I will admit that I have been very remiss in my treatment of the Bronx. In nearly 3 years doing this website, I have never done one posting on the Bronx. However, the Bronx really has much less interest to the outsider than Queens, Brooklyn, or Manhattan. But it is one of the five boroughs of New York City, and it has things which are worthy of a visit.

If you read this blog regularly, you know I have a close friend from my college days who grew up in Brooklyn and relocated out west. I look forward to his periodic visits – he is always game for nearly any adventure and is knowledgeable about virtually every corner of the city.
With no agenda, I proposed the Bronx Zoo. However, it was before lunch, and food was our prime consideration. Both confident that we could forage our way to a meal, we headed to the Bronx as tourists on a frigid, windy, winter day in his rented car.

As we navigated the maze of highways, signs for the Bronx Terminal market at Hunts Point appeared, and I mentioned that this was on my hit list for New York Daily Photo. Undaunted by the suggestion, he immediately obliged.
So, off we went to explore an area that no one visits for recreational purposes. This area has all the charm of the commercial freight area at an international airport, and there is no reason on earth why anyone (without specific business there) would want to visit on a day off. Which is exactly why we chose to go there. I will feature a number of our discoveries next week.

However, something was nagging me the entire trip. I had read and been told about one particular area of interest in the Bronx, but I could not recall what or where it was. Food was now more of a priority, and my friend said that there was an Italian area in the Bronx. Uninterested in combing an entire borough, I suggested that we ask two police officers in their vehicle. Embarrassed (after explaining that I was a seasoned New Yorker, only lacking in my city knowledge of the Bronx), I asked for areas of general interest, and voila – they were very accommodating and immediately volunteered Arthur Avenue, which I immediately recognized as the area I had been told about and which turned out to also be the Little Italy district my friend was looking for. Comforted knowing that both our exploration needs had been met, we were off to Arthur Avenue for lunch.

Arthur Avenue is a district centered around Arthur Avenue and 187th Streets (read more about it here). We were quite pleased with our initial impressions – the area looked very authentic, particularly on a winter weekday where the only inhabitants appeared to be locals. We parked in front of Addeo & Sons Bakery on Hughes Street, which runs parallel to Arthur Avenue itself. My friend purchased some cookies while I asked a customer if he recommended Umberto’s Clam house, which we had just driven by, prominently located at Arthur and 186th Street. Instead, he steered us to Tra Di Noi, located at 622 East 187th Street. Our fellow diners appeared to be Italian, and the menu was in Italian with no English translations – a good sign. Lunch was great. I hope to visit again when the weather is more inviting to explore the Arthur Avenue Market…

Previous posts of Adventures with a Mad Man: New York Moment, Partial Remission, Hot Dogs and Fries, The Unexpected, It Behooves One

There is a bigger story here, but I don’t have it. For years I have observed this extraordinary ground floor space. The exposure on Prince Street has huge windows and is completely filled with plants from floor to ceiling – it is a virtual botanic garden with foliage so thick and deep that you can’t see what lies behind it.

There are a number of other peculiar things about this. Situated on a corner of Prince and MacDougal Streets, one would expect the ground floor space to be rented to a business – ground floors on busy streets or intersections almost always are rented, as they are relatively unlivable with such little privacy. The revenue from renting space like this is quite substantial, hence offsetting building expenses (assuming zoning permits it).

The building itself is an immaculate, historic property with a mansard style roof line, dormers, chimneys, and dark green shutters. A bit of espionage led to the following interesting pieces of information. The corner property appears to have two entrances and street addresses – 34 MacDougal Street and 205 Prince Street. Katina Productions is listed at the MacDougal address. A small icon of a cat on the MacDougal entrance matches that on their website (see photo here). A visit to their website has a bio of Belgian filmmaker Simon Nuchtern, who owns Katina, a company involved in digital editing. Further investigation shows 205 Prince Street to be the residence of Anna and Simon Nuchtern, and property searches shows Anna Nuchtern to be owner of 205 Prince Street. I was told by a neighboring business that the building was owned by an “artist couple.” That’s quite a property for a couple to own and occupy, if they are the only tenants.

So there you have it. But I still do not know why all those plants are there and what’s behind door number one…

Postings of Other Mysterious Places: Enigma, Secret Society, Crime Scene, Brutal, Pied-a-Aire

Would you like to have a sobering experience? A change, perhaps, from the sights and stimulus of Manhattan? Would you like to see a place that’s not an attraction or a “secret” because there is nothing particularly attractive about it or a reason to keep it a secret? A reality check?

I suggest you pick a hot summer August Sunday, when most New Yorkers with the means have made a mass exodus from the city. Take a long ride on the A train to a working-class neighborhood whose very name is in itself baffling: Ozone Park, which, ironically, does not even have a major park.
When I got off the train at Rockaway Blvd in Queens, I found graffiti to be the art du jour and unkempt weeds to be the alternative to topiary. And apparently the aspiration of many men was to win the exacta at the neighborhood OTB (NYC’s chain of racetrack betting parlors). See my set of photos from the adventure here.

This is a place where carrying a pro camera raises eyebrows; people are understandably suspect to see someone taking photos of nondescript houses or unassuming commercial buildings. Coincidentally, as I was having this exact thought, I was queried by a merchant sitting outside his shop in a lawn chair as to why I was taking a photo of a gas station. It took quite a bit of of persuasive conversation to convince him of the sense of my mission and activity. That the reason I was doing it was because there was no good reason to do it and specifically because the whole situation was so remarkably unprepossessing.

I hope not to offend any Ozone Park residents, as I am sure that there are good things to be found there, and admittedly the areas around train stations and major thoroughfares (where I was) are typically not very attractive.

Perhaps I see the world too much as an architect might – a place defined by its structures and things rather than by its people, relationships, and community. In New York, as everywhere else, people and communities are what make the world go round. Perhaps that’s the secret…

*Actually, Ozone Park does have a few claims to fame. It is the former home of the infamous John Gotti and his associates in the Gambino crime family. The Mafia boss died in prison in 2002.

There are words that are overused and abused, and two of them are genius and luxury. I remember a radio program where a disk jockey was on a rant about the overuse of the word genius. He saw it applied to musicians who were just very good but were certainly not in the league of true geniuses. Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach could keep as many as 7 melodies in their minds at one time. They could compose complex music in their heads without having to hear it and then just write the completed score. Now that’s genius.

Luxury should have elements of the sublime, uniqueness, and rarity, not just offer the basics and use a comparison to the unacceptable to define it. Some may define luxury apartment in New York City in relative terms.

From this perspective, luxury in New York can mean space, quiet, or the absence of squalor. Many now consider living in the city itself a luxury. Although there are many good points here, I don’t think the integrity of the word luxury is best kept by defining it using the standards of the homeless, destitute, or uninhabitable housing (see The Dark Ages here).

When I first moved to the city, I saw the phrases luxury apartments and modern used in connection with any place that essentially was not a tenement. If the tub was not in the kitchen, the toilet was not in the public hallway, or the place was not roach infested, then we had luxury. Luxury here is what most people outside the city would consider the minimum acceptable standards for decent.

I am sure that the apartments in the building in the photo are decent, but I would be surprised if they are truly luxurious. And townhouse lofts – here, I think we misuse and abuse another word, but that’s another story…

Related Posting: Unguent

This is New York too. While strolling in the Lower East Side on Orchard Street on Saturday night, I happened upon this doorway. It had the edge department well covered: graffiti, garbage, poorly lit, a bare fluorescent bulb, heavy duty roll gates with padlocks, and a sign warning of rodents and rodenticides fastened with duct tape. See closeup here.

Does this affect desirability of the neighborhood? Not at all. Of course, real estate prices will not be quite as high as, say, an apartment on the Gold Coast – 5th Avenue in the 70s with Central Park views. There is a large demographic that would prefer the Lower East Side to the Upper East Side, SoHo, Tribeca, or the Upper West Side, for a time.

There’s certainly no debating the fact the the Lower East Side and the East Village are two of the most exciting neighborhoods in the city with the widest range of restaurants, bars, theaters, and music clubs. And I am sure most residents are content to live out their entire lives there. Unless big money is at hand or added to the equation. Then, for many, the residence becomes a passing fancy, a fad, a toy to be discarded, or a place one has outgrown, followed by a move uptown or out of town. The charms of duct tape and rodenticide give way to those of the Dakota, Beresford, or San Remo. And edge is only a taxi or limo ride away.

Take the Silk Building, above the former Tower Records at 4th Street and Broadway. The penthouse apartment has been a revolving door for the affluent – it has seen Keith Richards, Cher, and Britney Spears. There are a handful of extraordinary buildings downtown, like the Police Building, and many of the well-heeled do remain downtown, but they are few. Once a image statement has been made, most leave. After all, this really is a neighborhood that caters more to the young and restless than the established and rested.
Money is like an unguent, and when applied liberally, it usually is absorbed readily with predictable effects. It doesn’t appear that one has to rub the salve that hard or long to take off most edges 🙂

Related Postings: Vegan Chic, Bluestockings, Unkindest Cut, Rats R Us, Rats Gone Wild, The Dark Ages, Wildlife Control

At one time, Gracie Mansion and Carl Schurz Park were stops on my whirlwind tours of NYC for friends, visitors, and family. I always strove to include places that were both interesting, scenic, and off the beaten path.
Carl Schurz Park and Gracie Mansion are probably some of the least-visited landmarks in the city; many NYC residents have never been there. One reason is the location – easternmost on the Upper East Side and quite far from the nearest subway (the Lexington Avenue line is one km away). It is certainly a planned destination – there is little of note in the nearby Yorkville neighborhood.

The elegant Federal-style wood frame dwelling was built in 1799 by a prosperous New York merchant named Archibald Gracie. The country house, overlooking a bend in the East River, was five miles north of the city at the time. A number of historical twists and turns later, the city acquired the property (1896), and in 1942 it became the official residence of the mayor of New York City. Parks Commissioner Robert Moses convinced city authorities to designate it as the official residence of the Mayor, and in 1942, Fiorello H. La Guardia moved in. Read a short history here.

Mayor Bloomberg has chosen not to live at Gracie Mansion, preferring his residence at 17 E. 79th Street (see here). The mansion is now used for meetings and events. In 2002, the interior and exterior was restored with increased accessibility to the public and city agencies.
Carl Schurz Park overlooks the East River. One special feature is the esplanade, officially the John Finley Walk, which flanks the park and affords beautiful vistas of the river, Hell’s Gate, Roosevelt Island, Ward’s Island, and several bridges, including the elegant Ward’s Island Bridge, which I recently featured. I was surprised to learn that tours are available by appointment one day per week (Wednesdays). It is a very worthwhile excursion to tour such a unique property, so beautifully sited…

Geography Note: If you examine a map of Manhattan, you will notice that between 23rd and 53rd Streets, First Avenue is the easternmost north-south thoroughfare. As the island becomes wider heading north, you have the addition of Sutton Place/York Ave. Then, at 79th Street extending to 90th, going further east yet, East End Avenue. Carl Schurz Park, and Gracie Mansion lie east of East End Avenue.