Typical Midtown Street

This is just a typical street south of 42nd in Midtown...

A jumble of architectural styles, all kinds of shops.

Lounges are next door to strange specialty stores...there is always a lot to look at.

Architectural Detail

Just another sight you take for granted: all the intricate architectural detail on a lot of early 20th century buildings.

Having some of this stuff around is great, but would not like it if there were too much of it ( cities like Prague, beautiful as they are, can get a little cloying or something in some sections with all the architectural detail).

Usual Sidewalk Repair

Take so many sights for granted in Midtown...

Like another sidewalk closed off for repair, laying new concrete.

Would like to note buildings are responsible for conditions on walks in front of them and can be sued if people fall over cracks, etc.

Litiginous age, hyper-litiginous
City.

Male Hair Model Wanted

Upscale Midtown salon wants a male hair cut model. I would have applied except I don't have enough hair... don't think they are looking for something like my big bald spot!

Park Avenue Street Fair- Japan Relief Section

Something I have never seen before:
Park Avenue closed for street fair ( granted, only on Southbound side).

Northernmost section was a Japan Relief effort.

All kinds of booths including food and temporary tattoos, etc.

Area was incredibly crowded, half with Japanese tourists taking photos.

Japan's sufferings have been bumped off the news offerings for a while...until a new scare emerges or something the media can stir things up with.

Kid Oriented Street Fair/Rides

There are a LOT of younger families in this area with tons of kids...

This neighborhood seems to be one of the favorite places of what you might call "Yuppie" families except I don't know if anyone uses that term anymore or if it is even politically correct!

Only showing a small number of all the attractions for kids at the fair on 30th Street between First and Second Avenues, just South of the Kips Bay shopping strip.

Kids seemed to be enjoying themselves IMMENSELY but a lot of parents looked a little frazzled and happy to just be seated at the dining area.

New NYC budget is to close a lot of firehouses, mostly outside of Manhattan..

The two in Manhattan that are scheduled to go are down near the Twin Towers site, which seems an odd choice.

Mayor Bloomberg says decision was made by how busy places were....

Of course, everyone with a firehouse near them scheduled to be closed is out in the streets demonstrating!

Gold Buying

This must go on everywhere these days...

With stock market again all over the place, people are looking for security SOMEWHERE....

Particularly with end of world predicted for today.

Had a friend back in the 60's whose father invested in diamonds. I wonder how that turned out.

Tourists, Traffic, signs

As I have noted, this area of Manhattan is clogged with tourists...especially as you get closer to the Empire State Building.

Met this woman tourist after she had just been snapping away at entrance to Midtown Tunnel.

Now, there are big signs there ( including the pictorial kind) that say "No pictures allowed."

People do not pay much attention to signs a lot of the time.

Especially the traffic that turns into tunnel on lanes marked " Yield to Pedestrians."
( see earlier posting on "Boulevard of Death.")

Yesterday one lane of the Midtown tunnel headed to Queens was closed down and the traffic jam it caused was unbelievable.

Cars backed up for blocks and blocks and all beeping away....everyone in a hurry of course.

Saw rather hapless looking traffic controllers in their yellow vests not sure how to handle situation.

I have seen rush hour traffic get pretty bad at that location, but nothing this bad.

Shame I didn't have camera with me to record it. But I suppose if you've seen one big urban gridlock, you've seen them all.

Karaoke carries on

I get the feeling Karaoke is a thing of the past in Manhattan, but here is one place that is still going...

Know from what I hear on the BBC that karaoke nights are still a big deal in England.

NYU Kriser Dental Clinic

NYU's dental center has both students working under supervision and regular dentists...which you get usually depends on what kind of insurance you have.

I have been going there for years and this year was the only time I have asked for a different student dentist...

Lucky to have the place.

St. Gaudens Park

Woman groundskeeper closes gate in my face pretty much as I tried to photo this park..

It is on a somewhat seedy stretch of Second Avenue that still is upscale of course compared to a lot of the City.
( I mean, you will find no bargain apartments around here!).

Park is named for Augustus St. Gaudens...

To quote Wikipedia:

Augustus Saint-Gaudens (March 1, 1848 – August 3, 1907) was the Irish-born American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who most embodied the ideals of the "American Renaissance". Raised in New York City, he traveled to Europe for further training and artistic study, and then returned to major critical success in the design of monuments commemorating heroes of the American Civil War, many of which still stand. In addition to his famous works such as the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial on Boston Common and the outstanding grand equestrian monuments to Civil War generals John A. Logan, atop a tumulus in Chicago, 1894–97, and William Tecumseh Sherman, at the corner of New York's Central Park, 1892–1903, Saint-Gaudens also maintained an interest in numismatics and designed the $20 "double eagle" gold piece, for the US Mint in 1905–1907, still considered the most beautiful American coin ever issued^[1] as well as the $10 "Indian Head" gold eagle, both of which were minted from 1907 until 1933. In his later years he founded the "Cornish Colony", an artistic colony that included notable painters, sculptors, writers, and architects. His brother, Louis St. Gaudens was also a well-known sculptor with whom he occasionally collaborated.

Apartment Building Entrances- Kips Bay

OK, so it is early Sunday afternoon and foggy...

This is the area of Kips Bay that likes to call itself Murray Hill.

Lots of younger people ( of course, everyone under say 40 looks "younger" to me)-- often wearing out of state college sweatshirts...sometimes with kids in tow.

Not far from each other is the non descript upscale place that calls itself the Bentley, ( why not the Rolls Royce?) and a refurbished doorway...you can bet rents are very high either place.

Think a lot of people are attracted here by the local public school, which calls itself Murray Hill too...probably one of the best in the City system. It is the one that has the greenmarket on weekends.

Outdoor Cafe

Threesome of young women spend an early Saturday afternoon at an outdoor cafe...

They seem surprised anyone would take their picture.

1840's houses

Plenty of old brick houses dating back to the era of the 1840's and 1850's, just before the rage for brownstones came along...

This area reminds me a little of Georgetown in Washington D.C., except for the really big buildings that are so close by.

Herald Square Saturday

Herald Square area ( so full of tourists because it is close to the Empire State Building) offers a lot of scenes of weekend diversity--

Women in native dress stroll down 34th Street...

Tourist takes picture of her friend who was feeding pigeons but stopped the minute I aimed a camera at them.

Man reading as if he were in a library somewhere. Of course, this place offers you the advantage of putting your feet up.

A lot of people like to sit this way, going back in my memory to the famous French philosopher Montaigne.

The Last Laundromat

I have been all over this area of Midtown, and this is the last of the remaining self-service laundromats in the area.

Found that most apartment buildings have washers in dryers "in house"--and of course there are no end of dry cleaners.

There are some places that do the laundry for you.

"Boulevard of Death"

At mid-day, traffic flows very smoothly and not that heavily at the entrance to the Midtown Tunnel at 36th Street and Second Avenue.

Just wait until rush hour!

It used to be so bad it was called "The Boulevard of Death" before one community activist got traffic patrol officers assigned there...

We who live near this place are very thankful for his efforts. Even now, you have to be really on guard when you are a pedestrian around this junction...

Organic Cleaners

This place says it has organic French cleaning.

When people say that they are organic these days if it involves something like dry cleaning, I wonder what they mean.

You have to find out what kind of agents ( chemicals etc. ) are used to know if a place is really "green"--apparently many places claim to be "organic" when they still use dangerous chemicals.

As to the "French Dry Cleaning" I quote from an article in GQ magazine:

"French dry cleaner"

I have been told that a “French dry cleaner” does a more diligent job of cleaning clothes than a regular dry cleaner (irons by hand and does not break buttons). I called several “French cleaners” on Long Island, and they said there really was no difference between French and regular. Is this true, or in other, more civilized parts of the world does French mean better?

At this point in history, there’s no difference. Dry cleaning was once widely known as French cleaning because the process was invented by a Frenchman in the mid-1800s who reputedly noticed that when a kerosene lamp was overturned on a tablecloth, the cloth was rendered remarkably clean. He began experimenting with solvents, and French cleaning was born. The method also became known as dry cleaning, because it doesn’t involve water (and is thus a superior method for cleaning certain fabrics). Today the only difference between a French cleaner and any other cleaner is that a French one may be long established (always a good sign) or have a sense of history (ditto).

Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village

Have known a lot of people who live in Stuyvesant Town- Peter Cooper Village over the years...

One of the first sights you notice as you get close to this sprawling complex is its tight security.

To quote Wikipedia:

"The complex has its own public safety force, most of whom are sworn peace officers. While they are not permitted to carry firearms, they do carry batons, pepper spray, and handcuffs. As peace officers, they have full law enforcement powers, and they patrol the property in specialized vehicles.^[23]

As of late March 2009, security cameras have been installed and activated in all Stuyvesant Town buildings. In addition, sensors have been installed on the roof doors to prevent unauthorized access. The requirement of photo ID card-keys was introduced in 2008. The parking garages along Avenue C, 20th Street and 14th Street have also implemented a key-card access system and installed security cameras.^"

Home to some 25,000 people, the complex was sold to a private company in 2006 by its original developer and owner, the Metropolitan Life Insurance company ( since its beginnings in the 1940's).

Endless lawsuits have followed since then about rents and city rent laws etc.

In the early 90's, Met Life replaced all the windows in the place to "energy saving" ones. Trouble was, they had a tendency to implode violently, showering residents with glass fragments. Windows have to be redone and big lawsuit arose over whether Met Life could pass all the costs on to the tenants...

One of the main differences between Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town was then that Peter Cooper was wired for air conditioning and the larger "Stuy Town" was not.

One woman told me about her husband ( she was a resident of Peter Cooper and her formerly of Stuy Town was that "he married me for my air-conditioning."

Until the 1990's the complex had a huge waiting list as rents were so low. There were supposed to be rules about income etc. but these were often flouted-- many people got their apartments through some kind of political or other "inside" influence.

Irving Place

Irving Place runs north from 14th Street to Gramercy Square ( I guess about five or six blocks) and was very seedy until the late 1980's when it began to be gentrified.

It is now pretty upscale...and also home to Washington Irving High School, which has had real ups and downs. Wall behind statue was once covered with graffiti...they conscientiously keep it painted over now.

Poster on side of school advertises "Metropolitan Opera comes to Your Neighborhood."

The Street is named for Washington Irving, a 19th century American author... to quote Wikipedia:

Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He was best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle", both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of George Washington, Oliver Goldsmith and Muhammad, and several histories of 15th-century Spain dealing with subjects such as Christopher Columbus, the Moors, and the Alhambra. Irving also served as the U.S. minister to Spain from 1842 to 1846.

He made his literary debut in 1802 with a series of observational letters to the Morning Chronicle, written under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle. After moving to England for the family business in 1815, he achieved international fame with the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. in 1819. He continued to publish regularly—and almost always successfully—throughout his life, and completed a five-volume biography of George Washington just eight months before his death, at age 76, in Tarrytown, New York.

Irving, along with James Fenimore Cooper, was among the first American writers to earn acclaim in Europe, and Irving encouraged American authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Edgar Allan Poe. Irving was also admired by some European writers, including Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Thomas Campbell, Francis Jeffrey, and Charles Dickens. As America's first genuine internationally best-selling author, Irving advocated for writing as a legitimate profession, and argued for stronger laws to protect American writers from copyright infringement.

Union Square

On a weekday in the early afternoon, Union Square is busy as ever..

All its market space...selling particularly "gourmet" or "health food" items such as Ostrich products ( meat, eggs, etc.) and Wheatgrass Juice.

Noticed there is a statue of Lincoln in there but it was in such deep shade that my picture of it is not very useful.

Think Lincoln is well known enough that I don't have to write anything about him in particular anyway...( except I am sure a lot of Americans, particularly the younger ones, know only the sketchiest details about him).

There used to be a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Union Square too but I think they moved it...

Park?

This open space near the NYU
Dental School is....an open space.

Where people sit on concrete steps and eat lunch etc.

Even in really nice weather, this place is depressing.

Apartment House Roof Greenery

It is Spring, and you suddenly notice all the gardens on top of so many apartment buildings again.

As I have noted, people in NY cultivate little gardens all over the place....anywhere they can find the room.

A needed break from the stoniness of the City.

Doors on 33rd Street

These townhouse doors are adjacent on 33rd Street.

Presumed they are owned by different people.

Remember how there used to be a "Doors of Dublin" poster you would see a lot in the better Irish pubs...

Have not seen that in years.

Someone could probably do a book on "doors of Manhattan."