nw3 to nyc

November 6, 2013
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And the winner is…

Bill de Blasio. He will be the 109th Mayor of New York on 1 January 2014. He won by a landslide, with his Republican opponent only scraping a small percentage of the overall vote. To be honest, I’m not sure I’d have even known about the election yesterday, it was so low key around here. R said it was because the Democrat was so likely to get in that it would have been a waste of money to plaster the place with posters. There are 4.3 million voters in New York; 700,000 of them are registered Democrats, so I suppose that makes sense, but even so, there hasn’t been a Democrat mayor in 20 years.

I saw a lonely de Blasio poster out in Queens on Monday and a lot of City Councillor posters locally and that was about it. Public school kids got the day off as their buildings got used as polling stations. R shook hands with Joe Lhota and Rudy Guliani (Mayor before Bloomberg) who were hanging around the subway station in the morning, which was about as exciting as it got.

Here’s today’s newspapers, just to prove it actually happened.

November 5, 2013
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The smallest park in the world

This is Short Triangle. It is outside Court Square subway station in Long Island City, Queens. It is owned and maintained by the New York City Parks Department. It is not a park. If it was, it would be named Tiny Triangle (not really a park, but a bit of soil with a shrubbery) Park. Hardly worthy of a name, let alone a sign.

See?

November 3, 2013
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You can call me marshal

Just for today, though. Today I was a volunteer marshal at the New York Marathon! This goes so close to our house, so it seemed rude not to. What an amazing event. 47,500 runners who were about two thirds of the way through when they came past me.

I saw the amazing wheelchair racers, the elite women – by in a flash – and the elite men, pounding up the road. And then followed by thousands and thousands of runners in every colour under the sun. The early waves of runners were serious, focused and uninterested in the crowds. The later waves sought out applause and ran alongside the barriers, high fiving everyone as they went. People with names on their tops had their names shouted out in encouragement by complete strangers in the crowd.

The crowds on my block were super loud and excited and must have hugely motivated the runners. Not so many crazy costumes in this race; I saw Cleopatra, Elmo from Sesame Street and a few crazy wigs. I shouted encouragement, clapped a lot and removed rubbish from the road, including many bananas, not wanting any comedy slip ups. It’s a huge privilege being able to stand in the road as a volunteer and get so close to the action.

After standing from 830 until 230 in the afternoon in the Arctic blast of the cross streets, I was ready to wander home for a cuppa. What a great day!

Here’s some pics.

Mile 17 before the masses arrived.

Elite women – the first two and quite a while until the others came by.

Elite men. So fast.

The masses and the mess: the green squares are soggy sponges.

November 2, 2013
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When Corey was just an 80s teen film star name

Remember Corey Feldman? He was the little boy in the Lost Boys, my favourite vampire film, mostly because of the presence of a young Kiefer Sutherland, but also I just loved vampires when I was a teenager. He also starred alongside the long departed River Phoenix in Stand by Me. The last I heard of Corey he was surrounded by porn stars, but that’s another story. Remember Corey Haim? He was the other Corey in the Lost Boys, sadly he died back in 2010.

But this post isn’t about them, although it is fun remembering the Lost Boys. No, this post is about Cory (no ‘e’) Booker. Not sure if his fame has spread to the UK, but here in the US and in New York and New Jersey mostly, he is incredibly well known. Cory Booker just got sworn in as one of the two senators for the State of New Jersey. The seat became vacant earlier this year on the death of the long term incumbent, 89 year old Frank Lautenberg.

Why do I care? Well, I have been following his campaign with great interest. Cory Booker was the Mayor of Newark in New Jersey. And like the other Coreys, and me, is in his early 40s and probably loved the Lost Boys too (I speculate there). Cory Booker doesn’t love vampires (I don’t think, it didn’t come up during the campaign) he loves Twitter.

He has 1.4 million followers. He lives on Twitter and he’s really good at it. I don’t know how he manages to respond to so many tweets, but when he does he comes across as a really decent bloke. He is brave enough to re-tweet all the horrible tweets and respond in such a way he comes out the better for it. I’m not so keen on his quotes from various sources, they can come across as a bit sanctimonious, but I’ll forgive that.

If I lived in New Jersey, I would have run with him – he did night time runs all over New Jersey with his supporters. If I lived in New Jersey I probably would have donated some cash because he asked me to so many times (I subscribed to his emails). And I was tempted by the Cory Booker For Senate T shirt and the bumper sticker – he knows how to get people interested. He told me each week how much cash he needed and told me that his opponent was horrible, so I needed to give him more cash. I didn’t, but I like the approach: it’s begging but it’s done nicely.

So, here he is on his first day as a senator. Have a look at the link below to a 90 second video to see what you think of him. Seems like a good bloke, let’s hope he can keep that up in Congress. Oh and by the way, he only gets the seat for a year (he’s finishing Lautenberg’s term and has to stand again to sit for the full six year term) before he has to go through all this again. I think one Cory Booker for Senate campaign is quite enough for me.

“I will keep working in 2014”

October 31, 2013
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At last, it’s Halloween

I say this because it feels like the run up to today has been going on forever. I knew Americans loved Halloween, but in New York it’s crazy. Houses are covered in ghoulish decorations; shops are dripping with pumpkins and other pumpkin related paraphernalia and if I see another Halloween related food stuff, I’ll scream! I have never seen anything like it.

In honour of this madness, I have been collecting photos of Halloween decorations from when I’ve been out and about in the last couple of weeks. Happy Halloween!

If this isn’t enough to catch your attention, get closer to the door and find the notice telling you this property has been condemned!

Oh dear, the wicked witch of the east appears to have met her end under this hay bale.

A little something from Dean and Deluca that dyes your teeth black. They wouldn’t let me photograph the others directly behind this one I bought for E last week.

A scary sight when you walk into the lobby of this apartment building.

Yet more cupcakes, this time from the new Zabar outlet on 87th and Lexington.

The most impressive of the lot, this is the front of a house on 72nd Street.

And here are the front steps of the same house. What you can’t see is the rocking mad lady at the top of the stairs.

And the side of the house. This place is nuts and attracting a lot of interest from passers by.

October 30, 2013
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And one more

About the Lower East Side. Katz’s Deli. Blimey. It is like going back in time, maybe 50 years? A New York institution, Katz’s sells Jewish comfort food writ large. And I mean large. The biggest salt beef (corned beef to Americans) sandwich ever. And we have eaten a few over the years. I illustrate my point below:

Yes, that is one half of the sandwich. I was eating the other half. I don’t have a picture of the pastrami, but believe me, it was just as ginormous. Half the fun of Katz’s is the atmosphere. People come here on the tourist trail and locals come too. It’s a loud, crowded and chaotic place. The walls are covered in photos of the boss with famous people. The toilets look ancient (didn’t get further than the door, too off putting).

And the staff. Well, the staff are the loveliest I have come across in some time. Here’s the lovely man who cut the pastrami for my sandwich.

So go, take cash and have a lot of time and sharp elbows to beat the queues. I may have jumped the queue, but who cares, it was great.

October 29, 2013
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190 Bowery

And the third in a series of posts about our day out to the Lower East Side. This time it’s about the mysterious building on the corner of Bowery and Spring Street. We went by it on the way the Pickle Day and stopped short to gaze up at this graffiti clad vast old building that was once a bank. You can see from the pictures below that in its day it was very grand and imposing. The front steps retain their iron gates and the pillars are grand and imposing. The graffiti is awful.

I was intrigued. What on earth was this place. As usual, the Internet turns up the answer pretty quick. It was the home of the Germania Bank, built in the late 19th Century. The area was home to a large German population at the time and I’m sure it would have been as imposing then as it is now. Incredibly it is the home of one family, the Maisels. Jay Maisel is an artist who bought the bank for $100,000 in 1966 and has lived there ever since. He uses the space for his own art and has rented it out to other artists, including, impressively, Roy Lichtenstein. There’s a really good article from 2008 in New York Magazine, so I won’t go into any more detail here. Read it, it’s really good and the pictures are great.

As for Mr Maisel, he says he gets approached by real estate agents all the time and he has had to put a website up called 190thebowery.com to try and stop them as he has no interest in selling. New York Magazine asked agents to put a price on the 30,000+ square foot building. These topped out at $50 million and that was five years ago. New York is in the grip of a property boom right now, so heaven knows what those estimates would look like now.

So why doesn’t Maisel sell and realise his investment all those years ago? ‘Where am I going to live? A three bed apartment?’. Fair point. Not sure I’d fancy it, he and his wife have to clean up the sidewalk every day as they are responsible for it. Doubt that’s a pretty sight after a Saturday night.

October 28, 2013
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The Great Wall of Soho

Here’s something new. To me, anyway, and it’s nearly as old as me. It’s this fabulous wall in Soho on East Houston Street quite a way down town in Manhattan. It’s got what looks like blue girders (cue predictable Irn-Bru jokes from R at this point) sticking out of the walls. It is huge and blue and really catches your attention. I like the angle of this picture. Could be one of the bizarre art pieces at the Sculpture Park, if it wasn’t on the side of a tall building. It’s lasted longer than those Banksy pieces, anyway.

October 27, 2013
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Gotta pick a pickle or two

Today is Pickle Day on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Yes, you heard right, it’s a festival of pickles. Intrigued we wandered down the 6 line to Spring Street and discovered Pickle Day on Orchard Street, which had been shut down for the occasion.

And are pickles popular with the populous of New York? Why yes they are. It was rammed. There were people picking pickles everywhere. Some were quite nice and some were disgusting. There were pickles on sticks, on trays and in buckets. What a perfect way to spend a sunny Sunday in New York. We bought pickled cucumbers and fennel from Boulton and Watt, which is a restaurant nearby that makes its own pickles. You can buy a jar at the bar for $5. Beats peanuts.

October 25, 2013
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Ah, so that’s why

There are NYPD cops all over the place around 4pm this afternoon and there are railings the length of Park Avenue. This is the Upper East Side, what is going on?

One cop tells us that the President ‘may be coming down here soon, but we don’t know’. I overhear another cop tell a lady that there’s a film shoot going on, so they’re shutting down the streets. I tend to believe the former as I read in the New York Times that the President is in town to visit schools in Brooklyn and that they shut down Prospect Park because of it. Blimey. Well, I was on a train back from Washington last night, he could have sat next to me and kipped on our sofa bed. Much cheaper.