benefits. Apsel interviewed the principal of a school in Williamsburg. This principal says that although he's hired excellent fellows to teach in his schools…
“I've met some fellows who are going to go back after two years and write a book about 'my time in the urban jungle,'” he says. “Don't come in here to do a social experiment. It's a slap in the face.”
Pioneers and colonists in the urban jungle. They've hacked out their spot in the wilderness, and they won't let it go for anyone.
News v Post
The email newsletter Cynopsis reports today that…
Bravo will launch a new series on August 10 called The Daily News (Hearst Ent), a six part documentary that highlights day-in-and-day-out operations at the New York Daily News. Each episode with focus on a group of journalists as they move through their day, covering various stories around the city, and the paper's notorious competition with the New York Post.
File under "cautiously optimistic"
Although I know that the MTA breaks everything it touches, I'm still looking forward to this month's automation of the L train. Getting trapped in the closing doors doesn't concern me on the automated L train any more than it does when I ride an elevator. Otherwise, anything that allows the MTA to run trains more frequently (if, indeed, this project lives up to that particular bit of hype) is all right in my book.
My kind of place
After weeks of sousing in Mexico, Dan Freeman has resumed his thousand-bar crawl in New York. I wondered what gave a man time to pub-crawl all day, but now I see he's retired. What a way to retire. Too bad his liver's still working OT.
Also of note, NYC Dives, cataloguing New York's dive bars. I had a half-formed thought to do something similar once, but these fine blogs got there first.
Living in Bushwick
Jen blogged about this before, but I have a few things I'd like to add.
This guy El Moreno describes the Opera House Lofts, across the street from us, as a happy building of artists and musicians, plagued by a neighborhood full of rapists, drug dealers, thugs, and whores. (Although I have to laugh when he says his budddy's “stash” got stolen. I guess El Moreno has one set of morals for poor people who smoke crack, and another for artistic people who smoke pot.)
But the neighborhood he describes isn't the one I've experienced. Sure, I've heard the “all these fucking white people” comments. They annoy me, but I take them in stride. See, I've watched Opera Loft dwellers pass through the neighborhood. They nearly run from the train at Broadway and Myrtle down to their nice lofts, seemingly afraid that if they're not inside their razor-wired bunker, they'll be attacked. They never lift their heads to acknowledge their neighbors, much less say Hello or stop for conversation.
Contrast that with some of the neighbors Jen discussed. The Delgados and Pedro have been open, friendly, funny. Pedro offered the use of his van if we ever need it. Emily Delgado described our street as one where the neighbors look out for each other—the implication being that they'll look out for us, too. The Lofters, meanwhile, are seemingly only looking out for themselves and each other.
They live inside an insular community, guarded by razor wire, flood lights, alarm systems, and security gates. They have a laundry, music and rec rooms, a yoga studio, a rooftop patio, and a garden. They have no reason to be part of this street, and so they choose not to. They walk briskly past the storefronts on Broadway, never lifting their heads. They don't buy from those stores, except MAYBE to go to the corner market for milk, smokes, or beer. If FreshDirect delivered here, they wouldn't spend a dime in this neighborhood.
El Moreno bitches about how “dangerous” this neighborhood is, but he doesn't mention that Opera House dwellers come and go at all hours of the night. We hear them coming home at 3, 4, and 5am. Common sense might tell you that any part of most cities and towns is potentially dangerous at 4am, but I guess El Moreno flunked Common Sense.
By the way, we know they come home that late because they're loud. They yell like drunken frat boys, they bicker among themselves, and they slam the security gate behind them when they enter.
When Opera House residents have parties, we see stylish 20-somethings running drunk, up and down the street, wearing very little no matter the temperature. I will never say that any woman deserves to be assaulted, but I will say, again, that common sense suggests that perhaps it's unwise to run down a street in an unfamiliar area, after midnight, dressed only in a miniskirt and a loose-fitting blouse.
El Moreno discusses an incident from late October, when an Opera House resident was badly beaten late one night. I can understand why that shook him up. It shook us up. But I wonder whether El Moreno knows or cares that our neighbor upstairs called the police that night.
When Opera House residents have parties, we hear car services coming at 3 and 4 and 5am to pick up party guests and take them home to Williamsburg and SoHo and the East Village. We know they're out there because we hear the drivers honking for ten or twenty minutes or more; Opera House guests, apparently, never bother waiting downstairs for the car.
When the weather warms up, I know that there will be Opera House residents and their guests in the courtyard across the street or up on the rooftop patio, partying and laughing and shouting until 5am every weekend.
Opera's neighbors are happy that the lofts are here. For decades, that beautiful, historic building was boarded up and empty. Large empty buildings breed crime. They're happy that the new owners didn't demolish and rebuild because our neighbors value the history of the neighborhood.
El Moreno and his former neighbors in the lofts clearly disdain Bushwick. Perhaps they were dumb enough to believe the “East Williamsburg” hype, and came here looking for young pretty white people, cool bars and restaurants, and cute little record stores.
So they hide away in their ghetto oasis, sneering at the Salvadorans and Puerto Ricans around them, unaware that they've made themselves a target by being so conspicuously “protected” all the time. The razor wire and other security measures tell the few bad eggs who are around, “Look at us. We have stuff you want that you can't have.”
It's hard for me to blame people for hating them, when they've gone out of their way to be such assholes to people in the neighborhood.
More MTA hoohah
The MTA has so far failed to pass the subway photography ban, Newsday reports. The article cites a spokesman for NYC Transit, who says that a flood of public comments about the proposed ban has led the MTA to temporarily shelve the measure, pending further review.
I still think we'll see a ban of some sort—probably on photographing “sensitive” equipment such as switches and support structures—but I suspect the MTA will back away from a full ban.
Save a horse, ride a barmaid
Admittedly, I don't know much about this Patriot Bar (for example, how long it's been open, or how long the tenants quoted here have been living above it), but I do know one thing: If I were thinking of moving in over a bar, I'd spend some time in the bar and outside the bar before I dropped my security deposit. I'd meet the bartenders and the owner, and I'd find out how late it was regularly open and how loud it is at, say, 2am.
[via Curbed]
Big, orange banners
Over at Carbongeek, Tom writes: “Apparently having solved all problems with crime and education, New York City spends $21 Million on lots of big, orange banners.”
Set aside for now the fact that NYC didn't pay for the Gates. (Christo did, by raising the money himself. He's even paying for the cops who are protecting the project.)
Tom seems to think this $21 million is a waste of money—that no matter who raised it, it should have gone instead to solve problems of crime and education.
I disagree with this on a couple of counts: First, problems crime and education will always need more funding than governments are willing to give. The War on Poverty and the War on Drugs and the War on Illiteracy and the War on Obesity and the War on Other Unpleasant Stuff are just as unwinnable as the War on Terrorism.
Throw ALL your money at them, and you'll never win those wars. That's not to say we shouldn't generously fund education, antidrug programs, welfare, and so on. But to say, We can't build new parks, or We can't go back to the moon, or We can't fund the arts, because we still have hungry people…
Well, we'll always have hungry people. Throw all of NASA's budget into food programs and nutrition education, and we'll still have hungry people. Wait to fund art until you've “solved hunger,” and you'll never have art.
Second, this is $21 million. That's not a lot of money when you think about it, and as I noted before, it was funded privately. If George Lucas had funded hunger relief instead of Attack of the Clones, I kinda think the world would be a better place. Why is it cool for Steve and Tom to reimagine War of the Worlds, but it's dumb to put up “big, orange banners”? To pick on someone other than Hollywood, how much did the Grammys spend to fête John Mayer and Bratney Spears last night?
Finally, if Christo's priorities are screwed up, perhaps we should examine our own as well. We spend money on comic books, Maxim subscriptions, cigarettes, video games, DVDs. Perhaps all of that should go to the poor instead. Perhaps, instead of going out drinking, we should spend our time teaching people to read.
The Gates might not be your thing. That's cool; many things aren't my thing. But let's please not make the Gates a moral issue. You spend your time on pop tunes and dumb popcorn films; I'll spend mine among the banners.
Sniffin'
I saw a guy yesterday on the uptown 6 train, stretched out on a bench, passed out. In his mouth was the nozzle for an aerosol bottle of cleaning spray from Staples.
He slept on one half of a bench. A family came on and tried to occupy the other half. The kids sat at the end farthest from him. Dad stood, but taunted Mom and tried to cajole her into sitting next to passed-out man. A look of revulsion crossed Mom's face, but she sat down, all scrunched up, and as far from him as she could get.
Then at the next stop, some hipster kids boarded the train. One of them got pissed off that the guy was taking up so much space. Have you ever seen self-righteous hipster fury? It's funny. It's so passive-aggressive. Hipsters say it's okay to be non-hipster, just so long as you're non-hipster somewhere over there, where you won't smudge us with your uncoolness.
He started nudging the guy. His friends told him not to bother. I turned away with a smirk, not wanting to see aerosol man pull out a knife and slice off a hipster ear for his collection. But as I left the train at Union Square, I saw that aerosol man was sitting up and making room, so I guess all ended well.
More on 9's demise
I missed this first time around, but the Times has a piece on the end of the 9 train. The 1 and 9 offer so-called skip-stop service, in which each train leap-frogs past alternating stations. As the Times describes, it's common on 9-train stops to see three 1 trains in a row pass your station while you wait for the next 9.
What killed the 9? Ironically, suggests the Times, the gentrification of West Harlem. The riders most inconvenienced by skip-stop service tend to be lower-income Blacks and Hispanics, but now that higher-income Whites are coming into the area and buying up homes, they don't want to stand around and wait for trains to carry them downtown.
What the article doesn't mention, however, is that the 1 and 9 aren't the only skip-stop trains in the system. The J and Z run skip-stop along the Broadway-Brooklyn line.
New York City-State?
The Post reports today that the City Council is considering a bill to create a commission to study whether New York City should secede from the state. Given that I don't respect George Pataki as governor, I'd probably support this move. Go all the way, NYC! Secede from the Union as well!
Stress freakos
I saw these freakos yesterday. On my way home from work, I stopped at Grand Central for a few cooking items from the market, a copy of Atlantic Monthly, and a bottle of wine. Since the market didn't have what I needed AND since I'd forgotten to deposit a check, I had to then go to Union Square to hit up my bank and stop at Food Emporium. So after finishing up in Union Square, I went back down into the subway and saw tables set up for these stress tests. I didn't know they were Scientologists, but I also didn't need them to tell me I was stressed. Dodging tourists and random fuckheads was enough.
High line of Queens
I missed this article when it was first published, and the only link I have for it probably requires registration, but Sunday's Times featured a story about a proposal to turn the LIRR's abandoned Rockaway Beach Branch into a linear park, a la the High Line.
The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) ran the Rockaway Beach Branch (link 1, 2) line until the 1950s, when declining ridership led to its abandonment. The MTA bought the right of way (ROW) in the late 1950s, and now a portion of the ROW carries the A line out past JFK, across Broad Channel, and onto the Rockaway Peninsula. (See Jen's photos from our trip to the Rockaways.)
Apparently, the MTA floated a proposal a few years back to reinstate train service along the line, but then abandoned the idea. Looks like NIMBYism, in part, killed the plan. It's a shame. As the Times article notes, it would provide speedier service from the Rockaways (and, of course, JFK) to Manhattan.
Also, since most of the old stations along that line have been demolished, it might also provide another option for routing a one-seat ride from JFK to Manhattan. However, proponents of the current one-seat plan envision two things that the Rockaway Branch wouldn't provide: access to Lower Manhattan (the Rockaway Branch, if reactivated, would terminate in Penn Station or Grand Central), and an extension out to Long Island's suburbs. Face it, easy access to JFK is a smokescreen for what planners really want: increased commuter service for wealthy Long Islanders who work in the Financial District. Since the Rockaway Branch can't provide that, it's best future is as a bicycle path.
Bye-bye to subway photography
Ban looms for subway shutterbugs
Transit officials are moving ahead with a planned ban on taking pictures, filming and videotaping in the subway system - saying it's a necessary security measure in the post-9/11 world.
The article goes on to say that the MTA rejected a less-stringent measure that would have allowed most photography, while still banning shots of dispatchers' towers, equipment rooms, and infrastructure such as tunnels and bridges.
A 45-day comment period on this measure ends Jan. 10.
Thanksgiving 2k4
What I Did On Thanksgiving Day, by Mikey Dietsch, age 36.
[or skip the jabbering and go straight to Jen's pictures]
Jennifer and I had a yummy Thanksgiving Day with lots of good food and fun things. First we went to Sarafina Broadway, where we met up with members of the Lunch Club. We had brunch while watching the parade pass outside Sarafina's big picture windows.
Ain't no party like the ho-train party...
This morning, I was on the 6 train, and after a couple stops this person got on. Ugly person, of indeterminate gender. Unlit cigarette dangling from the mouth. Clearly really out of it somehow--deeply fatigued, strung out, drunk, something.
I paid no attention, but because I was sharing a bench with this person, I kept my distance, as did everyone else who came aboard. The 6 pulled into Grand Central. At the last minute, the woman (I'm guessing/hoping) got up to leave, and I finally saw what she was wearing: a miniskirt, stilleto heels...
...and her panties down around her ankles.
Smear
So, for those entering late: Andrea Mackris is accusing Bill O'Reilly of sexual harrassment. O'Reilly is suign Mackris and her attorney, claiming extortion. O'Reilly works for Fox News, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. The New York Post today publishes a report claiming that Mackris "threw a hissy fit" inside a hotel bar in Midtown Manhattan.
Waiiiiiiit a second.... Remind me again who owns the Post?
Tristan and Laurenn
Sexy and Loathsome: Author J. T. LeRoy talks to Tristan Crane and Ted Naifeh
Tristan Crane appears tonight with Laurenn McCubbin, at Jigsaw Gallery.
MTA backs away from ban
The Daily News reports this morning that the MTA is backing away from a full ban on subway photography. The ban, thought to be unenforceable, was proposed a few months as a security measure designed to help prevent terrorists from gathering information on the city's infrastructure. But the proposed ban was blasted by civil libertarians and transit fans, and now it seems the MTA and the NYPD are working toward a narrower restriction against "sensitive areas" of the system such as equipment rooms and underwater tunnels.
Rats and hobos
Last night, on my way to the new place, I saw a dead rat on the sidewalk. When I looked closer, I saw that it was stuck in a crack in the pavement around a manhole cover, and it was bent at the waist (if rats can be said to have waists, that is) and its head and torso were slumped over the cover. It was clearly in the midst of trying to squeeze through the crack and reach the sidewalk when something happened to kill it.
This morning, there was a youngish dude passed out on the 4 train. He was on the floor, slumped against an empty seat when I boarded at Nevins in Brooklyn, but at some point, he lost his perch and stretched out entirely on the floor. No one, myself included, did anything to help him, although when he fell completely to the floor, his eyeglasses fell under him, and one fellow pried them lose and placed them on the guy's chest. Finally, a cop came through the train and rousted him.
Dead rats and passed-out drunks. Ah, New York.
Worst commute?!
Yesterday's downpour left New York's subway tunnels flooded and many commuters stranded. Many commuters walked across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan, and taxis and buses were overwhelmed by the rush of extra travelers.
I was lucky. The rains were worst after 7am, and by that point, I was well on my way, so by the time trains were diverted and tunnels were closed, I was already at work. The post-work commute was a little longer than usual, but it was fine.
However, I think Gene Russianoff needs a reality check. Speaking in today's New York Times, he calls yesterday ...
the worst commute since Aug. 26, 1999, when another unexpected deluge caused a systemwide crisis
Uh, no, Gene. I can't see how this commute was any worse THAN THE FREAKIN' BLACKOUT.
Russianoff, who advocates for subway riders as staff lawyer for the Straphangers Campaign, is usually sharper than this. Maybe the Times misquoted him.
Events: Satrapi, Spiegelman
Marjane Satrapi speaks at the Chelsea Barnes and Noble on Wednesday, Sept. 8. Art Spiegelman speaks at Cooper Union at 6:30pm on Friday, Sept. 10.
[via flavorpill]
Living in Brooklyn
Long but worth every word: Maud Newton discusses Brooklyn apartments and orgasmic neighbors:
New York City apartment living is a lesson in lowered expectations. My first Brooklyn residence featured new wood floors, shiny porcelain doorknobs and a view of the Chrysler building.
...
One night, after about a month, things turned sour. I woke to what sounded like metal balls rolling, or heavy chains being dragged, across the floor. “Fuck,” the man yelled. There was a furious clattering before he yelled it again three more times. Then there was the sound of someone kicking something. And then he was crying – weeping, in fact – and moaning.
“I’m your fucking wife now,” she screamed. “You motherfucker.”
Mayor confuses "right" with "privilege"
Next thing you know, he'll tell us that food, water, and shelter are "wants" and not "needs."
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, already under fire for his tough stance against anti-GOP protest groups, Monday suggested that First Amendment rights of free speech and free assembly are "privileges" that could be lost if abused.
[link]
Blade Runner meets High Line
Lockhart's right: The High Line plans look like a dystopian hellscape. I need to get back up there with my camera before the High Line is twisted beyond recognition.
Squid shoots in Brooklyn
On the way to work this morning, I saw No Parking signs up along Seventh Ave. in Park Slope. The signs indicated that a production called "Squid + Whale" would be filming, tying up several blocks.
Back Stage West reports (scroll way down):
Beginning July 12 and spooling through mid-August is The Squid and the Whale. Set in Park Slope, Brooklyn in 1986, the film focuses on a writer who's going through a divorce.
The film, written and directed by Noah Baumbach and produced by Wes Anderson, stars Jeff Daniels as the writer, Laura Linney as his wife, and Jesse Eisenburg and Owen Kline as their sons. (Earlier reports had the Daniels role going to Bill Murray; Owen Kline is the son of Phoebe Cates and IU-grad Kevin Kline.)
IMDB offers this plot description:
The patriarch (Jeff Daniels) of an eccentric Brooklyn family claims to once have been a great novelist, but he has settled into a teaching job. When his wife (Laura Linney) discovers a writing talent of her own, jealousy divides the family, leaving two teenage sons to forge new relationships with their parents. Linney's character begins dating her younger son's tennis coach. Meanwhile, Daniels' character has an affair with the student his older son is pursuing.
Whereas this synopsis focuses on the parents, reports on other sites (Film Jerk, for example) seem to indicate that the film centers on the sons, Walt and Frank, and their friends.
More as I hear it.
Hilary Clinton responds to marriage-sanctity amendment
Received in e-mail:
July 12, 2004
Mr. Michael Dietsch
[address snipped]
Dear Mr. Dietsch:
Thank you for writing to share with me your thoughts regarding the President's support of a Constitutional amendment on marriage. I have heard from many New Yorkers on this subject and, as always, welcome the comments of my constituents.
I do not support amending the Constitution to address this issue. The Constitution is a sacred document and should not be used to divide the American people. Please be assured that I am monitoring this situation very carefully.
Again, thank you for taking the time to write. Please check my website at http://clinton.senate.gov for updates on this and other important issues being debated before the United States Senate.
Sincerely yours,
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Coddling the stupid and famous
From today's NYTimes, one reason I wouldn't go to hot spots even if I could get in.
The Big Napple?
I could use a nap myself.
High above the bustling streets, honking taxicabs and crowded sidewalks, on the 24th floor of the Empire State Building, is MetroNaps, a month-old company offering the Big Apple version of the Spanish siesta: a 20-minute nap.
Servicing the family-values party
Escorts and strippers from the West Coast and from London will converge on New York for the Republican convention, Aug. 30 - Sept. 2, the Daily News reports. So, how does the god-fearing GOPper explain to his wife where that dose of the clap came from?
Jason rules the subway
Kottke offers his rules for manuevering the subways. I have to admit that, when I'm alone, I break number 7 all the time. If it's any consolation, though, I try to keep an eye out to make sure I don't get in anyone's way when I pace or meander.
Shriek
From today's Times: Simon Property to Buy Chelsea for $3.5 Billion
[Simon Property Group and its most heinous famous property]
Stuck at Grand Central
You'd think that the city that never sleeps would have a train station that never closes, but you'd be wrong. After Grand Central's transition from a national to a regional hub, the station began closing during the night, stranding those who miss the last trains out.
The Times offers a smart and funny look at the unfortunates who miss the train. Some grab hotel rooms for the night, others stay out on the streets, and some are easy work for cab drivers who charge $60 and up for rides into Connecticut and upstate New York.
Grand Central at midnight:
Things I learn on the subway
F train, Brooklyn. A woman boards the train, asks for our attention, and explains that certain FBI agents and CIA agents have grown tired of going door to door masquerading as Jehovah's Witnesses. These agents want Americans to know that the September 2001 attacks were engineered by "the Mormon Mafia," which is, at this moment, orchestrating another attack on the U.S. for later this summer.
This woman also says that two FBI agents--black agents, she's quick to point out--warn that one day "Black and Hispanic youth will wake up" and realize that the entire hip-hop culture has been engineered by the CIA as a ploy to destroy minority youth.
So away with you, Special Agent Fiddy Cent--you ain't touchin' our kids.
Protest the proposed photography ban
Overblown rhetoric aside*, I support the protest and I'm planning to attend and get lots of pictures.
Sunday, June 6, 1pm
Grand Central Terminal
Meet at information kiosk
*Although banning subway photography does indeed infringe on First Amendment rights, I don't think it equates to pushing African Americans to the back of the bus, mainly because this MTA ban abridges one right, and Southern blacks were fighting for many rights--including the right not to be lynched for whistling at white women. I'll stand up for the right to free expression, but I won't pretend I'm Rosa Parks.
The ballad of Sonny Payne
You know, every time I see Sonny--or, more accurately, when I hear Sonny, since I almost never look up anymore when he enters a car--I always think how interesting his story must be, but I've never had the gumption to try to write it. Steven Kurutz, however, has the gumption.
I've still never given him money.
Beer in Brooklyn
The Brooklyn Historical Society has opened a new exhibit: 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, complete with weekly beer gardens, sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery. The Times has more.
Mm, beer.
MoCCA saves Road Runner
The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art helped rescue two Chuck Jones murals on Wednesday, reports the Daily News. Jones drew the murals in 1988 during a visit to the offices of New Visions, a nonprofit education group in Greenwich Village, which is moving offices. Until MoCCA and art preservationist Joseph Braby stepped in, the murals were headed for demolition.
Library archives chart LES history
Annual reports from the Seward Park library, a 95-year-old branch on East Broadway, chart the many changes in the Lower East Side since the branch's opening. The branch has just reopened after a two-year renovation.
F evacuation at York
The PA announcer at Broadway/Lafayette called this an "ongoing incident at York Street," but when the Brooklyn-bound F conductor said there was an injury at York, I immediately wondered whether someone was on the tracks.
Mapping the credit
Mike Hertz points out that my entry about the evolution of the New York subway map leaves out a few details. He points to a follow-up column by Ray Sanchez that discredits John Tauranac's claims to having designed the map.
However, my post of April 7 wasn't about the current map or its designer but rather about a book tracing the history of the subway map. I still hope to see such a book.
Light and gargoyles
Right, so the big news out of Brooklyn in the last couple of weeks has been the opening of the new entrance to the Brooklyn Museum. Timed to support the opening of the new entrance, however, is a major renovation to the Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum stop on the 2 and 3 lines. I should get out there and see it before all the cool new fixtures get trashed.
F resumes Coney service in May
I'm going to miss the "F to Avenue X" PA announcements. There's something so sci-fi about Avenue X. However, I won't miss cringing every time the Jay St./Borough Hall announcer says, "There is a Avenue X bound F train approaching Jay St./Borough Hall." Gah.
Manhattan User's Guide
The 411: Manhattan User's Guide ("a daily e-mail that keeps you on top of the city...from splashy restaurant openings or wonderful hole-in-the-walls to useful services such as the best moving companies or tailors to the best shopping in town") will soon accept advertising, but to attract sponsors, MUG needs to increase its readership.
MUG is a daily must-read. Charlie Suisman, MUG's writer, is sharp and savvy, and his writing is crisp, well informed, and witty. Subscribe to MUG and make your inbox happy.
(Disclaimer: I have no personal or professional association with MUG or Suisman, nor will I benefit in any way from its advertising revenue. I simply think it's a damn good read, and I think you'll agree.)
Will the Jets help save the High Line?
The Daily News reports that the New York Jets will unveil a plan today that will preserve portions of the High Line and incorporate another portion into the entrance to its proposed West Side stadium. I don't know how I feel about the stadium itself, but I'm glad to see that the city and the Jets are serious about preserving the High Line.
In search of the original subway
Writing for the Times, Michael Luo describes a fan trip along the path of the original 1904 New York subway. The trip, led by Joseph Brennan and Joseph Cunningham traced the route from the now-closed City Hall station, up the 4/5/6 line to Grand Central, across what's now the shuttle to Times Square, and then up the 1/9 line to 145th Street.
Sounds cool to me.
World's oldest fireboat, still going after 65 years
Launched in 1938, the fireboat Fire Fighter still fights blazes on New York's shores and waterways. In warmer months, tour cruises of the fireboat John Harvey are available.
I go out walking...
Andrew Womack, writing in the Morning News, offers tips for walking in New York. They're all pretty much commonsense, but any New Yorker knows that commonsense is as common on an NYC sidewalk as a passenger pigeon.
Last week, I was walking home from the F train, and I saw a woman gesturing with her cane. She was shouting at a woman across the street and using the cane to point at something I couldn't see. Except she paid no attention to where she was or who was around her, and she lifted her cane up to shoulder level and held it out almost perpendicular to her body--just in time for a man behind her to face-check the horizontal cane. Like watching the Stooges. (Moe's pals, that is, not Iggy's.)
Opening day
Today is opening day at Yankee Stadium. Ordinarily, I wouldn't give a damn--baseball just isn't my thing. But I work in the Bronx, not far from the subway station nearest the stadium. The game will let out just as I'm leaving work, and I'll have to push through those crowds to get onto a train. I should've brought my billy club and my brass knucks.
Bank-robbing for Smoochie
A 44-year-old Brooklyn woman embarked on a crime spree, the New York Post reports, to earn money for an operation for her cat. Smoochie, a young orange tabby, had a tumor that require surgery.
[Confidential to Jen: Don't get any ideas.]
Restaurant week in Brooklyn
$18.98 buys a damn good meal, starting April 15, as Brooklyn celebrates Restaurant Week. Newsday has the story and a list of participating eateries.
Mapping the MTA
Not long ago, I mentioned to Jen that it would be great to have a book charting the evolution of the New York City subway map. It seemed like such an obvious idea, I was surprised that no one had thought of it first. I was wrong. John Tauranac thought of it [read to the end of the article], but the small minds at MTA turned him down.
4/30 UPDATE: First, the link I've posted above no longer works. Ray Sanchez's story on John Tauranac can be located here.
Second, Sanchez wrote an update to that story, and I really should have linked to it. Sanchez's first story could lead a reader to believe that John Tauranac deserves sole credit for designing the MTA subway map. The follow-up story credits others who were responsible for helping to develop the current design.
Psychedelic posters of the 1960s
Via Flavorpill comes news of an exhibition of of 1960s psychedelia at the Matthew Marks gallery in Chelsea. The exhibit runs through Saturday, 4/24.
Thirty-four years later, Park Slope still recovers
The shell of an unfinished apartment sits at Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue in Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood, site of a 1960 airline crash that killed 134 people. The lot, empty since the crash, seems to resist all efforts to fill it.
[more]
Abandoned New York
From the New York Times, two articles look at forgotten bits of the city's past: a Queens cemetary, and a Bronx synagogue.
One of these days, I gotta get on one of those ForgottenNY tours.
Weird stores
Lockhart Steele discusses weird stores, and he lists several that I'd like to check out.
I read a recent survey of the fashion industry, in which one prominent designer commented on his love of browsing small New York clothing boutiques. I'd like to broaden my wardrobe anyway, and I'd like to see some of these boutiques myself, but now Lockhart's got me jonesing to look for weird stores, too.
Lockhart's comments come by way of reading Adam Gopnik's review of the new book, The Devil's Playground, which chronicles the history of Times Square. Playground is just one among a handful of New York books I want to read. There's also Waterfront, a walk around the rim of Manhattan, and Rats, a look at New Yorkers' least-welcome neighbors.
First amendment mob
From e-mail:
Join us -- recite the single sentence that guarantees the right of free speech and peaceable assembly.
When: Tuesday the 23rd, 6:30 PM, for 30 minutes.
Where: WTC Path Station on Church Street at Ground Zero (Subway: "A" to Cortland, "N/R" to Rector, "4/6" walk over from City Hall)
What: Come down the steps into station, a large boxy room with a view of GZ. And bring a cell phone!
How: First, memorize the 1st Amendment, or wear it on your sleeve, or have a friend prompt you over the phone.
Vinegar Hill tour; Revised track maps
A couple of notable items today:
Mike, of Brooklyn-based photoblog Satan's Laundromat, will lead a tour of Brooklyn's Vinegar Hill neighborhood, Saturday, March 27.
Also, Peter Dougherty has updated his book, Tracks of the New York City Subway. Updates new to Version 3.6 include the Manhattan Bridge changes, the restoration of PATH service to WTC, and the AirTrain routes to JFK. Dougherty plans a centennial edition for May and the fourth edition for 2005.
Fulton Street Tunnels
Today's Fulton Street subway complex is a warren of tunnels and passageways, stairwells and storefronts, confusing to visitors and residents alike. The current complex serves fourteen routes in seven stations, and it was built over twenty-seven years by three different companies or agencies (the IRT's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 9 services; the BMT's J, M, N, R, and Z; and the IND's A, C, and E).
This map shows the current configuration of the Fulton Street complex (source, MTA):
The MTA is in the process of designing a new Fulton Street Transit Center that will add new connections and tunnels, streamline and beautify existing connections, and introduce new retail opportunities to Lower Manhattan. Eventually, a straphanger could ride the 2 or 3 to Fulton and William streets and walk west through the passageways all the way to the World Financial Center's Winter Garden.
As Times reporter David W. Dunlop writes, in Midtown terms, that's roughly Times Square to the Chrysler Building. Dunlop describes the tradeoffs involved in designing such a complex:
But underground concourses (like skyways in other cities) are not an unmixed civic blessing. If they are simply unadorned passages, they can be bleak and discouraging. If they are filled with stores, restaurants and other amenities, they can drain life from the streets.
The new complex will cover ten million square feet of space over twelve acres, says Joseph J. Seymour, of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The new complex will connect to the rebuilt WTC and link the MTA to the new PATH station.
This map, from the Times article, shows the configuration of the new complex:
Other improvements include a new centralized gateway, improved street access, and a new passageway under Dey Street.
Construction of the Transit Center is scheduled to begin by the end of the year, with completion expected by 2007.
Subway exhibit at NYPL
Another NYPL exhibit of note features William Barclay Parsons, the first chief engineer of the subway system. In collaboration with the New York Transit Museum, the Science, Industry and Business Library presents Parson's correspondence with subway-financier August Belmont, photos of subway construction, early subway tickets, and other reports on the early system. Note also the related programs, especially the lecture on tunnelling.
[via nycsubway.org]
High Line takes step forward
Friends of the High Line announced today a request for qualifications. Working with the city, FHL is seeking teams of architects, engineers, urban planners, and horticulturists to create a master plan to oversee the conversion of the abandoned elevated railway into a linear park.
In other High Line news, Kottke and Megnut ventured onto the structure this weekend and returned with pictures.
Explosion at West Fourth
"An apparently deranged Bronx man unleashed chaos in a Greenwich Village subway tunnel last night by hurling debris on the tracks - sparking a series of explosions and a blaze that brought trains to a screeching halt, officials said."
By the time I made my way to work this morning, MTA apparently still was repairing the damage to the Sixth Avenue express tracks. Dispatchers had rerouted the B over the Eighth Avenue line (that is, along the A/C/E line), and the D was running express, but over the Sixth Avenue local (F/V) tracks.
Rerouting the B and D added trains to lines that already run near capacity during morning rush, which slowed down pretty much every train running on the Sixth Ave. and Eighth Ave. lines.
Doesn't take much to disrupt our subway system, does it?
More from Apple photoblog event
Me with my hand up. (I asked Laura how people respond when they catch her taking pictures of them.)
Kottke's coverage. (Note that Jason's commenters have started a good dialogue about photoblogging, covering some of the same questions discussed last night.)
After all the talk of the squares that Laura and clarson use, it's refreshing to see Rachelle go in a different direction.
Moblogging the photobloggers
Lauren moblogs Anil Dash moblogging the photobloggers. I love living in the future. The photography was excellent, but alas, I got no cookies. I did get to chat briefly with Jake and Mike, though, and that was cool.
New York Architecture, at NYU
New York City Architecture: A Field Study
Two snarky points about the Course Info page: First, you can bring two subway tokens to each class, but they won't do you much good. Second, the Tauranac book might provide detailed bus and subway maps, but the book is dated 1979, and so they'll be only a little more helpful than the subway tokens.
Snark aside, any of these walks would make for a great spring Saturday, I think, and the reading list looks excellent.
[via thingsmagazine]
Art deco bookbindings, on display at NYPL
Opening this Friday at the NYPL is an exhibit of art deco bookbindings from Paris, in the early twentieth century. From the press release:
French bookbinders led the world in their craft in the earlier part of the 20th century — especially from the 1920s to the 50s — and fostered the designer-bookbinder movement that took firm root in several other countries. The most influential of these were Legrain and Adler, who between them created some 525 bindings for the French bibliophile, couturier, collector, and philanthropist Jacques Doucet.
The exhibit has a companion volume from Princeton Architectural Press.
[via Beatrice]
Even some journalists got a little lost
In his piece "Even Some Subway Riders Who Got the Word Got a Little Lost," Michael Luo writes of subway riders contending with this week's service changes. About midway through the piece, he notes:
Confessing complete befuddlement, Ivan Parmar, 21, a real estate agent from Borough Park, Brooklyn, stood at the downtown B and N platform at Herald Square yesterday morning, next to a Metropolitan Transportation Authority poster that read in part, "Sometimes you have to go backward to go forward."
Indeed. I haven't fully explored Herald Square since the change, but when I rode through that station on the downtown B train yesterday, it pulled in on the 6th Avenue platforms. (That is, it pulled in on the same platforms as the F, V, and D trains.)
The N, Q, and R use the Broadway platforms. I can't imagine why there would be a B and N platform anywhere in that station.
[article via Subway Web News; snide comments entirely my own]
Subway conversation
This morning, while waiting on the uptown B/D platform at Broadway-Lafayette, a woman approached me and pointed to the empty B/D tracks.
"Good morning! Can you tell me, does this train go to 14th?"
"No," I said. "It skips 14th. The F and the V stop at 14th." She rolled her eyes, tightened her mouth, and said, "What?"
"The B and D are express trains. They skip 14th and 23rd."
"I want the 6!"
As the D began to enter the station, I replied, "You can get a downtown 6 upstairs, but you can't get an uptown 6 here."
The D slowed to a stop. The woman watched the cars move past, scanning the windows for a conductor. "Oh, never mind!" she said, as I entered the train.
Rail planning and the Manhattan Bridge
All four tracks on the Manhattan Bridge return to service this weekend, after nearly 20 years of bridge renovations, carrying an array of new subway routes and schedules.
As Michael Luo writes in the Times, deciding on those routes presented the MTA with a challenge, and some intriguing patterns have emerged that point to the many changes in the city since 1986, when renovations began on the Manhattan Bridge.
Subway planners looked at MetroCard data to determine ridership numbers and origin and destination patterns; they also consulted demographic data and computer models. Luo writes:
Among the broad trends they tried to incorporate in their plan: once problem-plagued areas like Union Square and Times Square have become weekend destinations needing more service; an artist enclave known as SoHo turned into a retail hub; growth in Midtown far outpaces that of Lower Manhattan; growth in scattered neighborhoods like Astoria, Prospect Park and Bay Ridge has altered subway demands.
Planners admit, however, the new routes are the result of art as much as science, and they'll be looking to new ridership patterns to gauge whether they've succeeded.
Cops seize Chinatown buses
The NYPD checked 100 buses on Tuesday and yanked a dozen from streets to address safety concerns and curb bus war.
Activist fights for west-side rail cuts
A Manhattan reading teacher appeared before Community Board 4 to advocate the preservation of a railcut through Manhattan's West Side.
The railcuts, which now serve Amtrak's Empire line, were originally built as part of a freight network connecting Lower Manhattan to Upstate New York. The lower end of this network, nicknamed the High Line, is elevated; the High Line also has advocates seeking its preservation.
[article via Subway Web News; OldNYC on the High Line and the rail cut]
The B, which used to be the Q diamond, which used to be the D--whu?
It's not as confusing as it all sounds, and I'm geeky enough that I'm actually excited: ABC's of subway swap
High Line update
From the latest newsletter comes this update on the High Line project. In brief, the newsletter states that despite the earlier appeals-court ruling, the High Line is in no immediate jeopardy. Friends of the High Line reasserts that the Bloomberg administration supports turning the structure into a linear park.
Psy.Geo.Conflux Call for Proposals
"Psy.Geo.Conflux is an annual event featuring current artistic and social investigations in psychogeography. Part festival and part conference, it brings visual and sound artists, writers, urban adventurers, and the public together in New York to engage in walks, presentations, installations and other events with the purpose of exploring the physical and psychological landscape of the city."
[more | What is psychogeography? | 2003 events]
Mayor can demolish High Line
A state appellate court has ruled that the city can demolish the High Line elevated railway without first seeking outside approval.
The High Line was built in the 1930s to move food and merchandise through lower Manhattan. It fell into disuse in the 1960s and 1970s as trucking replaced rail freight as the primary means of moving goods into and out of the city.
Some local residents believe the structure is unsafe and an eyesore. They want the city to demolish it and turn over air rights to local property owners who hold land underneath the elevated structure. The High Line runs through the popular Chelsea neighborhood, and demolishing the structure could raise property values in the area.
High Line proponents would like to build a linear park atop the elevated structure. They argue that the old rail line is well-designed, stable, and historically valuable; they also say that a linear park would be a unique addition to New York's green spaces. They sued to stop demolition.
This Appellate Court ruling puts the decision into the hands of the mayor. Current mayor Michael Bloomberg supports the concept of a High Line park, but his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani, argued for demolition.
[Gothamist on this ruling. Dietsch on walking the High Line.]
Possum!
An opossum struck fear into the heart of Murray Hill yesterday. No one knows exactly where it came from, but I'm amused by how confused everyone was by it.
For nearly eight hours, a quiet corner in Murray Hill was transformed into a kind of temporary zoo, as passers-by stopped to gawk and guess the identity of the long-snouted cat-size animal that paced along a narrow stone ledge about nine feet over a brownstone garden, sniffing, shaking and yawning.
I used to see these damn creatures all the time, but that was in Indiana. I drove home late one night and saw one in the garage, its long pink tail glistening in the headlights, its beady eyes blinking at me.
Volunteering time or money
The Morning News offers a helpful list of charities and causes.
[via Anil Dash]
Saving a bridge jumper
Brooklyn-based Satan's Laundromat is one of the best NYC photoblogs available; I try to check it weekly. On December 19, however, Mike told a story that's both harrowing and poignant.
Hey, eurotrash guy!
I know you think your tight black leather pants make you look hotttt, but your bigass shopping bag from American Girl Place begs to differ. I know it's Christmas and all, but dude...
American Girl?
New York turns into Boston?
EverythingNY asks: Bars to Close at 1:00?
I have another great idea! To save money, the MTA can suspend subway service from midnight to 5am!
MeFi: Subway busking
An interesting thread has sprung up on Metafilter about buskers in the New York subways.
SantaCon hits Gawker
So, if Gawker has covered Santacon, does that mean that Santacon is now played out or do we have to wait for AM New York to show up?
Pizza by the inch
The all-things-pizza weblog Slice reviews the new pizzaria Pinch. The review makes me very hungry for a tangy thin-crust slice o' pie.
The Pinch concept looks cool: you get a four-inch strip of pizza, priced by length. A twelve-by-four strip is six dollars, and of course toppings are extra.
American Air passengers stranded on tarmac
Passengers arriving at JFK from the Dominican Republic sat on the tarmac for over ninety minutes last night because the ground crew had all gone home.
Moblogging SantaCon
Lauren's just set up a moblog, which is a weblog to which one can post from a mobile phone. Not much is on Lauren's moblog right now, but come Saturday, you'll be able to see live pictures of the bright-red debauchery that is SantaCon.
Last year: Words from SantaCon
Winter in New York
Gothamist notes today several photoblogs with pictures of New York's first major snowfall of the season. In addition to Jake Dobkin's pictures of an all-white Central Park, I also really love Rion's pictures of the Brooklyn Bridge.
I forgot to carry a camera out on Sunday, when I went to the BARC shelter in Williamsburg to walk Billy in the snow.
Custom-made signs from NYCDOT
The New York Department of Transportation now sells custom-made street signs to the public, including reproductions of classic designs.
Signs include directional pointers to Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds, vintage bus stop indicators, signs for kids, and humorous signs.
[Via mug]
Fung Wah Drama Festival
Because the Fung Wah bus is so cheap, it draws a lot of college-aged kids, young hipster types, and backpackers from all over the world. For this reason, I've joked with Jen that it won't be long before Fung Wah winds up in someone's first novel or in a song lyric by some up-and-coming band. I wasn't far off:
With a why-didn't-I-think-of-it title...
...Black Table decrypts the Chinatown bus that Jen and I have grown to love-hate.
Kean's New York photos
Here's something funny: A number of prominent blogs (Metafilter, BoingBoing, Gothamist) have linked to Kean Soo's photo pages from his recent visit to New York. Kean and his brother Meng were in town from Ottawa.
What makes his page noteworthy is his organizational design; he's using a subway map to indicate the places he and his brother visited. I thought that seemed cool, but when I started reading, I saw his mention of the True Porn release party, and I suddenly remembered that I'd met Kean there, because I recalled a guy who had driven down from Ottawa with his brother.
I didn't know anyone at the release party, and so I was wallflowering for a while. Kean was also hanging back a bit, and so we started talking. He signed one of the pages he'd drawn in the anthology for me. He's a good cartoonist, so go check out his work.
FreshDirect comes to my nabe!
FreshDirect is now in my neighborhood--well, parts of my neighborhood, anyway.
FreshDirect is an online grocery store that delivers to neighborhoods in New York City--rolling out first in select Manhattan neighborhoods and slowly expanding into the rest of Manhattan and the outer boroughs.
Turbanhead describes the experience of shopping in NYC groceries.
Sir Lunchalot describes the distribution center.
BusinessWeek explains the model.
When I order, I'll report back.
True Porn release party
Tonight's the New York City release party for the new comics anthology True Porn.
Toys in Babeland, 94 Rivington Street, 7pm - 9pm.
I saw a preview of this at the MoCCA Art Festival over the summer, and it looked very nice, so I'm excited to see the finished product.
The Kicker
Former Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers blogs about New York for New York Magazine. So far, she's already picked a fight with Paper Magazine for its overexposure of indy-queen Chloe/Chlöe Sevigny.
New NYC sites on World Monuments Watch
World Monuments Watch 2004 has placed two New York City sites on its list of endangered sites: St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn, and the whole of Lower Manhattan. Of Lower Manhatan, the Watch states: "Today, some 200 historic and architecturally significant buildings near Ground Zero are at risk, threatened with demolition to make way for new transportation centers, retail corridors, and urban spaces."
Getaway train under Waldorf Astoria
The Post today mentions a special train parked under the Waldorf Astoria as an escape option for President Bush and other leaders staying at the hotel.
The Metro North train is parked at a platform that was built under the hotel during its construction in the 1930s; the platform was previously used by General Pershing and President Franklin Roosevelt, and Andy Warhol's collective is said to have once thrown a party down there.
You can get the whole story, along with pictures of the exterior entrance leading down to the platform, at Joseph Brennan's Abandoned Stations page.
[via Gothamist]