Friday, September 26, 2008

A Little Too Quiet

The wedding is now within the 10-day forecast on Weather.com. Somehow that makes it more real to me, as if that somehow guarantees that the day will, in fact, arrive.

They're calling for showers, by the way.

Things are fairly quiet. Lynn and I have a few minor details to pin down, but for the most part everything is ready to go. Everyone keeps asking us, "Are you nervous?" "Are you ready?" "Are you going crazy?"

Not really, no.

We're excited, and we're looking forward to it. But we're not stressed, and that's a wonderful feeling. It's nice to sit on the couch at night and think, shouldn't we be stressing about something? Shouldn't something be going horribly wrong so we can fix it at the last possible moment? Sure, something is bound to go wrong. This is a huge event, with many moving parts, and people traveling from all over the country. But it's set up so well now—thanks primarily to Lynn's meticulous planning—that we have the luxury of sitting back and enjoying the days leading up to it.

And we are.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Why I Live Here

Last night, I worked late. Leaving the office at 8:30pm means the sun is down, the streets are a little less crowded, and I'm guaranteed a seat on the subway.

This city is all about change. No one can live here, as the saying goes, unless they're willing to be living somewhere different tomorrow. The people, the buildings, the very ground the city is built on, are all growing, shrinking, moving. But if you catch the city in an in-between time, when it's not quite this moment anymore but not quite the next moment either, the city will show you its real splendor. It's as if the city shares a secret with you; to remind you why you're here, or just to remind you that you're here.

Last night was an in-between time. It's not quite summer here, but it's not quite autumn. It was dark at 8:30pm, but not quite night-time. And when I walked out of my office building's lobby onto 45th Street, I felt the change and my breath caught. I suddenly wanted to run around every corner just to see what was on the other side, and to go on to the next corner and the next. I wanted to see every street, climb every building, and find every last crack in the pavement. Yet the euphoria of that anticipation, the knowledge of those endless possibilities, rooted me to the spot just to prolong the enjoyment. You know these moments, these love-at-first-sight moments, when everything seems so clear and you feel somehow more alive than before.

And then the next moment came. The cars honked, the people laughed and chatted down the street, and the city, winking about our shared secret, moved on.


Picture by Joergen Geerds, New York Panorama

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

"And Another Thing..."

I was surprised when the BBC produced the Tertiary Phase, Quandary Phase and Quintessential Phase of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio program. The Primary and Secondary Phases, of course, being the original version of the Hitchhiker's Guide, first broadcast in England in 1978. I was surprised because the three new phases of the HHG radio program were recorded in 2003, 23 years after the completion of the Secondary Phase, and two years after the tragic death of Douglas Adams. But it seems Adams left some pretty explicit instructions on how to complete the radio program, always his favorite medium through with he brought the Guide to the world. He had scoped out scripts for most of the fits (episodes) and left little to interpretation.

In the spring 2001, just weeks before his fatal heart attack, I had the great pleasure of meeting Douglas Adams. He spoke at my college, the last stop on what was to be his last tour. Being a college of engineers and scientists, he talked a lot about technology and the way we interact with it. He was so excited, so enthusiastic, standing on stage half-pleading and half-commanding us to bring him his dream: a real, interactive Guide to everything. Adams helped create h2g2 back in 1999 as a community-generated encyclopedia of everything. An early wikipedia, h2g2 has a section for peer-edited factual entries, as well as one for unedited entries that are more creative and fun.

After his talk, I asked him why he came around to colleges like mine. His response was immediate: technology can be amazing, and if we're as excited about evolving and innovating it as he is, then it surely will be even more amazing.

Today I was surprised again. A friend of mine pointed me to this article on the BBC's website. A sixth Hitchhiker's book? Written by a different author? Adams had said many times that he was always slightly disappointed with how dark Mostly Harmless turned out. He had intended to end the book series on a bit more of an upbeat tone, as he did the radio program. But can another author fill those rather large shoes? (Adams was 6' 5" after all!)

Eoin Colfer is already a well-established author, and a Hitchhiker's fan. It will be interesting to see what hits the stands in October 2009.

Monday, September 15, 2008

The View Out My Window (Unchanged)

The ongoing saga of 130 Liberty took a frustrating turn recently. A little more than a year after careless smoking caused a deadly fire in the building outside my window, inspectors have found evidence of smoking and drinking still happening inside the building. It's almost inconceivable that this would be allowed to happen after last year's fire, but the sad truth is that no one is surprised.

The building has become the ugly giant in the neighborhood, standing for everything that is wrong with the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan. It is the very real testament to our inability to move on and rebuild. Yes, the World Trade Center itself has also been plagued by bureaucratic delays and ridiculous budget overruns. Yet it is progressing, even if slowly. Building 7 stands tall, having been open for two years now, even if it does sometimes disappear right into the sky as in this NYT picture. (That's my building on the right.)

The steel frame of Building 1, the Freedom Tower, is above street level, and rising fast. The foundations for Buildings 2, 3, 4 are nearing completion, and the memorial and transit hub are starting to be discernible from the piles of materials that surround them. You can see these looking down from the top of Building 7.

But there, in the middle of that picture, looming over the bustling construction site, is the old Deutsche Bank tower. Half demolished before last year's fire, it's sat there ever since, the real shame of Financial District. The real failure in the rehabilitation of Lower Manhattan. Hundreds of thousands of tourists flock to the area each year, and they look out at all the newness of the in-progress Trade Center, and right past the true open wound next door.

Mayor Bloomberg has begun to take notice, however, and mentioned the Deutsche Bank tower in a recent op-ed. He is calling for the Port Authority to turn over responsibility for the WTC to the city. (The Port Authority is a joint New York State and Jew Jersey authority, and not subject to city oversight.) He's also calling for the near-dissolution of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, who has been mis-managing the Deutsche Bank demolition for the last two years.
The LMDC would also turn over its responsibility for demolishing the Deutsche Bank building to the already existing Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center, a city/state entity. This would help the LMCCC prevent the delays that inevitably result from too much bureaucracy, greatly enhancing the prospects for meeting a July 2009 deadline for full demolition of the building. To increase accountability, we will push the LMCCC to establish benchmarks for progress and issue monthly reports. The public has a right to know whether we are meeting our goals.
In the meantime, the men in hazard suits are still working, silhouetted in the windows across from mine. "No Smoking" signs have popped up all over the area. And someday, Lower Manhattan will pick the scab of the Deutsche Bank tower, clean out its only remaining open wound, and build a symbol of progress to replace the one of ineptitude.

Top photo: David W. Dunlap/The New York Times
Bottom photo: Uncredited/Gothamist.com

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Population in Perspective

Since we're thinking about maps.

I often have a hard time explaining to my friends and family back in the Midwest just how many people live in this fair city. I've spent most of my life in small towns whose "downtown" areas consisted of two blocks of storefronts. So I was ambling along through the webs and found this map. It's a simple population of comparison, matching each borough of New York to the state whose population most closely matches it.


Yes, there as many people on my 14-mile long island as their are in the entire great state of Idaho. (And yes, what happens in Brooklyn, stays in Brooklyn.)

I find it fascinating to see this so plainly laid out. I see more people—and different people—each day than existed in either of the small Michigan towns in which I lived, or even both combined. When people talk about the "New York bad attitude" and how hard it is to get to know people here, I have to admit I'm not that surprised. Look at how many people we have in our lives daily. It's incomprehensible to think of getting to know an entire state—and any one of the five boroughs is no different. Add to this the 45 million tourists who come through each year, and is it really any wonder that most New Yorkers just can't deal with thinking about any more people? (Granted, we could all be a little nicer about it, but that applies across the planet and is just concentrated in cities.)

And if you really want food for thought, think about what this means about the way the electoral college is set up.

As an interesting aside, Manhattan and Idaho both suffer from confusion over the origin of their names. There are several possible origins for the word Manhattan, all deriving from the original "Manna hata" that Henry Hudson noted in his log book in 1609. Mannahata can be translated from the native Lenape tribe as "island of many hills." However, the Munsee dialect of the Lenape translates the word variously as manahachtanienk—meaning "general place of inebriation", manahatouh—"place where timber is procured for bows and arrows" or simply menatay—"island."

Idaho, meanwhile, is disputedly from the Shoshone term "ee-da-how," meaning variously "the sun comes from the mountains," "gem of the mountains," or "Behold! the sun coming down the mountain." But this may have been completely fabricated by a lobbyist named George Willing around the time the northwest part of the country was being carved into territories. However, a tribal chief of the native Coeur d'Alene Nation explains that in their language Idaho would be pronounced "Ah-d'Hoo." He translates the first syllable as a greeting and second as an expression of surprise, coming up with "Welcome, with open arms! We're just surprised that there are so many of you!"

That very phrase has been what New York has greeted newcomers with for four hundred years.

Monday, September 08, 2008

It's A Jungle Out There

Richard Florida, the pop economist, has released an intriguing new map of the U.S. that displays the relative ratios of men and women in cities. It seems that for men, the eastern half of the country is the place to find a match, while women should go west.


New York and its environs seem to be the absolute worst for women, with there being more than 200,000 more single women than single men. Sorry, ladies.

But wait, there's more! Brooklynite John Soma, who apparently truly does have all the time in the world, contends that the above map is misleading. Why? It ranges in age from 18 to 64--and ignores the trends across ages. His interactive map allows you to set an age range, and adjust for population. This gives a far more "fair" description of the singles scene across the U.S. Here is his map of the whole age range, 18 to 64:


NYC still doesn't look too good for women, and single men are still battling it out on the west coast. But once you adjust for population, it looks like this:


And here's where it gets interesting. As it turns out, it's not that are really so few single men in the east, it's just that there is a dearth of single older men. There are plenty—more than plenty—single young men in the east. If we narrow the age range, here's what we see (raw data on top, adjusted for population below):



It's raining men!

And if you're wondering why I'm blogging about this, it's because there's one dot on these maps that makes me laugh uncontrollably. Can you spot it? Do you see, way up north? Yes, it's my very own college town! A large population of young men, lost in the wilderness of the UP, trying in vain to become engineers under the delusion that it will impress all the women who are nowhere to be found!