New Yorkers in Miami Beach

We've been back from Miami Beach a week now, and I've been so busy catching up on work that I haven't had a chance to post an update. But I have written a couple of things for other websites that will give you an idea at how our trip was. (It was great.)

You can find a post I wrote about Miami Beach for Gridskipper right here.

And you can enjoy a review of Kobe Club Miami that I wrote for BlackBook right here.

And here's an archive of all my Gridskipper stuff, if you'd like to catch up.

I'm going to bed.

First Day of Spring 2008

Welcome, spring. So nice to finally see you again.

The vernal equinox occurred at 1:48 a.m. today, ushering in the most hopeful of seasons.

I shot this photo from my "rear window." This is what back alleys in my part of Brooklyn look like on the first day of spring.

Nonstop Excitement

I've been awfully busy of late, working morning, noon, and night, but I do still find time for the important things in life. Like scrubbing the bathroom! Over the long weekend, I cleaned our upstairs bathroom from top to bottom, scouring the stains off the bathtub through backbreaking labor and the liberal use of bleach. Don't worry, the window was open and Zach was nowhere near. After all was rinsed and dried, I had to show off the clean bathroom to Zach, and this was his reaction.

Roll Down, Roll Up

Well, I didn't see it coming, but the Good Day Dance is officially sweeping the city. From the trendiest Chelsea nightclubs to gritty, outer-borough dance halls, everybody's doing it. The ladies push right, and then push left, as if holding a broom. Guys are responsible for first rolling down, then rolling back up (as if spooling some yarn), and finishing by clapping their hands. Don't try everything all at once. Take it slow, one move at a time. You'll get it.

An Elephant in McCarren Park Pool

I happened upon an elephant while I was walking with Zachary in McCarren Park this afternoon. Elephants are somewhat rare in Brooklyn, so I went back to the house and grabbed my camera. As you may know, the McCarren Park swimming pool hasn't had water in it for decades, but over the past five years or so it has become a venue for movies, concerts, and, apparently, elephants. Click on any of these photos to make them big like elephant. Here's a wide shot.

I had taken Zachary to the playground at the end of the park and pushed him in a swing for a few minutes, but he got tired of swinging, so I strapped him back in the Ergo and strolled around the park. I walked to the fence at the end of the playground to see what was going on in the pool, and sure enough, there was this big elephant. Here's a close-up.


Now, you may be wondering why there was an elephant in the McCarren Park Pool. If you're wondering this, you probably don't live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. An artsy neighborhood like this has weird stuff going on all the time, and I really wasn't that surprised to see it. But it was there for a specific purpose, one which I will only partially divulge, because I respect the concept of what they're doing. In short, the elephant is part of a film that will be screened in an art museum. Here's one more photo:

As for what the film is about, I have to say I'm a little bit proud of myself for guessing it so quickly. As Zachary and I looked through the fence, I noticed somebody standing near the elephant that immediately reminded me of certain parable involving an elephant. My suspicion was confirmed later when I spoke to a guy who was guarding the entrance. That's the topic of the film.

Anyway, the filmmakers probably want to keep it on the down low, and I'd rather not be the guy who divulges the secret. Others might, in fact there are probably a few dozen other Williamsburg residents blogging about the elephant right now, but I'm just happy that I was able to show Zachary his first elephant today.

And it was a majestic elephant, tall and gray and friendly seeming (it didn't stomp on anybody). I enjoyed looking at the elephant today, and was impressed at what a big and magnificent creature it was. Anyway, I just wanted to share my elephant tale. Now it's back to work for me. Oh, one more thing. The elephant was from Commerford Zoo in Goshen, Connecticut, at least according to the truck it arrived in.

Virginia Vacation

Jenn, Zachary and I recently took a mini-vacation in Virginia, which is where I'm from originally. We flew down to D.C. from LaGuardia and dropped Zach off with my parents in Stafford, Virginia. We spent a night there, and then drove to Virginia Beach for a couple of days of sun and fun. Unfortunately, it rained almost the entire time, so it was all fun, no sun, but that's the way it goes. We had a good time anyway.

I went to Old Dominion University as an undergrad. Since ODU is located in Norfolk, Virginia, which is on the way to Virginia Beach, Jenn and I stopped there to take a look at the old campus. ODU has changed so much since I graduated, with lots of fancy-looking new buildings along the main drag of Hampton Boulevard. I remember there used to be a strip of crappy bars with names like Friar Tuck's and 4400 Club. Actually, Friar Tuck's was kind of fun on Sunday nights (I recall getting greyhounds on dollar drink nights), but "44" was a typically awful den of frat-rock silliness. We drove past my old dormitory, Rogers Hall, which looks more or less the same, except now they have a dock on the water. One time a guy I knew on the hall threw an empty vodka bottle out his window and smashed the windshield of a car parked below. I don't condone such behavior. Anyway, then we drove through the Powhatan neighborhood and past the dorm of the same name. It was pretty much as I remembered it. It had been fifteen years.

Then we took a walk across the commons. It was raining, but not hard. Here's a photo of the main campus area, which is more or less unchanged. Click to enlarge.

And here's a shot of the much-expanded student center. I had a radio show on the campus radio station, WODU, and the studios were in this building. Those were good times. Jenn and I walked through the center and through the bookstore, but didn't buy anything. There actually used to be a rathskeller in Webb Center, but I imagine that's long gone.

Here's a photo of a fountain with a statue of the ODU mascot, the Monarch. In this case, a Monarch is a lion, not a butterfly. How could a butterfly play basketball? A lion, on the other hand, makes an excellent basketball player.

They started building a Maglev train that was supposed to shuttle students across the campus, but it was never finished, and now stands idly by. Kind of sad. Here's a story about how and why it failed.

So we left ODU and drove around the parts of Norfolk I remembered, including my old neighborhood of Ghent, which was really the nicest part of the city. We cruised past my old apartment on Princess Anne, saw the grassy areas of Stockley Gardens which flooded one time while I lived there, and I remember a guy in a kayak padding up the street. I had never been in a flood before, and fortunately my building was spared. The water receded after a couple of hours.

We went up and down Colley Avenue, which is like a downtown street from from some turn of the century small American town. It's funny, because at the time it seemed like that was the place to go, with trendy restaurants like Elliot's drawing the sophisticated crowd. Living in New York City as long as I have now, it seemed awfully small and quiet. Jenn and I enjoyed a nice lunch at a restaurant called Kelly's, which was one of the few places from "back in the day" that's still there. (Colley Cantina is the other, along with the Naro theater and Donut Dinette.) I remember that there was sort of a rivalry between Kelly's and Elliot's across the street (though Elliot's was by far the more posh of the two). There was even graffiti in the restroom of Kelly's that said "Flush twice, it's a long way to Elliot's." I checked to see if that graffiti was still there, but it was not.

So I did my reminiscing, and then we hit the road for Virginia Beach. More on that soon.

Hudson River Kayak Adventure

Today Jenn and I did something we've wanted to do for a long time: we went kayaking on the Hudson River from a pier in downtown Manhattan. It was great.

There are several kayak outfitters on the river, but the New York City Downtown Boathouse offers free walk-up kayaking. Yes, absolutely free, though if you're cool you'll put some money in their donation box. This volunteer organization wants to get people involved with ecologically-friendly river activities such as kayaking, so they allow people to borrow kayaks and paddle around in an area between two large piers. The catch is, you can only go out for 20 minutes, and you have to stay within the defined area. But there's plenty of room to paddle around comfortably if you're a novice, and, unless there's somebody waiting to go after you, they'll usually let you stay out on the water longer.

If you really enjoy your introductory kayak adventure, you can sign up for longer trips, included guided kayak tours to Coney Island, the Tappan Zee Bridge (a 50-mile round trip), and the famous Manhattan Circumnavigation.

So this morning I strapped Zach into the baby carrier and Jenn, Zach, and I took the subway to Houston Street, then walked west to Pier 40, on the Hudson River. The kayak place is on the south side of the pier, about half way out.

We initially weren't going to do it this weekend, since we couldn't get a babysitter, or rather, today wasn't the day to shell out the dough for a sitter. But we figured one of us could watch Zachary while the other went out in a kayak and then do a baby hand-off, and it worked out just fine. Zach was very well-behaved and happy to be out with his parents on a nice day.

Jenn went first for about a half-hour in total, and then I got to go out for about the same amount of time. It was fantastic. The weather was beautiful, and the water was just a little wavy, enough to give that feeling of the motion of the ocean that stays with you throughout the day. I can still kind of feel the waves as I sit here at my desk. Up and down, up and down.

The views of lower Manhattan and even Jersey City from the water were great. Neither of us came close to capsizing, though one guy did it on purpose to practice capsize recovery techniques. As you can see from the photos (click to make them big), these are open-top ocean kayaks, so it's not like you'd get stuck upside down if you didn't know how to right yourself, you'd just get dumped out.

Anyway, it's been written about before, and I've even blogged about it for another site, but now I've actually done it and can say definitively that New York kayaking is one of the coolest and cheapest things you can do on a summer weekend.

Pizza Slice = Subway Fare

I've lived in New York City a dozen years now, and in that time I've noticed a few things. One of the things I've noticed, being a big pizza eater and subway rider, is that the price of a slice of plain, cheese pizza from your standard neighborhood pizzeria is almost always the same price as a single ride on the subway.

When I first moved to New York in November 1994 one subway token was $1.25, and so was a slice of pizza. Then, in 1995, the fare went to $1.50, and within weeks, pizza did the same. Now we use MetroCards, which do offer volume discounts, but the price of a single ride is $2, and a standard slice of pizza is also $2. As the New York kids say, "Yo, let me get a slice."

Well, get ready for another subway fare increase. My local pizza shop, Sal's Pizza on Lorimer Street in Brooklyn, recently raised the price of a plain slice to $2.25. I wonder how long it will take for the subway fare to catch up. The funny thing is, the very next morning after I found out about Sal's pizza price increase, I heard on the radio some news story about how the MTA is starting to make noise about another fare hike. I smiled.

Has anybody else noticed the pizza/subway parity? How far do you think it goes back?

Yankee Stadium 2007

On Friday night, Jenn and I got a sitter for Zachary and headed up to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. We were there to meet our friends Jen (one n) and Will, who were kind enough to offer us a pair of extra tickets to the game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Unfortunately, the Yankees got beaten pretty handily that night, and we left at the bottom of the fifth inning (Jen and Will left even earlier than that). But we still enjoyed ourselves, and I sipped a watery $8 Miller Light and Jenn munched on a yummy $6 frankfurter. Good times.

Our seats were located very close to the left field foul pole, and that's left fielder Hideki Matsui in the center of the photo at the top of this entry. I like Matsui. Watching a game on TV has many advantages, but only when you're at the ballpark do you get an appreciation of how big the field is, especially the outfield. On TV it sometimes seems like every ball hit in the park is catchable, but when you're at the stadium it's clear just how far guys like Matsui have to run to make those amazing plays. Also, there's nothing like a foul ball or a home run ball coming your way to get your heart pumping. Just don't spill that $8 beer.

Ironically, while the Yankees got trounced on Friday, when we happened to be in attendance at the stadium, they took both games of a double header on Saturday, went on to win on Sunday, and won tonight as well. Perhaps it's best if I stay home and watch on TV. My presence in the Bronx doesn't seem to help the team.


I snapped this photo on the way out of the stadium as we headed to the subway. It's the beginning stages of the new Yankee Stadium, which is supposed to be ready for the 2009 season. Maybe I'll have better luck there.

The Feast 2007

Another year, another appearance of the Giglio. I've previously written about it here. Jenn, Zach, and I walked through the area of the feast a couple of different times. We wondered if the Giglio had been painted a different color since last year. We didn't stay long but it seemed right to drop by, since it's the neighborhood's biggest event of the year. When Zach is older he'll appreciate the Dance of the Giglio, but for now he's too little.

Here's a picture of a sausage and peppers stand at the feast. We didn't get sausage and peppers for ourselves, though. We got fish tacos from Yola's.

Williamsburg's New East River Park

There's a new park in our neighborhood as of Memorial Day Weekend. Jenn, Zachary and I checked it out on Sunday. It's called East River State Park, and it's located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn along the river between North 10th and North 7th Streets (something like that). There's a brief description of the park here.
It's great to have fresh access to the waterfront, because other than this new park, all residents have is Grand Ferry Park, which is fine and good, but rather small and somewhat dirty at times. I was afraid that we'd be completely cut off from the water by new luxury apartment buildings like the one above. Fortunately, somebody decided to save a sliver of the waterfront for the people.
It's a fairly good sized plot of land, as you can see from this picture of Jenn doing the tightrope walking thing. There's not much in the way of amenities, just a couple of picnic tables and some lawn sprinklers that I guess you could drink from in lieu of a water fountain. I thought about taking a sip last time because I had forgotten to bring a bottle of water, but I didn't do it. The view across the river is kind of lousy from this particular spot of Brooklyn, just low-rise brown apartment buildings from the Lower East Side up to Stuyvesant Town, but it's nice to just look out over the water and wave at the occasional Circle Line boat or water taxi.
Here's a photo of Zachary and me. We like this new pouch carrier. He falls asleep pretty easily in it, even when we're bouncing around. He's a good traveler, which is a relief, because we plan to take him all over the place.

Walking in Brooklyn

It's been another enjoyable yet busy weekend. The weather was really nice today, warm and mostly sunny, so Jenn and I took Zach out to the park, taking the long way home along Bedford Avenue and back up Metropolitan. It seems like every time we go walking in the neighborhood there are about five new apartment buildings going up. It's nice to know some things do stay the same, like this classic New York bodega. Eventually it may well turn into a fancy restaurant, but for the moment it's everything a bodega should be.

Too Lazy to Work, Too Scared to Steal

Back in 1995, when I was still new to New York City, I felt like my chances of getting a real job in journalism were slim and getting slimmer. I was so inexperienced and unsophisticated in the ways of schmoozing that I wasn't able to get anyone at the local newspapers and magazines to call me in for an interview. So I languished at a lousy entry-level job in the human resources department of Columbia House record company, feeling sorry for myself and lamenting the fact that nobody would recognise my undiscovered talent.

After one form-letter rejection too many, I decided to do something about it. I would take a writing class. Maybe I could make some contacts, meet some people, and become a better writer to boot. In any case, I needed to get out of the aparment more.

After attending a seminar at New York University's School of Continuing Education that provided an overview of their night-school writing classes, I enrolled in a class taught by a gruff yet friendly fellow named Bill Bell. Bill wrote for the New York Daily News, and I liked how he spoke to the attendees, explaining to us that he became a journalist because he was "too lazy to work, and too scared to steal." It was a line he probably used a hundred times, but it worked, and it explains half the journalists out there today.

So I enrolled in his class--it was called Feature Story Writing--as well as a creative writing class taught by someone else. I enjoyed his class and always listened intently when he explained what editors are really looking for in a story, how to get to the point quickly, how to take one small detail in a situation and use it to make a larger point, etc.

I liked Bill a lot, partly because he was the very archetype of the ink-stained New York tabloid reporter who'd seen it all and was still in a hurry to see more. It's because of him (as well as my politics) that I've always preferred the Daily News to its tabloid rival, the New York Post. I didn't make any huge breakthroughs in the class, as it was only a few weeks long, but I still remember things he said, like be confident when you interview somebody, no matter how much you need to fake it. He'd been with the News for decades, and was with UPI for decades before that, so he had long since tackled those issues himself, but he still seemed to know what we were going through.

Every time a certain celebrity would come through town, they'd send him to do the standard interview. Dolly Parton was a personal favorite, who would insist on having the photographer snap a photo of both of them together. "I don't like being in photos," he said. "They make me look like my hair is thinning." (See above.) One time he had to call all of us to cancel a class. "I am in Israel," he explained. The paper had sent him to report a story. But to make it up to us, he gave us a tour of the Daily News offices, and even arranged for some editors to speak to us.

After the tour, a few of us convinced him to have a beer with us at a nearby Irish bar. It didn't really take much convincing, and he politely picked up the tab after telling us all the stories we wanted to hear. After the term was over, he gave us his work number and invited us to call for ideas or advice. I called when I had finally gotten a New York newspaper job, at a small trade paper that covered the metals and mining industry. He congratulated me and jokingly asked if I could get him a job there.

I still remember the outgoing voicemail message on his phone: "You've got Bill Bell, but only in spirit, I'm afraid ..."

Unfortunately, that's all we have now. I was saddened to read this morning that Bill Bell died on Saturday at the age of 75. Here is the Daily News obituary. I'm sure Bill Bell encouraged and inspired many young writers. I would just like to say that I am one of them.

[image via the New York Daily News]

Anatomy of a Subway iPod Theft

I recently witnessed an iPod theft on the subway, and here's how it happened. At about 7:00 p.m. a couple of Fridays ago I was in the first car of a very crowded Brooklyn-bound L train. I was heading home from work. The train stopped at First Avenue in Manhattan, and when the doors opened, I overheard a young woman say something like "No way!" Amid the crush of passengers getting out of the train, two figures started tussling with each other, spilling out onto the platform.

Through the window (I was on the inside of the train) I saw two people, a woman of twenty five or so and a high-school aged kid, struggling over something. At first I thought they were two high schoolers horsing around, because they were each about five feet tall or so, but when I saw the flash of a white iPod I also saw the woman's face. Suddenly it became clear what was happening.

The little dirtbag wrenched the iPod from her hands and took off running down the platform toward the exit. The woman took off after him, hot on his heels, dropping some kind of design magazine on the ground in the process. He really picked the dumbest of all possible places to attempt this theft, because the platform was extremely crowded, and he would have to run the length of it to make it out of the station to the street. Furthermore, there's an NYPD outpost at that subway station, a really stupid place to commit a crime like that.

I made my way to the door and poked my head out to see what was happening and help if possible, but apparently the conductor didn't notice anything amiss, because he shut the doors and we continued on to Brooklyn. The whole episode took place in less than ten seconds or so, and it seemed like much less.

So I don't know if the woman ever caught up to the thief, but I have to say I liked her chances. She had quite a defiant attitude, and seemed pretty determined. And the kid would have had to make his way through a very dense crowd, especially the bottleneck near the turnstiles. Even if he did get away, I think she showed him what a cockroach he is. I'm not sure the NYPD would advise everyone to take the course of action she did, but I was impressed with her spirit and quick actions. Go Girl, wherever you are.

I personally don't own an iPod -the one in the photo is Jenn's - but it's a good reminder that the moment of greatest peril is when the subway doors pop open. Always has been, whether it's purses, gold chains, or iPods. Stay aware out there, New York.

Happy Belated Earth Day 2007

Happy Belated Earth Day 2007, everybody. It's never too late to celebrate Earth Day, because every day is Earth Day, right? Our friends Joy and David brought us these flowers last Saturday night, and I thought they looked nice in the sunlight the next day, so voila, instant still life. Jenn, Zachary, and I have been fine, busy as always but enjoying the warm spring weather, though today was on the chilly side.

Tomorrow is Friday, and what a relief. I hope to relax a bit this weekend, catch up on a few things.

Rear Window, Brooklyn

It's raining like crazy in New York today. I went out earlier to get bagels and groceries and got soaked to the bone. It's rainy, and windy, and the temperature is 45 F. Still, it was nice to get out of the house, clear the cobwebs out of the attic, etc. Water was running along the gutters like a mountain stream in the springtime. The subway was running okay, at least mine was, but area airports have cancelled hundreds of flights. Score 1 for the subway.

This is a photo I call Rear Window, Brooklyn. I wanted to get some kind of perspective on today's weather, and since it was raining too hard to really take the camera outside, I took this photo from the safety of the bedroom. Still a bunch of rain got in while I had the window open and I had to wipe off Jenn's copy of Pride and Prejudice on my shirt. The book's fine, the shirt can be washed. Anyway, here's what the backsides of apartment buildings look like in Williamsburg, Brooklyn when it's raining.

If I have time tonight I'm going to polish and waterproof my new Doctor Marten boots.

Trying to Keep Up

Oof, sorry for the lack of updates. I imagine lots of blog posts begin this way, but I've just been busy as all get out. Here's a photo of Zachary and me from earlier today. He's a photogenic young man. Work's been busy, work outside of work has been busy, I'm still hitting the dojo twice a week or so, still seeing friends on occasion, still spending quality time with Jenn and Zachary, still doing everything. It's all good, if a bit tiring. A vacation would be nice, but that's not in the cards for the intermediate future.

It's Saturday night, and Jenn has gone out to meet some friends. I'm staying home with Zachary, and he is currently having a big conversation with himself, saying wooo, and aaaaaah, mmmmm, and oohhh. It's pretty cute, he definitely seems to have something on his mind, and he really thinks he's talking about it, we're just too dim to get what he's saying. Occasionally he gets fed up that nobody understands him. Perhaps he's an artist.

Boynton Beach

Jenn, Zachary and I recently returned from a trip to Boynton Beach, Florida to visit Jenn's mom and stepdad. Other than our flight being delayed about 27 hours on the way down there, everything went well and Zachary was a good little traveler, not fussy at all on the plane or in the airport.

We did a bunch of fun things while we were in Boynton Beach, and one of the most memorable was a walk through the Green Cay Wetlands. The 100-acre park is teeming with wildlife: we saw bugs and fish and turtles and all kinds of birds and even an alligator. There's a 1.5-mile-long elevated boardwalk that goes through it, just watch out for bird poop on the railing.

The bird in the above photo is a crane or a tern or a chicken or something. I kept sort of hoping that an alligator would come and chomp him, but it didn't happen. Click the photo to make it bigger.

Manhattan-Bound F Train

It is snowing like crazy in New York right now, so hard, in fact, that our flight to Florida tonight just got cancelled. That's a shame. Just when you need the sunshine the most, you can't get to it.

So, anyway, sorry for the lack of posts of late. I'm sure it's a familiar refrain, but taking care of a baby (and the extra freelance work required to pay for everything) has whittled down my blogging time to almost nil. And, as much as my mother might appreciate it, I can't just keep putting up baby pictures all the time. This blog is supposed to be about life in New York.

The photo above depicts one moment in our New York life. Click on it to make it big. Last Sunday we (Jenn, Zach, and I) visited our friends (Jen and Steve and their new twins) in Park Slope, a Brooklyn neighborhood south of Williamsburg, where we live. Park Slope is located near Prospect Park, and the whole neighborhood slopes downward toward the west. Hence the name. While we were there, Steve and I snuck away to have a beer at a historic Irish bar called Farrell's. To read my Gridskipper entry about Farrell's, click here.

In order to get to Jen and Steve's place, we had to take the G train from Metropolitan Avenue/Lorimer Street and then transfer to the F train. I took this photo where we made the transfer, at an above-ground station called Smith-9th Street. It captures a Manhattan-bound F train pulling out of the station, with lower Manhattan in the background. If this was pre-2001, you would definitely be able to see the Twin Towers in the distance.

As for our trip out of town, we're still figuring out what to do. Since we can't control the weather (yet) we'll just make the best of it. In any case, it's Friday.

Valentine 2007

Jenn and I had a lovely Valentine's Day this year, and we spent it much the same way as we did last year, except that now we have one more reason to celebrate. Little Zachary was kind enough to stay generally calm and relaxed, allowing us to do the same as we lingered over our feast. As is the tradition, we enjoyed fine cheese and charcuterie from the Bedford Cheese Shop and a few other places in the neighborhood, but this time I decided to kick it up a notch with the addition of a dozen raw oysters served on the half shell. They paired wonderfully with the bottle of Moët & Chandon my parents had given us a couple of months earlier.

After enjoying the oysters, Champagne, cheese, and charcuterie, Zachary got a little fussy, so we put him to bed and then watched An Inconvenient Truth. It's a disturbing but engaging documentary, which I recommend to everybody. Global warming is real. Denying it, or saying there's a "debate" is like saying there's a debate about gravity. We, meaning the human race on this earth, need to dramatically reduce our CO2 emissions, and fast, if we are to avert disaster. This is not partisan politics, this is a wake-up call. We have entered a period of consequences.

Snow Day

One of the nice things about working on 57th Street is that I can take a stroll through Central Park during lunch. Since it snowed last week, I decided to see how the park looked blanketed in white. I entered the park through Columbus Circle (on the southwest corner), and noticed this statue of a young man, defiant and not shivering at all from the cold.



I continued on along the southern edge of the park, appreciating the tranquility of the softly falling snow. I turned on the flash so I could illuminate some of the flakes. It was only a short walk, but I returned to the office feeling just a bit more relaxed.

Winter Steam

It's another cold evening in New York. I shot this photo on February 8, walking to the subway after having visited Seth and Marissa. I walked past this steam vent and thought it looked kind of nice, good for a photo, so I pulled out my camera and went to work until my hands got cold. This is taken facing north on 14th Street, between Avenue B and Avenue C. The tall buildings in the background are part of Stuyvesant Town, which was recently the subject of the largest real estate deal ever in the history of the world.

As for the steam vent, it's kind of a relic from the past. You've probably seen footage of Manhattan that shows steam rising from a crack in the street. I remember one season of Saturday Night Live's introductory bit showed a bike messenger emerging from a particuarly steamy section of road. It looks cool, but what is the steam on Manhattan streets for?

The short answer is ConEd (that is, Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc.) generates and sells steam through their ConEd Steam unit. And, if my Encyclopedia Brown skills serve me correctly, I'd say that steam line on 14th Street was very close to the source. ConEd has a plant on the end of 14th Street, by the East River. Perhaps they produce the steam there and send it uptown, downtown, and all around.

Okay, so the question is, what is this steam used for, besides creating noirish affects for filmmakers and bike messengers? Certain companies use it for heating and cooling. It's kind of a legacy of another time, but on cold days, the steam rising really stands out against the blacktop.

Victor in The Guardian

It's always nice to see the dignified surname Ozols in the dignified British press, so I'm pleased to report that The Guardian published a feature story in its Saturday Travel section about Gridskipper, the urban travel blog to which I am a contributor. Gridskipper's editor and various New York-based contributors took turns showing the writer, Benji, around, and I was responsible for the Williamsburg, Brooklyn portion of his tour. I always enjoy showing people around the neighborhood. You can read the article here.

I hope they fix the spelling of McCarren Park, and my surname in the second reference. According to my friend Paul, an actual Englishman, "in Britain it is often affectionately known as 'The Grauniad' due to its reputation for misprints." I still say it's a darn fine newspaper, and I browse its online version every day. I would even say it's my favorite (favourite) British newspaper (if you don't count The Economist as a newspaper). But still, to misspell "Gershwin" in the photo caption - an error likely introduced by the editor - is just sloppy newspapering. Come on, it's not a blog. A little effort, please! Seriously, Girshwin looks right to you? A wee bit of proofreading can go a long way.

It is well below freezing in New York today, and the forecast calls for a continuation of this deep freeze throughout the week. As Moby once said, Give Me Summer (summer summer summer).