One weekend's excursions

The guy pictured at the bottom of the stairs was stealing magazines from Whole Foods. He had them folded in half in his back pocket, but didn't realize they were sticking up at a 45 degree angle; making the back of his sweater poke out like he had a dagger stuck in his back. I decided for certain that he was stealing them when he not-so-subtly stretched the sweater further down over them as he walked out of the door. Nothing I could do about it but chuckle and snap a quick photo.



A shot looking north up Irving Pl from the roof of the Seafarers & International House on 15th street. I didn't feel comfortable leaning my camera phone further out, or you'd be able to see further up the street. Quite the sight, despite Gramercy park's trees blocking the view. Gramercy park is an interesting thing in itself. It is surrounded by a fence, and the only people who have keys to the gate are the people living directly next to it. Needless to say, the park is beautiful and the people living directly next to it definitely look like old money. Two blocks South of where I'm at and you might think you're in the ghetto (as my cousin Jami commented). Two blocks north and you've got millionaires around Gramercy Park. That's New York for you!



Same rooftop, looking east down 15th street. The other side of the intersection, where the cars are waiting for the green light, is in front of the Penington Friends House, where I hope to live (just put in my application today!).



Now looking west over Union Square. Union Square is a fun little place. It's surrounded by some great little shops and restaurants, and even a few chains that I like such as Whole Foods Market and Barnes & Noble Booksellers. I can't wait to go into the Barnes & Noble here. It was very cool looking (picture coming soon). You can order a book online, and receive it same day in Manhattan. How cool is that? Getting back to Union Square: I mentioned in a previous post that it often feels like a parade in NYC. One of the places which makes me feel that way is Union Square. It's been packed since I got here (probably because I arrived with the spring weather). There are people with stands selling artwork all through the square.



Looking at this picture, one might think "aren't there any windows in the inside rooms?". My cousin Jami came to town on Saturday, and it was something she and I discussed briefly at one point. For the next 24 hours, it freaked me out looking at the apartment buildings crammed next to eachother. Are there any windows in the inner apartments? Lo and behold, the next day I went on a Big Onion walking tour and the tour guide spent some time talking about apartment innovations. Apparently, in the old days of apartments, there were no windows on the inner rooms.

Because of all of the immigration, what was originally designed as a one-family apartment often turned into a six family apartment, with numerous families crowding into the inner rooms. In 1879, the city stepped in and required the use of the "dumbell" design, which allowed air and some light down between the buildings. Modern-day apartment buildings have a huge square cut out of the middle, allowing enough room for a courtyard between the buildings. A picture of the dumbell design (right):



The Mall


From what I've heard, there is only one mall in Manhattan (another reason NYC is great!), the Manhattan Mall. I went in there to hit up the Brookstone and purchase a rockin' Pocket Umbrella, complete with a wind valve at the top (to prevent inverted--and consequently, broken--umbrellas when gusts of wind hit), teflon coating, and a stronger aluminum frame. Plus, it folds down to about the size of a 16oz soda bottle for easy transportation. Umbrellas are a huge part of life in NYC, because you walk everywhere. If you want to see commerce in action here, just watch how there are suddenly umbrella salesmen everywhere when it starts raining.



Not very often you see a boy running a water fountain for a pigeon.



Oh, the irony of this tourist photo.



Umm...



Some of the subway stations have these excellent maps which actually show the shape and size of the underground subway stations. It can be disorienting walking out of the same subway station you walked into just that morning, but find yourself two blocks from where you originally went in!

Subway Musicians




You know your music is good when you get the bums up and dancing! I've made it a policy to always give subway musicians a dollar. I love hearing live music while I wait, and I figure if they make money doing it they'll keep doing it. So they always get a buck from me. Two if they're playing classical.



There's a blurry camera-phone shot of Jami in Central Park. It was a beautiful, albeit borderline hot day in the city. I've noticed that anything below about 55 here is cold, and anything above 75 is hot. Good to know since I'm outdoors so much here. I've already had two sunburns! Need to grab some sunblock next time I walk by Duane Reade, the city's favorite drugstore.



Jami and I went to the American Museum of Natural History. The photo above is a snapshot of the Butterfly Exhibit, where you walk through the inside of the butterfly habitat. It's the second time I've been to this museum, and it definitely won't be the last. The best part both times was the show in the Space Theater. This time, it was Cosmic Collisions. IMAX doesn't hold a candle to this:




Sunday:
Today I went on a walking tour of the Jewish Lower East Side. The first jewish immigrants to New Amsterdam (as New York was called in the 1600s) arrived in the 1630s. There were 23 of them, and their immigration was not pleasant. They had just fled Brazil when their ship was pirated by privateers. They were then dumped off in New Amsterdam, where Stuvyesant, the current governor, petitioned to have them sent away. The Dutch West India Company, then owners of New Amsterdam, forced Stuvyesant to keep them there as long as they were willing to work. Needless to say, they weren't welcome. As if that weren't enough, they were then sued by the privateers for the cost of the "passage" to New Amsterdam.



This is one of the oldest bank buildings in the Lower East Side. In the bottom picture, the tall curly haired dude is Konstantine, a guy who moved here on a whim 6 months ago. He's originally from Russia, was moved to California when he was 7, then on a jeep trip cross country drove into NYC. He had planned to live in San Francisco, but once he got here he "just stayed". Just to the right of him is Megan, the tour guide. All of the Big Onion tour guides are history majors, and so far all of them have been very passionate tour guides. Megan was no exception.



"You know you're in Chinatown when..."

We went through Chinatown during the Jewish history tour. The reason for that is that Chinatown used to be as Jewish as it is now Chinese.

One of the things I learned on the tour is that the buildings with stoops (like many brownstones) were built by the richer residents of Manhattan back in the horse days. With as many as a quarter million horses in Manhattan, there was a huge problem with keeping the streets clean. It was made worse by the fact that at the time, there were no street cleaning crews. On top of that, if a workhorse died in the street, there was usually nothing the owner could do but walk away. Because of the weight of a dead horse, no one else could carry the horse away either. Apparently, when the city finally did institute street cleaning, there were some places where the cobblestones were many feet deep below the "street level". So when you see stairs leading up to a building, it's because the richer residents wanted to be as far away from the street as possible. I don't blame them!



Here's why you don't bring a car to Manhattan. Parking is at such a premium, it's actually cost effective to install multi-car lifts on the paid parking lots! I didn't look at the price per hour to park there, but I can only imagine it was astronomical.



Sho, this one's for you: some italian ice.



Real New Yorkers are never caught without something to read. You spend a lot of time waiting for subway trains and riding subway trains. May as well put them to good use! I'm quite a way into War and Peace now that I've moved here.



To finish off the day, I played chess with a Chess Master. I actually did pretty good! To an outsider, and to me, it looked like a good game. He says that he thought I knew what I was doing, up until the eleventh move. Then he had me.