Window dressing seems to be an art form that is taken very seriously only in New York.
Bergdorf Goodman's window design department not only occupies an entire floor of their 57th Street store, but also inhabits a large warehouse across the river in Queens.
Each season, Director David Hoey's elaborate visions enliven the corner of 5th Avenue and 57th Street- adjacent to Central Park and the Plaza hotel. The windows have become more than just a place for showing off the wares for sale at Bergdorf's, but a venue for exquisite installation narrative art. Using designer clothing, antiques, original art works and other borrowed props (this Halloween features a skeleton horse!), the windows are somewhat of an art gallery on their own. I am a big supporter of art for art's sake, which seems to be less common in the United States as opposed to Europe...
Read the rest of: "Windows"»  When you look at a list of the world's top paddling spots, it's unlikely that you'll find Brooklyn, New York.
And it's even less likely that you'll find the Gowanus Canal, a narrow sliver of water that cuts its way from Gowanus Bay through the industrial zones of Red Hook, South Brooklyn, and Park Slope. It's not exactly what you might call scenic, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. It's lined by crumbling warehouses, generating plants, shadowy factories, Coast Guard fuel depots, and even a Home Depot. It meanders beneath the Gowanus Expressway, one of the busiest highways in New York City, and has been referred to as the most polluted waterway in America. A slick, rainbow film of oil and other chemicals gives the water in the canal a colorful, shimmering candy coating that would be beautiful at sunset if it didn't smell like cold metal and gunpowder and leave a disturbing acrid taste in the air. Visibility in the water is almost zero, and any trip across it is highlighted by an overpowering fear that you might get some on you. And yet still, people put paddle to battery-scented water and get both a unique view of New York and a first-hand understanding of how a neighborhood and an ecosystem can flourish, die, and then struggle to be reborn...
Read the rest of: "Drifting Through Brooklyn"»  Thanks to Sex in the City, Magnolia Bakery in the
West Village
has a permanent line around the block. I'm not joking.
The first time I attempted to go there, I assumed because
of the line they had table service. Nope. Just a line to
get cupcakes! $3.50 cupcakes. Beautiful, big, amazing cupcakes!
But seriously, what local would wait in an hour line for a
sugar fix? OK, probably me, until I decided to seek out other
sources to satisfy my sweet tooth in this town....
Read the rest of: "Cupcake Quest"» 
Probably one of the most famous bridges in the world, The Brooklyn Bridge totally lives up to its reputation. Many of my friends who have lived in New York for years have never journeyed over it. Tourists from around the world come and walk it, why don't we? So I decided it was my time to do the deed. I took the E to the first stop in Brooklyn, High Street, which is literally next to the entrance to the bridge. In no time, I was approaching the famous lines of cables that support the suspension. Unlike other Manhattan bridges, the pedestrian walkway on the Brooklyn Bridge is in the center, rather than on the sides, providing an expansive view of the city in front of you...
Read the rest of: "Walking Over the Brooklyn Bridge"» 
In New York City, you're more likely to see a butterfly tattoo than you are an actual butterfly. You'll probably see more flower-selling than flowers growing. Bombarded as New Yorkers are by honking horns, flashing lights, jackhammers, sirens and psychoses, it's important to find some places where you can get away. Where the noise dies down a bit, and the flow of people slows to a comfortable trickle.
Conservatory Garden in Central Park is just that kind of place...
Read the rest of: "Conservatory Garden"» 
Rockefeller Center is a symbol of New York. The annual lighting of the giant Christmas tree and the iceskating rink infront of is has come to define Christmas in New York. Home to countless businesses, NBC, Christie's auction house and retail shops, Rockefeller Center IS New York.
Emphasizing this, artist Anish Kapoor designed an installation highlighting this notion. The Sky Mirror, a temporary exhibition, is a giant concave disk made of stainless steel, and placed at the entrance to the Rockefeller Compound on 5th Avenue. The giant mirror reflects the top of the center and the sky, bringing it to the ground on 5th Avenue. The opposite concave side reflects the hustle and bustle of the street. The sculpture, although physical, represents a window or a view, rather than being an object itself.
Kapoor also designed the permanent famous "giant bean", called Cloud Gate at Chicago's Millenium Park. Also made of stainless steel, Cloud Gate warps Chicago's skyline, bringing it closer and framing the viewer.
 If you are anything like me and you live in New York, going grocery shopping is a nightmare. I feel like a loser lugging those old lady carts across town, but decent grocery stores are few and far between. I've actually found myself attempting to create a healthy diet based solely on the inventory of my corner deli. After contemplating buying a pale peach colored tomato, I decided ENOUGH! I need nutrients! I want to remember what real vegetables taste like, and not just some shriveled mass posing as produce...
Read the rest of: "Union Square Market"» 
Until 1986, the site of the Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, Queens, was an illegal riverside landfill, abandoned and ugly.
A group of local artists got together and decided to turn the area into a park and outdoor museum...
Read the rest of: "Socrates Sculpture Park"» It's 5 am. You've just wandered from the far east side of Alphabet City, in search of pizza, a hot sandwich, SOMETHING that isn't deli chips. But everything is closed!
Wander no more! Hot food awaits at the corner of St. Marks and 2nd Avenue in the East Village...
Read the rest of: "Hot Bamn!"»  On my first visit to Grassroots Tavern, I accepted a $3 pint of Red Hook ESB from the bartender—which in New York City, is a pleasant surprise in and of itself. Being one of New York's many subterranean drinking dens, the place has a basement feel—with low, ornate tin ceilings and weathered wood surroundings. There was a cat walking the wooden planks, which had been blackened from over sixty years of drunken shuffling. The bartender, an efficient man in his sixties, worried out loud that the cat might get downstairs into the basement.
I started to feel a bit like I was in someone's home, and that's always a good sign...
Read the rest of: "Grassroots Tavern"»
New York  |
