Headed out to The Gates installation in Central Park this morning, very early, to try to take some photos before there crowds arrived. I'll be putting them up on the photolog over the next week or so, but I've also posted some of the raw shots to flickr.
Apparently I'm not the only one who really likes the new American Express ad, "Tribeca", featuring Robert Deniro talking about New York City, reportedly direct by Martin Scorcese. If you haven't seen them on television (I'm not sure they're running outside the New York media market) then you can watch them online here.
Took this while in midtown today on errands. Just playing around.
We've had thunderstorm after thunderstorm here in New York tonight, sweeping in from New Jersey. The two shots above are of strikes hitting on the NJ edge of the Hudson.
Photographing lightning can be amazingly fustrating. You're caught between issues of low light, high noise, and te need to both maximize the image but capture as wide an angle as possible (so you get it on film.) It took me forever to get a couple of strikes, I missed most, and now I have the camera set up taking photos once a minute automatically, just to see if it gets lucky.
Update: Chris Burrows from Gothamist Weather took a great multi-fork picture of the same storm. Shows what you can do when you're not too lazy to go outside.
The Times has a piece today on trailer parks being swept away by urban development.
Given that our apartment isn't any bigger than a mobile home, today is one of those times when I wish I could disconnect the utilities and drive it somewhere else. Our adjacent neighbor is having a loud and ongoing war with their upstairs neighbor, with one side's stereo matched by the upstairs side apparently dropping what sounds like a bowling ball on the floor to express their grievances. About a half hour ago, they escalated into face to face confrontation -- charmingly, in the hallway outside my front door. Ah, the joys of apartment living. Those trailer park residents just don't know what they're missing out on.
Yesterday's visit to Slate went well, although I once again proved that there's a negative correlation between my beer intake and my motor skills. (Surprise.) The food I sampled was fairly tasty too, and definitely above the standard pool-hall grub without being ludicrously expensive.
My only criticism: they might want to rethink their DVD movie choices for projecting on the translucent, 8-foot-wide screens... Clockwork Orange perhaps isn't the best movie to show. A great movie perhaps, but not exactly something you want as random background visuals. A little, um, freaky.
As I theorized previously, the no-smoking rule definitely improves the place, assuming you're not a smoker. Slate was a great place to shoot some pool, watch the Sixers-Pistons game, and have some beers, especially when you can breath freely. (I'm probably going to attrack the ire of some smokers on this one. If they can come in from outside long enough to post.)
One under-sung benefit of the smoking ban is that you can now shoot pool (ehem, "billiards" for the sticklers) at many of the city's fine establishments without contracting black lung.
I'll be trying out Slate on Friday night with some of my buddies. It's a step up from the "dive" parlors many of us frequented in high school (LeQ anyone?) and college.
Hopefully, my Amtrak train from Boston will arrive on time, or at least within an hour of when it's supposed to. I'm not betting on it though; I've watched them try to get things right on the Acela Northeast line for years, yet they've still only reduced the travel time from four hours to three-and-a-half hours, and if anything goes wrong, you're going to be late arriving. (Caveat: I did arrive 10 minutes early today. A minor miracle.)
Yesterday, about 20 of my business school friends and I mounted an expedition up to the Split Rock golf course, which sits along with the Pelham public course at the top of the 6 subway line. It was a beautiful day to be out and playing, even if my game isn't so pretty.
Many New Yorkers are unaware that a wide range of public courses can be reached by subway, and they're in better condition than past years due to a takeover by publicly-traded company American Golf a few years ago. Every borough other than Manhattan has a couple of courses. The fees have gone up since the company took over, but they're still within the $35-$50 range. If you can prove New York residency, they will give you cheaper rates.
I've played Van Cortland, at the top of the 1/9 line, as well. It's a little easier to get to (you can walk there from the subway station, while Split Rock requires a short cab ride.)
Both courses are generally in great condition in terms of the actual links. Unfortunately, the clubhouses are terrible, but these are public courses, not country clubs. Rent a cart or walk, although you should have a decent carry bag if you want to walk.
If you're a beginner, borrow clubs from someone or buy a cheap used set off Craigslist or Ebay (think $50.) It'll be worlds better than the rental clubs they offer and cheaper after just a visit or two.
The Times covers yesterday's decision to increase the cost of rent-stabilized apartments -- 8.5% for two year leases, and 5.5% for one-year leases.
What's not being said: many rent-controlled and rent-stabilized apartments probably are already going at about half the market value (especially in Manhattan.) I lived in Cambridge, MA when they ended rent control, and despite major protests, there was no mass rent hike, and no mass exodus.
New Yorkers want to simultaneously maintain low rents and see more apartment built. If you're not one of the 1 million already in rent-stabilized apartments, you're suffering from the result of this artificial depression of market rates. Putting limits on what some tenants can pay (rather than letting the market decide) makes the rent for everyone else higher, discourages new buildings and reduces the availability of apartments to those willing to pay market prices.
Yes, I realize the flip side of this -- that rising rents would force some people out of apartments if they can't pay. But I find it hard to listen to people claiming hardship for paying sub-market rents, while I have to pay some of the highest rents in the nation if I want to get a new place, simply because my needs in terms of apartment size change.
[Via Gothamist]
Television host Bill Maher from HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher will be performing at the Virginia Theater in midtown for two weeks, starting May 5. Should be interesting. Maybe they could get Jon Stewart from The Daily Show to open for him.
"BILL MAHER: VICTORY BEGINS AT HOME" - A one-man show with the political humorist. Virginia Theater, 245 W. 52nd St. (212)239-6200. (1:30) Previews begin Tue. Opens May 5. Closes May 18.
If you haven't been to see experimental show De La Guarda in Union Square over the past five years, your chance to do so is rapidly fading. Walking by the theatre this morning, I noticed a sign saying they will be ending the show as of May 5th. I don't know if they lost the space at the Daryl Roth theatre, or it's an economy thing, or what, but they're not going to be there any longer.
From the home office, in Union Square:
5. You say "bless you" -- when your next door neighbor sneezes
4. The TV keeps getting drowned out by the vacuum upstairs.
3. You know when your neighbors argue. And laugh. And whisper.
2. The dog upstairs sounds like Dumbo the Elephant at play, dragging a chain back and forth.
1. Alarm clocks wake you up three times in one morning... but you don't own one.
Alex at Brokentype is railing against \Bloomberg's Doomsday Plan, villanizing the mayor for releasing a (proposed, alternate) budget that includes deep cuts to police, fire and zoo budgets. [Via Gawker]
A fun read maybe, but lacking an explanation of why that budget was released, or what the situation is in City Hall and Albany.
Webloggers are portraying the mayor as putting out this budget because he doesn't want to raise taxes. He does, and he wants to do it in a fairly reasonable way -- a commuter tax and increased bridge tolls. The budget you're discussing is being used as the "alternate" option to those taxes being allowed by Albany -- and it's intentionally as painful, and brutal, as possible.
The excuse can be made, of course, that this is just snide, insider commentary that assumes readers already fully understand the situation's reality -- extremism for the purpose of humor, etc. But I'm pretty sure that if I stopped people on the street, not one in ten would understand why this "doomsday" budget was released, making these kind of posts irresponsible (not that weblogs always care about that.)
The commuter tax is a reasonable request. New York spends million in extra police, fire and transportation for people who work in NYC but don't pay taxes here. (And I point out, many of those are among the highest paid in New York.)
Albany, of course, doesn't much like New Yorkers and is the middle of being late with its own budget, for the 19th year in a row. Our city wouldn't have any bargaining power in terms of getting higher tolls or a commuter tax without showing just how deep the cuts are going to have to be if Albany doesn't help us.
One of the biggest problem with many weblog posts is that they're knee-jerk reactions to headlines, the same complaint that many of us online writers make about print journalists when they cover stories we're personally close to. (e.g weblogging, dot-coms, etc.) There's been a rash of editorializing lately that seems to have been driven by only reading the first paragraph of the news articles about this situation.
[Followup: The New York Times has a great op-ed today by Bob Herbert on the state of the city, and the issues of the doomsday budget. When my Financial Times free student subscription runs out, I'm going to start buying the NYT every day instead of the Journal, which is fine to read online.
In Flowing Faster, the Financial Times offers commentary on the London congestion charging program, and predicts that the system will spread rapidly to other areas where traffic is a problem.
"Given the ferocity of the opposition to the congestion charge, just as important is what has not happened. There has been no chaos. The technology has not crashed. The predicted mass non-payment campaign was still-born. Businesses within the zone have not suffered unduly. London's creaking public transport has coped. The public does not judge the charge to be unfair, either to motorists or to the poor. And Mr Livingstone still seems quite likely to be able to add further chapters to his political career."
What's it going to take to get this in New York? I've heard suggestions that there's a strong political lobby backed by parking lots owners that would fight such a program.
Fellow Manhattan webloggers Jonathan Van Gieson and Lockhart Steel are taking sides over New York City's smoking ban. As a New Yorker, bar patron and non-smoker, I have to side with Van Gieson... I'm looking forward to a weekend where my clothes don't end up smelling like I work for Altria, and I think there's far more patrons now who don't smoke. Yet at the same time, as a lifelong New Yorker, I can't help but feel that it's another form of the creeping gentrification that threatens to turn downtown into the latest Disneyland; been to Times Square lately, anyone?
Memo
Re: Spring
It's mid-April, and we've still got the weather set to January. Did someone forget to switch over to Spring? Or are we just jumping directly to a gritty, New York summer?
The Morning News did a great piece last year on New York jargon that I ran into recently. If you don't relate to it, you probably don't live in New York. I know I personally hit at least two of these issues every day.
Metrotard (noun): A person in front of you at the subway turnstile who can't figure out how to swipe his or her subway pass. Also: A person who tries to use a Metrocard to withdraw money from an ATM.
The New York Times reports that in the midst of a tough national economy, New York City is in even worse shape. Anyone with a lot of white-collar, professional friends here could tell you things were bad (given that half of mine have been laid off at least once already), but it wasn't so apparent that the city was falling behind the rest of the country... and to make it particularly happy, they cite revenue drops in investment banking (my summer job) as the source of much of the pain.
Maybe this will finally lead to a correction of New York's sky-high rents... although I'm not going to hold my breath, it would be nice given that I'll be looking for a new place soon.
20 inches of snow meant the day off today in New York (if you didn't have it off anyway) but not before I did 3/4 of my morning commute! It was worse getting back than going uptown... when the subway doors opened at Columbus Circle, there was a snowdrift on the platform (underground) which is never a good sign.
Peter Leonard made it all the way to Columbia's campus and put up a much more extensive spread of snow photos. (Although they're a little in need of some levels work. Snow is hell on auto-exposure systems.)
Looking at Peter's new Moveable Type web site, as well as Lee Clontz's site, make me consider going back to a "prefab" template to get things updated here.
If you're interested in seeing the draft proposals for the World Trade Center Site, you can view them in full online The site is very complete, including documents, renderings, skyline-level views, models, and rendered videos.
I hate all of them.
I grew up in Manhattan and went to high school across the street from the towers. I also remember how impersonal, deserted and useless most of the plazas and streets around them were. The proposals here will largely recreate that by mostly only creating large, faceless office towers and leaving no room for the personality, culture and vitality that is the real New York -- the one at ground level, not the one you see when looking at the skyline on a post card.
Worse, although the proposals mostly respect the request that the footprints of the original towers be left undeveloped, they're completely uninspired in their use of the space. It's not sufficient to simply leave it blank -- the space will be overwhelmed by the 50-story buildings next to it.
Also, the towers being proposed simply aren't very good. I know they only had a month or two to design this, but could they have picked any more boring designs? Skyscraper design has advanced a lot since the original towers were built, and while we aren't going to build as big, we should try to build something that enhances the skyline, rather than just echoing it.
One thing I do agree with in the proposals: let's submerge West Street (the 6-lane "street" that runs along the edge of the site.) Boston has already figured out you're better off putting highways underground and leaving the surface to pedestrians. As it is, it's an eyesore and obstruction, not to mention dangerous.
The Times has rightly taken these proposals to task as completely insufficient. " These are dreary, leaden proposals that fall far short of what New York City -- and the world -- expect to see rise at ground zero." Let's hope that the people making the decisions aren't satisfied, either.