Over the past couple of years, I've had the pleasure to report on the occasional return of wildlife to the city of New York. We've been visited by a moose, coyotes, eagles, falcons, a couple of manatees, Harbor Seals, bears (not the Chelsea kind) and beavers, but this week's tourist is my favorite: a 15 feet long juvenile minke whale. A sort of Moby Tourist, the baby whale has been cruising around New York Harbor for a couple of days favoring the waters just off Brooklyn.
Outside of the privacy of my office and bedroom I am generally hostile to technology, cell phones in particular and cells phones in restaurants particularly in particular. So the last place I expected to fall in love with technology was in a restaurant, but that is exactly what happened last night. I was dining in one of my favorite neighborhood eateries, The Red Cat. If you don't know it, good. Stay away. It's too popular already. And as my BFF and I were still sipping our cocktails, that one thing happened that any and every New Yorker dreads more than anything else imaginable: a family with a young child claimed the adjacent table. The high chair was presented. A 12-to-18-month-old bundle of screaming horror was installed, casting a nightmarish shadow on my table setting. I thanked God this wasn't happening on a plane and then settled in for a ruined dinner.
But then magic happened. Mommy reached into her Chelsea Market tote and placed a portable DVD player in front of the little creature. Barney popped up, silently, and the entire evening was enjoyed sans even the slightest cry or whimper, jettisoned mashed potatoes or gravity-defying fluids.
This is a development in technology and New York City fine dining that may very well please me as much as DVR. I queried the manager who informed me that this is not the first time he's seen this. Parents who think an absence of discipline, manners and seen-but-not-heard in restaurants and other public places is cute have discovered the portable DVD player and at long last returned to the world of civilized behavior.
My mother would have loved this; her solution back in the day was a crumb of Valium. DVD Barney is much healthier for a young infant.
My favorite Manhattan bar is not one of our many gay bars. In 1923, one of America's richest men, John W. Campbell decided to shorten his commute between Manhattan and his country estate by building a chapel-sized private office on the ground floor of Grand Central Terminal. Unbeknownst to the hundreds of thousands of commuters that would swarm like ants in and out of the train station, Campbell recreated a 13th Century Florentine Palazzo within a few feet of the terminal's Vanderbilt Avenue entrance. Campbell's "secret" private office in one of the world's most famous landmarks included a butler, a pipe organ, a library and one of the world's largest Persian rugs.
This astonishing Manhattan Detail fell into disrepair and obscurity after Campbell's death in 1957. But in 1999 it was lovingly restored and converted into what I believe is the most stunning and delightful bar in a city full of stunning and delightful bars.
Today's New York Times reports that after 8 years, the bar was badly in need of a makeover. But the owner, full of the same bravado that fueled men like John W. Campbell and Cornelius Vanderbilt, opened his wallet and mustered the forces and thanks to a platoon of workers completely renovated the bar in just under 12 hours. This achievement hearkens back to the glorious days of New York when miracles happened, a time when the world's tallest building, The Empire State Building was opened just 410 days after the first shovel hit the dirt.
The Campbell Apartment may not be an officially "designated" gay bar, but when I'm there it is unofficially as queer as I want it to be.
The February 21 issue of The New York Times published a wonderful photograph of utterly insane New Yorkers enjoying a live simulcast of The Metropolitan Opera's season premiere of Puccini's Madama Butterfly in the heart of Times Square. This particular production offered up an alternative ending as Cio-Cio-San commits suicide to escape the cacophony of Times Square rather than the heartbreak of a lover's betrayal.
Chinatown will soon be able to claim bragging rights to the city's first and the nation's second fully computerized robotic parking garage. Opening in Chinatown in just a few days, Microsoft Windows will park your car without the aid of irresponsible illegal alien. The driver stops the car on a pallet and gets out. The pallet is then lowered into the innards of the garage, and transported to a vacant parking space by a computer-controlled contraption similar to an elevator that also runs sideways.
And if the computer crashes? What? Windows crash?
At the nation's first such fully computerized parking garage, built in 2002 across the river in Hoboken, N.J., the computer dropped an unoccupied Cadillac Deville six floors in 2004 and a Jeep four stories the following year. Early last year, a computer glitch trapped cars inside the over-sized vending machine for just over 26 hours.
But hey, that was the old Windows. Vista promises to treat your car with all the love and concern of a Mac.
(Source, Associated Press. Wise ass remarks, me.)
The Museum of Modern Art has turned 53rd Street just west of Fifth Avenue into a drive in/walk by movie theater. Giving new meaning to art house cinema, "Sleepwalkers," chronicling the lives of five urban workers, will be projected daily through February 12 from 5 to 10 p.m. on the exterior walls of MOMA. Photos of the event are from The New York Times and the MOMA website.
Like most New Yorkers, if you cut off my supply of Chinese food deliveries I will starve to death within a week. So I'm in terrible trouble. I may have just ruined my relationship with my favorite neighborhood Chinese delivery place.
I paid the little old Chinese delivery man for my lunch. He turned and headed down the hall and was nearly at the elevators when Krypto, my little Schipperke, dashed between my legs and ran out the door for some fun and games. I shouted "Stay!" and then "Come!" Good little Krypto immediately stopped. Unfortunately so did the little old Chinese man, who turned and looked at me with fear and confusion. Obedient Krypto had already darted back inside. This fleeting doggy drama had occurred out of sight and behind the back of the delivery man, so as far as he was concerned I was shouting commands at him. And he was obeying.
Krypto out of sight so all the delivery man saw was a big old hairy monster, about 100 pounds heavier and at least 8 or 9 inches taller. The bellowing beast was clad in plaid boxer shorts and a Bronx Zoo Gorilla T-shirt.
I tried to explain but apparently although he understood the word "stay," he understood little else of English. Confusion and concern was all over his face. I mustered my warmest non white devil smile and waved my hands in the direction of the elevator bank. He hesitatingly started to shuffle slowly towards the elevator, his eyes firmly planted on the strange shouting creature. I went in and closed the door.
I know they'll never deliver to me again. So much for the best Egg Foo Young in Hell's Kitchen.
The fare collecting machine on the M42 bus that runs east from my 11th Avenue apartment along 42nd Street was out-of-order this morning. Rather than take the bus out of service during rush hour, the driver let everyone ride for free. Rider after rider, smile after smile. Like winning a mini lottery. But a few people looked a bit suspicious. I was among them. Would this diminish the quality of our commute? After all, there's no such thing as a free ride. Everyone knows that.
Few tourists or New Yorkers think of architecture when they think of Central Park. Of course, Central Park is one of the world's most beautiful and successful examples of landscape architecture. But within the park itself stands one of the most beautiful and graceful buildings on
the island of Manhattan, The Bethesda Terrace. Millions of tourists and New Yorkers have walked through it, on it and around it, but with their eyes fixed on the spacious and expansive park views and the magnificent and iconic Bethesda Fountain, they rarely notice the terrace structure. Partly this is because it has been in a state of disrepair for many decades and its details have been faded and covered in soot.
But The New York Times reports that the 20-year long Rip Van Winkle restoration project will at long last be completed this month. The cast iron ribs have been repainted, almost 16,000 ceramic tiles have been cleaned or replaced and the structure has been reinforced--all the tune of a mere $7 million.
Throughout 2006 we've been amused and amazed by the return of wildlife to America's most urban of urban environments, New York City. The Bronx and Manhattan have been treated to coyotes, harbor seals, manatees, moose and bears. And of course, we have our resident red-tailed hawk , Pale Male who has lived for quite some time with his many wives on the 22nd floor ledge of a luxurious co-op on Manhattan's snooty Fifth Avenue and Central Park.
But The New York Times reports that we had our most spectacular wildlife incursion of the year just yesterday. Fortunately, photographer and Pale Male biographer Lincoln Karim has been documenting the life of Fifth Avenue's most famous winged resident on an almost daily basis. As the camera was trained on the red-tailed hawk during his early morning ablutions, Karim noticed that the mighty predator's gaze was fixed on "something" just over Central Park's famous Delacorte Theater. He turned his camera and was treated to our national symbol, the great American Bald Eagle soaring above with his morning catch fresh from the Hudson River.
Like most of the elitist and rather territorial residents of Manhattan's exclusive Fifth Avenue, the hawk was not amused by the out-of-towner and was, according to Karim, clearly bristling, feathers very much ruffled.
