• Evening Arch

    Posted on July 13, 2006 by Brian Dubé

    The Washington Square Arch is one of my favorite NYC icons. It stands at the foot of Fifth Avenue on the north side of Washington Square Park. It always reminds me of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, after which is was modeled.
    The arch recently got a much-needed renovation – it was in serious disrepair. It is now quite beautiful – completely cleaned and restored with banks of high-power lights from below and the sides.

    This was shot in the late evening. At night it really glows – it is one of the nicest illuminated monuments in NYC. Unlike Paris, New York has few fountains or monuments, and a well-lit one like this is even rarer. I would highly recommend seeing it at night if you get the chance.

    Posted on July 13, 2006 by Brian Dubé
    This entry was posted in Architecture, New York at Night, Parks, Scenic NYC. Bookmark the permalink.

  • The Cyclone

    Posted on July 12, 2006 by Brian Dubé

    The Cyclone, built in 1927 in Coney Island, is probably the world’s most famous roller coaster. I’ll leave the history and specifics to this article or the official site. I rode it once many years ago with a friend who grew up in Brooklyn. It really was terrifying, in part due to its really rough ride. It’s an old-style wooden structure, predating the high-tech engineered scream machines of current times – all the jerking and whipping action of this old coaster really intensifies the ride. Newer coasters are much smoother and safer feeling.

    When we took this photo just recently, the ride was not running – closed for maintenance – but this is controversial according to rumor and articles like this one. Here are more photos, including one great view from the top of the Wonder Wheel.

    Posted on July 12, 2006 by Brian Dubé
    This entry was posted in NYC's History, Tourist Attractions. Bookmark the permalink.

  • Staten Island Ferry

    Posted on July 11, 2006 by Brian Dubé

    One of the most enjoyable excursions you can make on a nice day in NYC is the Staten Island Ferry – it is very underrated. So it was with great pleasure that when my best friend (who now lives out west) recently came into town, he suggested doing the ferry. The weather was nice. The views were great. And the experience of seeing the city and its environs from the water is something that most New Yorkers don’t do that often. The ferry is a 25-minute ride between lower Manhattan and Staten Island. 

    In transit, you get views of Staten Island, New Jersey, Brooklyn, lower Manhattan’s financial district and Battery Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges, the Verrazano Bridge, Governors Island, Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, the Hudson River, and the East River (extra photos here). And the cost to take the Ferry round trip? It’s free.

    Posted on July 11, 2006 by Brian Dubé
    This entry was posted in Scenic NYC, War Against Wheels. Bookmark the permalink.

  • The Nature of Games

    Posted on July 10, 2006 by Brian Dubé

    Neither Lucy nor I follow sports, but we became impressed with Zidane after viewing a great montage of him on YouTube.com. The next thing you know, we were drawn in. Rather than watch it on television at home, we found the perfect place in NYC to join the frenzy – in SoHo, there are two bar/restaurants across the street from each other: one French (Felix) and one Italian (Novecento), with a second Italian restaurant (La Streghe) on the corner. They had multiple large screen televisions playing the game and plenty of patrons spilling out onto the sidewalk.

    The scene, of course, was very impassioned – jeering across the street by one fan group to the other, chanting, singing national anthems, etc. On the way home, we reminded ourselves that both teams were extremely good and that although very sad for the French, disappointment is one of many aspects of the Nature of Games…

    Posted on July 10, 2006 by Brian Dubé
    This entry was posted in Bars Clubs and Fetes, Sports Games and Hobbies. Bookmark the permalink.

  • New York State of Mind

    Posted on July 9, 2006 by Brian Dubé

    I saw these two people (Kevin and Danny) for the first time last summer – people just stopped in their tracks, astounded by the tremendous natural quality of the singer’s voice. I have been looking forward ever since then to seeing them again, so when I caught them recently, I took the opportunity to take photos and a video of one entire song they did: 634-5789 – an old standard covered by many such as Wilson Pickett. Some of the singer’s renditions of classic soul were really awesome.

    I understand that they are regulars in the subway system at Times Square (a popular venue for many musicians). Appropriately, they are calling themselves New York State of Mind. I hope they get “discovered”…

    Posted on July 9, 2006 by Brian Dubé
    This entry was posted in Music and Concerts, Street Performing. Bookmark the permalink.

  • Urban Renewal

    Posted on July 8, 2006 by Brian Dubé

    Across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, facing Central Park, are blocks of townhouses which are something like a slice of an old European city set down in NYC. They are generally late nineteenth century and quite elaborate – some of them have been turned into embassies, etc., but there are still many that are occupied by single families.

    Something that is commonly done by this crowd is to completely gut renovate the building at every turnover. Typically, the entire interior is ripped out, rebuilt with the most state-of-the-art modern comforts, and completely refurnished with the most extravagantly expensive antiques and/or fine interior decoration. Because of divorce, death, remarriage, or the rise and fall of fortunes, these places do turn over, usually about once every three years. It seems a shame that all the work that has been put into these fine homes is not preserved, but the city thrives on providing luxury services to this ever growing elite, and the wealth keeps expanding and changing hands frequently, as it has always done in NYC. Here is an example of one of these streets and the corner house which had workmen inside going about their business of interior demolition…

    Posted on July 8, 2006 by Brian Dubé
    This entry was posted in Homes and 'Hoods. Bookmark the permalink.

  • Sideshow

    Posted on July 7, 2006 by Brian Dubé

    The Coney Island Sideshow is one of the last vestiges of the old-fashioned circus sideshows left anywhere. A number of performance artists have assumed characters of “freaks” and devoted themselves to developing their personas into such characters as Insectavora, the beautiful girl who eats insects, and blockheads such as the Great Fredini and Scott Baker (the Twisted Shockmeister), who use their heads as a prop to perform acts such as hammering nails up their noses and brain flossing. Some men are covered with numerous and elaborate tattoos and could vie for the Illustrated Man title.

    The whole operation is reminiscent of a book by Ray Bradbury called Something Wicked This Way Comes, which shows what happens when a dark carnival comes to town and changes the people who come to see it in ways that they did not consciously seek or expect, some in possibly dangerous or undermining ways. It pays to be reminded of the dark side, laced with humor and intelligence, and the outdoor barker who gets you to open your wallet and come inside for the show is one more and possibly the last in a long tradition of folk performance artists.

    Posted on July 7, 2006 by Brian Dubé
    This entry was posted in Extreme NYC, Rebels of NYC. Bookmark the permalink.

  • Biodiversity

    Posted on July 6, 2006 by Brian Dubé

    The American Museum of Natural History has a Hall of Biodiversity, where they have arranged a 100-foot wall in a timeline of complexity (called the Spectrum of Life) showing animal life as it developed from simple single cells to furry mammals. The elements were taken from their famous vast collections of every kind of butterfly, insect, mollusk, and every variety of creature preserved in the late 19th century. They all have been sitting in the carefully catalogued storerooms of specimens assembled from all over the world.

    In a way, it is very sad to see these individuals arranged here because you know that this represents a life taken away from Nature. At the time, though, this was the method scientists used to do studies – it seemed right to them to hunt and capture as many examples of the exotic and extraordinary as they could get. However, at this point, to discard these examples would not undo the past. So they have displayed them in a beautiful and educational way, and in a way, this recycling honors the lives of these creatures. Some of the elements are very beautifully made representations, for example, the glass biota, created by methods no longer understood or able to be reproduced in the present.

    Posted on July 6, 2006 by Brian Dubé
    This entry was posted in Animals, Tourist Attractions. Bookmark the permalink.

  • Hayden Planetarium

    Posted on July 5, 2006 by Brian Dubé

    We decided to avoid the holiday crush yesterday by staying in town and visiting the Hayden Planetarium (and the Museum of Natural History). This is one of the most well-known museums in New York and a must-see for visitors. In 2000, the Planetarium area was completely redone/transformed into the Rose Center for Earth and Space, a huge glass cube which contains the spherical planetarium – check out this photo at night!

    There are shows running in the sphere – currently Cosmic Collisions. Two major displays inside structured as walkways are designed to give you a sense of scale/magnitude of both time and size of things in the universe. One long spiral walkway covers a span of 13 billion years. This beautiful space is extremely visual and tactile. More photos…

    Posted on July 5, 2006 by Brian Dubé
    This entry was posted in Tourist Attractions. Bookmark the permalink.

  • Transparent Monument

    Posted on July 4, 2006 by Brian Dubé

    The Metropolitan Museum rooftop gallery is showcasing the work of one artist, Cai Quo Qiang, whom we have posted about before (Move Along, Nothing to See Here), but he has more than one work exhibited. This piece, Transparent Monument, is a giant sheet of glass, at the base of which lie a number of exact replicas of dead birds. The implication is that they didn’t see the glass, were stopped dead, and slid down to the base. They appear to be either starlings or small crows. The birds seem like unfortunate victims of circumstance, killed while going about their business, by the intervention of some inexplicably placed man-made material, as so often happens in “real life”. [Another piece of his occurs every day at noon, when one of the guards fires a special gun which shoots a cloud of black smoke into the sky that slowly dissipates at a rate determined by the atmospheric conditions. It gives a very ephemeral feeling to the whole concept of watching whatever happens before you in life.]

    Even in this current heat wave alternating with thunderstorms we have had lately, the rooftop garden gallery at the Met is a good place to go to step out of the busy, crowded, humid atmosphere in the streets and have your thoughts played with by this artist…

    Posted on July 4, 2006 by Brian Dubé
    This entry was posted in Art and Sculpture. Bookmark the permalink.

  • The Music Inn

    Posted on July 3, 2006 by Brian Dubé

    At 169 W. 4th Street in the West Village is one of the most unusual shops in NYC. The Music Inn is, as one writer put it, “a claustrophic hovel.” The outside of the shop should tell you that before even going in – it’s so tight that at various times when it gets busy, I have seen the owner charge $1 to walk through it.

    It has probably the most extensive and eclectic collection of percussion and world instruments you’ll find (they also sell some recorded music and do instrument repair). The place is a real relic and throwback to the ’60s, when the street was a nexus for the counterculture. Bob Dylan lived on 4th Street, and the Music Inn was one of his haunts.

    If you’re looking for a link to the store’s website in this post, you won’t find one – this is the kind of place that doesn’t bother with websites. If you are in the city, take a look – it’s another one of those places that won’t be around forever…

    Posted on July 3, 2006 by Brian Dubé
    This entry was posted in Stores. Bookmark the permalink.

  • Nathan’s

    Posted on July 2, 2006 by Brian Dubé

    At 1310 Surf Avenue in Coney Island, Brooklyn, stands one of New York’s most well-known institutions. This is the original home of Nathan’s Famous, started by Nathan Handwerker and probably the most famous fast-food emporium in NYC. Their history is quite interesting, and rather than distill it here, I recommend you check this short article.

    They originally sold through fast-food establishments but are now doing major acquisitions, corporate expansions, merchandise branding, etc. For better or worse, this is the pattern of virtually every company with a history in the U.S. Apart from their classic hot dog, they also sell lemonade, seafood, fries, etc. And they sponsor a traditional yearly hot dog eating contest every July 4th.

    Posted on July 2, 2006 by Brian Dubé
    This entry was posted in Food and Restaurants, NYC's History, Tourist Attractions. Bookmark the permalink.

  • Wolfdog

    Posted on July 1, 2006 by Brian Dubé

    I see this dog frequently in my neighborhood – extremely striking and handsome. I recently spoke to the owner, complementing his dog and questioning him about the dog’s striking appearance. He responded saying that the dog was part wolf.

    I know little of dogs, but apparently dogs and wolves have a common history and frequently mate. And there are established lines of wolf-dog hybrids. However, none of the images I have seen look like this dog, so I question the claim. I believe the idea of having a wolf-dog has a certain appeal and cachet amongst some, so perhaps there is some wishful thinking on the part of the owner. But the dog is still quite special. He seems to get no shortage of attention and is quite happy being himself…

    Posted on July 1, 2006 by Brian Dubé
    This entry was posted in Animals. Bookmark the permalink.

  • Not So Kleine

    Posted on June 30, 2006 by Brian Dubé

    One of the great strengths and joys of NYC is the music scene. Home to some of the greatest and most diverse venues in the world: from the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, and Madison Square Garden to small clubs like the Village Vanguard, the Blue Note, Irving Plaza, CBGB, the Knitting Factory, and the Mercury Lounge. And then there are the music schools, some of the finest in the country: Juilliard, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes School, Third Street Settlement…

    And then there are the streets and parks. I am constantly amazed at the quality and sophistication one can find right on the street. Many are students from the fine, aforementioned schools, which I imagine these in the photo are. This was shot at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. I included a short video of them playing Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

    Many, many musicians move to New York just for the opportunities, but be forewarned, the competition is very tough and the city harsh – New York spits artists out as fast as it sucks them in.

    Posted on June 30, 2006 by Brian Dubé
    This entry was posted in Music and Concerts, Parks, Street Performing. Bookmark the permalink.

  • Wonder Wheel

    Posted on June 29, 2006 by Brian Dubé

    I love Ferris wheels. Although few of the original rides in Coney Island remain or operate, the Wonder Wheel is one which is still going strong and with a perfect safety record. Built in 1920 from Bethlehem steel forged on site, it stands at 150 feet tall, and it is unique with outer fixed cars and inner cars which swing.

    We took a ride – a first for both of us. The views were wonderful, and I took many photos while aloft here and more photos here. The Wonder Wheel was landmarked by the city in 1989. It’s a beautiful antique when viewed from any angle – the beach, the air…

    Posted on June 29, 2006 by Brian Dubé
    This entry was posted in NYC's History, Tourist Attractions. Bookmark the permalink.


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