Micropolis:NYC

arthistoryeveryday: Max Is Rushing in the Bagels to a...

Fri, 17 May 2013 21:42:05 -0400

Max Is Rushing in the Bagels to a Restaurant on Second Avenue for the Morning Trade by Weegee (1940)

Does the very geography of Manhattan make it more inviting to...

Wed, 15 May 2013 20:30:54 -0400

Does the very geography of Manhattan make it more inviting to immigrants and other newcomers?

The idea came up during a long walk I took down Broadway with Becky Cooper, the author of “Mapping Manhattan,” and Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker, who wrote the introduction.

“Mapping Manhattan” is a crowdsourcing project that uncovers the intense emotional associations New Yorkers have with the island. Becky wandered about the city, handing out blank maps to people on the street and asking them to scrawl away. She also roped in celebrity contributors, like Yoko Ono and Australian supermodel Nicole Trunfio.

Love came up, as did sex, hate, prostitution, death, and Patricia Marx’s lost gloves.

But on our walk, we kept returning to geography, and the street grid that defines Manhattan.

“The grid plan that makes New York so distinct is one that in a certain sense cancels personality,” said Gopnik. “Whereas Paris and London are both, in a certain sense, organic cities, they’ve grown up over a long period of time. The irrationality of their structure is a reflection of that long history, that’s why you need to take 2 years to learn how to become a taxi driver in London. New York has a super impersonal plan. But it takes on a private impress. That corner on the absolutely rectilinear grid, of 23rd and Broadway, becomes your corner.”

“I feel like the grid pattern actually invites personality,” said Cooper, “because of how non-specific it is. Because the second you come here you feel you own a part of it. There isn’t this barrier to entry, there isn’t this exclusivity of the person who’s grown up here.”

Listen to our full Micropolis conversation here.

And check out Becky Cooper’s “Mapping Manhattan” Tumblr.

Scenes from Matilda the Musical I got the chance to peek around...

Wed, 15 May 2013 20:02:06 -0400

Scenes from Matilda the Musical

I got the chance to peek around backstage just before showtime and it was pretty cool — a window into the dark childhood landscapes of Roald Dahl.

The show’s been one of the most highly-reviewed of the season. It’s up for 12 Tony awards, including Best Musical — pitting it against Kinky Boots, which is also up for a slew of awards and was scored by Cyndi Lauper (a Queens native).

One award it won’t claim at the Tonys is for Best Actress. The 4 girls who took turns playing Matilda were ruled ineligible for a joint award. Oddly enough, the 3 guys who played the lead role in Billy Elliot did win the best actor award in 2006.

The view from the top of WTC One. eyeheartnewyork: This is what...

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:45:07 -0400

The view from the top of WTC One.

eyeheartnewyork:

This is what Manhattan looks like if you were to be hanging roughly 1,776 feet in the air from a crane. Via camera footage from the Port Authority, h/t @verge

Donald Glover talking about the comments he received during his...

Tue, 14 May 2013 20:01:47 -0400

Donald Glover talking about the comments he received during his campaign to be the next Spider-Man (x)

“I was talking about it with Dan Eckman, who directed my Bonfire video. Can you imagine that trailer? That would be dope. Like it makes sense… a poor black kid in Queens. Like it just fits.”

Carry on.

Mon, 13 May 2013 16:42:05 -0400

Carry on.

Karaoke bar in Astoria. I wonder how many times this happened...

Mon, 13 May 2013 11:17:45 -0400

Karaoke bar in Astoria.

I wonder how many times this happened before they had to make a sign.

thezartorialist: Brooklyn Botanic Garden multiple empty...

Sun, 12 May 2013 12:19:00 -0400

thezartorialist:

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

multiple empty plastic cups —> blissful nap on the grass

maximalist-theme: Douglas Fairbanks boosting Charlie Chaplin to...

Fri, 10 May 2013 16:04:03 -0400

maximalist-theme:

Douglas Fairbanks boosting Charlie Chaplin to promote the Liberty Loan at a Wall Street Rally. New York, 1918.

Chaplin even made a short film to help sell bonds for World War I. Decades later, U.S. officials labeled him un-American, and he was forced into exile.

lauraolin: think-progress: 4259 days after Sept. 11, One World...

Fri, 10 May 2013 10:17:41 -0400

lauraolin:

think-progress:

4259 days after Sept. 11, One World Trade Center now stands at full height of 1776 feet.

What a shot.

The Tower formerly known as Freedom is now the tallest in the Western Hemisphere — spire included.

How fun is this: In the middle of their workday, office...

Thu, 09 May 2013 20:41:27 -0400

How fun is this: In the middle of their workday, office employees in Midtown Manhattan have started trekking to lunch-hour dance parties held at nightclubs.

These include Laurie Batista, 31, an executive assistant at an advertising agency…

… she was wearing purple lensless Wayfarer-style glasses, waving a footlong foam glow stick and mouthing the words to Warren G’s “Regulate.”

Around her, hundreds of other revelers did similar things: a guy in Chuck Taylors moonwalked across the dance floor, a man in a hoodie threw up his hands to form the “W” that stands for the rap group Wu-Tang Clan. Strobe lights bounced off a giant disco ball. Sweat glistened on foreheads. “Gin and Juice” thumped. Cheers erupted. It was midday, but inside Marquee, it could have been 2 a.m. [NYT]

Sounds far less pathetic than eating over my keyboard.

The DJ’s at these affairs include Questlove of The Roots, and aside from the all the twenty- and thirty-something attendees are some retirees.

“I just happened to be walking by and a young lady gave me a flier and I said, ‘O.K., I have nothing else to do for lunch,’ ” said Dorothy Vazquez, a 68-year-old resident of Brownsville, Brooklyn, who happened on the latest Lunch Beat. Ms. Vazquez said she normally dances at her local seniors center. She smiled, surveying the people filing into the club. “I’m looking forward to boogieing,” she said.

Photo by Benjamin Norman for the New York Times

dailydot: Spike Lee creepin on Reggie Miller.

Thu, 09 May 2013 14:12:36 -0400

dailydot:

Spike Lee creepin on Reggie Miller.

In the 1800s, part of the West Village was known as...

Thu, 09 May 2013 10:30:41 -0400

In the 1800s, part of the West Village was known as “Little Africa, or less kindly as Coontown,” writes John Strausbaugh in his fascinating new book “The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues, a History of Greenwich Village.”

“Little Africa also drew free blacks and ‘mulattoes’ who’d come to New York from the West Indies. Often better educated and with more skills than the city’s freed slaves, some of them thrived, within the limits imposed on them. One [William Henry Brown] started America’s first black professional theater company in Greenwich Village in 1821….the African Grove, with an all-black company….Its first full-lengthproduction was Richard III.”

“As other productions followed — Othello, some farces and pantomines, and most controversially Brown’s own The Drama of King Shotaway, about a slave rebellion in the Indies — whites began to join blacks in the audience. They didn’t sit in respectful silence. Black actors performing Shakespeare represented to them an amusing novelty. A newspaper from 1822 reports that ‘the audience was generally of a riotous character, and amused themselves by throwing crackers on the stage, and cracking their jokes with the actors.’

“The seating policy at the African Grove, amazingly, instituted reverse segregation: whites were relegated to the back rows because, as a handbill stated, they didn’t know ‘how to conduct themselves at entertainments for ladies and gentlemen of color.’”

Brown closed down the Grove in 1823, but one of the company’s star actors, Ira Aldridge (shown above, in Titus Andronicus) moved to England, “where he became renowned for his Othello, as well as his Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, and Shylock, the latter roles sometimes performed in whiteface makeup.”

More on “The Village,” by John Strausbaugh

eau de A-Rod. That’s a whole lotta smell.

Wed, 08 May 2013 10:40:39 -0400

eau de A-Rod. That’s a whole lotta smell.

“I have no patience for contemporary handlebar mustaches....

Tue, 07 May 2013 10:30:37 -0400

“I have no patience for contemporary handlebar mustaches. They anger me. They look indulgent and ridiculous. If you have a handlebar mustache, that is pretty much all you are. You are a delivery system for a handlebar mustache. I saw a guy in Brooklyn once with a handlebar mustache, pierced ears, a fedora hat and jodhpurs. He was a collage of sartorial attempts at evading himself.”

— Marc Maron

New York Legislature Votes to Ban Trade of Shark Fins I’ve...

Mon, 06 May 2013 20:02:07 -0400

New York Legislature Votes to Ban Trade of Shark Fins

I’ve never had shark fin soup, but there are apparently 66 restaurants in New York City that carry it on their menus, according to the Animal Welfare Institute.

That’s likely to change, now that New York legislators voted to ban the trade of shark fins. If Gov. Cuomo signs the bill into law, New York would become the 8th state to ban the delicacy.

The fins of as many as 73 million sharks are used to make shark fin soup each year, according to the Humane Society. By one estimate, there are 90 percent fewer sharks worldwide than there were 50 years ago.

Due to its huge Chinese population New York is one of the largest markets for shark fins outside of Asia and the largest port of entry for shark fins on the East Coast.

“Every banquet hall that caters to Chinese-style weddings serve shark fin,” said Patrick Kwan, Director of Grassroots Organizing at the Humane Society. And he added, “just because shark fin is not on the menu, doesn’t mean it’s not available.”

California also banned shark fins, despite a lawsuit by Asian groups claiming it was discriminatory.

Shark fin photo by chooyutshing

This just in: Bill Clinton asked Led Zeppelin to reunite for the...

Mon, 06 May 2013 14:48:00 -0400

This just in: Bill Clinton asked Led Zeppelin to reunite for the 12-12-12 Hurricane Sandy relief concert — and was turned down.

David Saltzman, executive director of the Robin Hood Foundation, which organized the concert, said there were 2 bands they desperately wanted to rope in: the Rolling Stones and Zeppelin.

“And, you know, the President was terrific,” Saltzman said on 60 Minutes. “He goes, ‘I really want to do this. This would be a fantastic thing. I love Led Zeppelin.’”

“And Bill Clinton himself asked Led Zeppelin to reunite. And they wouldn’t do it.”

O…M…G… To be honest, I only blogged this so I could show Robert Plant holding a dove and a cigarette. Also, since when did news like this end up on 60 Minutes??

blackhistoryalbum: BALLERS | 1920s Alpha Phi Alpha basketball...

Sat, 04 May 2013 13:51:42 -0400

blackhistoryalbum:

BALLERS | 1920s

Alpha Phi Alpha basketball team on the steps on of there fraternity house on Striver’s Row, Harlem, NYC, circa 1920s. By James Van Der Zee Via

Black History Album, The Way We Were
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That coach in the cardigan looks like he doesn’t mess around.

Amazing camera obscura projections of Brooklyn Bridge and...

Fri, 03 May 2013 14:44:00 -0400

Amazing camera obscura projections of Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park, by Abelardo Morrell.

Warning: Nobody over 260 pounds allowed on New York’s new...

Thu, 02 May 2013 20:30:33 -0400

Warning: Nobody over 260 pounds allowed on New York’s new bike-share bikes

The New York Post has the scoop, along with the photo of that guy in the red t-shirt (I wonder if he knew he’d be in their story):

Everyone who signs up for the program has to agree to a contract, which states users “must not exceed maximum weight limit (260 pounds)” because the bikes can’t hold that much heft.

Bike-shares in Boston and London apparently have the same weight limit but the clause has, predictably, prompted anger.

“If you’re 260 pounds or 300 pounds and want to ride a bike, you should be allowed to. You’re making a choice to live healthier and to lose weight,” said Jhoskaira Ferman, a 20-year-old student from Pelham Bay, Bronx.

However, according to the Department of Transportation “there are no plans for actual enforcement.” [Gothamist]