You live and learn. At any rate, you live.

Ich habe fünfzehn Jahre für diese gewartet

2011-10-26T22:28:00.000-04:00

Sunset over New York, sunrise over London, lunch in Frankfurt.

Fifteen years ago, when faced with the decision of foreign languages to choose from in high school, I chose German. I don't recall exactly why I chose German over French, Russian, and Spanish, but it was probably because then, as now, I just liked the sound of the language. Throughout taking German levels 1, 2, and 4 (but not 3 for reasons I can't seem to recall), it was of course a foregone conclusion that I would travel to Germany at first opportunity.

And travel I did, to countries whose inhabitants speak Spanish, Italian, French, Spanish, more Spanish, and also Spanish. But all good things to those who wait...that is, wait for friends to move to Germany and convince you that now's as good a time as any to just book the tickets and make the trip.

Lynn and I landed in Frankfurt on a sunny afternoon, and the adventure began immediately. We were to make our way by train to the small western town of Kusel, where a friend has been living for a couple years. Nervous about speaking a language among natives that I haven't studied in over a decade, fears were abated when I experienced once again that people are people everywhere. The gentleman behind the ticket counter at the train station helped us get our route down (Kusel is not exactly on the beaten path), and even found a way to save us some money be making certain connections. Helpful folks on the trains pointed us to the right platforms when we had to make those connections. And so we went gliding through the countryside, generally aware of where we were going and marginally sure of when we'd get there.

Kusel

Once in Kusel, we had only to find our friend's house and some dinner. Our friend was working late, so off we went in search of a little French restaurant she had recommended. There, exhausted but happy to be in a new place, we chatted with the owner (who was even gracious enough to complement my German) and readied ourselves for the excitement to come.

"Odd that they'd play the Beatles, no?" mused Lynn the American upon hearing British music in the French restaurant of the German town over her plate of Austrian wienerschnitzel.

Home Again

2011-10-09T02:30:00.000-04:00

Milford, Michigan

Once or twice a year, I head back to Michigan. Holidays with family, weddings of friends, there's never a shortage of reasons. I often joke that "you can never go home again." Things are different now. There are new buildings, different stores, fewer friends around--it's changed. It's a different place than what you used to call home, and so you can't "go home" any more than you can go back in time.

But I've been spending a lot of time in Michigan in the last year. More than in the last several years combined. Sometimes in familiar places, sometimes in new places. But it's all, on some level, familiar. There's a unique atmosphere to it, a type of people, an aesthetic to the landscape, that is unmistakably...home? Not my current home. But absolutely where I come from.

I grew up in a town called Milford. There's a Milford in almost every state, and with a few exceptions, they're all variations on the same theme. About an hour or so from some large city, there's a little town on a river. The town itself holds a few to several thousand people, but the outlying farms and nearby even smaller towns contribute to the feel of the population as well. There's one major industry in or near the town. The "downtown" area on Main Street consists of a couple blocks, and includes a bakery, the local paper, a jeweler, a toy store, and the rest of the collection of restaurants and small shops not yet put out of business by the brand new WalMart two towns over. The folks who live there pride themselves on their town's obscure--but interesting--history, and on knowing that they live in a great place to raise kids. They all not-so-secretly believe they are the real town Garrison Keillor talks about every week, "where the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the children are above average."

My Milford was my childhood Mayberry. I rode my bike with a friend down to the bridge over the river where we'd spend the afternoon with half-hearted fishing lines in the water talking comic books. We built tree forts in the woods and held our breath walking past the cemetery. I walked down the street to neighbors near and far saying hello. My high school's football field on Friday night was the place to be--even if the team hardly ever won.

My Milford has changed a lot in the intervening years. The population has boomed as the outskirts of Detroit have grown into suburbs of their own, and suburbs of suburbs now reach all the way out to my little town. The cute little stores are now high-end boutiques. They even repealed an age-old law against buildings more than two stories tall and have built a few that are (gasp!) three and four stories tall. Friends and family have moved away. What once was the kind of place you looked for to live the small-town life is now a trendy spot to go out for dinner.

And yet there is a pull. Those little familiarities, that remind you why, though you'd never admit it, you did look back over your shoulder as you left. The way you know where you're going even though it's been ages since you've gone there. The bend in the road you anticipate out of habit. The surprising recollection of some neighborhood landmark that was of no significance twenty years ago when you passed it every day, yet you now start at the tiniest thrill of recognition.

It pulls at you gently, almost imperceptibly. You effortlessly slip into a routine that you didn't realize you still remembered. The place lulls you in, reminds you of its beauty, discretely hides its faults. Tugs at the nostalgia-laden heartstrings like a conversation with an old friend. Let's catch up. How've you been? You've really changed. You're exactly the same.

Just when you think that maybe you can go home again, you begin to realize that this place has grown up, too. Where you once rode your bike to the Dime & Cent store for comic books and plastic swords. you now drive over to shop for locally-made home furnishings. The ice cream parlor with the high counter and arcade video games has become a restaurant to meet old friends and reminisce. Other friends prefer the popular new restaurant down the street, though you can't help but see it as the old pizza joint where you worked your first job at sixteen.

Nostalgia and the realization of change are, by definition, at odds. Nowhere does that seem more true than when looking at your own home--not where you live now, but where you come from. I can't go home again, not really, but I can visit it in stories, photo albums, and all those happy childhood memories.

New Inspirations and Pursuits

2011-06-14T19:00:00.005-04:00

Well, it has been a while. I think this may have been the longest I've gone without updating the ol' blog. Not for lack of activity, really, just lack of time. And that's a good thing, really, not having time to sit in front of my computer for too long. Aside from the normal duties of work, the Condo Board, the Board of Trustees of Mu Beta Psi, and daily life with two cats and an equally busy Lynn, I've gotten back into dancing a bit and taken up a new hobby.

For my birthday, and in preparation for a little trip I'm planning, Lynn gave me a fancy DSLR camera. (And, it should be noted, enrollment in a photography workshop.) Under the guidance of a colleague from work, and the workshop, I've been experimenting and having a great time learning about the camera. So far, I've taken some...

Dramatic shots of my cat:

And cute shots of my cat:

And shots of random people in the park:

And nice cars in my neighborhood:

So, clearly, I have a long way to go. But I am very much enjoying this new way of looking at the world around me.

Cutting the Cable

2011-01-11T19:26:00.001-05:00

Growing up, our house had cable TV for approximately three months. It was while we were living in an "in-between" apartment while the place we were moving to was not yet ready, and it happened to be cable-ready (which was a big deal in those days). So we had a little cable box on the top of our TV. And with it, I watched "Ren and Stimpy" hour after hour. That's about it.

As a kid, I barely remember anyone having cable TV. In the olden days (oh no, I'm turning into one of those) our TV had rabbit-ear antennae that just barely picked up five or six channels. The major networks were on the VHF* dial; CBS on channel 2, NBC on channel 4, and ABC on channel 7. On the UHF dial were channels 20, 50, and on a clear day, 62. I don't remember too much about those channels, except that Star Trek was on one of them. And really, what else mattered?

Once the 90's hit, it seemed cable was everywhere--or at least, everywhere in my friends' houses. The number of channels even on broadcast TV exploded, merged, bought each other, and added off-shoot channels. Somewhere in there was the short period of "Ren and Stimpy" mentioned earlier, and that was exciting. Literally tens of channels! But when it was back to broadcast TV afterward, I didn't really feel like I was missing anything.

In college, my freshman dorm room had the campus cable. My room-mate brought a TV, and we hooked it up, and watched it once. One movie, about an hour and a half. I later moved off-campus, and though I had a TV, I had neither cable or rabbit-ears, so it was in practice only for watching movies and sitting drinks upon. Besides, the internet was the only necessary source of news and entertainment by then.

Moving to NYC meant no television at all for years. Not that it was unavailable, mostly because I was busy, a poor grad student, and had better things to do. Not until I moved into 90 West, and even then only because my room-mate had already had one, and it was hooked up to cable. As silly as it sounds, I was surprised at the sheer volume of content available. Hundreds of channels! So many, in fact, that I didn't watch any of them. Instead, I signed up for Netflix.

But ever since, I've had cable. Why? Because it came with internet access, or there was some promotional deal, or something convinced me that it'd be more effort to get rid of it than to keep it. But we don't really watch anything. Sure, there are some good shows on these days, but they're also on Netflix, Hulu, or even the websites of the TV networks themselves. We end up turning on the ol' tube (which is funny, because I haven't had a TV with a cathode ray tube since college) whenever we have nothing better to do. This invariably means we end up watching HGTV (or worse, "How Clean is Your House") until we can no longer stand it.

So, we cut the cable. There are tons of people "cutting the cable" these days, in protest to the rising prices or the monopolies of most cable providers, or as a statement that the internet provides the same content for less. We certainly aren't going to miss the higher bills, and we certainly will get whatever shows we really want to watch through the internet. But mostly, we're getting rid of it just because we don't watch. Or at least, we're ashamed of what we do watch.

And if our home is a little quieter for it, well, that's hardly anything to complain about.

* For those who may not remember, back in the day TV was an analog phenomenon, with VHF (Very High Frequency) and UHF (Ultra High Frequency) defining two ranges of radio frequency used to broadcast television signals. I remember being incredibly excited at the discovery that TV and radio were in effect the same thing. I used to try and impress my friends by tuning the analog car radio tuner all the way down to the bottom of the FM range, where you could sometimes pick up the audio from the TV stations. To my great surprise, this never seemed to impress them.

Guardian Angel

2010-12-11T02:03:00.000-05:00

Some people say our troops are heroes. Some people say we're lucky that our heroes are our troops.

Somewhere out there, a young man is visiting his family in mid-Michigan. He's wishing them a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year, because he won't be there to share it with them. He's getting together with his friends and visiting old haunts. He's telling his mom that he loves her and that he'll see her again, hopefully soon.

He won't be with them because he's in the United States Air Force, and will shortly be deployed to Iraq.

But on his way to or from his family one evening last week, he passed through the city of Flint. Perhaps he saw it happen. Perhaps he only saw what remained. But he stopped. He didn't need to; he probably had somewhere to be, and it was cold and snowing. But he stopped all the same. He could help, even if in some small way, and he wanted to help.

He pulled over in front of the wreckage of the car. He put on his military reflective vest and walked over to the driver, still trapped inside. He saw that she was conscious, but cold. He grabbed his space-blanket from his car and brought it to her and wrapped it around her. He called the police, an ambulance, and her family. He talked to her, kept her conscious, kept her alert. He called the police, an ambulance, and her family again. He told her about himself, to keep her talking. He asked her questions, engaged her answers. He made her comfortable. He kept her alive.

That young man, simply because he was there, stayed with her until the ambulance eventually took her to the hospital.

Right here, a young man is visiting his mom in southeastern Michigan. He's wishing her well, and a full recovery, and glad he can be there to share it. He's telling her he loves her and he's so grateful he gets to see her again.

To that young man, from this one, thank you. I hope to find you and tell you that you have another family who will be thinking of you while you're in Iraq, who are proud of you, and grateful to you. You are our hero.

Country Mouse, City Mouse

2010-10-21T20:53:00.000-04:00

I find that when it comes to communities, I like the extremes. Give me a rural, wooded, empty landscape. Or New York City. Either works for me. The in-betweens, "small cities," and especially suburbs, just don't feel right to me.

On a recent weekend, I was spending time in Vermont. In many ways, it felt like Michigan's UP: small towns, rough landscape, and hardy locals. Lynn and I strolled through tiny towns, ate lunch along a crystal-clear river, and rode horses through mountain forests.

Immediately upon returning to the bustling metropolis of NYC, we had to quickly transition back to city folk. We had massages at a spa (we were celebrating our second anniversary, after all). That evening we attended the film premier of "Stone" at the Museum of Modern Art. Edward Norton was there (didn't meet him), and apparently a host of other people I probably ought to have recognized (didn't meet them). The after-party was at a swank hotel near the main public library building (think Ghostbusters) where the food was amazing, drinks unending, and coolness factor far out-matching myself.

But it was fun, all of it. I enjoyed horseback riding miles from nowhere as much as attending the premier in the metropolis. And somehow, putting them within 24 hours of each other reminded me why the two places I've explicitly chosen to live are on the opposite ends of every spectrum.

If nothing else, the extremes are interesting.

Battle of the Kittehs: Louis vs. Ella

2010-09-16T12:00:00.001-04:00

Ladies and Gentlemen! Fleming International brings you the all-out, hard-hitting, brawl of the century! Two competitors will battle for superiority of sleeping spots, prime petting position, and complete dominance of the domestic domain!

Let's introduce our fighters:

In the red corner, weighing in at 12 lbs, and reigning Heavyweight Champion of the Apartment, Louis "I Was Here First" Cat.

In the blue corner, weighing just 5 lbs and barely qualifying for this class, Ella "Smaller and Faster" Kitten.

These two combatants were brought together originally to live peacefully in their shared apartment. But that peace was soured when Louis balked at Ella's brash behavior in making herself comfortably at home in his space. The two squared off and quickly agreed to a multi-bout tournament to determine, once and for all, which cat would reign supreme.

Louis Cat, born February 2009, is the Brute of Brooklyn. His style is direct and forceful, right in line with a typical feline fighter. His favorite tactic is to use his front paws to tap his opponent on the head, as if to toy with them, then pin them down with his body. He'll give chase if he has to, but prefers the pounce-and-kick method to running around needlessly.

Ella Kitten, born May 2010, is the newcomer and is challenging Louis for the title for the first time. She's fast and light, and makes full use of the tight spaces around her to gain a tactical position. Though inexperienced, she has a natural talent for flanking her opponents. Her strategy of running and hiding may paint her as the weak one, but when the claws come out, she's a whole lot of sharp.

Who will take home the Champion belt? Will experience and brute force overcome speed and agility? Will the undercat uproot the reigning Champion? The two competitors will take the ring each day until they determine how to coexist in the same space. Daily bouts will go on until the referees call an end and split them up to rest for the next match. Eventually, though no one knows how long, Louis and Ella will declare a victor or a truce. This commentator is hoping for the latter, though I'm sure we're in for a heck of a show.

Images: Naddya Chavez

The Last Lock

2010-09-14T12:00:00.001-04:00

I've been putting off this post. Perhaps because I never really like it when things end. Perhaps because I've been awfully busy keeping the two kitties from killing each other.

The last Saturday evening in August, Lynn and I headed up to the George Washington Bridge to find the last lock in the Key to the City project. We had almost stopped by this particular lock after running around the Bronx, but in the end were too tired to continue and really wanted to head up to the GWB around sunset. So it was left as the last thing on our list.

The bridge itself is quite remarkable in its own right, built between 1927 and 1931 and becoming the longest suspension bridge in the world for some time. With 14 lanes of traffic (two levels), it's still the bridge with the highest vehicular capacity in the world. The chief engineer, Othmar Ammann, built six major bridges in and around NYC, including the Verrazano, Whitestone, and Triborough bridges, which I cross often going to and from Brooklyn. The architect of the GWB was Cass Gilbert, who I always seem to run into. Gilbert had originally planned to encase the towers of the GWB in granite with his favorite Beaux Arts flourishes, and even put a restaurant at the top of the east tower. However, the Great Depression delayed these plans, and eventually everyone came to love the now-iconic "bare bones" steel lattice. They do make the bridge immediately distinguishable from any other suspension bridge.

When we arrived in the neighborhood of Washington Heights on the Manhattan side of the bridge the sun had already sunk below the horizon, but the twilight colors still stretched across the sky. We walked up the ramp onto the pedestrian walkway and came to a gate left wide open. This gate held the lock we were looking for at one time, but I'd heard long ago that the lock was missing and the gate was left open until midnight anyway. But we weren't really there to open anything this time. We were there to enjoy a beautiful view of New York from high up on the span of the bridge and the wonderful summer evening air.

It seemed natural that the end of our month-long trek to every corner of NYC should end here, with a beautiful skyline vista and a sunset to see it off. It seemed natural that this grand tour of my home should end on the bridge that brought me in when I moved here permanently. In many ways, this whole project has re-acquainted me with the city. It's broken down my routine destinations and habits in favor of places I'd never been, or sometimes had even heard of. We need that every once in a while: the chance to see our home from a different perspective and find new appreciation and astonishment in what's been there all along.

I'm grateful for the journey this project provided, and even more so for the people who shared it along the way. Thanks Julie, for bestowing the key upon me in Times Square. Thanks Lynn, Andy, Sandy, Sarah, and Julie (different Julie) for coming along for the ride. And thanks Julie (yet a third), Tom, and Rachel for being game to run around the city with strangers and having a great time.

View Key to the City - GWB - 8/28/10 in a larger map

I'll Take Manhattan (Part II)

2010-08-29T00:06:00.000-04:00

Our Friday adventure continues! After spending some time in the Bronx, my friend from work and I headed back into Manhattan to the famous Museum Mile, a stretch of the Upper East Side where one can find many of the city's best hot dog stands--in front of museums. One of the Key destinations was the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but sadly, they only participated through the end of June. I've heard from other Key holders that it "unlocked" free admission, which is kind of funny since the admission fee is a suggested donation anyway. There was also a music box that a staff member would show to Key holders. Since I only received my key the day before the museum stopped participating, I didn't really get a chance to see it, but I still wanted to stop by since it was one of the destinations.

We then walked down along Central Park to the Whitney Museum of American Art. I'd been there once before, seven years ago, but couldn't remember much from that trip. The lock we were looking for was on the coat check counter right by the entrance, so we went there first. It was a simple wooden box, with a strap around it locked by a padlock. I opened it, not really sure what to expect, and the walls of the box unfolded down flat. Insider was a model of the new building the Whitney is going to build down by the High Line park. The insides of each wall, now lying flat on the table, had detailed schematics of each wall of the building. It was really cool to see, it felt like we were peering into the planning stages of the Whitney's future.

We then had the rest of the afternoon to wander the museum. I often approach art museums with some trepidation. I like art works, in general, but I find I rarely understand or find meaning in most modern art. I feel like the concept of "making art" has become more about the artist's act than the art itself. For example, one wall in the Whitney had a large canvas with markings on it made by various materials. The markings seemed to be random, and I just couldn't find any meaning in any of it. Nothing. Near it was a television showing the artist "creating" it. He had set up some metal ramps along the wall, and was climbing on these ramps while making the random markings on the canvas. The kicker: he was climbing on these metal ramps wearing ice skates. Yes, ice skates. So naturally he was not having an easy time on the metal ramps, and I can only imagine the sound must have been horrendous. And this is art. This is inspired creation. What? Surely, surely, there's an easier way to make random marks on a canvas. Perhaps I'm artistically-challenged, but I fail to see how the artist's act of creation--done in private--can be more "art" than the results of that creation, hung in a museum. I feel like art should be judged by the people viewing it, and not have meaning imposed upon it by the artist. This tends to put me at odds with any art that I can't make sense out of in my own head.

Same goes for one installation that was an entire floor set up for a performance. There was a large projection screen showing what looked like old black and white video of cowboys riding horses, with random bright green dots slowly filling the screen. In front of this was a group of musicians, consisting of a cellist and several guys with keyboards. The cellist made the occasional scraping sounds, while the keyboardists looked incredibly busy and active producing only static and what sounded like speaker feedback. Another floor showed videos of a woman slamming a door, with a loud door-slamming soundtrack that was out of synch with the video itself. I was supposed to feel the artist's frustration at not being taken seriously as a young female artist. Yet, seeing this, I really couldn't take her seriously as any kind of artist at all.

It wasn't all incomprehensible (to me) sculptures and installations. There was one entire floor devoted to Charles Burchfield, who I came to really enjoy throughout the exhibit. He started with a sort of realist watercolor style painting landscapes from his childhood. Though the exhibit we could see his style change, becoming brighter, darker, then more fantastical. His were interesting and engaging, and I found myself seeing more and more in his paintings. There was even a room showing his throw-away doodles and drawings that he never turned into paintings, and it was fun to see what he hadn't intended to be displayed. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Having covered the Whitney top to bottom, the plan was to jump into the subway and head down to meet Lynn near Bryant Park for the fifth and final lock of the day. We started walking toward the subway, walked past it, and ended up walking the two miles down into Midtown to meet Lynn at a little Italian restaurant we've been to before, Via Italia. Lynn and I ate there when she decided to move to NYC, and later when I proposed, so it's a place we tend to gravitate towards when looking for a good dinner in Midtown.

After dinner, we walked down to Bryant Park for the last destination of the evening. By this point, night had fallen, setting the perfect scene for this particular lock. In Bryant Park, near the 'Wichcraft kiosk we found a specific park lamp. It looked like all the others that light up the park except for a small green box near the base with a lock on it. On this evening, some event was going on, and we had to get just inside the barrier they'd set up to access the lock. I opened it with my key and found a simple light switch. I turned off the light. Lynn then reached over and turned it back on, though it took several long minutes for it to warm up and light again. I'd have to say this is one of the coolest locks. These lamps are everywhere throughout the city, and it felt strangely special to be able to turn one off and on. If any of these locks are left in place after the project ends next week, I hope this one is among them.

As promised, a map of the whole day:

View Key to the City - BX/Man - 8/27/10 in a larger map

Return to the Bronx (Part I)

2010-08-27T23:29:00.000-04:00

So much for last Saturday being the last marathon Key to the City day. I'd intended to run up quickly to the Bronx today to stop by the two last destinations up there. (The first three were on a weekend trip earlier in the month.) Instead, a friend from work joined me and we had a whole afternoon adventure, eventually hitting five of the remaining destinations--more than any other single day.

Leaving work, we ran by Union Square where Lynn and two of her work friends were having lunch. Then we were off on the subway up to the Bronx. I had heard that the first stop, Public School 73 was at the top of the steepest hill in the Bronx. Thinking we might skip the uphill climb, we took the subway one stop further than necessary in hopes of coming out on top of the hill. No luck there. We hard to climb a stairwell reminiscent of Montmartre in Paris to get up to the street and find PS 73. I thought we might have struck out right away when we got to the front doors and they were locked. Fortunately, there was an open door around the side of the building.

Boy did that bring back memories. We walked in and immediately saw those fold-up long picnic tables, drinking fountains, and walls full of childrens' art projects. A couple security guards (it is the Bronx after all, but there were no metal detectors or security bars to perpetuate that stereotype) showed us to the front lobby. There, we found a display case that typically holds announcements for the students. It was full of Key holders' notes as well, so we unlocked the case and added our own. Mine: "School days. Do I miss you? NO." My friend's: "Playing hooky from work to go back to school!"

A short walk, fortunately downhill this time, took us over to the Grand Concourse. Our destination was deep inside the Bronx County Courthouse. The guide book suggested that we "Be patient: security and freedom of access have to coexist." It was referring to the very strict security measures we had to go through to get into the courthouse. I took everything I had out of my pockets and the metal detectors still beeped; it was more sensitive than any airport I've gone through in years.

The directions were surprisingly complex, sending us down a couple hallways, to a stairway into a lower level, and down more hallways. We walked past the Marriage Bureau where there were several couples waiting to be married, and down another hall. At the end of it was a small plastic "quality service survey box." Anyone could drop their suggestions in, but only with a Key could we open the box and read what's inside. Interestingly, there were no quality service surveys, only notes from other Key holders. We once again added our own, one reading "Nice to come in through the visitors' entrance this time!"

All five stops in the Bronx complete! Next stop, Manhattan....

(I'll put the map on the second part of the day's adventure, in the next post.)

The Old Churchyard

2010-08-26T20:37:00.002-04:00

A doctor's appointment across the street from a Key to the City lock? Sounds like a recipe for a quick detour!

Trinity Church (not where my doctor practices) is a historic church in the Financial District. The building there today was built in 1846, though the Trinity Church parish goes back to 1698 when the first of three churches was built on the same spot as today's. According to church records, the infamous pirate/privateer Captain William Kidd lent the runner and tackle from his ship to hoist the stones in building the first church. Today's church is no less distinguished. It was the tallest building in NYC until 1890, and served as the welcome beacon to sailors coming up the bay from the Atlantic, along with being one of the most prominent churches in the city's history.

Today the church still sits in its original land chartered property, most of which consists of the Trinity Church Cemetery. The Key to the City opens the gate to the cemetery, although on this particular day Lynn and I found it wide open as tourists and Wall Streeters alike meandered through or ate lunch in the shade.

Walking through this cemetery is like reading a laundry list of NYC street names, signers of the Declaration of Independence, members of the Continental Congresses, and prominent statesmen of the eighteenth century. Two of the largest cenotaphs are for Robert Fulton and Alexander Hamilton, the former an accomplished inventor and engineer, and the latter, well, Alexander Hamilton. I especially loved the epitaph on Hamilton's tomb:

ALEXANDER HAMILTON
The CORPORATION of TRINITY CHURCH Has erected this
MONUMENT
In Testimony of their Respect
FOR
The PATRIOT of incorruptible INTEGRITY.
The SOLDIER of approved VALOUR.
The STATESMAN of consummate WISDOM:
Whose TALENTS and VIRTUES will be admired
BY
Grateful Posterity.
Long after this MARBLE shall have mouldered into
DUST
He Died July 12th 1804. Aged 47.

Hamilton's tomb, though I'm unsure whether this was intentional or not, is on the site where a small building stood during his lifetime. This building was the original home to King's College, which began in the churchyard, though the College had moved to its own independent building in 1760. Hamilton began studying at King's College in 1774, and so never studied in the building that stood where he now lies. King's College today is better known as Columbia University, where I also spent my grad school years. Columbia claims Hamilton as its "most famous alumnus." Though truth be told, Hamilton began leading a group of students in military drill, and in 1776 they all joined the Revolutionary Army, making him really Columbia's "most famous drop-out."

Nothing like a little walk through history on a mid-summer day.

View Key to the City - Manhattan - 8/26/10 in a larger map

Staaten Eylandt

2010-08-24T22:34:00.001-04:00

In what was probably our last marathon Key to the City day, Lynn and I spent Saturday on Staten Island searching out the four locks there. They were spread from the northernmost neighborhood to the very southern tip of NYC. And I'll freely admit, we blended right in with the locals by taking a car. The island is so big there's now way we could have traversed all of the stops in one day using only the busses and single light rail line.

I'm sure I don't need to explain the stigma that is Staten Island. It's not so much called the "forgotten borough" because it slips under the radar as it is because most New Yorkers wish they could forget it. I'd been to Staten Island once before, and while the experience was too painful to record in the blog, that trip was referenced in this old post. Ok, truth is, that trip happened before this blog existed--but I liked the "too painful to record" line too much not to use it. Still, there are some truly beautiful places on the island. Some lovely beaches, fascinating former military bases, and as I learned on Saturday, some very historically significant sites.

Setting off in the morning, we first headed to the neighborhood of Elm Park. This stop was another community garden, named after local Joe Holzka. It used to be the site of an illegal casino, but was eventually turned into a source of neighborhood pride. Our key opened the gate to a gazebo in the garden to relax in--that is, if the gates to the garden itself were not locked. We discovered, unfortunately, that the garden is only open on alternating Saturdays. Oops. Undaunted, we smelled the roses through the chain-link fence and moved on.

Near the approach of the Bayonne Bridge, a few miles west of the first stop, is the Staten Island Buddhist Vihara. Vihara, I later learned, is the Sanskrit term for monastery, though this was a house like all the other houses in this residential neighborhood. Our key was to open the lock to the "garden maintained by the monks" behind the house. The gate was wide open, but a typed note on the gate welcomed us to wander the garden, meditate, and come inside for tea. We did wander the garden, and were especially interested in the Bodhi tree they had, directly descended from the original Bodhi tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment.

A little nervous, we rang the bell and were welcomed inside by a monk in orange robes. He eagerly showed us into the shrine room with a large statue of Buddha surrounded by flowers and incense. The floor was empty, but for stacks of pillows along the walls, and the ceiling was everywhere covered in soft paper lanterns. We suddenly felt like we were intruding on their lives. We tried to ask questions and engage the monk showing us around, but he seemed--not unwilling, not unfriendly--just not engaged in talking too much with us. I'm not sure if this was a language barrier, or if we were upsetting a typical Saturday morning at the Vihara. We tried to politely and quickly thank him, put our shoes back on, and excuse ourselves.

By this point it was time for lunch, so we opted to drive down to the very middle of the island near where our next stop, a bus tour, would begin. This took us by the Staten Island Mall, the destination of my first fateful trip into Staten Island. Being the most suburban-like part of NYC, and since we were near a real suburban-like shopping mall, Lynn was hoping for an Olive Garden for lunch. Would you believe that although there are two Olive Gardens in Manhattan, there is not a single one in Staten Island? I'm amazed, too. Still, we found another typical suburban chain we hadn't been to in ages, Outback Steakhouse. Closed. Next door was another, closed. Who knew Staten Island didn't wake up before 1pm on a Saturday? We finally ended up at TGI Fridays. Oh yes, yes we did.

It was then time to meet the bus for our third destination, Freshkills Park. Why a bus? Well, the park isn't technically open yet, though they're giving tours of parts of it to let the public know what's going on. Freshkills Park is more commonly known by its previous name, Freshkills Landfill. It received most of NYC's daily trash from 1947 to 2001, and is the largest landfill in the world. As our guide said, if you lived in or visited NYC during the fifty-four years it was open, your trash is in there somewhere. Today the landfill is closed, and almost completely capped off. The city is turning it into a 2,600 acre park, the largest in NYC. The tour was pretty interesting, we drove up onto two of the capped "mounds" and saw the views out over most of Staten Island. Meanwhile, our guide told us the history of the landfill, trash collecting in NYC, and how the Parks Department is slowly turning it into what will be great parkland with lots of amenities. Our key unlocked a case in the front of the bus, inside of which were the largest pair of binoculars I'd ever seen. Through them we could just barely make out the Lower Manhattan skyscrapers in the haze off in the distance.

Sitting in the row behind us on the bus, was a couple from London on--if you can belive this--their honeymoon. Yes, they crossed the Atlantic to honeymoon in the least interesting borough of NYC on a pile of garbage. Well, mostly. She's working on a sewage reclamation project in London that will create a park around a terribly-polluted stream in the East End, so they worked this little side trip into their otherwise quite romantic NYC holiday. We got to chatting with them, and enjoyed our time on the tour bus even more for it. They loved the idea of the Key to the City project, so we invited them to come along with us to the final stop of the day. Quite surprisingly, they accepted.

So, off we were with our British captives--friends!--to the very southern-most tip of Staten Island, the Conference House Park. We parked the car, and walked down a gravel path past an old stone house to a beautiful wooden pavilion right on the beach. It overlooked Raritan Bay, and out to the Atlantic Ocean. I've been to NYC beaches before in the Rockaways and Coney Island, but this was completely different. It felt more like a campground in some woodsy park far from anything that could be called city. On the beach was a woman walking her horse into the water to bathe, and shells washed ashore from the bay. Our key unlocked a door under the pavilion to let us into the space below it. There we found tickets for free admission to tour the Conference House, the stone house we'd walked past on the way.

We went up to the Conference House, and I'm so glad we did as it was the best part of the whole day. Walking around the house with our British friends, I learned that the guy was an architect. It was incredible to circle this old house with him as he thought out loud about the way the stones were set, pointed out where windows had been removed, and clearly discerned what was original to the house and what was added on or upgraded later. We managed to get in on the very last tour of the day (it was late afternoon by this point), with a couple other people who were clearly also enthusiastic about history.

I've always taken an interest in the history of places I've lived, and New York has been a veritable treasure chest. I love finding little pieces of history everywhere here and learning their stories. I've read extensively on the city's origins, the early settlements, and its role in American history. A big part of that role was during the Revolutionary War, where in the Battle of Long Island George Washington famously lost NYC to the British and retreated north. That battle occurred where I currently live, and during his retreat Washington made fortifications in northern Manhattan where I went to grad school and where Gracie Mansion would eventually be built. It's a fascinating story of how the American patriots nearly lost the Revolutionary War, or as our new British friends insisted on calling it, the Civil War. Ah, perspective.

Somehow, though, I missed the Conference House. I'd never read about it, and indeed had never even heard of it. Built as a country manor sometime before 1680, by the time of the Revolutionary War it had been commandeered by Lord Howe, commander of the British naval fleet in America. Howe had been somewhat sympathetic to the colonists in the past, and so he was chosen to engage in the one and only session of peace talks between the two sides. A peace conference was brokered between Howe and the Continental Conference to occur at Howe's residence. On September 11, 1776, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge rowed across the bay from New Jersey, and were led up to the Conference House. They met with Howe in the parlor to the left when you walk in the front door. There's no official record of the discussion, but after three hours, the three politely refused Howe's offer of peace, and so the war raged on for another seven years before the British conceded their colonies to the new United States of America.

The house itself was just as fascinating as its story. Our tour guide was the caretaker of the house, and lived in a part of it that had been added on in the nineteenth century. She was new, the usual guide hadn't shown up that day, and it was the last tour of the day, which meant we were all very relaxed and she was hilarious. She led us through the main and upper floors of the house, where period furniture and everyday items were placed as if someone lived there still. Down in the basement kitchen, quite unlike every other historic house I've ever toured, we were encouraged to look around and touch things. Three hundred year old pots and pans? Check 'em out! Eighteenth century contraption in the corner? We have no idea what this is, come play with it and see if you can figure it out! It was awesome. If for any reason you go to Staten Island, take this tour.

Our planned destinations all visited, it was time to return to more familiar territory. Our new friends had become good friends, and so we went out to dinner with them in our neighborhood. And naturally, ice cream followed. The cool thing about this Key to the City project has been going to all of these places I'd never visit otherwise. But the best part is meeting all of these amazing people along the way.

View Key to the City - Staten Island 8/21/10 in a larger map

From the Mayor's Mansion to the End of the Line

2010-08-18T23:47:00.000-04:00

Another day, another Key to the City adventure. Lynn and I managed to take a tour over our lunch break, then I took off to the far reaches of southern Brooklyn in the evening.

Our lunch destination was Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the Mayor of the City of New York. This is another of the many places on this project that I've meant to see before but never got around to it. The house was beautiful--I do love the Federalist style!--and the tour was really enjoyable. Our two guides were great, and they told many anecdotes of the families who lived in the house before it became city property as well as the Mayors and their families. My favorite part was seeing a British Revolutionary War cannon ball on a mantelpiece in the main parlor. It was discovered in the ground while the mansion was being renovated, having done its part in destroying the house that stood there before Gracie Mansion was built.

Our key opened a closet upstairs in the master bedroom. The whole upstairs is traditionally the residence of the Mayor, but since our current Mayor Bloomberg opted to reside in his own house, the second floor has been opened to the public. Inside the closet was a portrait of Archibald Gracie, who built the house and lived there until his sons lost it in a business venture. Also there was the original check Gracie wrote to purchase the property--in 1798. Our tour guide explained these things, and showed us a real NYC Key to the City. I'll have to find a way to earn one of those some day.

Later in the evening, I jumped on the subway and followed it to the end of the line. Four subway lines end at Stillwell Avenue in Coney Island. The huge subway station there pours riders out into the thick of the Coney Island beach atmosphere. There are food stands, beach stores, and of course, the original Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs. A block away and you're on the iconic boardwalk with all the arcades, stands, music, and rides. There's also sand, and some water too. This lock was not amidst all that, but one avenue north in the more practical part of Coney Island. Here are the real stores for the people who live there, and the places they go--like the local branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.

This was the first time I've struck out on my own to find a lock, and coincidentally it turned out to be a good one for it. I found a metal safe box on a reference shelf that matched my key. Inside was a whole history of Coney Island. Newspaper articles stretching back a hundred years, a printed history of the early settlements on what was once literally an island (today it's only an island in name, landfill attached it to the mainland of Brooklyn long ago). There were artifacts as well, including an old tin can of Coney Island brand sea food, that was once quite popular, and an early electrical conductor found preserved on the ocean floor off-shore. It was a good place to sit, read, and learn. Who would've thought? I went to the library and ended up reading.

I visited the beach, which was empty as it was both late in the evening and starting to rain. I was so close, I just had to go see the ocean. And of course, stopped for dinner at Nathan's.

Today marks two milestones in the Key to the City adventure. First, Gracie Mansion marks the 12th lock opened, meaning the Coney Island library took me beyond the half-way point to opening every single lock. Second, Coney Island finishes off all the locks in Brooklyn, the second borough completed. Time is short to reach all of the locks by the end of the project, September 6th. But with some good planning, I may just make it.

View Key to the City - Man/BK - 8/18/10 in a larger map

Pieces of Brooklyn

2010-08-17T21:27:00.001-04:00

The great Key to the City adventure continues. Rather than have another marathon adventure, we opted to break the Brooklyn locations up among several days.

The very next day after our Bronx adventure, Lynn and I jumped on the subway for the quick trip over to the Brooklyn Museum. Neither of us had been here before, so we didn't know what to expect, but it was a really good experience. Our favorite exhibits were the full-scale replicas of actual colonial houses, built within the museum halls. It was really cool to walk around these houses as if you were actually inside. We eventually found our way to the top floor, where our key opened a secret door in the wall between two portraits. Inside was a secret exhibit, just for us: a small collection of tiny Fabergé sculptures. I didn't know that the House of Fabergé made things other than the famous eggs, but there were some great little sculptures here. Tiny animals make of precious stones with diamond eyes, a miniature jewel-encrusted clock, and a life-size dandelion gone to seed, made of asbestos filaments. It was a cool surprise, behind a secret door.

The following day, we ventured out again. After work, we headed down to the Gowanus Canal, a highly-polluted body of water a short walk from our neighborhood. This formerly industrial area is now dotted with artist studios, galleries, workshops, and performance spaces. Right along the canal are the offices of Cabinet Magazine, a quarterly art and culture publication. Our key unlocked a small box in the dark alleyway beside Cabinet. Upon opening, the empty box played an old recording of "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles," a Tin Pan Alley hit song from 1919. A note in the box said, "For the full experience call 718-XXX-XXXX between the hours of 10am and 6pm." We'd arrived well after 6pm, but I later looked up what other keyholders had said about the location. There used to be a bubble machine above the box that would start blowing bubbles when the box was opened. It broke some time ago, so the folks at Cabinet decided to put their phone number in the box. If we had arrived in time, and called the number, someone would have come running out into the alleyway to blow bubbles for us.

A week went by, with us traveling and some thunderstorms passing through, and the following Tuesday we once again set off after work. This time, our destination was right along the way home, up in DUMBO. We climbed a stairway off the street up to the entrance of Gleason's Boxing Gym. The place was alive with the sound of solid impacts, and the distinct smell of hard work and sweat. Gleason's is the oldest continually operating boxing gym in the country, and champions of all classes have trained there. Cassius Clay, Mike Tyson, and a host of other boxing legends have trained here, and their pictures cover an entire wall in the back of the main room. Individual lockers are scattered throughout along the walls, and one of them could be opened with our key. Inside were boxing gloves, jump ropes, tape, and everything we'd need to get started ourselves. We tried the gloves, but long days of work convinced both of us not to stay long. On our way out, we were completely surprised to be approached by one of our new neighbors, himself training hard after a long day at work. What a pleasant surprise.

There's one more location in Brooklyn, way down in Coney Island. It has more difficult hours to work with, so we're not sure when we'll make it down there. Tomorrow, the adventure continues in Manhattan, where we still have many more secrets to unlock.

View Key to the City - Brooklyn in a larger map

Upstate NYC

2010-08-11T23:52:00.000-04:00

Continuing with the Key to the City project, Lynn and I ventured out again this weekend to find some more locks to open. This time we headed way up north, to the Bronx. There are five locks in the Bronx, but two of them are only available during business hours on weekdays. We haven't quite figured out how we might visit those yet. Three others we could get to, however, and there were a couple in northern Manhattan if we had extra time.

The beginning of our adventure took us to the Grand Concourse near Yankee Stadium. The Grand Concourse was supposed to be the Champs-Élysées of the Bronx, a wide boulevard with tree-lined dividers, running up through Bronx four miles all the way to Van Cortlandt Park. For a time, it was the height of middle-class living in NYC. But like much of the city, and especially much of the Bronx, rapidly declined in the 1960s. Today, however, it's doing very well again, and we walked passed a couple very tempting restaurants serving brunch on our Saturday excursion.

Three friends meet at their mailbox.

The first stop was PostNet, which is a pretty standard printing/copying/shipping place. To the left after entering is a wall of post office boxes, and our key opened box 136. Inside were messages people had left, and interestingly, messages people had mailed to the PO box directly. As we stood reading some of these, we noticed a woman sitting in the only chair next to the PO boxes, looking at a subway map and writing in her notebook. She smiled at us and said she was a fellow keyholder, and we quickly struck up conversation. A fast friendship was formed, and we invited her to join us on our Bronx adventure.

....unless you have a key.

The newly formed trio trekked east to the neighborhood of Melrose. Melrose is one the largest Puerto Rican communities in NYC, and sadly, also one of the poorest neighborhoods. Throughout the 1970s, the neighborhood was synonymous with arson, and most of the residential buildings were damaged or destroyed. Much of what exists now has been rebuilt by the NYC Housing Authority as low-income and subsidized housing. Our destination was the Centro Cultural Rincon Criollo, a community garden on a quiet street right in the middle of the neighborhood. It was lovely, lush and green plots surrounded a small green club house in the middle. There were many people spending a relaxing Saturday afternoon in the garden, and they all waved to us as we searched for the garden plot that our key unlocked. We found it behind a large "No Trespassing - Prohibido El Paso" sign, but the garden was as welcoming as could be. Fresh cabbage, peppers, tomatoes, and grapes grew all around, and were watched over by a whimsical scarecrow. It was easy to see how such a place could bring the people here together, and we felt grateful to be welcomed into their lush treasure.

Moving further east to the shores of the Bronx River, our last destination in the Bronx was The Point Community Development Corporation. This was in Hunts Point, another of the most difficult neighborhoods in the Bronx. Here, more than 60% of the population is unemployed, and the average income is less than half the national average, making Hunts Point part of the poorest congressional district in the entire country. There are essentially two main businesses here, it is home to one of the largest food distribution centers in the world, and three detention centers. Still, like everywhere, the people make due and enjoy life as well they can. Several small parks have popped up, and a few small businesses have opened, and are trying to engage the community.

Building boats

One of these is called Rocking the Boat. It was started by a man named Adam Green, who Lynn and I first heard about when he was the subject of a "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" episode. (Don't judge.) The program allows high school kids in the neighborhood to learn practical, leadership, and life skills by building wooden boats from scratch over the course of a school semester. They plan the work, they do the work (all of it, from chopping wood to painting the name on the stern), and then they run a program where locals can take the boats out on the Bronx River on weekends. The main entrance to the lock we were looking for was closed the day we arrived, and a note directed us to the dock where the Rocking the Boat staff were renting out their boats. A nice woman there offered to take us through their building into the courtyard where we'd find a door we could unlock. Along the way, she gave us an impromptu tour of their boat workshop, which was very cool to see.

Art inside

Behind the building lay a courtyard with a garden, some portable classrooms to teach the city-born kids how to operate their boats, and a small brick shed. A rusted door held the lock matching our key, though we mistakenly went in through a second, unlocked back door. We opened it, turned on the lights and found color. Bright colors shouted at us form all directions. This building was a piece of art itself. A table stood in the middle with paints, brushes, markers, crayons, papers, glues--everything you could want to make something fun. And those who had come before us certainly had. There were paintings on the walls, ceilings, and floor. A web of yarn made it an enjoyable challenge to get from one end of the room to another. Papers were everywhere with drawings and messages. We rolled up our sleeves and dug in, leaving a message (me), a drawing (Lynn), and a painting on the wall (our new friend). I'm running out of synonyms for "fun," but it was truly, and simply, kid-creative fun.

Under Construction, 118 years and counting

Realizing there was much more light left in the day, we decided to head over to Manhattan to open one more lock. We went down to Lynn's and my old neighborhood of Morningside Heights. We even stopped right in front of the apartment I lived in while attending Columbia University. A quick walk around the corner took us to the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, the fourth-largest church in the world. Although the inside is breathtaking, the outside is still under construction--having been started in 1892. (There's a neighborhood joke about Saint John the Unfinished.) Two world wars and a devastating fire have plagued the construction of the church, but it continues to this day nonetheless. Much of the nave was off-limits and under construction when I lived in the neighborhood, so this was the first time I could see it all open. And open is a pretty accurate description; the ceiling was 124 feet above us. It's a beautiful, quiet place, and we wandered the whole church before even starting to look for the lock. At last we came to a gate, padlocked with a velvet rope. Unlocking the gate let us into the Baptistry, which was a gift to the church from the descendants of Peter Stuyvesant. Peter was the last governor of the New Amsterdam colony, right up until it became New York. The Baptistry was quiet, and empty, and we enjoyed the peacefulness.

Tired, and in desperate need of milkshakes, we ended our journey at one of Lynn's and my old haunts, Tom's Restaurant. Most notable for being the external shot of the diner in "Seinfeld," it's also a neighborhood favorite for the milkshakes, late hours, and friendly staff. Being almost exactly between our two apartments when we were in grad school, Lynn and I frequently met there at all hours. The owner, who will chat your ear off if you let him, recognized us when we walked in and sternly asked me where I'd been for the last three years. We had our shakes, and chatted more, ranging from our lives in New York to cultural differences (our new friend is French, and lived in Paris and Guadeloupe). It was a pleasant end to another grand adventure.

PS: Map!

View Key to City - Bronx/No. Manhattan - 8/7 in a larger map

Adventures in Queens

2010-08-05T22:18:00.003-04:00

A while back, I received a Key to the City. Not quite the gold key in the nice box presented by the Mayor, but rather, a normal key that opens locks all around the city. It's the Key to the City project, from artist Paul Ramirez Jonas. The concept is two-fold: to bestow keys to the city to everyday people for their everyday works, and to give the city back to those people by making the keys actually unlock something.

When I went to Times Square to get my key, I had no idea the production that it would it be. There was a little park set up in the square, and those present were paired off if they didn't come with someone. I was paired with a sweet woman named Julie, and we chatted as we waited for our turn. Finally, we went into the little park together, and met volunteers running the project. They pulled out huge ledgers for each of us, and we went through a whole ceremony for bestowing a key to each other. I gave her a key for her contributions to theater in New York (she's worked in theaters all her life). She gave me a key for courtesy and caring, saying I was the nicest person she had met that day. (Aw, shucks.)

What do the keys open? With the key, we also got little passports that have descriptions and maps of how to find the locks, but not what's inside them. There are twenty-four locks spread throughout all five boroughs.

This past weekend, two good friends of ours were in town. And as part of a real NYC adventure, we decided to start finding some locks and see what happened. We hit all four of the locks in Queens, along with another friend who had recently moved there. We started in Astoria at the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden, which is exactly what it sounds like. Grilled brats, large mugs of beer, and all in a nice big open space where they have music and dancing in the evenings.

Hey, Pops
The first lock was in a place I'd been meaning to visit since moving here, the Louis Armstrong House Museuem. It's way up in Corona, a little ways from LaGuardia airport. The tour we took was great, and the house has been amazingly preserved from when Louis and Lucille lived there. As a trumpet player myself, it was amazing to see so intimately into the life of an idol, though Lucille clearly had all the say when it came to most of the house! Still, Louis had a den on the second floor in the front of the house that was his, and you could almost feel him there. His big desk, his tape recorders (he recorded everything, even everyday conversations), the pictures on the wall, it was all him. There's a little balcony off the front where he'd play to the neighborhood kids. The museum had taken some of his recordings from certain rooms and put in speakers to play them in those rooms. In his den, for example, they played a recording of him sitting at his desk playing his horn along with some music. You could feel his energy and charm, and I just wished I could have seen him in life.

Louis was undoubtedly a character, too. He loved bawdy jokes, and collected them like stamps. The museum played one recording from the living room, where he had his niece recite "Mary Had a Little Lamb." She did, then he replied with his own version: "Mary had a little bear, and he was mighty fine. And everywhere that Mary went, you saw her bear behind!" to the laughter of his niece and himself. He laughed a lot. He also was a big proponent of laxatives, and absolutely swore by Swiss Kriss herbal laxatives, going so far as to give them to the Royal Family when he went to London.

The basement of the house has mostly been turned into the exhibition space for the museum, showing off pictures, a trumpet, clothing, and other effects. But one room has been left exactly the way it was when Louis himself used it for extended periods of time with his Swiss Kriss. This room is not on the tour, and not open to the public, but the Key to the City opens the door. It's his downstairs bathroom. And sitting on the sink is a photo of him in that bathroom, facing away form the camera, with a clear view of his--ahem--bear behind.

Daniel Dromm's Flag
The second stop was the office of New York City Council Member Daniel Dromm, in Jackson Heights. His office was closed, being the weekend, but the key unlocked a display case next to the front door. The case displays an American flag, but behind it previous key holders have left messages and small tokens. It was a neat, quick stop, but we were admittedly distracted by the myriad of ethnic shops and restaurants on Roosevelt Avenue. Queens is one of the most diverse boroughs in the city, and neighborhoods there change drastically from generation to generation. It's fascinating.

Nixta-what?
Not realizing the geography of our trek, we then ventured back to Corona for stop number three, Tortilleria Nixtamal. This place was awesome. We got a table to sample the food, placed our orders, and then asked where the lock was. We were escorted to the back and told that our key would unlock the two doors there, and we could pick which one. (The one on the right was the bathroom.) We opened the door on the left, and followed the stairwell on the other side down into the basement. We squeezed through sacks of fresh corn piled up to the ceiling and into the small kitchen, where everything is made from scratch. Our waitress showed us the machines for washing the corn, and cooking it into nixtamal. They then crush this into a dough, and press out flat circles. These are then tossed onto a skillet for a few minutes, and become delicious corn tortillas.

We were already impressed and thought this was a pretty amazing process to see first-hand. Then our waitress left us with the cooks, who gave us a bowl of nixtamal and said we were going to make our own tortillas. We had fun rolling out our tortillas tossing them on the skillet. I tore my tortilla on the skillet trying to turn it, but everyone's came out great. We all nibbled on our freshly-made tortillas back up the stairs to our table, where we had some great food (the tostados were fantastic).

Back in Time
Having already eaten our way through half of Queens, we headed down to Forest Hills (home of Peter Parker!) for the final stop of our adventure. Eddie's Sweet Shop has been serving up homemade ice cream at their soda fountain counter for over one hundred years. Just walking in the door feels like traveling through time, and you're slightly embarrassed by your own funny clothing. But the sundaes more than make up for it. Here our lock opened a small safe box the staff held behind the counter. Inside were notes and memories of other key holders who had come before. Some were inspirational snippets, some were professions of love, and some were simple drawings. We each wrote our own notes, ate our ice cream, and reflected on our exhausting but wholly enjoyable day in Queens.

*Update: Now with a map!

View Key to City - Queens in a larger map

All A-Board

2010-07-27T21:14:00.000-04:00

I've spent a lot of time lately explaining the difference between a co-op and a condo here in NYC to friends and family. In a nutshell, it breaks down into what you own. In a condo, you own your unit from the walls inward. It is yours, you are a property owner, and you can (generally) sell it to whomever you like and do whatever like to it. In a co-op, you own a share of the controlling interest in the building proportionate to the size of your unit, and you hold a permanent lease on your unit to live in. So the apartment is not your property, and the co-op has a great deal of say in who you can sell it to and what you can do to it.

Fortunately, I now live in a condo. Condos are rare in NYC, for reasons that aren't particularly clear to me. Co-ops seem to be the norm in this town. So I consider myself pretty lucky to have found a good one. Still, both condos and co-ops are overseen by a Board of Directors. In a co-op, the Board has near-limitless power, since they control essentially the whole building. In a condo, the Board is not quite so omnipotent, but is still responsible for building management, maintenance, and generally keeping all the residents happy. After all, someone needs to actually run the building.

Last week, we had our first Unit Owners meeting, where everyone in the building got together for the first time. At this meeting were the Sponsor (the developer who built the building) and his lawyer, who officially transferred control of the building to the Owners (us). The first thing we then had to do was elect our three-member Board of Directors.

At this point I should mention, everyone in this building is pretty cool. Everyone I've met so far has been really nice, very open and welcoming. It really makes me feel even better about living here. Many of them are just like Lynn and I, young first-time homeowners. I suppose that last one is actually the one possible downside: no one has owned an apartment, so no one has any condo or condo board experience.

Still, we had to elect a Board, and elect one we did. Five of us volunteered, based on interested more than experience (since there was none among us). We held sheets of paper in front of us with our unit numbers, and stood in a line along the wall in front of everyone, like a police line-up. We went down the line telling a little bit about ourselves and what experience might be relevant. And everyone voted on the neighbors they just met, based solely on those few minutes of talking. I was elected, along with another guy on my floor, and the guy who lives directly above me. The only thing we knew was that we had our work cut out for us.

And it's true. We met for the first time, and are still in the process of even identifying all the things we have to take care of. It's a long list that includes everything from hiring someone to take out the trash to dealing with bank accounts and financial stability and buying a grill for the roof deck. But though I'm not exactly sure what's next yet, I'm really confident about this. The three of us are all on the same page, we get along really well, and we're all having fun figuring out what we're supposed to be doing. It'll be an interesting experience, but a good one.

Best of all, we're creating a community in our little building. And we're off to a great start.

Disputed Territory

2010-07-22T12:06:00.020-04:00

When I first came to NYC, back in 2003, it was my dream to get an apartment right in the middle of things. I idolized, as so many transplants do, the Village. Little did I know what geographic trouble I was getting myself into. The original Village, Greenwich Village, was centered in what is today known as the West Village. To the east, appropriately, is the East Village--which was originally part of the Lower East Side but renamed for real estate appeal long ago.

I settled in a little studio on Waverly Place and Mercer St. When people asked me where I lived, I said "the Village," marveling at how incredibly cool that sounded. But then they'd say, "East or West?" and I was stumped. Some people insist the dividing line between East and West is Broadway. Others swear that it's Fifth Avenue. Maps, even official-looking city maps, are just as fickle, saying one, the other, or sometimes referencing both. Mercer Street, were I lived, is right in between Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Thus, each time I tried to describe where my little apartment was to anyone who lived in the city, it generally sparked a long--and often heated--debate on the boundaries of the Village.

Never one to shy away from cartographic controversy, I now find myself in a similar neighborhood border situation. Our new apartment in Brooklyn sits between two prominent north-south streets, Court Street and Smith Street. These streets are both labeled by several sources, maps, neighborhood guides, and city resources as the dividing boundary between the neighborhoods of Cobble Hill to the west and Boerum Hill to the east.

Cobble Hill was originally known as Ponkiesbergh, and was settled in the 1640's by the Dutch farmers in the area. It gained its current name from being a small hill (the highest point is at today's intersection of Atlantic Avenue and Court Street) where cobble stones were disposed. These stones were used as ballast in the trade ships coming from Europe, and were not needed when the ships left New York laden with American goods, so they were dumped in what was then just outside of the town of Brooklyn. Althought grouped into the generic "South Brooklyn" designation with everything else south of Atlantic Avenue for many decades, the name Cobble Hill has been in city documents since as early as the 1840s. The high point itself was even used as a fort during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, though nothing remains of either today.

Boerum Hill, meanwhile, has a slightly more quiet history. The area was named after the Boerum family whose farm covered most of the area in colonial times. Its development followed closely along with Cobble Hill. Some folks will tell you the name "Boerum Hill" is a product of gentrification in the area, like DUMBO or calling Hell's Kitchen "Clinton." This is because, like Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill was lumped into the "South Brooklyn" designation well into the 1950s. However, there are plenty of records showing the name "Boerum Hill" going back as far as the colonial farm itself. So while the name may have been resurrected after South Brooklyn lost its appeal, Boerum Hill was the original name given to what is now the neighborhood.

Interestingly, in the early 1920s a large group of Mohawk families moved to Boerum Hill from a reservation in Quebec. They came to NYC as ironworkers to build the new skyscrapers as, unlike their European-American neighbors, they were comfortable working at the dizzying heights of the tallest buildings in the world. But as crane and building technology improved, the Mohawks eventually left as well, heading west where there was more work available.

So which neighborhood should it be? I see one strong argument for each. Historically, the actual hill that Cobble Hill refers to was centered on what is today an intersection of two streets one block away. That puts our building literally "on" Cobble Hill, so it would make sense to call it "in" Cobble Hill as well. On the other hand, the city government draws the line between Community Board 2, which includes Boerum Hill, and Community Board 6, which includes Cobble Hill, along Court Street. This means that, as far as our representation in the city government is concerned, we're in Boerum Hill.

Though I suppose I could avoid the issue entirely, since nearly everyone in Brooklyn knows exactly what I mean when I say I live "around the corner from Trader Joe's." As for the Manhattan dwellers, all I have do is say "Brooklyn" and watch their eyes glaze over.

Episode IV: A New Home

2010-07-15T15:58:00.000-04:00

The great Suburban Exile of 2010 has ended. After a month of living off in the 'burbs and commuting into the city, we're finally settled in our apartment. That we own. But it wasn't easy getting there, naturally.

Once June had hit and we were living in Connecticut, we had a new deadline to worry over. June 30th was the last day we could close to claim the several-thousand-dollar First Time Home-buyer Tax Credit that the government began early last year as part of the larger economic stimulus. We had the usual runaround, hearing "of course we'll make it," and, "don't worry about it." But that's what we heard in March. And April. And May.

While our bank had pulled its approval of the building, another bank had gone ahead and approved it. That bank closed several apartments in the building and our future neighbors started moving in. We abandoned our bank, and started from scratch with this other bank that had approved people. The new bank was wonderful; they accomplished in a week what the first bank to two months to do. They rushed everything through for us, and all was moving quickly.

But not quickly enough. June was flying by, and we were getting closer and closer to losing the tax credit. Delay after delay we could handle, albeit grudgingly, but losing the credit would have been an extra slap. Finally, as the end of June neared, our lawyer, the bank's lawyer, and the building developer's lawyer set a date to close and hoped that we'd have the final green light from the bank by then. That date was June 30th, 10am.

Around 10pm on June 29th, we got a call from our lawyer. We're going to close! Probably. There was some confirmation of funds transfer from the bank that we needed, and that hadn't come in yet. Our lawyer told us to be ready at 10am, but not to show up at the closing table until he called. Just in case.

The next morning we had our final walk-through in the apartment before the closing. We walked around looking everything over one last time. But mostly we were just wondering, would this really happen? 10am came and went. 10:30am came and went. Finally, the phone rang, and we were off to the closing table. Two hours, and many signatures and people shuffling, later we were homeowners.

Wasting no time, we immediately scheduled the movers for the following Monday and painted over the weekend. It's good to be home.

Suburban Exile - Day 17

2010-06-16T12:01:00.004-04:00

I was thinking I would post often about the exciting suburban life of Stamford, CT. I thought I would have a lot of richly humorous stories about the people and ways, navigating the winding streets and sprawling shopping centers.

Nope.

With a commute ranging from one and a half to two hours each way, I find that I'm not doing a whole lot of living while living in Stamford. Each morning, I wake up by 5:30am, so that we can both be ready to drive to the train station at 6:30am. After work, by the time we're back at the house, it's nearly 8pm. Sometimes later. Exhausted from full days of work and traveling, there's generally enough time for dinner, some reading, and then sleep.

I don't mean to complain too much. The truth is that we're still saving quite a bit of money living out here, paying no rent, utilities, and little for food. It's been great to spend more time with family, and we've been very fortunate to have the kind of family we do. Even the cat and dog have begun to peacefully coexist in the same room.

But at the end of the day, I can't wait to get back to Brooklyn. On that front, we've applied with a second bank, giving up on the first one's incompetency altogether. The application, up through the appraisal report, was all rushed through in eight days. So now we're waiting, just as were before, for the final green light to close.

Fingers crossed (again).

The Suprising Power of Twitter

2010-05-28T12:01:00.002-04:00

I'll be the first to admit, I was very skeptical of Twitter when I first heard about it. Yet another social network? Wait, you're telling me this one is just one-way short messages blasted out to the world with no context? Hold on now, they're limited to 140 characters? Why in the world would anyone care what I have to "tweet" about. And why in the world would I want to "follow" anyone else when I have Facebook?

Eventually, though, I joined Twitter a little over a year and change ago. But I had an excuse! It was for work! Slowly, I came to like the immediacy of it, especially in how it could surface trending links on the web that were interesting or funny. Eventually, I plugged it into Facebook so that when I tweeted something, that tweet also became my Facebook status. I did this because I have a Blackberry Curve phone, and the Facebook app for Blackberry is not the easiest thing to use, but the Twitter app was great. These days, I find I use Twitter differently from Facebook. It's easy to have short, quick, conversations. It's still useful in finding interesting and funny content out in the wild. And it's a useful way of sharing things that I find interesting. And you know what, it turns out I do care what some of my friends are tweeting. More surprisingly, they care about what I'm tweeting.

But I've only recently come to a stunning and powerful discovery. Twitter, more than any other means of communication, has a powerful advantage when it comes to dealing with large corporations.

Case Study No. 1: Time Warner Cable

Everyone I have ever met who has interacted Time Warner Cable hates it. They have something of a monopoly on the cable and ISP sector here in NYC (at least until some other networks finish building their infrastructure). They're expensive, notoriously slow in scheduling appointments or doing basically anything, and the only way to get anything done is to call them. Calling them, of course, requires more patience and perseverance than the average person can comprehend, since the folks answering the calls are generally not empowered to do anything beyond the most basic functions.

Last week, I called Time Warner Cable to schedule an appointment for them to pick up our cable box and modem and cancel the account on our current apartment. I would take any appointment at all, I told them, so long as it was on or before the 30th of May. They told me the next available appointment was June 8th. I explained that I would not be living in this city on that day, and that since the "appointment" consists of them driving by, picking up the box, and leaving, I was sure they could squeeze in something. This is a dense city, the Time Warner trucks are in the neighborhood every day. Surely, surely they could make a two-minute stop along the way sometime in the next ten days. No, they said, no room for appointments. I'll spare you the details, largely because they involve me yelling, but after talking to several people and three managers, I finally reached the head of the call center in Wisconsin. She finally explained to me that she did not have the authority to over-ride the computer scheduling program. And she did not have the phone number of anyone who did. And she was the boss of her office, so there was no one she could escalate me to. Oh, she could call the Brooklyn or Manhattan offices, but even those calls would be diverted to her call center, and she'd only get one of her employees on the line. Bottom line: There was nothing she could do. And this was after being on the phone for nearly two hours.

Frustrated, angry, and defeated, I finally agreed to drag the box to their office myself and drop it off some day in the future, the only option I was left with. After hanging up the phone, I vented on Twitter. "@TWCable_NYC won't pick up our equipment, and they'll charge us until we take it to them. Customer service fail. @TWCableHelp" Almost immediately, Bryan, one of the many folks behind the @TWCableHelp account tweeted back. Over a few quick back-and-forth tweets, I explained my frustration, and he offered to help. I sent him my contact info via a private tweet (called a "direct message" or DM for those of you not yet Twittified). About an hour later, a woman from Time Warner called me. Let me say that again: Time Warner called me. She verified my information, and made me an appointment before we move out. Just like that.

Case Study No. 2: Bank of America

All the drama going on with our mortgage bank approving, not approving, and hopefully someday re-approving the building in which we're buying an apartment has been another major source of stress lately. As the messenger of the bad news, the mortgage broker I've been working with has gotten the brunt of my concerns as we've edged closer and closer to moving day without knowing where we're moving to. He's been great, and trying very hard to keep me informed, but in the end, the decisions have been in the bank's hands. The bank he's working with is Bank of America. Frustrated, I again tweeted at an account of theirs that I found, @BofA_Help, more than anything as a vent for how distressing it is to be moving in five days with no clear destination.

Again, within minutes, Sharon from Bank of America tweeted back asking for my phone number. She promised to call me herself the next day. And she did. Bank of America called me. She listened to my story, took my information, and said she would do everything she could. She called my mortgage broker directly to talk to him (he was surprised as well). She then called the head of the condo mortgage department and talked to her directly. She gathered all the information she could, and called me back a couple hours later to tell me everything she'd learned.

Unfortunately, there really was nothing she could do to help. The head of the condo department explained to her the delays in approving the building, and there really is no way to make them go away. But while Sharon couldn't solve my problem, she made me feel much better. Suddenly, I wasn't a number on a spreadsheet. I was a person whose concerns were brought directly to the department head. Think about large corporations, especially customer-facing corporations, and think about how amazing that previous sentence is.

Conclusions

You can make the argument that these teams of folks dedicated to responding to tweets are a good PR move for the companies, and you'd be right. Negative comments on Twitter are public, on view to everyone, and if the person tweeting is well-connected, can spread like wild fire. Responding quickly to them generally elicits positive reaction tweets immediately thereafter. Looks great for the company, big win.

But the customers win, too. These Twitter teams, unlike any other customer-facing employees, seem to have the connections within the company to get results. They can over-ride computer scheduling systems. They can call department heads directly. And they can do this within minutes to hours. There's a psychological element as well. The customer feels like a person, because a person responds to them. But there's one thing above all else that is the biggest win for the customers:

With only 140 characters, there's no room for any bull.

Apartment Drama, or, Exile to the Suburbs

2010-05-26T18:30:00.002-04:00

At this point, I'm calling it: We will not be moving into our new apartment this weekend.

For those keeping track, we found our new home back in January and signed the contract on it the first week of February. (For those not keeping track, here's all news I remembered to print.) There were some early complications in the way the condo was set up with commercial space on the ground floor, but those have long since been worked out. Back in March, we had our first walk-through, and we were glad to see that it was largely ready for us to move in, with only cosmetic things making our punch list.

In April, we waited. Waited for bank to give us our loan approval. When that came, we were truly excited. Everything was falling into place, and we were set. Now all we needed was for the bank to make some final approvals on the building itself after those earlier complications. But all signs pointed to closing in April, or perhaps early May at worst.

Toward the end of April, we heard the building had been approved by the bank. Our lawyer scheduled a closing date for May 11th. We were warned that the bank might not have all their ducks in a row by then, but that there was every indication to believe it was possible. With certainty, we were told, the process was so close to being finished that there was no way the closing would be delayed beyond May.

So it was a time for celebration. We threw a party in early May to say farewell to our backyard garden (and celebrate a birthday). We told our landlord that the end of May was when we'd move out of the apartment, giving us time to paint the new place. Wheels were turning, and we came to realize that Memorial Day weekend, if not earlier, would be when we moved.

Then, suddenly, the bank withdrew its approval of the building. They'd approved it on a false premise, we were told, they didn't understand some key elements of the way the commercial space was set up. Huh? At least one part of the complication came from the fact that the condo uses one address, while the commercial space uses a different address. Paperwork got confused, the bank got confused, and pulled their approval. Whether or not we would close in May was once again under question.

Still, we were told not to worry. The bank would sort out its confusion and re-approve the building any day now. Any day now. We asked our mortgage brokers for daily updates, but the answer remained "we're just waiting for the bank's approval." We tried to be hopeful, as the weeks wore on, but in the back of our minds we were beginning to realize we needed a back-up plan. And fast.

Which brings us up to this week. Just yesterday, our lawyer called me again with a tentative closing date on Thursday. That cuts is close, but still allows us time to move to our new apartment this weekend, since we can't stay in our current apartment beyond the 31st. Relieved, I shot an email over to the mortgage broker again asking if he thought this was a possibility as well. He does not think so. In fact, he's confident we will not be closing tomorrow or Friday. But he assures us, he's working as hard as he can to get it through as soon as possible.

Time for Plan B.

Lynn's parents have offered to take us in. They live in Stamford, CT about a forty-five minute train ride from Grand Central. They have a guest room in their basement with it's own bathroom. We'd have use of a car, and would be train commuters to work, along with thousands of other suburbanites. Three and a half years ago, I retreated to Stamford to wait out the job hunt, and now it looks like we'll be returning. While I'm not looking forward to the commute (at all), I'm grateful for their generosity. It's won't be convenient, but it will be a way of saving money and spending time with family. And it's certainly a more viable option than finding a Craigslist short-term lease for a married couple, living out of a hotel, or hopping from couch to couch among friends (although I am also extremely touched and grateful to all of you who offered).

Louis the cat, however, may disagree when he meets Riley the dog.

3...2...1...Liftoff!

2010-05-24T13:08:00.002-04:00


STS-132: Atlantis lifts off for the last time Ben Cooper, Launch Photography

It was dark when we woke up. Dark because the shades were drawn, and we had gotten to our hotel so late we knew we wouldn't be getting much sleep. Also because it was before dawn. Come to think of it, that's probably the main reason.

Our tickets to Kennedy Space Center said we had to arrive by 9am. Expecting a lot of traffic, we left around 6am to make the 1-hour (on a good day) trip due east from Orlando to Cape Canaveral. As we drove through the marshland to the coast, the sun rose ahead of us, and traffic was no concern at all. We arrived at KSC around 7am, not really sure what we were going to do all day, but excited for the big moment that would come at 2:19pm.

I had never been to KSC before, though even I was surprised at just how much I enjoyed our day there. In the early morning light, we walked among the towering converted missiles of the early space program in the Rocket Garden. We saw the stages of early spaceflight become the modern shuttle program. We played in Mercury and Apollo capsules. We rode a shuttle launch simulator ride. And all of this before breakfast.

As the morning continued, we found ourselves more and more drawn to one of the lawns where would eventually view the launch. Although we did not have a clear view of the launchpad itself, there were large screens set up with live video feeds of the pad and activity around the Atlantis. Speakers throughout the grounds were tuned to listen in on communications between Mission Control, Launch Control, and the vehicle itself. Near one of the screens, a small stage was set up. Here one of NASA's extremely knowledgeable Communications Officers would describe in detail what was happening as the external fuel tank (the large orange tank underneath the shuttle) was filled with liquid oxygen and hydrogen. We could see the astronauts putting their suits on, riding up the shuttle, and being strapped in.

What was more, two astronauts took the stage as well. They talked not only about their experiences in space, but what was happening right now with the crew of STS-132. What they were thinking and feeling as they were strapped into the most complex machine mankind has ever built. What we should expect to see as the launch neared, and began. We knew the astronaut's nicknames, and how they earned them. We knew how they chose their meals for their time in space. We knew what they were carrying to the International Space Station. The effect of all of this was two-fold. For people like me, who had dreamed of being there for as long as they could remember, we felt so much more a part of the launch. We were invested in it emotionally as well as intellectually. For those like Lynn, who did not have the decades of background knowledge in spaceflight, it brought them into that community as well. As the countdown clock ticked lower and lower, everyone in attendance became more than spectators, we became a community of supporters.

With about a half hour before the launch, things began moving quickly. We heard the final checks being performed and confirmed over the radio. A helicopter swept back and forth over the Cape checking to make sure the airspace was clear.

At nine minutes, we all stood up. The walkway to the shuttle was retracted. A crowd of thousands held their breath.

Two minutes. We cheered as the oxygen tank cap swung away from the top of the large orange fuel tank. This is the last piece of the launch tower attached the shuttle, the astronauts call it the "parking break." The astronauts closed their helmet visors.

One minute to go, all systems check, power and communications are internal to the vehical. Houston checks in with Launch Control. Everything's ready.

Thirty seconds: Ground Launch Sequnce starts

Ten seconds: On our screen, we see a close up of the main engines. Sparks begin to fly, these will burn up any excess hydrogen fuel in the area so there are no uncontrolled explosions.

Six seconds: Main engines start. The flames are so hot they are clear and blue, and focused into tight cones behind the engines. The shuttle rocks forward in reaction to the engines firing.

One second: The shuttle rocks back.

Zero: The white Solid Rocket Boosters on either side of the fuel tank ignite. Smoke billows out to the side. The shuttle lifts off the pad. It's the most effortless movement, the one thing this incredible machine was designed to do exceedingly well. And it does. It rises smoothly and quickly straight up, building a pillar of smoke beneath it.

At this, we all look to the east, waiting for the shuttle to come into view. It was the longest ten seconds I've ever experienced. Ten seconds of anticipation to see, with my own eyes, what I'd watched so many times on TV and computer screens. My life paused for ten seconds.

Ben Cooper, Launch Photography

And then it came over the trees. Even seven miles away, it was larger than I expected. And it was such a clear day, we could see every detail. Such grace. And it was so bright. So bright it startled me. So bright it moved me. As if the rocket boosters were so powerful they had torn a hole of the sky behind them, and the sun was shining through.

Thirty seconds later, the wall of sound finally reached us.

We watched Atlantis gracefully roll over, putting the shuttle itself at the bottom of the arc it would take up into the sky. I was five years old again, in my living room in Detroit. I had my metal toy shuttle pressed against the TV screen, lining it up with the trail of smoke from the real shuttle. My cheeks were puffed out from the growling noise I made and imagined the real rocket engines were making. I was in that little toy shuttle, and I was going somewhere I'd never been before. My thoughts, and my spirits, and my dreams went into that real shuttle on this day. They rose with Atlantis and her crew to a new place, a new adventure. They were unstoppable.

About two minutes after lift-off, Atlantis had one more final farewell for those us on the ground. The sky was so clear, we saw the solid rocket boosters reach the end of their fuel, and jettison from the sides of the shuttle. They fell off to each side, and their flames went out. They began to fall, and eventually parachute down to the ocean.

Our eyes back to the large screen on the lawn, we watched from the external cameras attached to the external fuel tank. We saw the horizon of the Earth begin to curve, with the darkness of space beginning to surround it. Finally, eight minutes after launch, the external tank detached from the shuttle. Another cheer went up from the crowd. Atlantis was in space. We watched as the cameras on the tank continued to transmit, Atlantis seemed to float away. We could see the underside of the shuttle sliding easily out of view as the cameras finally stopped.

Looking around us on the ground was like waking up from an incredible dream. I had to remember where I was, how I got there. Lynn squeezed my hand, and I was happy. Heading back to Orlando took nearly three and a half hours with the traffic. Lynn was driving the first shift, and I fell asleep in the passenger seat. I dreamed. I dreamed the same dream as moments before, and all those years ago.

Ad Astra!

2010-04-29T18:30:00.002-04:00


Atlantis awaits rollout in the VAB - 4/19/10 Ben Cooper, Launch Photography

When I was very young, being an astronaut when I grew up was a foregone conclusion. Well, after I got over my dinosaur paleontologist kick, at least. I jumped into science, physics, astronomy, and loved it. As I grew up, my interests shifted a bit, but I still stayed with the theme. Astrophysics, as I studied in college and grad school, was everything about space except actually getting there. (Some day I'll be rich enough for one of those private trips above the atmosphere.) Still, I watched every launch I could on TV and later on the internet.

There's something so exhilarating about watching a rocket or a shuttle lift off into the sky. The power, the rumbling, the fire, the grace, the beauty, and finally the awe. It's unlike any other man-made marvel and reaches right down into us, tapping that sense of wonder and exploration. Suddenly we're all back with our space helmets and pillow-fort starships, and everything is possible.

I've never seen it in person.

In all my years, and all my trips down to Orlando, I've never been able to line anything up with a launch. I've been stuck running to a TV, or watching the NASA coverage on their web site. Sometimes, though I'll never admit in person, I watch just the launch scene from the movie Apollo 13. Sometimes I watch it twice.

With the shuttle fleet retiring this year, I came to the startling realization that I may never see a launch if I didn't act quickly. So I checked the schedule, cleared a couple days from work, and bought plane tickets for Lynn and I to head down for the launch of STS-132, the final flight of the shuttle Atlantis.

Since then, I've been following the shuttle's progress from the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) to the Vehical Assembly Building (VAB), and finally out to the launch pad. NASA's shuttle page has great coverage of the details, but I've been really enjoying Ben Cooper's Launch Photography site. Ben is a NASA photographer and has amazing access to the shuttle for pictures. Here's a whole series on Atlantis being lifted up and rotated in the VAB so they can attach the fuel tank and rocket boosters. These are rare, and awesome, pictures.

Today, Atlantis is sitting at launch pad 39A, where in two weeks' time it will lift off on its final mission. And I'll be there to see it in person. With my space helmet. Everything is possible.

Atlantis rolls out to launch pad 39A - 4/21/10
Ben Cooper, Launch Photography

Walk Through, Take One

2010-03-29T13:52:00.000-04:00

On Friday, we saw our apartment for the first time in over a month. Despite the general craziness about the condo structuring sill on-going, everyone involved is pretty confident that things will still move forward. (That's a relief.) So we had our first walk-through since the apartment has been finished. There will be two more along the way, one in several weeks, and the final right before closing.

It was a little surreal. For one, this is the first time we've seen the apartment finished. The last time we went to the building, there were no appliances in the kitchen, not quite everything had been painted, and many of the little finishing touches had yet to be installed. The hallway on our floor had no carpet or paint as well, and truly felt like a construction zone. This time, nearly everything was in place, and it looked like a real apartment.

Our apartment, which was the other surreal part of it. We've been looking at apartments for a long time, and have seen so many, and have invested ourselves in more than a couple. Is this one really ours? No, not technically yet, but it's darn close.

For now, the questions are moving away from "What will our monthly expenses be?" and "Is this a good location?" and instead becoming "What color should this room be?" and "Along which wall will we put the couch?" And that's close enough for me.

What's My Age Again?

2010-03-19T10:21:00.001-04:00

Pens aside, I've been talking with a lot of people lately about what it means to be a grown-up. Not surprisingly, I've gotten a lot of different answers. Some say you're a grown-up when you're legally responsible for yourself at 18, others when you're out of college, or married, or buying a first house, or are responsible for another human being in some way, or have gone through some cultural rite of passage. When you're in your twenties. When you're in your thirties. When people call you "sir." When you have more married friends than single friends. When you can't believe how young everyone else suddenly seems to be. The definitions seem to be endless.

One of the best responses I've gotten has been, "You know when you can ask that question of yourself, and are genuinely concerned about your response."

It may be because both of my parents are in the mental health field, but I've come to believe that the mark of adulthood is a certain level of personal responsibility and self control. (How's that for vague and high-minded?) An adult is in control of themselves by choice. They recognize and balance their own desires with those of their family, friends, and society.

And yet, by that definition, how many adults do I know? Virtually none. I know so few people who don't lose their temper publicly, make irrational decisions based on their temporary emotional state, or act out of selfishness or emotion, that I can count them in my head quickly. Politicians cheat, celebrities party like teenagers discovering alcohol for the first time, and everyone lies to others or themselves. I don't even qualify for adulthood myself by that generalized definition. On the other hand, I know plenty of people over the age of 18, out of college, married, or in important positions who occasionally, some more than others, behave like they're under 18, schoolchildren, single, and face no consequences.

Consequences, by the way, factored largely into the responses I've been hearing as well. Some say an adult has to face consequences. Others say an adult is able to face consequences. Yet others claim an adult is someone who foresees consequences and adjusts their own behavior accordingly. All variations on the theme.

I am in my late twenties. I am married. I am (tying to) buy a home. I have a job where I lead a team of people with little oversight. I pay bills. I analyze consequences before acting. Well, most of the time anyway. Do I get it? Am I a grown-up now?

Are you?

So Maybe That Catch Isn't So Little

2010-03-15T15:43:00.001-04:00

The new apartment saga continues. While our mortgage brokers and the bank lenders bicker about what forms we should or should not sign (all of which carry little real meaning), new regulations from Fannie Mae have thrown another wrench in the works of our new building.

The building was built with the first floor much larger than the upper floors. The first floor was intended to be large enough to hold a grocery store, or some other comparable commercial enterprise. Meanwhile, there's a two-level garage underneath the first floor. Compared to the upper floors, where the apartments are, roughly 60% of the floor area is commercial, leaving about 40% residential.

With the beginning of 2010 comes a new regulation stating that new condominiums cannot have more than 20% commercial space. Whoops.

Not sure where we go from here, but it looks like it'll be an interesting ride.

Well, There is One Little Catch

2010-02-16T14:36:00.000-05:00

Our contract on this new apartment is secure. Our mortgage application is in progress, but there's nothing really to be worried about at this point. But there is one possible catch in all this, and it involves the question nearly everyone has asked me since the last post.

When do we move in?

Because this building is new construction, they haven't quite secured their temporary certificate of occupancy (TCO) yet. That is, the city has not certified that the building is ready and safe for people to actually live in. Once the building receives their TCO, we'll close and move in between 30 and 45 days after.

They were expecting the TCO by the end of January. Hopefully, they'll get it soon.

The Pen is Mightier

2010-02-11T22:23:00.000-05:00

When I was young, I always knew how important something was by what pen my mother used to sign her name. If it was a permission slip for school, any bic lying around would do. But when she signed something important, she pulled a red leather sleeve from her purse. Out of that sleeve came the most beautiful gold Cross pen. This was important, this signature meant something, it needed the appropriate pen.

When I graduated high school, I had a diploma, wore a cap and gown, and celebrated with friends. But when my mother gave me my own gold Cross pen, I knew my life had changed. I was an adult, my signature meant something, I needed the appropriate pen. When I graduated from college, she gave me another gold Cross pen. Then I knew: I was on my own, I was making decisions for my life, I had to know when to use the appropriate pen.

* * *

After the first attempt at buying an apartment fell through, Lynn and I took some time off. But before long, we knew we had to get back on the horse and start looking at apartments again. So we hit the open house circuit and checked out some new possibilities. One was fantastic. It's in a new building, so everything is brand new. There are two bathrooms (this becomes important when you're married), great kitchen appliances, and even a washer and dryer. There's a roof deck with views on Manhattan, and the elevator goes all the way up for those of us who are too lazy to take stairs. It's a great apartment. And the most surprising part was that it is far more affordable than many of the other, older, apartments we've looked at.

We moved quickly, and made an offer. It was accepted that same day. Oh boy, I thought, here we are again with an accepted offer and needing to get to the contract phase. This time, though, things went smoothly. All the paperwork checked out and things were looking good. Our lawyer worked out the contract with the seller's lawyer, and in just a few days we were set.

I brought the contract home from our lawyer's office so Lynn and I could sign it together. We each signed with a gold Cross pen.

So Close, and Yet So Far

2010-02-05T11:32:00.001-05:00

As happens with big changes in my life, I've been ignoring the ol' blog for a while. It's been a particularly eventful holiday season and New Year! I'll add more stories with time (maybe).

Lynn and I have been house-hunting. Well, I guess you could say we've been causally browsing for over a year, stopping by open houses in our neighborhood on weekends. Just before Christmas, we really started seriously looking—and finding.

We settled on a very nice apartment on Montague Street in our neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights. It had two bedrooms, 1.5 baths, and was a duplex spread over two floors. We loved the light, the feel, and were drooling over the space. It seemed like a little two-story house, tucked away in a historic Queen Anne-style apartment building in the middle of our fantastic neighborhood. What could go wrong?

Lots, apparently.

First it was the price. The sellers, in defiance of the current economy, the housing market, and their own broker's advice, set the price way too high. We knew we could not afford it at their price, but we also knew it wasn't actually worth that price. Or at the very least, this market would not support that price.

So, at the advice of our broker, we offered a significantly lower price. To the sellers, it must have looked like a low-ball offer. To us, it was the highest we could afford—and a stretch at that. Initially, the sellers countered our offer with a number that didn't show any seriousness in negotiating at all. After all, we knew, they had already turned down offers higher than ours. We went back and said that our first offer really was our "best and final," and we were willing to walk away if they felt it was too low. They accepted.

Thus began the rush to get into contract. We had an inspection, the apartment passed with flying colors. We had to look into the financial history of the building, which is a co-op, and do the due diligence there. Here is where things fell apart.

A co-op, as most of you who don't live in NYC may now know, is different from a condominium situation. In a condo, you own your apartment, it is your property. In a co-op, you own a share in the "company" that owns the building. Your share is proportional to the size of your apartment, and you own the permanent lease on your apartment. With co-op buildings, the co-op board of directors also wields extensive powers over the building and its finances, so it is vital to check into the history of the board's behavior.

This particular co-op board took very good care of the building. They also tried to take care of their residents by now raising the common charges. But they did this on debt, acquiring a huge mortgage on the building, taking out a line of credit, and depleting their reserves.

And then there was the elevator. Two years ago, the elevator was found to be in bad shape. They could update it to the turn of $250,000 or perform several small maintenance repairs that would make it last another two years. Well, those two years are over, and it's time to update the elevator. Because the building has so much debt, and no reserves, that money has to come from the residents. It was too much money for us.

We went back to the sellers, explained the extra expenses and offer an even lower price to off-set paying for the elevator. They declined. We moved on. We sure learned a lot about the process, though.

And it definitely helped prepare us for the next apartment. To be continued...

The Cass Gilbert Connection

2009-11-17T16:26:00.011-05:00

I am by no means an architecture buff. I enjoy a beautiful building as much as the next person, but am typically more interested in why it was built than how. I've learned to discern the Federalist and Queen Anne brownstones in my neighborhood from the Victorian brownstones of Park Slope, and to identify some other large trends in architecture through time, but this again is because of their historical context.

Still, I find myself gravitating toward the Beaux-Arts and Neo-Gothic architectural styles, and to one of that era's star architects Cass Gilbert. There's something about the optimism inherent in these grand structures, as if upstart America really could contribute to the vast architectural heritage of the world, that keeps drawing my eye.

It's through this that the Woolworth Tower has always been my favorite skyscraper in New York. Completed in 1913 by Cass Gilbert, and paid for in cash by Frank Woolworth (all $13.5 million), it has always struck me as the most beautiful of of the major skyscrapers in New York. And in a show of levity typical of Gilbert, there are little details hidden in plain site on the tower. There's a gecko scaling one face high up on the tower, for example, only visible with a good pair of binoculars and just the right viewing angle. Gilbert made beautiful buildings, and found a way to keep them fun as well.

When I first moved to 90 West Street, a stunning neo-Gothic building in its own right, one of the best features of my apartment was the view east to the Woolworth Tower. I was surprised and excited to learn that 90 West was also one of Cass Gilbert's buildings. Built it 1907, it was actually the precursor to the Woolworth Tower, Gilbert used it to test some of his Gothic stylings. Like the Woolworth Tower after it, Gilbert played with the design of 90 West, adding Gargoyles with his relatives' faces. It was really through living in this building that I begun to learn more about Gilbert, and to appreciate his style.

I've since learned more random connections with Gilbert. He was named for an ancestor of his, Lewis Cass. Cass was governor of the Michigan territory (before it became a state), American Ambassador to France, US Senator for Michigan, and Secretary of State. To understand his impact, I need only consider that my own mother lives just off of Cass Boulevard, and for many years worked in the Lewis Cass Building in Michigan's state capitol. (In fact, there are a myriad of places named after him.)

In my travels, I've begun to pay more attention to buildings in particular. And I still find myself drawn to Cass Gilbert's buildings across the country even without knowing about them. The US Supreme Court Building, the state capitol of Minnesota, and many buildings around New York have all drawn my eye. They are all Gilbert's.

Recently, I flew to Saint Louis to help launch a new Chapter of Mu Beta Psi. One day, we went to the Saint Louis Zoo, which sits in Forest Park just down a hill from the Museum of Art. I enjoyed the zoo, but kept looking up at the Museum. My last day in the city I had some time to myself, so I went back to the park and walked around the Museum. It felt so familiar. I asked the gentleman at the information desk if he knew much about the building itself. He replied, oh yes, it was built in 1904 for the World's Fair by Cass Gilbert.

Of course.

Now I find myself looking for them. There are quite a few, but I will see as many as I can.

"Poor Little Rhode Island...."

2009-10-20T10:04:00.000-04:00

While exploring "upstate" Connecticut during our anniversary weekend, Lynn and I drove to a small town just inside Rhode Island. We had no particular purpose other than it was one of the two states east of the Mississippi River that I hadn't seen.

Westerly, Rhode Island was a fairly typical town. But I kept thinking of my grandmother. When I was kid spending time at my grandparents' house, she would often sing to herself while cleaning or cooking. They were never songs I knew, but I loved hearing them and would follow her around the house listening. I had to be careful and quiet, because she tended to stop and pay attention to me if she saw me. One song I can still hear in her voice:

Poor little Rhode Island,
Smallest of the forty-eight!

I haven't seen my grandma in person for a long time, but it was nice to meet her in Rhode Island.

A Year is as a Day

2009-10-17T20:46:00.000-04:00

I've always been fascinated by the perception of time passing. I remember as a six-year-old being told that Christmas would come around next year. Next year? Whoa, that's 1/6th of my entire life, that's practically forever! Talking with my grandparents, they speak of years as if they were days. And when you're talking about 1/86th of a lifetime, it's easy to see how little time a year can be.

Lynn and I celebrated our first year of marriage at the beginning of this month. At turns it is by far the longest and the shortest of years. So much has happened: we've moved, I took a new job, we've traveled far and wide, and adopted a cat—we've lived a full year.

And yet, has it really been that long? Has it really been an entire year since we gathered together with so many friends and family members? There are some folks reading this very post who I haven't seen in a year, surely not a whole year has gone by. I look at the ring on my finger. It's a bit dinged up, turns out I'm not very kind to my hands. But I still notice it, I still fiddle with it. It still feels new.

It was with this mix of feelings about how much and how little time has passed that Lynn and I decided to spend the weekend of our first anniversary back in the area where we were married. We stayed in the same hotel as our wedding weekend, and had dinner at the restaurant where our rehearsal dinner was held. We even went up to visit the place where our ceremony was held and took a few pictures.

It put things in perspective. A year. Not a long year, not a short year, but a good year. A year full of change and excitement, and not a small amount of struggle and learning. A year in which we learned what it means to make a life from two, and from which we can go confidently into the next. There will be a time when this whole year will seem like a day. But it will always be a day worth remembering, full of years of good experiences.

Traveling Vicariously

2009-09-01T09:46:00.007-04:00

A friend of mine is currently on a cross-country trip of a lifetime. Her office shut down, her Brooklyn lease expired, she bought a car and started driving. At the send-off party she had a little book for people to write suggestions in for destinations. Maybe she'll hit them all, maybe she'll find some little town somewhere and start a new life.

I've always loved to travel, and I do so whenever I can get enough free time and money simultaneously. But to really cut all ties to a home and set off across the country alone is both admirable and frightening. The kind of thing we only talk about doing.

As my friend swung up through New England, and west through Ontario, she found herself in my home state. Following her Twitter updates, I saw she was minutes away from my mother's house, and helped orchestrate a bed to sleep in that night. I suggested she head through da UP and got to Houghton, and sketched out a true Copper Country Cruisin' route that took her through many of the best sites of the Keweenaw.

The strange thing is that it made me feel...what? Is this homesickness? I can't say I've really felt it before, but I suddenly have this incredible longing to ride a bike around Milford. Or to build a bonfire on the shore of Lake Superior. Or to just drive long and far, through all of the familiar sights of a place that was once mine.

My friend, meanwhile, has crossed the Mississippi in Minnesota and is headed to "all points West." She blogs about her adventures here.

Lords of Slane, Keepers of the Paschal Fire

2009-06-23T12:24:00.002-04:00

(Cross-posted from the Fleming Family Blog.)

Last month I spent a week wandering around Ireland. It was a bit of a fluke, really, I wanted to take a week off after finishing at one company and before starting at my current one. A few minutes' search on Orbitz.com, and I found surprisingly cheap tickets to Dublin. Ireland is a beautiful country, and full of vivid and amazing stories. "History should not be bogged down with facts," one gentleman told me, "It's the stories that matter."

Along the way, I visited Slane, a small village north of Dublin in the Boyne Valley. I did not know before-hand the significance of the place, as it was one stop of a historical tour focusing on the Celtic culture. But when we arrived at the Hill of Slane, the tallest hill for ten miles in any direction, my guide patted me on the shoulder and said, "Mr. Fleming, welcome back."

Any Flemings in the US that trace their heritage to Ireland today are descended from two branches of the Fleming Family that came from Flanders via Scotland (where the name persisted as Flemming).

In 1370, following the invasion of Henry II of England, the Barony of Slane was created and given as a reward to Richard and Thomas Fleming for their part in the war. They, and their descendants the Fleming Family, were Lords of Slane for three hundred years. (The other branch of Flemings became viscounts of Longford.) Loyal to king James II, they lost the Barony of Slane when James fell to William of Orange in 1691. Slane castle stood on the Hill of Slane until the Flemings built a newer castle in the valley below.

But there's another story about the Hill of Slane that, although largely apocryphal, is dear to the hearts of many Irish Catholics. My guide told me the following story that day.

Saint Patrick, perhaps the most famous Irishman of all, was not Irish. He was a Roman, born in the British territory to a wealthy famliy living on the west coast of England. The Romans never conquered Ireland, leaving it to the Celts. When he was a teenager, he was captured by Celtic raiders and taken to Ireland as a slave. He spent six years there before escaping back to Britain and joining the Church. As an adult, he saw that Christianity wasn't doing so well in Ireland, the missionaries didn't have the cultural experience he had to really communicate with the Celts about Jesus.

Patrick knew the Celts, he knew their beliefs, and he knew what was important to them. So he returned to Ireland on a mission of his own, and in the springtime went to the Hill of Slane.

Ten miles away rose the Hill of Tara, the seat of the High King of Celtic Ireland. Every spring, around the vernal equinox, a great celebration was held on Tara. The High King himself would light a ceremonial fire that would burn for days, and all other fires throughout Ireland were to be put out during this festival. Storytellers from all clans traveled to Tara so they could bring news of the festival back to every corner of Ireland.

Patrick knew this, and so began the biggest publicity stunt Ireland had ever known. As the festival began, and the Tara fire was blazing as the only fire in sight, the revelers saw another light struck on Slane. Patrick had lit a fire well within view of the King's fire, and even bigger. The King was furious at this defiance, and immediately dispatched his army to Slane to destroy any rivals they might find there.

The army marched across Boyne Valley, the best and strongest warriors who served the King, some 200 to 20,000 (depending on who tells the story). When they arrived ready to fight an invading army, they found only Patrick, unarmed but running right at them down the hill. They were so taken aback by this show of bravery that they completely failed to kill him. Instead, he convinced them to take him back to the King to explain himself. Patrick told the King about Jesus, about a God so powerful that Patrick knew he need not fear the King's army. The King was impressed, and not only allowed Patrick to live, but allowed him to continue his mission throughout Ireland. (Of course, he was greatly helped by all the storytellers present at Tara who also told the story far and wide.)

Eventually a monastery was built on the Hill of Slane, the ruins of which you can see in the pictures above. Every year at Easter, a paschal fire is lit on the spot where Patrick lit his fire. For three hundred years, the eldest Baron Fleming lit the fire, proclaiming the light of Christianity to the Boyne Valley.

Things Happen So Fast

2009-05-29T17:46:00.003-04:00

It certainly does seem that way, doesn't it? So much has changed in just a few short weeks. I left my old job to start at a new company. It was odd, having been there for two and a half years, to leave all the people I've come to rely on every day. But the time was right. The new job is pretty fantastic, and as I'm settling into it I'm liking it more and more.

In between the end of one era and the beginning of the next, I went to Ireland. Why Ireland? Cheapest flights I could find. My friend Andy happened to be visiting us when I made the decision, and as luck would have it he could take a week off too. So we went, with no plans, and very little knowledge of the country or geography. It was great. We found wonderful things to do, fantastic people, and lots of great beer. Maybe one of these days I'll write more about it. But I doubt it. There's just never enough time in the day.

Things happen so fast.

Lynn and I, in an attempt to curb our parents' calls for an expanded family, adopted a kitten. We're calling him Louis, after Satchmo, of course. He's an all-too-adorable little tabby cat who's fearless around people and loves to cuddle—that is, when he's not tearing something apart.

Now that the summer is stretching out ahead, we're hoping things will calm down a bit. We have no plans this weekend, and that's a welcome change.

Sin é

2009-05-14T16:52:00.002-04:00

I'm in Cork, Ireland, on a week-long trip through this country with my friend Andy. Yes, we do confuse people wherever we go. This is an amazing country. Not only is it exactly as beautiful as everyong, and especially the Irish, describe, but there's a very unique kind of history here. They aren't the Celtic nation because they were the first Celts, rather they were the last to survive. They aren't an independent Irish nation because they wanted it, rather they fought for it--and in some ways, still are. All of this comes together to build a sense of identity I haven't seen anywhere else. I've known the Irish are a proud people, but I haven't understood why until now. I feel a little more connected to my name, though my branch of the Flemings have been in America for too many generations to have held onto much more.

I'll have to write more about the trip later.

How Does My Garden Grow?

2009-04-28T10:51:00.003-04:00

This weekend, a couple friends came to visit up from Baltimore. We were hoping they'd help us pick out some flowers for the garden, but they jumped right in and together we completely over-hauled the entire back yard. Saturday morning, unusually warm for April, we all walked up to the farmers' market in front of Borough Hall. We picked out some hanging baskets, a flat of Impatiens (which I had always assumed to be spelled and pronounced "Inpatient's") and a few other brightly colored blossoms. A quick stop to get some spades, gloves, and soil, and we were all set.

Back at the apartment garden we began digging out the seemingly unending tangle of roots hiding just below the surface. Throughout the day we rooted, weeded, finished a red brick border around the patio, cut back the vines growing up the walls, cleaned out excess dirt, planted all our flowers, cleaned off all the patio furniture we inherited, and enjoyed a beautiful day with excellent company. It was a remarkable amount of work, but we now have a beautiful garden to enjoy all summer.

We celebrated by firing up the grill for the first time, and making a feast of brats, burgers, salad, corn, and asparagus. Dark by then, we still ate outside basking in the elation that comes from hard work done well with good friends.

Frankie Manning

2009-04-27T23:11:00.001-04:00

Frankie Manning died today, at age 94. He was the heart and soul of the swing dancing scene. Inventor of air steps, pioneer of the dance for two eras, and inspiration to thousands of dancers all over the world.

I was lucky to have taken a few workshops with him years ago, and to have been a part of the NYC scene. You could always find Frankie out in New York dancing, not a care in the world but what fun step he could still do after all these years.

Tonight we celebrate his life in the way he would have insisted--dancing to his favorite band, the Harlem Renaissance Orchestra at Swing46.

Back from Boston

2009-04-21T14:43:00.002-04:00

Watching the marathon was surprisingly good. I had sort of figured I would wander around Boston until I had a chance to see my uncle run past and that would be it. Instead, I ended up staying along the rail on the course the entire time until he came by. It was fascinating to watch all the runners, 25,000 in total, come through. Even more fascinating were the variety of attitudes. Some were weary, some determined, but many were downright celebratory. A large number of the runners were smiling and waving to the crowd. One guy even did a cart-wheel to the cheers of the spectators. I was amazed at the amount of positive energy, and that made it a lot of fun to watch.

I know, being a New Yorker, that it's my duty to downplay Boston as the quaint little town it is. But I have to say, when it comes to the subway, I found it to be pretty lacking. From where we were on the race course (near Boston College), we took the green line into the Back Bay area where the finish line was. Outside of "downtown" this train is on the street level, and it stops for every traffic light and any pedestrians who feel like standing in front of it. It took us more than 45 minutes to travel a distance of four and a half miles. There were two women jogging along the street parallel to our train, and they pulled ahead of us at each stop for about six stations before they were so far ahead that I could no longer see them. Boston, you need express trains.

The attempt to live blog the marathon turned out alright. I couldn't get the "Publish" button to appear on my blackberry, so I had to create new posts instead of editing the first post I created with updates. And as my battery wore down quickly during the day, posts went from short narratives to as few words as I could use. Once I find a better delivery method, and another event worth of the effort, I'll try again.

Live Blogging the Boston Marathon

2009-04-19T23:45:00.001-04:00

I'm travelling to Boston to support my uncle running in the Boston Marathon. I'm going to try something new and see if I can live blog it from my blackberry over on the family blog: Boston Marathon

Leinie Berry Weiss for the Summer

2009-04-15T11:07:00.003-04:00

Further evidence that, indeed, everything will be alright out in Brooklyn. I've discovered a huge beer distributing store on Court Street that carries Leinenkugel. Some of my most fond memories of Houghton involved Monday nights when a group of us would go to Pilgrim River Steakhouse and have steak burgers and pitchers of Leini (usually the honey weiss). It was always a great start to a week.

In the summer, Leinie had a berry weiss that always hit the spot. Some friends of mine even had it at their wedding. Now that I've found Leinie in Brooklyn, it looks like it's going to be a great summer of grilling in our backyard garden.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Brooklyn

2009-04-13T11:35:00.002-04:00

The new apartment feels more like home every day. One week after moving in, we're putting the last few pictures up on the walls, and looking toward what we can plant in the garden. We've met all the neighbors in our building, and they're all friendly and welcoming. Our neighbors upstairs even left us a bottle of wine!

The neighborhood could hardly be better. Turning left from our front door takes you into the heart of Brooklyn Heights with it's townhouses and tree-lined streets. Turning right takes you to downtown Brooklyn where nearly every subway train comes through. From there, Court and Smith streets run south for miles lined with restaurants, bars, and shops of all kinds. We're right at the crossroads of history and convenience.

For the first time in a while, it's truly exciting to be living here again.

April Showers...

2009-04-10T10:42:00.003-04:00

April is not usually a turbulent time. Spring always brought warmer weather, cleansing rain, and the promise of summer to get me through classes or just out of the winter doldrums. This April has brought showers, not of rain, but of change.

April 1st marked severe layoffs in my company. The company has been cutting back across several departments for about six months now, but this was the first time it affected my department. Nearly one half of our staff had been let go, including my friend of twelve years and many other wonderful people who have become like another family to me over the last two and a half years. The office is now quiet, and empty seats out-number filled ones. Those of us still there now share mixed feelings of relief and guilt that our friends and colleagues are gone while we remain.

The following Saturday, Lynn and I moved to our new apartment in Brooklyn. The move was surprisingly easy, and the moving company we hired was fantastic. A few friends came over on Saturday and helped out unpacking boxes, and by Sunday evening the place already looked like we'd been there for some time. Almost a week later, we have almost no boxes left, and are now hanging up pictures and re-arranging the rooms to make our home.

We've been able to explore the neighborhood a little, but this weekend we hope to spend some quality time learning about our new environs.

Slow Down, You Move to Fast

2009-04-03T10:12:00.002-04:00

Things are a bit hectic at the moment. We're moving tomorrow, our lives are in boxes and the apartment of two years feels foreign. The office, and indeed my whole company, is going through big changes, and many of us are waiting to see what happens next.

At this point, everything feels up in the air.

Then I cam across the video below, and it reminded me to slow down, look around, and remember where I am.

The Lost Tribes of New York City from Carolyn London on Vimeo.

Boxes

2009-03-26T10:03:00.002-04:00

Last night we broke out the Fresh Direct boxes we've been saving and started packing. Starting simply, we attacked the book shelves first, and quickly filled all eight boxes that we had. (We like books. A lot.) Now we're on the hunt for more boxes.

I'm always amazed when I'm preparing to move at just how much "stuff" I have. One would think with a small NYC apartment there isn't room for much&emdash;and that's true. Yet, after two years in this apartment I'm finding all kinds of things I didn't even know I had. I've always found moving to be a good chance to get rid of all this extraneous stuff. So in packing just those eight boxes last night, we also made two runs to the garbage and recycling room. It feels good to get things in order.

It'll feel even better to settle into our new home next week.

Passing The Torch

2009-03-17T10:26:00.005-04:00

I just returned from Houghton, and my Fraternity's National Convention. This was a big event for me, returning to my alma mater for the first time in years and passing on the gavel to the next National President.

It's been two years since I was first elected President, and it's been a busy two years. I accomplished several of my goals, from obtaining insurance for the Fraternity to completely over-hauling the policy structure of the National Office. I've missed a few, a Travel Incentive Program that doesn't yet support the service aspects of the group. At the end of the day, though, I think I left the organization in a better state, with a more functional National Office and a clearer sense of the goals necessary to move forward. People have asked me what my "legacy" will be, and I'm not sure how to answer. I suppose, so long as the Fraternity is insured and March 14th, 2009 is the approved date on the policies I fixed, then I'll be happy that some of the more important work was worthwhile. Two Chapters bear my name on their Charter, which I'll freely admit, is pretty cool. I've offered to continue advising the new President, and I'm confident that the organization is in good hands.

But for me, I don't think I'm ready yet to leave a legacy. There is so much more work to be done for this organization to really get into a position to affect positive service in the music world. Lynn, also no longer a National Vice President, and I are focusing our efforts now on the Alumni Association. Some of you reading this may be hearing from us soon. I get the feeling that I'm in this for the long haul, and that's a good thing.

This Convention was a homecoming for me, in a few ways. It was wonderful to preside over the Convention at my home Chapter, and fitting that I come home to pass on the torch. It was also the first time I was able to spend real time in and around Houghton since graduation. Sure, I made a brief visit a couple years ago, but spent about 24 hours there, and most of it in someone's house. This trip was different.

Although the events of Convention didn't start until Thursday, we flew up Wednesday. Our flight connected through Minneapolis (as all flights to Houghton do), and they almost didn't let us leave that airport citing bad weather in Houghton. We eventually took off with the very real possibility of redirecting to Marquette should the winds at Houghton continue gusting above 60mph. It took three tries at approaching the landing strip, but we did land in Houghton and were off on our adventure.

We went into town, and met up with an old friend of mine John. John and I met back when I used to have lunch every Friday at Marie's Deli and he would be playing the harp. Eventually, he would join me for lunch, and we became friends chatting about everything from music to astronomy. I hadn't seen him since graduation, and we had a lot of catching up to do. He also adores opera, which helped he and Lynn get along just fine.

Thursday began as Wednesday ended; we had to finish our preparations for the meetings and business that is conducted at Convention. But afterward we headed to MTU's campus to meet up with some others. In true Tech tradition, we borrowed some cafeteria trays and went sledding down McNair Hill. Then it was back to the hotel for some time in the hot tub before heading back out for dinner at the Bass (Ambassador) and drinks at the DT (Downtowner Lounge).

Friday was meetings, meetings, meetings, and Saturday was one big long meeting--both extremely relevant to Mu Beta Psi, but not for our narrative here.

Sunday, as everyone was leaving, we decided to take a drive. Another time-honored Tech tradition is to go Copper Country Cruisin'. So, we piled a few other visiting Brothers into our rental car and went up US-41 and M-26 to Copper Harbor. It was exhilarating to be back, and I was amazed once again of the stark beauty of the land there. As we drove along Lake Superior, with waves frozen mid-crash, I fell right back in love with the UP. It will likely never again be where I live, but it will always be my home.

Taking It to the Limit

2009-03-03T10:21:00.008-05:00

After an incredibly difficult week both in and out of work, Lynn and I decided to run away for the weekend. We went up to Killington, VT to meet some friends and ski our troubles away.

I went skiing a lot with my dad growing up, but during college almost completely stopped as other concerns crept in and time became a luxury I no longer enjoyed. Moving to NYC certainly didn't help get me out-of-doors, until Lynn and I started going up to Killington once or twice a year. I found, though, that while I remembered how to ski, the practice of skiing had considerably changed. My body has changed, and certainly the way I use it. And even the skis themselves had changed, the last pair I owned were straight and longer than I am tall. Nowadays with the parabolic skis, they're shorter, lighter, and feel quite a bit different.

Once or twice a year, for three years now, did not make me immediately recall the days when I was young and just wanted to go fast. But as I pushed myself a little more each time, I found the memories return, the muscles recall, and the technique slowly improve. Two weeks ago, skiing with Lynn's family, I went down the first black diamond run in at least a decade. Two days ago, I pushed my own limits much further.

We were skiing this weekend with a good friend who stood in our wedding and his girlfriend. They are both excellent skiers, and we find ourselves pushing a little harder when around them to keep up. My friend in particular is also a good motivator, and he knows just when I need a little nudge.

Our first run from the condo down to the base lodge was green, if only because there were no other trails to take. The second and third runs were half blue and half black diamonds—the real warm-up runs. As we rode up the Bear Mountain quad lift, along the famous Outer Limits trail, we couldn't help but all feel good about our skiing and our weekend. My friend, seizing the opportunity, noted how the snow was good, the moguls smaller than usual, and that this was the day—if ever there was one—to take Outer Limits.

Outer Limits is long and steep. It's known for being one of the steepest and toughest trails in the East. It's a double-black diamond trail.

And we did it.

I won't claim it was pretty, but I made it to the bottom without falling, and that's an accomplishment I'll take pride in. It was frightening, slowly moving toward the brink at the top of the mountain. But I heard a voice behind me, a friend saying "Don't stop! Don't stop!" and I kept going. Once over the edge and making way down the mountain, it became much easier. Where else was I to go but down? I focused on the snow ahead of me and where I should make my turns, rather than how steep the hill was and very far it was to the bottom. As with many things, once I'd committed to doing it, the act of doing it was a much smaller hurdle.

When I reached the bottom, the four of us celebrated with a well-deserved waffle at the base.

Images of Outer Limits from Wikipedia

Schermerhorn

2009-02-25T10:35:00.005-05:00

Sometime around 1200 years ago in the northern part of Holland, prospectors followed a small river inland to a vast area of peat for digging. Being in the peat lands of the Netherlands, the river often flooded in storms, forming a wide shallow like from time to time. This earned it the name "Skir mere" which means "bright lake." This name was eventually shortened to "Schermer," which also became the name of the area around the the river's flood basin.

By the year 1250, the removal of peat and the repeated river flooding connected the Schermer river to the Zuiderzee, thus allowing for trade all the way to the North Sea. The people there settled a small village where the Schermer met another river, and they called it Schermerhorn.

Even today, the village of Schermerhorn is home to less than 900 people. Yet those bearing Schermerhorn as a surname have spread across the Netherlands and around the world. There were Schermerhorns among the original Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam, and they rose to be among the earliest aristocrats of the New World. For generations the Schermerhorn name was passed down through the wealthy Dutch of New York and Brooklyn.

It was a Schermerhorn who, married into the Astor family, created the Astor hotel to rival a competing family member's Waldorf Hotel. These hotels were later merged into the famous Waldorf-Astoria. (This same Schermerhorn, Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor, had a 39-foot-tall cenotaph erected for her grave at Trinity Church, not far from where I live now.)

The Schermerhorn farm, across the river in Brooklyn, had been divided and subdivided as the small village of Brooklyn grew into the second-largest city in the US. By the time of Caroline's reign over New York society, all that remained was a street running through Brooklyn (later called Brooklyn Heights): Schermerhorn Street.

Lynn and I have found an apartment, we're moving to Schermerhorn Street.

House Hunting in the Middle

2009-02-20T16:06:00.003-05:00

I'm a bit frustrated. The building I love has become so incredibly annoying that I can hardly wait to leave it. The adjacent building has added 9 floors to itself, completely blocking all of our windows. We have to draw the shades so as not to draw the attention of the workers 8 feet outside the windows. But the shades don't block the noise. 7am sharp, every morning.

I've always said that the building is wonderful, it's just everything around it that's bad.

So, we've made the decision to move (possibly to Brooklyn). Our lease is up April 1st, and that's no joke, so the time to be looking elsewhere is now. Ideally, we'd want to overlap a little with our current lease to make the transition easier.

We've toyed with the idea of buying an apartment, especially with the market coming down so quickly. But the market isn't quite there yet, and we don't want to commit ourselves to a mortgage when our own industries aren't the most stable. And the process is so long. We've spent more than a month looking at properties on weekends, just to see what's available. And many of those properties will still be there if we start looking again later. It takes ages to negotiate a price, go through the process, and close. Far too long for our needs right now.

Meanwhile, with the rental market in NYC, the attitude is "now or never." If you look at an apartment, find that you like it, and fail to sign the lease that day, it's probably gone tomorrow. This too is abetting a little with demand falling off in this economy, but the prevailing attitude is still there. We've got an appointment for Saturday in Brooklyn. If we see something we like, we have to make the decision to live there immediately. There's no time to consider other neighborhoods, or sleep on it. Yes or no. Now or never.

I want the middle road. I want to be able to compare and consider apartments, to take the time to feel out the neighborhood, and what it would be like to live in a certain place. I want to learn about the building--where is the laundry? The recycling? But I also want the speed and ease of finding a place soon, and not spending weeks to months negotiating and signing a lease.

Tomorrow I may have a new address.

Learning Relativity in the Subway

2009-02-03T13:51:00.007-05:00

On the subway home from yesterday, there was a boy and his parents. I'm not a very good judge of age, but I'd put him around 2 years old; he was talking, but not the most steady on his feet. Generally, my reaction to toddlers on the subway quickly falls into one of two possibilities: "aww, cute" or more frequently "please stop screaming."

This child was well-behaved enough, and I saw a very interesting thing happen. He was sitting on his mother's lap, on the right-hand side of the train. Thus, to his right was the direction of travel. His father, sitting across from him, was asking if he knew how many stops they had before they got off the train. The child, thinking hard, decided instead to point out that everything outside the train windows was moving "that way," to his left.

The father said, no, the train was moving "that way," pointing to the child's right and the direction of travel. Having none of it, the boy insisted, no, that way--left and against the direction of travel. They went on like this for a while, before the father gave up, and the mother distracted the boy with a small box of goldfish.

Mmmm, goldfish.

I found it strangely fascinating, watching the two argue about what exactly was moving, and in which direction. The boy, knowing full well that he was sitting down, and clearly watching the stations and lights whiz by from right to left, correctly stated his observations from the center of his at-rest coordinate system. The father, aware of his position in the larger coordinate system consisting of the whole city, correctly stated his observations from a moving point within that larger system. Both were right, but both continued to try and convince the other to change coordinate systems.

The source of their confusion is that the boy is still thinking concretely, unable to change his frame of reference to the world outside the train. Adults, though able to think abstractly and change their frame of reference, often refuse to change once they've chosen one. Most adults would never say, "get on the 1 train, and wait for the third stop to arrive." But both father and child sat there, staring at each other across the subway car, teetering on the edge of one of the first principles of Relativity.

Sometimes we need to remember, when talking to each other, to define our frame of reference.

The Pull of Brooklyn

2009-01-23T17:16:00.000-05:00

Lynn and I have been spending a lot of time in Brooklyn lately. It began innocently enough; dinner with a friend in Park Slope, and celebrating a friend's new apartment in Prospect Heights. But before long, we were on walking tours of Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill. And then we took the big conceptual leap—what if we moved to Brooklyn?

I've tried, unsuccessfully, to avoid becoming the stereotypical "Manhattan Snob." Why, the very first day I came to NYC in 2003 I went to Queens—by mistakenly taking the wrong subway. I've spent a considerable amount of time driving around the Bronx—lost, looking for a bridge into Manhattan that didn't have a toll. And I don't know any of my friends or acquaintances who have also been to the Staten Island Mall—though it was a horrendous ordeal that I will never repeat. But I have, on occasion, explored the outer boroughs deliberately. The end of the A train in Queens, and Dyker Heights at Christmastime.

Still, I've lived in Manhattan for over five years, and the vast majority of my time in the outer boroughs is limited to getting to or from Manhattan. It's not so much that I have anything against the other three (I'm excluding Staten Island here, I will hold that grudge until the day I die). It's just that they're so far away from everything—that is, Manhattan.

Or so I thought. The more time we've spent in some of the nearer parts of Brooklyn, the more I've liked it. Some of the neighborhoods we've explored are lovely, with tree-lined streets, rows of brownstones and townhouses, and a very close sense of a true neighborhood. Certain neighborhoods are, in short, wonderful. And I am, frankly, really enjoying spending time there.

Add to this the falling real estate market, and a recently married couple thinking of taking the big step of their first real home, and you have several weekends now wandering between open houses seeing what's available. Lynn found this helpful picture on the interwebs to guide our search:

We've been looking primarily in Brooklyn Heights. It's a quiet, beautiful neighborhood of Federal and Queen Anne styled buildings. It has an esplanade overlooking the water, and it's own little "main street" with shops and restaurants. And it's only one stop from Manhattan.

We're looking for a neighborhood feel, check. Close to subways, check. And the added bonus of being an absolutely beautiful neighborhood, check. Brooklyn is looking more appealing every day...the pull is almost tangible.

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/8172159@N02/

When Solitude Isn't

2009-01-14T21:20:00.004-05:00

There's a trail at Killington called Solitude, and aptly so. It's narrow, and winds it's way through the forest off on it's own. It's entrance isn't obvious coming off the peak, it's not particularly challenging, and in some places is more flat than sloped. So it's not a very popular trail.

But there are times when you're cruising down Solitude with friends, skiing inches apart from each other. You're talking, and laughing, trying to knock each other over playfully. Around you the trees saunter by, the sky is endless, and every once in a while you round a corner and see the world stretch out beneath you. And you're grateful for it all: the surroundings, the people surrounding you, that you have surrounded yourself with them.

This year's resolution is to find—and appreciate—more of those times.

The Holiday Traveling Show

2008-12-29T14:21:00.004-05:00

Occasionally, this blog sits around for a while. Generally I'm either distracted by shiny objects elsewhere, or simply can't think of anything about which to write. Not this time, though. Things have really just been a whirlwind of activity.

Lynn and I spent Thanksgiving in Michigan, flying out there for about four days. We were lucky to spend some time with some of the Flemings in Ann Arbor, and visit with them a bit. Thanksgiving dinner itself was at my mom's house (a first, since we've always had a big Soave family dinner) with several members of a new branch of the family. The next day we had dinner with some of the Soaves, and soon after flew back to New York.

Christmas was similar, as we found ourselves out with Lynn's family for Christmas, and up in the Catskills to my dad's place the next couple days. Fortunately, we had a brief layover in Connecticut on the way back home where we enjoyed the whole house—empty—to ourselves. Don't think I'm complaining, though. These holidays were our first as a family, and to spend them with all of the extensions of our families showed us just how lucky we are.

All the while, and in between, we've also played host to several friends who've come to visit or have been passing through the city. Many of Lynn's singer-friends have come to town for the audition season, and several others have been through just to say hi and spend some time with us. November and December have been an almost continual progression of traveling and hosting, and what could be better than friends and family at this time of year?

The stats:
Families visited: 5 (all out own!)
Friends hosted: 7
Distance travelled: 1,750 miles

The fun continues as we'll be up in Boston for New Year's, and then off to Killington for some fun in the snow!

Interlude

2008-11-21T16:59:00.000-05:00

Where Did 90WestStreet Blog Go?

2008-11-03T13:12:00.006-05:00

I can hardly believe it's November already. It's nearly time for family, friends, thanksgivings—and the first anniversary of the Great Flood of '07. The full story as told through this blog is here.

For all the craziness of that time last year, there were some really good things that came out of it. We got to meet and know neighbors that we must have walked past daily. A lot of the building residents came together. And out of that new-found solidarity as neighbors, came a collaborative blog: http://90weststreet.blogspot.com/. It became the centerpiece of our organization and communication. It kept all of us up to date with the issues of moving back in, the contamination tests, and the Port Authority settlement. And with the chat feature in the side rail, residents have kept in touch even since the last post.

Over the weekend, I noticed traffic to this blog from Google in Mountain View, CA. The referring url was http://90weststreet.blogspot.com/. Thinking it strange that Google would be surfing these blogs, of all others, I went to check on the 90WestStreet Blog.

Gone.

The url gives the error:

Blog has been removed

Sorry, the blog at 90weststreet.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not available for new blogs.

No explanation, no citation of an abuse of the Terms of Service. Nothing. Google's Help Center explains that if there was a ToS violation, the blog would still be in my Dashboard. But the blog is not there, it has been completely removed.

I have to wonder, with as many collaborators as there were on that blog, if it wasn't someone else who was just cleaning out their Blogger accounts. But the visit from Google has my suspicions raised, the timing seems hardly coincidental.

I clicked around Google's Help Center trying to find an email address to send questions. Each thread of "clarifying" the problem ends in an over-simplified explanation of how I must be logging in with the wrong account. I posted to the "Google Help" group, though, so we'll see what comes of that.

But why? Why delete this blog? There's a lot of important information for residents in there.

Standing On Tip-Toes (Part II)

2008-10-27T14:05:00.009-04:00

I arrived back at the hotel, and moved from the room I had stayed in Friday night to the room that I would stay in with my wife on our wedding night. Getting dressed was quick and easy, and I had a nice few moments of downtime with my mom, putting on the cuff links she gave me.

The drive up to the Waterview, where the wedding and reception were held, will stand out in my memory of that day. It's a beautiful drive, through a sleepy little town and up a winding river. It was around four in the afternoon, and the sun dripped through the colored leaves in that lazy-late-afternoon way. I drove, followed by cars of groomsmen and parents, along that river and followed its bends. And just before arriving at the Waterview, you swing uphill and drive across the dam that creates Lake Zoar above the river. To your left is the low river valley you've just come through, and to your right the shining blue water opens up into a wide lake with steep shores. It left me with such a sense of peace.

Once there, I was shuffled off to the very back of the room where the ceremony was to take place, lest I spy my bride taking pictures outside. It was a great time to hang out with my groomsmen and my cousin (who officiated), as we sipped champagne brought to us and waited for guests to settle in. Eventually, we moved to the lobby to line up, and then we were off through the doors and down the aisle.

I walked up the aisle and took my place next to my cousin and watched as the groomsmen and bridesmaids all followed. But I kept glancing back at the doors off to the side where the procession came from. I knew that after the maid of honor, I'd see my bride and her father. But there was one little detail I had forgotten. When the music changed slightly and my bride entered the room, everyone stood up. It didn't occur to me that everyone would stand, it had completely slipped my mind! More to the point, I couldn't see her. She was in the room and on her way and we were getting married and I had to wait until she walked from the side doors to the bottom of the aisle before I could see her.

A friend later told me I was standing on my tip-toes trying to see over the crowd.

And then I saw her, and my breath caught. My bride, walking right toward me. It was everything I could do to stand in place. I'm not sure there are words a groom can use to describe his bride that would make sense outside of that moment, but she was so beautiful.

The ceremony seems like a series of moments now. I remember it in little snippets. Smiling at Lynn. Laughing at the jokes my cousin told. Feeling the affection of all these friends and family who traveled from all over the country to be with us. The conviction with which she said her vows. The sincerity with which I said mine. The kiss at the end was a release, a celebratory expression of all the feelings after having to stand still and not pull her into my arms for so long! It was such a personal ceremony, the kind that only my cousin who grew up with me could provide, and yet accessible to everyone through his words and the way he brought everyone in. Lynn's cousins added many kind words and sage advice. Friends sang a song and read a sonnet that were what we'd been singing and reading to each other throughout our relationship—but not in so many words and notes. Nothing could dampen those moments, and nothing did. Even the little interruptions added to the sense of sharing a personal moment with everyone in the room.

We walked back down the aisle as husband and wife. The only thing left to do was celebrate!

So There Was This Party, And... (Part I)

2008-10-15T09:58:00.008-04:00

I woke up on Saturday, October 4th in a hotel room. I always have this momentary confusion when I wake up in hotel rooms, that little bit of "where am I?" Sitting up, knocking the book I had dropped as I fell asleep to the floor, I look around the room sun-lit by a beautiful day. There's a full suitcase, I must be on my way somewhere else. There's a jacket, the weather just started getting a little cooler. There's my cellphone, charging. There's my tuxedo, I'm getting married today.

I'm getting married today!

Then it all rushes back in. Wednesday night prior, friends and family started arriving in New York. I took Thursday off from work, thinking I'd have a lot to do at the last minute. Everything was done, so I bummed around the natural history museum and Central Park with some friends. Thursday night I took the train out to CT, meeting a couple Brothers along the way. Friday was a golf outing with the families, a quick rehearsal, and a fantastic rehearsal dinner at this little Italian place. (It used to be a bank, and the interior still looks like it. The vault is used as the wine cellar.)

Friday night our families and friends took over the hotel bar. That was one of the best times during the weekend, to see all of these people who we care about meeting and talking and having a good time together.

Then I woke up on Saturday, in a hotel room, and it was my wedding day. The hotel was pretty quiet that morning (not surprising, given the previous night). But a couple of the groomsmen, friends, and I had plans to go for lunch. It was to be an adventure, some place we've never been before. This was not terribly difficult as the town we were in, Shelton, Connecticut, was a town to which only I had been before. So it was suggested that we choose one of two options: a burger place in Meriden, or a burger place in New Haven.

We chose Meriden, not for the location, but for the burgers. Meriden is home to Ted's Restaurant, maker of the world-famour steamed cheeseburgers. Yes, steamed.

Meriden, as it turns out, is 35 miles from Shelton. It took us a while to get there. Being a world-famous place, and featured on many a burger magazine and TV special, we weren't sure what to expect. We were not expecting the tiny little hole-in-the-wall (in a good way) burger joint that we found after pulling up onto the curb in Meriden. Ted's Restaurant has three tables and a counter that divides the three tables from the kitchen. The walls barely contain all this. But quite unsurprisingly for these real culinary treasures, the burgers were fantastic. We almost had seconds, if not for the very large meal to come that evening. And yes, we drive half an hour to sit in a little place for 20 minutes and drive half and hour back. And yes, it was completely worth it.

Of course, we also had to stop on the way back at a Dunkin' Donuts. Some crazy Californians with us had never been, and there were just so many that we passed on the way to lunch.

Finally back at the hotel that afternoon, it was time to begin getting ready for the evening. And oh, what an evening it was!

To be continued...

A Little Too Quiet

2008-09-26T14:13:00.004-04:00

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.

Why I Live Here

2008-09-23T10:22:00.007-04:00

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

"And Another Thing..."

2008-09-17T18:20:00.004-04:00

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.

The View Out My Window (Unchanged)

2008-09-15T20:50:00.007-04:00

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

Population in Perspective

2008-09-09T22:16:00.008-04:00

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.

It's A Jungle Out There

2008-09-08T18:29:00.009-04:00

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!

Emily Creeps Me Out

2008-08-21T18:14:00.004-04:00

I saw this in AdRants. (Yes, I'm trying to pay attention to the industry that supports me!) They point to this video that is currently flying around the web:

I'm not afraid to admit it, Emily creeps me out. She really is so life-like. Apparently, only after 1:30 mark is it actually the actress on screen. Before that her face is completely digital. Will actors and actresses become the next endangered species? Or will we see an overabundance of waiters and waitresses?

And all this in the wake of some other distressing ad-related news. Gawker reports that other ad companies are experimenting with face recognition software a la "Minority Report." Soon, the ads will know who you are, and create a life-like person to talk to you about what they're selling. I'm both amazed and afraid!

One Year Later

2008-08-19T17:22:00.003-04:00

The search for John Galt continues, and now the DA's office wants to press homicide charges.

Meanwhile, there's increased activity inside the building, with crews visible in the windows until midnight six days a week. But it's still just as tall today as it was a year ago.

The long, continuing story here.

East Side, West Side, All Around the....Country

2008-08-06T12:49:00.007-04:00

It's been a summer of quick little trips around the country. I'm always amazed at the little quirks of each little place. Especially in these times of big-box stores and generic chain stores, it's wonderful to see something unique to an area.

A while back I spent a wonderful day down in Point Pleasant Beach, NJ. Point Pleasant is fairly typical Jersey Shore beach town, with a long boardwalk lined with restaurants and shops. Further north along the boardwalk, these give way to houses large and small with cute, beach-appropriate names tacked over their doors. One of these is named "Seascape," but to everyone who's been to Point Pleasant, it's simply known as the "Sinatra House." Here, Ol' Blues Eyes plays from speakers built into the porch every day from 8am to 9pm. I found an archived NYT article with some more details. The house is owned by the Smith family, and although Mr. Smith may have passed on, the residents of Point Pleasant were glad to hear his family is continuing the tradition. This is my kind of place.

The following weekend, I spent a few days in Silicon Valley. Here again, the people who live in this area have an interesting quirk. There are shopping carts everywhere. Everywhere. This string of cities are neither as pedestrian friendly as New York nor as car-centric as Detroit. Most people have cars, and most use them every day to run errands. But many people walk to the grocery store. In New York, where everything, as they say, is bigger, people take little fold-up carts that they own to the little grocers to pack the little foodstuffs into their little refrigerators. But in the Valley, people seem to walk to the grocery stores, buy a shopping cart full of groceries, and then walk home with their groceries in the cart. They don't need a shopping cart, of course, so they leave it on the side of the road. At first I figured all these shopping carts along the roads were an indication of homelessness. But the carts outnumbered the homeless by far. The friend I stayed with told me that people just use them and leave them--and that he hadn't really noticed how many there were because they're simply always around.

The next weekend I went back down to Brevard, NC to see Lynn's opera. I didn't get much time to socialize with locals, as it was a very short trip. Still, in my three weekends in three parts of the country, it was nice to see first-hand that there still is quite a bit of diversity in behavior and ideas, if not in choice of fast-food eats.

Astronaut Ice Cream!

2008-07-25T10:49:00.002-04:00

One of those staples of childhood museum trips was to stop off at the gift shop at the end of the day and get some astronaut ice cream. Crumbling freeze-dried goodness packed in a shiny foil wrapper. It was always one of the highlights of going to any museum, ranking just below the animatronic dinosaurs and just above the screen that would hold your shadow for several seconds after a light turned off. (Of course, it never came close to the planetarium.)

Today I find myself connecting through Houston on my way to California. Capitalizing on a certain NASA center somewhere in this town, there's a "Space Trader" gift shop here in my terminal. They have astronaut ice cream. I can't even remember the last I had any. So I bought some.

You're probably expecting me to say it doesn't taste as good as I remember. But you'd be wrong, it's delicious!

The Fighting White Squirrels of Brevard, North Carolina

2008-07-12T11:20:00.006-04:00

I'm sitting in a quaint little coffee shop in the quaint little town of Brevard, NC. Yesterday, I flew out of Newark for the first time in five years. I've always avoided that airport, not just because of the obvious association with Jersey, but also because it seems so difficult to get to without a car. Or at the very least, expensive. But for this trip the only direct flight--not to mention cheapest by far--was out of Newark. My assumption of how difficult it would be to get there couldn't be more wrong. From my apartment it's only a walk of a few minutes to get to the WTC PATH train station. This train, for only $1.75, takes you all the way to Newark's Penn Station. From here you can take any number of trains one stop to Newark airport--and you will never have to wait more than a few minutes. The airport stop has a monorail that takes you right to the terminal of your choice. Sure, it sounds a little complicated since you are effectively taking three trains, but it was surprisingly easy. All told, it took me about fifty minutes to get from my front door to the security line at the airport. On a day with heavy traffic, that's equivalent to a taxi ride to LaGuardia, my usual airport of choice.

I flew into Greenville, SC; again, the cheapest option. From the air I could see that Greenville is booming. The lush green hilly countryside of this part of the country was everywhere marked by the vivid red-orange of freshly unearthed soil. There were roads every which way that curved "just so" to give the future subdivision that meandering feel. Each one wandered to some empty bulbous cul-de-sac where soon innumerable house will huddle around. The airport is still relatively small, so it was easy to find the very generous stranger Lynn had arranged to pick me up. He and I drove an hour and a half deep into the stunning Blue Mountains and finally into North Carolina and the little town of Brevard.

Brevard is a charming little place. The main street has all the little two-story shops you would expect of small town, but in that special small town feel it hits the mark with perfection. Strolling along, you'll find many little restaurants (most serving seafood, for reasons not abundantly clear this far from any major body of water). You'll find Hunters and Gatherers, a little kitsch shop with everything from antique furniture to bars of soap with plastic nuns in them (to was away the sins, of course). Kiwi gelato is across the street, so named for its owner who is the only resident in town native to New Zealand. Next door is the home-made chocolate shop. And so on down the street with cute little shops all the way. At the end of the street is the toy store. It was closed when I walked by last night so I had to content myself with peering in the windows. In one window is a large Lionell train display. This display had everything: the cute little shops of Brevard, the loading station for freight trains, a gondola going up a mountain, and a group of "Homies" break-dancing in a park pavilion. But the best part was when a trolley suddenly sprang to life and raced down the street revealing the most risqué car wash scene ever depicted in a train model town. Picture forthcoming.

Brevard is most famous for it's curious and elusive white squirrels. For reasons unknown, the seem to only inhabit this area, and it's quite the gimmick to capitalize on. Everywhere you can buy white squirrel shirts, mugs, cards, underwear, salt and pepper shakers, and so much more. My personal favorites are the unofficial mascot shirts for the local school. On these are a white squirrel with his dukes up, just above the boldly lettered "Fightin' White Squirrels." I was even fortunate enough to see a real live white squirrel this morning. Supposedly, that's good luck.

Yes! Michigan

2008-07-09T17:18:00.005-04:00

I don't generally dwell on the state I've left behind. It was a great place to grow up, and is still a great place to visit. But every once in a while I like to check in and see how things are doing. And I couldn't help but notice this little piece of news coming from dear old Flint, courtesy of the Detroit Free Press.

Here are some of the highlights:

Flint residents now have to watch their butts because Police Chief David Dicks is on the lookout.

Dicks, who took over the department last month on an interim basis, announced that his officers would start arresting people wearing saggy pants that expose skivvies, boxer shorts or bare bottoms.

....

The crime, he says, is disorderly conduct or indecent exposure, both misdemeanors punishable by 93 days to a year in jail and/or fines up to $500.

Dicks, 41, broke down his interpretation of the laws as such: Pants pulled completely below the buttocks with underwear showing is disorderly conduct; saggy pants with skin of the buttocks showing is indecent exposure, and saggy pants, not completely below the buttocks, with underwear exposed results in a warning.

While nearly an hour's drive from Detroit, Flint is a pretty dangerous place—far more than Detroit itself. Is this a possible solution? It sort of reminds me of Guilianni's crackdown on drug dealing in New York by ramping up parking ticket enforcement. A bit of an out there idea, but it did have some success there. The article continues:

Flint's not the first city to take a look at policing the exposure of underwear. Pontiac, Auburn Hills, Atlanta and cities across the nation have debated the issue. But Dicks makes the assertion that wearing pants below the waist can give police probable cause to search saggers for other crimes, such as weapon and drug possession. He said because sagging is a crime, it presents probable cause for police to search saggers.

Pontiac and Auburn Hills are both suburbs between Detroit and Flint.

Dicks also scoffed at any suggestions that any enforcement unfairly targets black men and teens.

"This is not a black issue. This is an issue that's all walks of life," said Dicks, who is black. "Many people from different ethnic backgrounds and races are doing this fad."

But perhaps the best part of this article, and the true reason why the Detroit Free Press will always be dear to my heart, is the info-graphic they've created to help visualize this crime.Thanks for that, now I know. Yes! Michigan, the feeling truly is forever.

Wherein the Girl Scouts Thwart Andrew Once Again

2008-07-02T23:02:00.004-04:00

I have a long history with the Girl Scouts and their cookies. Growing up, how many times did I wish it were socially acceptable to defect over from the Boy Scouts. Popcorn? Please. Those cookies!* And yet, throughout all the years of my Thin Mint- and Tagalong-enriched life I can never seem to find a Scout selling cookies. Never. To this very day, I've never bought my own cookies.

Growing up, we had a steady supply coming every cookie season through the typical mom's-coworker's-daughters channel. In college, it was the same, only through the mail up to me. Ever since moving to New York, though, they've been harder to come by. No one goes door to door here, and most grocery stores won't let them stand out front with a little table. The Girl Scouts have a Cookie Finder website, but every time I enter my zip code it says that cookie season for New York has ended. There's a place to put in your email address, but I've been on that mailing list for two years now, and have never gotten an email notice of cookie season.

Somehow, all these years, those Scouts have managed to elude me—which is surprising given that it's a fundraiser and I'm more than willing to contribute. So I've spent the last few years in the city pandering for delicious scraps from colleagues and coworkers who live in the suburbs, or getting lucky and calling home to Michigan when there happen to be some around my mom's house.

Tonight I happened upon a blog post of a friend of mine who has been involved with the Girl Scouts for many years. She quotes the following passage from a GS newsletter:

Try a Girl Scouts’ Thin Mint Blizzard at Dairy Queen
Are you craving Girl Scout Thin Mints – America’s favorite Girl Scout cookie? You’re in luck. Girl Scouts of the USA and International Dairy Queen have created a national partnership, including a Girl Scouts’ Thin Mint Blizzard, which will be the featured blizzard of the month for July.

Dairy Queen will also have a special “Dairy Queens’ Girl Scouts Appreciation Week” July 7-13, in which local Girl Scout service units and troops can host informational booths about Girl Scouts, the new Girl Scout Leadership Experience, camps, and all the other great Girl Scout programs and activities for all girls in kindergarten through grade 12.

Thin Mints and Dairy Queen? Could a better union ever be conceived? Naturally, I went immediately to Google to find the nearest DQ. Jersey City, of course. Funny how something 3.3 miles from my apartment can be so far away. Heck, my office is 4 miles away. But my office is in Manhattan, and Jersey City is in, well, Jersey. The Hudson is a far more effective barrier to those east of it than those west of it.

Still, July and August are busy travel months for me. In the next few weeks I'll be in North Carolina and California, and I'm hoping to head down to Baltimore or up to Boston as well. One thing's for certain, my eyes will be open along the way.

* I heartily support both the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts organizations. I mean no disrespect to either having been a Boy Scout myself. But really, popcorn? Come on guys.

"You Don't Know What You've Got, Until It's Gone"

2008-06-30T22:21:00.002-04:00

How cliché is that?

It's been two weeks now that I've been living the life of a bachelor again. Not to fear, no big drama in my life. Lynn has been down in North Carolina preparing for an opera, and I've been living life as usual in this suddenly-just-a-little-too-big(-and-yet-still-small) apartment. Not that I mind a little time to myself, I don't, but I've been surprised by all the little things that show me she's not around.

It's kind of dusty. Lynn vacuums all the time. I can't think of how many times I'd sit down on the couch with a book, or a movie, and just about to enjoy some peace and quie—VRROOOOM. But now it's really quiet all the time, and there are little wisps of dust in the corner on the floor. Huh.

All her earrings are put away. At some point every evening, I turn off the living room lamps, put the empty cups in the sink (or at least near it), gather up Lynn's earrings off the coffee table and put them on her dresser on my way to bed. Now I turn off the lamps, put the cup away (I keep washing and re-using the same one), and walk to the bedroom feeling like I'm forgetting something. Where are they?

Ah, routine. I'm such a creature of habit, I like things to remain the way they are. Each day, I like counting on the fact that Louis (the doorman) always says "Ladies first" when we head to work, that our neighbor always says "Hey guys" when we pass her coming in from walking the dogs. Even the construction noise has become comfortably predictable—so long as it ends at a reasonable hour.

New routines are in order. Louis says "Hey guy" now, and the neighbor just says "Hey." I'm taking walks in the evening, eating dinner earlier. Mostly, I'm enjoying some time doing the things I haven't gotten around to doing lately. I'm reading more. And I'm working on projects for myself. I don't feel lonely much of the time, nor I do I feel content. It's a sort of nervous energy to do things that will make me feel better, and be better, when the apartment is filled with the noise and the earrings—but not the dust—that makes it home.

Art in Chelsea

2008-06-26T21:39:00.006-04:00

What is a classic New York hipster thing to do on a Thursday evening? Why, cruise Chelsea for the art gallery openings, of course. Nowhere else can one walk down the street from building to build drinking cheap wine and taking in every kind of artistic medium imaginable. In the years I've lived here, I've actually never done this before tonight. All of these emerging artists have their work on display for free in these galleries, it's really quite the opportunity.

A friend of mine, whom I met back in the Viennese Opera Ball days is a photographer. He uses incredibly wide-angle lenses to capture panoramic images of New York. As quite the sucker for this city already, I think they're wonderful. He has many on his photography website, Luminous New York, and the corresponding blog, New York Panorama.

I hadn't heard from this friend lately (my fault, sadly), but I saw through Facebook of all things that he is showing some of his images in a gallery in Chelsea. The show is called INCANDESCENT and incorporates the work of three artists who are inspired by architecture and the human interaction with it. From the gallery's website:

All three of these artists deal with architecture and its relationship to anthropomorphism. Buildings may not look like human beings, but they mimic our consciousness in that they project light from within, or have some innate sensory rapport with the immediate natural environment.

When I showed up to the opening reception, I was greeted by a crowd of people already there enjoying the photographs and sculptures. I stopped by the refreshment table to get my obligatory plastic cup of cheap wine. It was wonderful to catch up with my friends (the photographer and his girlfriend both danced with me at the Viennese Ball), and wonderful to see them doing well and finding success.

And hey, if you find yourself in Chelsea, stop by 532 Gallery. It's worth the trip.

Clearfield, PA

2008-06-08T01:15:00.006-04:00

Last weekend, Lynn and I took a whirlwind road-trip to Michigan and back for a wedding shower. We borrowed her parents car on Thursday night and parked it in the city so we could leave right after work on Friday.

Friday afternoon, we left New York around 3pm. Expecting a ten-hour drive, we hoped to get to the Detroit area by 1am. Then we'd have plenty of sleep before Lynn went to the 12:30 shower (I was to show up only at the end to say hello to the relatives and family friends). The first part of the drive was uneventful, we flew through Jersey into the wonderful (but long) stretch of I-80 through the Pennsylvania mountains.

About a third of the way across the state, and firmly in the middle of nowhere, we got a flat tire. The car we had borrowed was nice enough to have tire pressure sensors, so the light came on and we had plenty of time to get off the next exit before the tire deflated significantly. So, off we went down the ramp of exit 120 and into a small gas station.

Now, of all of the great state of Pennsylvania, there has been only one location that I've stopped while passing through. This particular exit of the interstate has a little local restaurant called the "Dutch Pantry" that has good food and nice service. This restaurant is the half-way point between Catskill, NY and Detroit, MI, and so is the place where my father always stops when driving back to Michigan to visit his family. So, having been on many of those drives myself, I've been there more than a few times. So it was only natural that our flat tire would leave us nowhere else but the exit with the Dutch Pantry, at the gas station right next door.

Having had a couple flat tires in the past (once I lost both back tires at the same time!), I knew I could change the tire and we could go as far as we could on the spare. Opening the trunk, we saw that we had a full-size spare tire and were delighted to think that in fifteen minutes or so we'd be back on our way to Michigan. So, I pulled out the jack while Lynn went to grab us some dinner. It didn't take me long, however, to discover that I was not going to get that flat tire off the car.

This particular brand of car has a special lug nut (one of the five) that requires a special key to get it off the wheel. We did not have this key. We turned the car inside out, but no key. So, we called AAA to ask them how we could get the key to get the tire off. They politely informed us that the car company does not release universal keys, so our only option was to take the car to a dealership. They were also kind enough to point out that the nearest dealership was 120 miles southwest of us in Pittsburgh.

By this point, the sun had set, and hours had passed.

Around 10pm, it looked like all hope was lost. A tow truck was on the way, but it could only take us to Pittsburgh. We had tried calling car rental companies to get us moving again, but on a Friday night they were all closed (and we were nowhere near an airport). So, the tow truck would take us to Pittsburgh, we would stay in a hotel, and when the dealership opened Saturday morning they would replace the tire. Then we would have to turn around and go home, since we would certainly miss the shower.

Hope arrived in the form of John, the driver of the tow truck. He looked at our locked lug nut, and offered the one thing we hadn't considered: to simply break it off. He hammered a larger nut over the locked nut and unscrewed it. After that, our full size spare tire was on and road-ready in a matter of minutes. John assured us this method would ruin the locked nut, but that didn't even happen--it was only slightly scratched.

With a perfectly fine tire on the car, we were back on the road again. After a long night, we pulled into my mom's driveway around 4:30am. It was more than worth it. The shower was lovely (well, at least what I saw of it), and it was great to see family and friends even if only briefly. All too early Sunday morning, we were heading east again--but with a car full of presents.

Now the car has no locking lug nuts at all, only plain ones that can be easily removed by the wrench in the trunk.

What Next?

2008-05-22T23:06:00.004-04:00

Several of my coworkers have seen and enjoyed having the business card robot around. They've started donating their own business cards right and left. As of today, here are the cards I now have to play with.

....and there's yet another box that didn't make it into that picture. Each box contains around 500 cards. The entire figure from the last post is only 432 cards.

What to build next?

Busy at Work

2008-05-16T18:58:00.007-04:00

I don't really fiddle when there are slow times at work. Strangely, I fiddle more when it's very busy. When I'm really on a roll, getting lots done with still more to do, I get a kind of excess of energy. There are inevitably times when I'm waiting on something or someone, and my OCD tendencies take over. So it was in the last couple of weeks, when I've been busier than ever, I also fiddled in the downtime and came up with this:

He's a little over four feet tall (the magazine is for scale), and is comprised of about 432 out-of-date business cards (mine and a coworker's). No glue, no tape, just the cards. The secret? Click here.

Another coworker has given me a box of her cards, too. If things stay as busy as they have been, there might be a puppy in the window soon.

Spring is in the Air

2008-04-24T15:32:00.009-04:00

So much time since the last post. Things get busy, and the old blog gets neglected. I suppose it's a good thing, though, to prioritize life over updates.

After the last post, Lynn and I traveled to Raleigh, NC to Mu Beta Psi's National Convention. It was fantastic as always to see old friends, meet new ones, and celebrate together the diversity and history of our organization. I had the distinct privilege of signing and presenting the charter for our newest chapter at Rutgers University. I was also thrilled to be re-elected as National President for another year. There's a lot I hope to accomplish in the coming year.

Then began a string of performances. Lynn performed at the culmination of a class she had taken in preparing opera roles. We both went to see our friend Marjorie perform stand-up. We went to Princeton, NJ to see another friend sing. Then Marjorie took us with her to see Bill Cosby perform in Connecticut. He was hilarious. He came on stage in sweat pants and a sweatshirt, sat down on a chair and just started talking. It was as much a conversation as it was a performance.

We've also kicked wedding planning into high gear. In a couple of weekends, we've set out the save-the-date cards, invitations, menu, table linens, floor plan, cake, florist, rehearsal dinner venue, and singers for the ceremony. It seems as if every time we make a host of decisions about the wedding, that there cannot possibly be any more decisions to make—but there are always more.

More recently, we were besieged by the Pope in his recent visit to NYC. Last Sunday morning, he visited the Trade Center site to offer a prayer and a blessing. The ramp down to the site, and the gate that allows trucks from the street to access it, is right in front of our building. (That's our building at the top of the ramp in this picture.) So, in order to protect the Pope, they set up a bullet-proof tent in front of our main entrance in which the Pope could move from his motorcade car to the Popemobile. Then he rode the Popemobile down the ramp to the spot where he prayed. All this time, we were not allowed to use the door to our building. Lynn and I decided to sleep in, and wait it out, rather than try and go anywhere. The Secret Service sent around a memo to everyone in our building to please keep our windows closed, for fear of sniper fire. But it was such a beautiful day, we left them open. Our windows didn't have the vantage point for anything of the sort anyway.

There have been many beautiful days here lately. Spring is definitely here, and as the trees bloom and skies clear, I remember one of the many reasons I love this city so much.

Science For Sale

2008-03-11T15:08:00.006-04:00

A good friend sent me this sad, sad link. It seems the British government no longer feels their radio astronomy program is worth having around. They have decided to essentially cut all of the funding for the program that operates the e-Merlin network of radio telescopes.

Some enterprising eBay users have decided to capitalize on their government's unwanted leftovers, and have put several of the radio telescopes up for auction. The Lovell Telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory has been pivotal in the history of radio astronomy. The Lovell has been used to measure and the distances to Venus and the Moon. With this telescope, astronomers discovered the 21cm Hydrogen emission line, the first OH emissions of masers, and were able to confirm the existence of pulsars. Since then it has contributed to research on gravitational lensing and quasars as part of the Merlin network.

And of course, who can forget its time served in the SETI program?

The huge yellow somethings went unnoticed at Goonhilly, they passed over Cape Canaveral without a blip, Woomera and Jodrell Bank looked straight through them—which was a pity because it was exactly the sort of thing they'd been looking for all these years
—Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

It's disheartening to hear that other countries are slowly dismantling their astronomy research base. The US has been cutting funding for years, most notably with NASA focusing more on engineering projects than on research. Isn't it interesting how the most publicly appealing of sciences can be the first to the chopping block?

But perhaps the most ironic part of this story? The eBay listing has not yet been shut down!

John Galt Speaks from the Shadows

2008-02-20T10:39:00.003-05:00

Today, the New York Times published this new article, providing more information and expanding upon yesterday's article. Apparently, John Galt has released a statement in response to the fines.

Galt, in a statement, rejected the accusations and vowed to defend itself. The company contended that the government agencies overseeing the site often issued conflicting directives that resulted in massive slowdowns and cost overruns.

"Every detail of the work was scrutinized, criticized and finally approved before it could be done," the statement said. "It is inconceivable that these agencies, including OSHA, whose trained inspectors were present at the site on a daily basis, could not detect, or were oblivious to the alleged 'serious and willful' violations that supposedly existed prior to the fire."

The statement said that if government regulators, including OSHA, failed to discover the alleged violations before the fire, they should be the ones charged with failing to do their duty.

But unlike Bovis, who is one of the largest contractors around the city, Galt has no named spokesperson, and no contact person for the press. From where did this statement originate? Who wrote it? Who will take responsibility?

On a more positive note, the Environmental Protection Agency has approved the new plan for demolishing the rest of the building, and so work can resume. There's still no sign of anything moving out my window--and no sign of the new subcontractor on the work site--but everyone is still happily repeating the expectation of finishing the job by the end of the year.

The Search For John Galt

2008-02-19T15:02:00.005-05:00

Still wondering just who is John Galt?

So are federal regulators from the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Today OSHA announced that it has cited the general contractor Bovis Lend Lease, and the mysterious subcontractor John Galt for numerous health and safety violations relating to the dismantling of the Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty Street. The citations mainly dealt with violations that led to deaths of two firefighters in the August fire.

Among the citations are:

Failing to inspect and maintain firefighting equipment to ensure that the standpipe system was operational, and that sufficient water supply and water pressure were available for firefighting.
Obstructed emergency exit access (including sealed emergency stairwells, emergency stairwells blocked by construction and unlighted stairwells).
Inadequate emergency escape procedures.
Unmarked exits.
Lack of fire extinguishers, emergency alarm procedures and fire cutoffs.
Failing to develop and follow a fire protection program.
Smoking permitted in work areas.
Temporary structures inside the building made of combustible materials.
Scaffolds erected too close to power lines.
Unprotected sides and edges of work areas, unprotected floor openings, missing or broken guardrails and missing stair rails.
Exposed live electrical parts, electric panel boards in wet locations and other electrical hazards.

The New York Times article had some interesting information on the fines:

OSHA cited the two contractors for a total of $464,500 in proposed fines. They issued three willful and 22 serious citations to Galt, carrying fines of $271,500 and 2 willful and 17 serious citations to Bovis, with $193,000 in fines.

The agency defines a willful violation as one committed "with plain indifference to or intentional disregard for employee safety and health." A serious citation, according to the agency, is one in which "death or serious physical harm is likely to result from a hazard about which the employer knew or should have known."

The article mentions one anonymous executive from the equally-anonymous John Galt company who is upset over the fines. He claims that some of the citations are for things that regulators ordered the company to do (like sealing off the stairwells which had asbestos in the walls). But there is a very ominous, yet familiar, line: "A spokesman for the Galt company, which is no longer operating, could not be reached for comment..." No longer operating. I wonder just who was served with these citations, and who will be paying them.

Meanwhile, Bovis and their new subcontractor LVI Environmental Services still claim that 130 Liberty will be completely dismantled by the end of this year. There are still 26 floors remaining.

Is life imitating art, John Galt? Are you exposing our absurdly bureaucratic procedures and government regulations to rebuild humanity—or destroy it? Are our skyscrapers today's substitute for Rand's steel mills and copper mines? I haven't finished the book yet, so I've yet to learn the answer.

I Have To Break Into Song, Because I Can Never Find The Key

2008-01-25T15:14:00.001-05:00

I've taken some time out of worrying about the construction and deconstruction, the noise and the louder noise, to pay more attention to the music in my life. Truth be told, it's all but disappeared. My iPod has been broken or constantly dying for years, and even at work I listen more to information-related podcasts than anything that could be considered to have a melody.

Time to change. I've recently taken up the harmonica, having bought myself a basic Hohner Special 20 Marine Band harp in the key of C. Learning that it's actually not easy to instantly become proficient on this instrument, I also picked up a book and started looking around online for ideas of what to learn. Poking around the internet, I stumbled across this Mu Beta Psi blues riff written by an alumnus of my college and Fraternity. (Audio below this paragraph.) I was thrilled to discover this, and am trying to contact WillyBlues to thank him for the riff and get in touch with a fellow alumnus.

Meanwhile, I've also finally given up on my old iPod, and bought a new iPod Touch. It arrived yesterday, and it is a thing of beauty. Today was the first time in over a year that I was able to listen to music on the subway ride to work. And quite unsurprisingly, it was the first day I felt calm in the Times Square subway station in about as long.

"Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body."
--Oliver Wendell Holmes

Tear That Building Down

2008-01-10T15:13:00.001-05:00

On a tentatively upbeat note, it seems that the view out my windows might be improving a bit this year. Yesterday, this article ran in the New York Times. (Alternative link on wtc.com here.) It states that the deconstruction of the Deutsche Bank building (130 Liberty St.) is set to resume now that the mysterious sub-contractor John Galt has been replaced by LVI Services Inc., a demolition and remediation firm.

There has been no visible progress on the deconstruction since the fire last August. Although, there are still workers going in and out of the site every day—and lining up outside on Sundays for their paychecks.

I have to admit, I still have my skepticism. In the article are a few quotes like this:

A press release issued by the agency did not give any details about the arrangement with LVI, including the cost of the contract, the date on which LVI would start work or how long the job would take.

...and this:

As part of the new arrangement, the development corporation, Bovis and LVI have altered the deconstruction plan. As workers removed asbestos from each floor, crews demolished the clean floors. Under a new two-stage process, LVI will first remove the asbestos throughout the building and then take down the tower. Work could take another year, construction executives say.

Later on, it talks about the deal with JP Morgan Chase, who has plans to build a new 42-story tower on the site. The Port Authority is supposed to hand over the land to JP Morgan Chase in September 2008, though we all know how good the Port Authority is at finishing it's projects on time. And of course, the Port Authority has it's bases covered:

Anthony Shorris, executive director of the Port Authority, said that the authority still planned to deliver the site in September, although, he added, the agreement with Chase included a six-month extension.

I guess we'll have to wait and see. From the looks of it, nothing will change on the outside until the asbestos is all removed. I hope that doesn't take long. I'm still looking forward to having the great view of downtown I was promised when the building was supposed to be finished last fall.

(PS: I'm reading Atlas Shrugged now, and laughing everytime someone says, "Who is John Galt?" It hasn't gotten old yet.)

"Luke, I Am Your Father"

2008-01-09T15:44:00.001-05:00

In a letter to my apartment building manager, Robin Forst of the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center says:

Yes, there is a noise code in the city, but as you may know, the Port Authority is exempt from state and city regulations.

Episode V - The Port Authority Strikes Back

2008-01-08T02:13:00.001-05:00

It's very late. Or very early. Either way, I should not be awake now.

Why am I awake, you ask? Because of the great Port Authority of New York and New Jersey of course! As if flooding our basement weren't enough, they've now decided to keep the entire neighborhood awake all night long. As part of the redevelopment process, the PA is breaking up the old foundations of the original WTC to make way for the new foundations of the new towers. They were supposed to be finished by December 31st, at which time they were to turn over the property to Silverstein Properties who will then be building the towers.

Naturally, the PA was not done on time. The penalty is that they have to $300,000 a day to Silverstein Properties. And even before the 31st deadline, they shifted from a 20 hour a day, six days a week schedule to a 24 hours a day, seven days a week schedule. This means that they're using heavy pounders to break up concrete 24 hours a day. It's been seven days, so they've already shelled out $2.1m--but not to the people they're driving quickly insane through the long nights of pounding. No, they're paying the land developers for the inconvenience of not getting to start their new towers right away.

24 hours a day.

At first, it was annoying. Then I traveled a lot for the holidays, and was so exhausted when home that I could sleep through it. But now that it's continued for nearly a month (they started Dec. 18th), I'm nearly at wit's end. Sleep is impossible. Even thinking clearly is nearly impossible.

Local government? Nope, they're powerless. Our Community Board's WTC Committee passed a resolution stating the Port Authority should not be making such noise during the night. Our local City Councilmember is contacting the leaders of the Port Authority as well. But it doesn't matter, not really. The Port Authority is not bound by any city laws, ordinances, or Community Board resoutions. They answer to the state governments of New York and New Jersey. Essentially, there's very little we can do.

Perhaps a few of us can band together? If there's anyone from the building still reading this blog, please drop me a line. It may not come to anything, but at this point I'm willing to try anything.

Auld Lang Syne

2008-01-07T17:11:00.001-05:00

"What does this song mean? For my whole life I don't know what this song means. I mean, 'Should old acquaintance be forgot.' Does that mean we should forget old acquaintances, or does it mean if we happen to forget them we should remember them, which is not possible because we already forgot them?"
"Well, maybe it just means that we should remember that we forgot them or something. Anyway, it's about old friends."
--When Harry Met Sally

I spent this New Year's down on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. (I had always wondered what the OBX stickers meant on cars.) It was an eclectic mix of friends old and new. Mostly new friends surrounded us at our beach house; playing games, dipping in the hot tub, and ringing in the New Year around a beach bonfire. But there were some very old friends indeed around that night as well--stars in a sky the darkest I've seen since my last observatory trip. In many ways, it blurred the old and the new for me. This past year has begun a career in the publishing industry, and relegated astronomy nearly to hobby status. It's brought me to new friends around the city, and I've let slip old friends around the country.

I've been thinking a lot lately about old friends, and the nature of old friendships. It can be so wonderful to have a friendship that lasts years and years. There are friendships that last because you make them last, and there are friendships that last just because. These are the kind that amaze me. Two friends can move to opposite ends of the Earth, come together only rarely, and still be close. Changes in life, workplace, and the rest just don't seem to matter. Not to these kinds of friends. It's a kind of security that knows no failure. I'm not exactly sure what it is about those kinds of friendships, but finding that kind of patience, happiness, and contentment is this year's resolution. (Last year's resolution)

Good luck, 2008. All your confetti is on the ground, and now you have to deal with the world as it is. You can.

Christmas in (and out of) New York

2007-12-26T14:43:00.002-05:00

One of the things I've missed since moving to New York has been the Christmas lights. Sure, once in a while you get the occasional family that rings their windows in lights--but you just don't get the kind of displays a standalone house can afford. In Manhattan, at least. Once again reminded that the majority of the city is not contained in the little island on which I live, Lynn, a friend, and I journeyed out to Brooklyn in search of the famous Dyker Heights Lights.

Walking into the neighborhood from the subway station in Bay Ridge, our first impression was of a typical urban residential neighborhood. The streets were in a grid pattern, as much of Brooklyn is, and the houses were modest middle-income two-story homes. Delving deeper, however, revealed the true character of Dyker Heights: Huge Mediterranean-style villas, brimming to the edges of the properties. Greek- and Roman-inspired statues, fountains, and temples. And Christmas displays that must surely warm the hearts of everyone over at ConEd.

The owner of this house, dressed in a snowman costume was greeting children with mint candies. His wife was dressed as Elmo. He told us that it took him two months to put together this year's display, and that he has to rent a storage unit solely to store his Christmas decorations the rest of the year.

Other folks opted to simply cover every surface with lights.

Street after street of displays like these fill the neighborhood. These few pictures hardly do it justice, but I found myself trying to pick my jaw off the ground and forgetting about the camera in my hand. This neighborhood has grown such a reputation for itself, that PBS filmed a documentary on the Christmas phenomenon. The residents we ran into were proud of their displays, and rightly so. If you ever need a quick shot of good, old-fashioned, exorbitantly excessive Christmas lights, they've got you covered.

Lynn and I flew out to Michigan for Christmas, hoping for a bit more snow and to see the family. The snow was sparse, but the family was not. Merry Christmas.

All Quiet

2007-12-13T17:03:00.002-05:00

I haven't written anything in the last several days, mainly because there hasn't been much to write about. Their was much talk and dissention about what to do with the Port Authority's settlement, mainly revolving around the liability release everyone was required to sign to get their money. The PA kind of forced the hands of the residents when it announced that last Saturday would be the last day to get the settlement immediately. After that, anyone who wanted to get their settlement would have to file it with law firm representing the PA--and it would be any one's guess how long the process would take from there.

It seems that most residents, myself included, ended up going to the PA's Claims Office on Saturday, signed the release, and walked away with their settlement. I can't speak for most, but I know some residents are just glad to put this whole thing behind us. And it seems to have worked. While I cannot know for certain, it looked as if the vast majority of residents took the settlement.

One unfortunate consequence of this is that the budding tenants' association also seems to have lost a little steam. If the majority of residents took the settlement, they may feel that the association has little purpose now. (It's stated purpose was to deal with the aftermath of the flood, then expire after three months.) The election of officers has been extended indefinitely, as votes are not coming in from a majority of the residents who initially signed on board.

Meanwhile, things really have calmed down. The building is almost entirely back to normal, with a few minor quirks still being worked out. Lynn and I bought our very first Christmas tree, and have had a grand time decorating it. It is, essentially, life as usual.

Tenants' Association

2007-12-06T12:27:00.001-05:00

The 90 West Tenants' Association is now officially underway. (If you're a resident and haven't joined yet, please head over to the 90weststreet blog to find the sign-up form.) The organizers have reported that with over two hundred members, the TA is so far representing about half of the residents of the building. Bylaws for the organization have been drafted and adopted, providing for five officer positions (President, Vice-President, Treasurer, Secretary, and Media Liaison). There will also be a ten-member Negotiating Committee composed of the five officers and five additional Members-At-Large.

The nominations for the five officer positions were posted yesterday, and I was surprised to find that I had been nominated for all five positions. I had also received a seconded nomination for the position of Media Liaison, placing me on the ballot officially. This came as quite a surprise to me, as I had not volunteered or nominated myself for any of the positions.

Unfortunately, I feel that I must decline the nomination. Of all the officer positions, I feel the President and the Media Liaison are most important. The Media Liaison will have to make solid contacts throughout the media, and keep them interested in our story. They will have to present the residents of the building in an accurate way, and find ways to fight the all-to-easy stereotype of "rich people who want more" (which we are not). It is a daunting task, to say the least, and I feel that I simply do not have the experience to tackle it.

I considered it, overnight. I questioned whether I could rise to the challenge and figure out how to do this job. But the simple truth is that this is a critical time for the TA, and it needs to be done correctly from the very beginning. I would love to test my skills as a Media Liaison, but not on an organization that is just starting out.

Another big consideration for me is simply the time involved. Some positions certainly require a larger time commitment than others, and I feel that Media Liaison requires the most amount of time. Building contacts with so many media outlets will take a lot of work and time. And with my job, teaching swing dancing up at Columbia University, and serving as National President of Mu Beta Psi—not to mention planning a wedding—I could not reasonably devote as much time to the TA as that position deserves.

However, I would like to be active in the TA. I feel that I could fit well into one of the Member-At-Large positions, and will be running for one of those. The many officer nominations from my neighbors have encouraged me, and I hope that I can best serve them as one of the MALs.

The TA has a long road ahead, but I feel that we're off to a very positive start.

90 West Claims Center Speaks

2007-12-05T16:37:00.002-05:00

This just on their blog:

We are prepared to resolve claims. We are located at the Ritz Carlton, Room 417. Our hours of operation are:

Thursday, December 6 3PM – 8:30 PM

Friday, December 7 3PM – 8:30 PM

Saturday, December 8 8AM – 6:00 PM.

The Claims Hotline (1-866-902-3276) will remain active until further notice.

Since the 90 West Street building was certified by New York City’s Department of Housing, Preservation & Development (HPD) for occupancy on Tuesday, December 3, 2007, we are resolving claims for a total payment of $6,000 per unit. This represents the $750 per day for the days of November 26, 2007 through December 2, 2007 – a total of 8 days. If you have special circumstances that prevented your return on December 3, 2007, please refer to Point 5 below. Please only bring documentation if your claim exceeds $6,000. As we have stated to many of you, this system is designed to streamline the process. For scheduling purposes, please send an e-mail to 90West@Jratpa.com if you are coming in so we can coordinate your visit.

In order to process a settlement, you will be required to do the following:

1) Visit the Center and bring a government issued photo identification and a copy of your lease.

2) Sign a Release, which will be posted on our website for review. Each lessee and, if applicable, sub-lessee per unit must sign the Release. The only exception will be for military deployment.

3) Only lessees with a valid lease or sub-lease between November 26, 2007 and December 2, 2007 will be eligible. This is designed to establish that the tenant filing the claim has standing to receive the payment. Any questions can be referred to the Claims Center.

4) Lessees(s) with a lease start date of December 1, 2007 will be eligible for a two day allowance, for a total of $1,500. If your lease end date is November 30, 2007, you will be eligible for a four day allowance, for a total of $3,000.

5) For those tenants whose total claim exceeds $6,000, you may provide documentation in the form of bills and receipts with an itemized list describing your claim. Your documentation can be dropped off at our Center. Include all contact information and your Apartment number. We will contact you in the near future to resolve your claim.

6) Any tenant who filed a first-party claim with any type of insurance carrier will have to specifically notify the Claims Center regarding that claim. Payment cannot be issued until we have documentation of your first-party claim.

We still don't get to see the details of this mysterious release form. But hopefully they'll post it soon.

Community Board 1 Meeting Tonight

2007-12-05T11:37:00.001-05:00

This was just posted at the 90weststreet blog.

THERE WILL BE A COMMUNITY BOARD 1 MEETING TONIGHT TO DISCUSS 90 WEST

Financial District Committee
DATE: Wednesday, December 5, 2007
TIME: 6:00 PM
PLACE: Community Board #1 Office49-51 Chambers Street, Room 709

Agenda
2) Update on 90 West Street by Peter Levenson, Partner, 90 West Street

I received this information from Tom Goodkind, a member of the Community Board, and he would like the residents to be present for this meeting to get information on residents’ experiences, good and bad, so that the Community Board can work in assisting 90 West residents and put recommendations in place for the future.

I won't be able to make this meeting, it's too early. But I would strongly recommend anyone who can attend do so.

And That's That

2007-12-05T10:31:00.001-05:00

This was just posted on the building's website:

Dear Residents

We are happy to report that all the environmental tests that have been preformed have come back negative. That means that there is no evidence of any of contaminants in the residential areas of the building. Furthermore we have received the water testing report which also showed no traces of contamination. These tests show that water which is coming out of your tap is just as pure as in every other location in Manhattan. All the test results have been posted on the web site.

Yesterday we met with all relevant city agencies including the Board of Health and the Department of Environmental Protection. They confirmed that we have done everything needed to reoccupy the building and have no further concerns.

We are extremely sorry about what happened. We have done everything possible to minimize the inconvenience, and we are very happy to welcome everyone home for the Holidays.

90 West Street

Meanwhile, the Riddle Associates blog has promised the protocols for handling claims today. Keep an eye on that blog to see how things will proceed from here.

Water Test Results In

2007-12-04T16:34:00.000-05:00

Building management just posted this on the building's website:

We just received the results of the testing performed on the drinking water. All results were negative for any presence of Total Coliform or E. Coli.

We also received the test results of the areas on the upper floors that required additional cleaning after our preliminary testing on November 30. These results also came back negative of any Total Coliform or E. Coli.

We are waiting for the results of three additional areas that were re-tested in the mailbox area and two elevators after the preliminary test. As soon as the results of these tests become available they will be posted.

Please see attached report.

These tests were performed by Professional Environmental Services.

It's good to have confirmation, certainly. Though I have to admit, I belong to the group that was not overly concerned about the water. I believe that neither the City's HPD nor the building management would have cleared the building to allow residents back in if there were concerns. The liability that entails would be staggering.

Edit 4:49pm.

The water test update was quickly followed by this:

Please see attached lifting of the vacate order by HPD

Here's the relevant excerpt:

You are hereby informed that vacate order #61805 issued for the above-referenced premise [90 West] on November 26, 2007 has been rescinded as a result of a vacant building survey inspection concluded on December 3, 2007. It was reported at that time that the hazardous conditions cited in the vacate order have been sufficiently abated.

Home

2007-12-04T11:59:00.001-05:00

Lynn and I moved back into apartment this morning. We took the train in from Connecticut and took our stuff down to the apartment before heading off to work. First impressions were very positive. The lobby had the distinctive ammonia smell of cleaning agents, no surprise there. Our hallway's carpet had been cleaned, and smelled fresh. Entering our apartment, we were happy to find that everything worked. Electricity, heat, even the water was running clear.

We are both very happy to be home, and looking forward to relaxing in our living room tonight, and sleeping in our own bed.

Latest Update

2007-12-03T22:33:00.000-05:00

This was posted to the building's website around 7:12pm:

90 West Residents

New York City’s housing office has advised us that residents can now reoccupy 90 West Street.

Please note that the sewage leak happened at a time of sustained rain and high tide and that the water did not rise above the cellar level.

As discussed we have retained our own environmental testing company. The company advised extensive tests to determine if there was any residue on the floor from the flood. We preformed a round of preliminary tests to determine the background level of contaminants. The test showed that most of the building was clean. We used those results (which are posted on our web site) to plan the final phase of cleaning. We decided based on the tests to clean all the public hall carpets before the residents return. The hallways are complete. The cellar has been cleaned and re-cleaned. Work will continue down there for a few months. We will be replacing doors and painting all the surfaces. We will be installing new equipment in place of temporary equipment. We will also be installing additional dehumidification equipment.

With the water now running we have ordered water quality tests. Both the DEP and our Plumbers have advised that the possibility of water contamination is extremely remote. The results of the water tests will be available from the lab tomorrow afternoon. Until we have the final results you should refrain drinking or cooking with the tap water. The results of the water test will be made available as soon as we get them.

The bottom line is that we want you to feel safe when you return to 90 West Street. If you decide that you want to wait for the results of tomorrow’s tests then you should stay in your hotel until Wednesday. The PA has not confirmed they will reimburse you for the additional night however, we will do everything in our power to make sure your additional expenses are reimbursed.

90 West Street.

A few residents have expressed concerns about the water and air quality, hence the last paragraph of the notice. Lynn and I are definitely moving back in tomorrow, leaving Connecticut early in the morning to drop our stuff at our apartment before work. We're both tired of moving around, and anxious to be in our own place again. It will be good to be home.

90 West Re-Opening

2007-12-03T14:16:00.001-05:00

2:15pm

Dear Residents,

Welcome Home!

We are pleased to announce that we will reopen tomorrow, Tuesday, December 4th at 7am. We look forward to seeing you then.

90 West St Management

Homeward bound!

Edit 4:40pm:

Cable and internet services provided by Time Warner are functioning properly.

90weststreet Blog Now Open

2007-12-03T13:55:00.000-05:00

I spoke too soon. The point has been brought up that there are some benefits to non-residents being able to view the blog. It will remain public for the time being.

So Far, So Good.

2007-12-03T12:55:00.001-05:00

Building management sent another update at 12:30pm

Dear Residents,
We are happy to announce that everything is on schedule. The electrician has one final certification to make. We all expect this to be successfully completed before 2pm today. We will confirm by 2pm that 90 West St will reopen Tuesday morning.

90weststreet Blog Now Private

2007-12-03T11:57:00.000-05:00

The 23 contributors of the 90weststreet blog, of which I am one, have decided to restrict access to the blog to "invitation only." This means anyone other than the 23 contributors will need an invitation to view the blog. This was done to provide a forum for residents that is reasonably private while discussions are continuing about options.

If you are a resident and wish to access the blog, contact one of the blog contributors to receive an invitation.

As this is my personal blog, I will keep updating with my own experiences, and information that building management, the Port Authority, etc., make public. I will not be posting insights into the budding tenants' association or other residents' opinions, unless the association also begins making public statements and those residents choose to comment here of their own volition. I'd like to make the distinction that this is my personal blog, and should not construed as representative of the other residents, or of the new tenants' association.

Looking Forward to Tuesday

2007-12-02T21:35:00.000-05:00

Building management has posted another update, confirming that Tuesday is the day.

Construction Update

Repairs are proceeding on schedule. An army of electricians worked again thru the night and we are now turning power on in the building. The elevators are being tested and adjusted. Four elevators will be operational when the building is officially opened on Tuesday morning. Last night plumbers connected new pumps and now the building has hot and cold water. We will be cleaning carpets in all the public hallways and cleaning the lobby and elevators tonight and tomorrow. There will be additional security and maintenance personnel at the building on standby for at least a week. We will be making final inspections and preparation throughout the building to welcome all the residents back on Tuesday. We hope to have our final email blast tomorrow before noon to confirm that 90 West will be back in service as of Tuesday morning.

Looking forward to welcoming you back

Meanwhile, Derek of the 90eweststreet blog has noticed that the Claims Office setup by the John Riddle Associates on behalf of the Port Authority has setup a blog of its own. The address is http://riddle90westclaims.squarespace.com/. At the moment, it does not contain any new information, but hopefully this will change soon. The main concern of many residents is whether accepting this settlement forfeits our rights to claim any other damages that may result from this incident down the road. It would be more reassuring to have all of the "fine print" presented somewhere.

Snow on Sunday

2007-12-02T12:30:00.001-05:00

90 West has posted the report from DeSimone stating that there is no structural damage to the building. The full report is on the building's website. Here's the relevant excerpt:

DeSimone Consulting Engineers visited the site for a preliminary visual inspection on November 28 and performed a thorough follow-up visual inspection on November 29, 2007. The entire subcellar and cellar levels and underside of the ground floor were checked. No evidence of structural distress was noted.

Note that DeSimone Consulting Engineers was the Structural Engineer of Record for a major renovation of this building that occurred in 2002. Our office is familiar with the structural systems of the building.

I have to admit that I never expected there to be any structural damage. The building, down to the sub-basement level, is upheld by steel columns encased in terra cotta block. I do understand how some people would worry about this, though, based on the neighborhood we live in.

It snowed overnight in Connecticut, and I awoke to a wonderful winter scene. (Completely unlike the last two years, with no snow until January last year, or the year before.) There is about an inch of fresh snow on the ground, and large fluffy snowflakes drifting their way down as well. Winter can be so lovely. I wonder if it snowed in New York.