Taste of the New York Subway System
Taste of the New York Subway System is a directory of NYC restaurants organized by subway stop. Wow.
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kottke.org posts about NYC
Article about what five New Yorkers had
Article about what five New Yorkers had to eat for a week. The teen’s diet is the worst; on Tue, she has two sticks of gum, a Twix, a KitKat, 4 portions of french fries, a bag of Corn Curls, and some water. The only healthy thing she eats all week is a couple of bananas.
A night at the ballpark
You know that “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” song? They should add another verse, something like:
Take your glove to the ballgame
and if you don’t, you’re an idiot
We went to the Yankees/Red Sox game at Yankee Stadium with David and Adriana last night and in the bottom of the third inning, Yankees second baseman Miguel Cairo hit a line drive just wide of the foul pole in left field. As I watched the ball coming towards us, I thought a million things — it’s foul, it’s gonna drop into the seats way in front of us, never gonna get here, what’s the count now, is it time for cheese fries yet…almost everything except for “holy shit, it’s coming right at me” — and then stuck my bare hand straight up in the air, leaned slightly to my left, and dropped the ball.
Dropped isn’t the right word, really. Deflected the ball off my bare hand is more accurate. It bounced into the seats behind me and then rolled down under Adriana’s seat. After a brief scramble, some meatheads who were ambling by on their way to beer, pretzels, or the can stuck their paws in and made off with the ball. A Yankees fan who observed the whole thing got up in Meg’s face, framed by her faded Red Sox hat, and yelled, “ha ha, Boston fans can’t catch!” His truth stung almost as much as my rapidly swelling hand. David scored the play as an error, Box 324, Seat 3.
But the most entertaining play of the night by a fan who was not me award goes to the fellow in the yellow shirt who, emboldened by too much Miller Lite, dashed out onto the field, arms raised triumphantly, soaking in the cheers of the adoring crowd. Out came security from all corners of the field and the crowd redirected its enthusiasm from the hunted to the hunters, cheering for blood. “Hit em!” the guy behind me was screaming, “HIT EM!!”
Security eventually converged on the would-be outfielder and he adopted the surrendering posture of a man who knows he’s had his fun, palms in the air, head down, not running anymore, almost sinking to his knees. And — BAMMM! — this security guard, a former linebacker by the looks of him, comes flying in from the blind side and wallops the guy, knocking him to the ground in a full-on lay-out tackle. The crowd roared at the guard’s tackle and cheered lustily as the gladiator was removed from the coliseum.
So many New Yorkers retire to Florida,
So many New Yorkers retire to Florida, it makes sense to see what Manhattan looks like next to Miami. See also my Manhattan Elsewhere project, a map mashup featuring the island of Manhattan visiting Chicago, Boston, San Franciso, etc.
My friend Maciej found this map of
My friend Maciej found this map of NYC divided into sections that contain the same populations as other American cities. The page containing the image says it’s from an unknown “City of New York publication”. Anyone know where it’s from or where to get a better copy? Email me.
Manhattan Elsewhere
A few months ago, I found a map online (which I cannot for the life of me relocate and I’m keen to find it again…any ideas? it’s from Bill Rankin’s The Errant Isle of Manhattan…see update below) of Manhattan pasted next to Chicago, as if the island had taken up permanent residence in Lake Michigan. Recently I decided to explore the unique aspect of Manhattan’s scale with a series of similar maps of places I’ve been to or lived in: Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Barron, WI (my hometown). Manhattan Elsewhere is the result.
Depending on your vantage point, Manhattan seems either very big or very small. On complete map of the New York City area, Manhattan is dwarfed in size by the other four boroughs and surrounding megopolis. But for someone on the ground in Manhattan, the population density, the height of the buildings, the endless number of things to do, and the fact that many people don’t often leave their neighborhoods, much less the island, for weeks/months on end makes it seem a very large place indeed. This divergence sense of scales can cause quite a bit of cognitive dissonance for residents and visitors alike.
For the top image, I used the Google Maps representations of Manhattan and Chicago to create a composite map. In the bottom image, I used Google Earth’s 3-D views to create a approximate view of Manhattan from Chicago. In all cases, Manhattan is to scale with the other cities. Click through for larger images and other cities.
Update: The map on which Manhattan Elsewhere is based was done by Bill Rankin, who runs the excellent Radical Cartography site, and is part of The Errant Isle of Manhattan project. He also did maps for Boston, SF, Door County, WI, Philly, and Los Angeles (look at how gigantic LA is!), which I completely forgot about. He also made more of an effort than I did to connect the roads. (thx, zach)
Short list of hot dog places in
Short list of hot dog places in NYC. What, no Crif Dogs? That’s unpossible.
Coney Island to get a $1 billion makeover?
Coney Island to get a $1 billion makeover? I have a feeling that Shoot the Freak may not have a place in the new Coney Island.
Follow-up to Apple Store proposal (she said yes!)
Last week, I reported on a man using the video camera that Apple had set up to record the opening of their new store on 5th Ave in NYC to propose marriage to his girlfriend, one Uschi Lang.
I got an email from Uschi and she couldn’t be happier to announce that she said yes to the proposal and that her fiancé James has made her “the happiest woman in the world”. Congratulations, you two!
Update: I emailed Uschi and James for some more details and just got a response back. James had been meaning to propose for a few months — he’d had “the talk” with her father over the holidays — and was looking for a good opportunity. They were both in line for the 6pm opening of the Apple Store on Friday when James noticed the camera and a proposal idea that was “unique, timeless, and surprising” popped into his head.
At 4:30 am, he snuck out of bed without Uschi noticing it and headed back to the Apple Store. Based on the timing of the time-lapse video already posted on Apple’s site, James stood with the signs for about 15 minutes (5 minutes per sign) to ensure that they were visible in the video.
A few days later, James set up a “romantic trail of candles” leading up to his G5, showed Uschi the video — which she had not seen despite some coverage on the web — and she of course said “yes”.
Al Gore, movie star
An Inconvenient Truth, a movie about Al Gore’s global warming crusade, opens today in NYC and LA. John Heilemann has a lengthy piece on Gore for New York magazine, the NY Times has a piece about Gore and the movie, the climate science blog RealClimate has a positive review of the film, and here again is my review. Larry Lessig, who knows a thing or two about bringing tha PowerPoint noize, loves the movie, calling the slideshow “the most extraordinary lecture I have ever seen anyone give about anything”.
An Inconvenient Truth will open in the rest of the US in mid-June; check this theater listing for details. For more news, check out the movie’s blog.
Job opening for a web designer
I’m the Design Advisor for a new small company in NYC, and we’re looking for a full-time web designer. I can’t tell you a whole lot about the company here, but I can say it involves the web, contagious media, & weblogs and the people responsible are creative, reasonable, smart, level-headed and not at all “dot com”.
What we’re looking for is a generalist sort of web designer, someone who can develop the information architecture for an information-oriented web application, do visual mockups in Photoshop/Illustrator based on the IA, code the site up with valid XHTML/CSS, doesn’t flee at the sight of a little Perl or PHP code, is familiar with weblogs, and knows some JavaScript. You don’t need to be completely solid on all of that, but if you’re not, you should be a quick on-the-job learner and just generally curious about the world and interested in learning how it all fits together.
I will provide ad hoc feedback and you’ll be working closely with Jonah Peretti and a small team of smart folks onsite in NYC (most likely in Soho or Chinatown). This is a full-time salaried position, benefits are included, and you’ll get equity in the company. The position is open immediately so if you’re interested, send your resume/portfolio to [email protected] with a subject line of “Web Designer position” (plain text resumes and links to online resumes/portfolios are greatly preferred to email attachments). We look forward to hearing from you.
Morning subway demographics in NYC. Early morning
Morning subway demographics in NYC. Early morning blue collar workers give way to late morning white collar workers. (via capn)
Update on the Apple Store marriage proposal:
Update on the Apple Store marriage proposal: she said yes!
Update: Not so fast….that acceptance is probably a fake. I got suckered!
Marriage proposal at the new 5th Avenue Apple Store
Apple opened a new retail store last night on 5th Avenue here in New York City. Since 5pm yesterday evening, they’ve had a camera trained on the store to capture the first 24 hours of the festivities and are displaying the results in a time-lapse movie on the store’s site. During the 5am segment of the movie, an enterprising Apple acolyte showed up and proposed to his girlfriend by holding up signs in front of the camera:
Does anyone know who this person is? Please email me if you do…I want to know how this turned out!
As it happens, this was the second marriage proposal at the opening…the eighth person in line proposed to his girlfriend right before the store opened and she said yes. Geek love!
Update: Uschi apparently said yes! (I say apparently because this blogspot site has the story and I’m assuming it was copied without attribution from a news site or newspaper but I can’t find the actual source.) (thx, robert)
Update: My pal David thinks the acceptance is a hoax…that blogspot site is filled with other fake news stories. I was fished in!!
Laundry bus
Spotted this on my walk to the office this morning:
If you can’t tell, it’s a bus covered with laundry. This had to be an advertisement for something (MTA employees aren’t that eccentric) and after a little poking around online, I found out it’s part of All’s “Spot the Bus” sweepstakes:
From May 15th to 26th, two all small & mighty buses covered in clothes will cruise the streets of New York City. When you see one, send a text message of the time and location to 96787. You’ll be entered in the Spot the Bus Sweepstakes.
If you’d like to take part without actually spotting the bus or even living in NYC (and have a chance at winning $5000), I took the above photo at 10:41am near 14th Street and 10th Ave in Manhattan. Good luck!
Free wifi in Central Park? Hopefully by
Free wifi in Central Park? Hopefully by June.
Update: The free wifi in Central Park thing was supposed have been in place last September. (thx, amy)
Google Maps + Fast Food shows all the
Google Maps + Fast Food shows all the the McDonald’s, Burger Kings, Wendy’s, and Jack in the Boxes in the US on a scrollable, zoomable map. Here’s lower Manhattan + parts of Brooklyn and New Jersey. (Alternate plurals of Jack in the Box: Jacks in the Box or Jack in the Boxen?)
3-D NYC buildings from Google Earth (extracted
3-D NYC buildings from Google Earth (extracted with OGLE) printed out on a 3-D printer.
What’s the fastest way to get to
What’s the fastest way to get to the JFK airport in NYC? Helicopter, bus, subway, car, or cab? (Didn’t the NY Times or the NYer do a piece like this several months ago?)
Update: New York magazine and the NY Times both did stories on getting to JFK. (thx, kyu)
Quirky Manhattan eatery Shopsin’s not moving to
Quirky Manhattan eatery Shopsin’s not moving to Brooklyn as previously reported.
New York magazine does its version of
New York magazine does its version of the power issue for NYC: The Influentials, “the people whose ideas, power, and sheer will are changing New York”. No offense to anyone who made the list, but NYC is unsurprisingly light on technology.
Interactive map (powered by, what else, Google
Interactive map (powered by, what else, Google Maps) showing which area will be flooded when the sea level rises. Here’s what parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens will look like if the sea level rises 7 meters.
Some podcasts are available from Core’s Design 2.0
Some podcasts are available from Core’s Design 2.0 conference held in NYC back in February. The next conference is in SF in June.
Movie schedule for the 2006 Bryant Park Summer
Movie schedule for the 2006 Bryant Park Summer FIlm Festival. Bring a picnic and enjoy the likes of Bullitt, Rocky, and The Manchurian Candidate.
Update: Subscribe to the movie schedule in XML or iCal format. (thx, brian)
Cities are a “clash of scales”
NY Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff on the legacy of Jane Jacobs and why her views on cities aren’t universally applicable:
The activists of Ms. Jacobs’s generation may have saved SoHo from Mr. Moses’ bulldozers, but they could not stop it from becoming an open-air mall. The old buildings are still there, the streets are once again paved in cobblestone, but the rich mix of manufacturers, artists and gallery owners has been replaced by homogenous crowds of lemming-like shoppers. Nothing is produced there any more. It is a corner of the city that is nearly as soulless, in its way, as the superblocks that Ms. Jacobs so reviled.
But I have a hard time believing — as Mr. Ouroussoff does — that:
…on an urban island packed with visual noise, the plaza at Lincoln Center — or even at the old World Trade Center — can be a welcome contrast in scale, a moment of haunting silence amid the chaos. Similarly, the shimmering glass towers that frame lower Park Avenue are awe-inspiring precisely because they offer a sharp contrast to the quiet tree-lined streets of the Upper East Side.
Surely we can devise better ways of introducing contrasts in scale into our cities than building Lincoln Centers.
Ouroussoff’s article includes a companion audio slideshow of him talking about Jacobs and also of West Village residents sharing their views on their neighborhood that Jacbos lived in and wrote about long ago.
The Puzzle Loft
Among the many things New York is famous for is the tiny apartments of its inhabitants. Our first apartment here was about 400 square feet and somehow the people who lived downstairs from us in an apartment with the same footprint fit two people and two pitbull-type dogs into that space. In a recently released book, Apartment Therapy’s Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan reveals that he and his wife live in a 250 square foot apartment in the West Village.
Having such small apartments, city residents want to make the most of the space that they have. In designing a loft apartment for his son, architect Kyu Sung Woo came up with an interesting solution to the space problem…he fit two stories into a one-story apartment. The result is The Interlocking Puzzle Loft, a surprisingly spacious two-bedroom palace crammed into 700 square feet.
As shown and described in this article from Dwell, the key element in the loft is the half-height bedroom above the kitchen and the bedroom’s walkway positioned above the short downstairs hall closet and back kitchen counter, which allows the apartment’s inhabitants to stand up in the bedroom. Pretty genius idea.
Old 70s song about the subway from
Old 70s song about the subway from Sesame Street. This went totally over my head as a kid, but as a NYC resident, it’s awesome. On the subway. Subway!
Cheese by Hand is a project by
Cheese by Hand is a project by Michael Claypool and Sasha Davies to “capture the experience of cheesemakers around the country, in their own voices, and share them with consumers and cheese fans everywhere”. Jasper Hill Farms cheese = great; audio about JHF approach to cheese, even better. (via megnut, who, if you haven’t noticed, is blogging up a storm about food lately)
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