180 days in NYC

My First NY Times Byline

2009-02-15T23:31:00.004-05:00

My first byline in the NY Times appeared today. You can get to it by following this link.

Jollibee is a Filipino fast food chain which just opened its first East Coast location in Woodside, Queens. Given how I feel about chains, how I feel about food, and how I feel about chains that serve food, I can't say this was the kind of story I imagined myself writing. But given how I feel about neighborhoods, community folkways, touchstones from other cultures and how they that get translated by immigrants when they come to New York, this is exactly the kinds of story I imagined myself writing.

Here's a bit of the backstory.

The piece was filed on Friday in time to appear in today's Times. But the grand opening was scheduled for yesterday, Valentine's Day, at 7AM. I heard from a few folks in the community that there'd probably be a line by then. For fried chicken, burgers, and spaghetti in sweet sauce. That is to say, not for typical 7AM food.

I got there about 6:45a and started taking some tape for a separate radio piece. A few guys at the front of the line had been there since 2:30 AM. The next few folks arrived a little after 5 AM. Now there were 50 or so people waiting on line. The queue ran around the corner and partway down the side street.

Some last minute repairs were being done on the front door by workers. Every time it swung open for an adjustment, the closest dozen or so let up a big cheer. The unmistakable scent of fried chicken wafted out.

Finally, at 7:15, the Jollibee mascot appeared from behind the counter and came to unlock the front door to officially open the store and greet customers as they rushed by to the counter at the far end of the store. I got swept up in the wave at the front of the crowd. I managed to get a tape of some of the first orders being placed. Quickly, a separate line formed at each of the 4 cash registers. They ran 7 or 8 deep. Because of a snafu with the phone company, the computerized registers lacked a connection to the Internet. Orders were taken by hand on pads and tabulated on pocket calculators and iPhones. There was a bustle, but everyone was orderly and polite. And soon enough, boxes of Chicken joy and wrapped Yumburgers were being handed over the counter.

From what I have gathered in speaking with a couple of dozen customers and members of the community in the past few weeks, there is remarkable pride among Filipinos about Jollibee. Sure, they love the taste of comfort food that reminds them of the chain back home that many of them grew up with. But there seems to be much more pride about the chain's economic success. Comparisons to the Korean chain Pinkberry were mentioned a couple of times. Got some good quotes around that. More to come, I hope!

And here are some pics that were snapped by folks there on Saturday: http://picasaweb.google.com/mfoggin/JollibeeAll#

Day 391 - Waiting for Gustav

2008-08-29T21:42:00.006-04:00

Leg 7: 497 miles from Lockhart, TX, to New Orleans, LA
Leg 8: 1,377 miles from NOLA to NYC via Amtrak
(3,959 driving miles; 5,336 total miles)

I am writing this from a train I wished they called the City of New Orleans. Alas, it’s called the Crescent which, frankly, wants for an iconic folk song to match Arlo Guthrie’s paean to the former Illinois Central’s New Orleans-to-Chicago train.

We left New Orleans on time, just past 7am today, Friday, due in New York tomorrow afternoon. I arrived at the station 30 minutes before we were to depart to find there were already several hundred people queued up along three walls in the cavernous 1950s waiting hall. Someone mentioned that there were 200 more passengers than was usual for a Friday before Labor Day.

This is what the early stages of an evacuation look like in a major American city. And it’s worth noting that it’s the three-year anniversary, to the day, of Katrina.

Gustav is still days away from clarifying its intentions for the Gulf Coast. But that hasn’t kept a jittery quarter-million residents in New Orleans from engaging in a high-stakes guessing game as to where he might go.

Weather models envision landfall anywhere from eastern Texas to western Florida, a gapingly broad swath. New Orleans may be spared, or it may receive a glancing blow, or it may take a direct hit. The problem is no one knows, and no one will know more until late Monday or Tuesday when landfall is hours away. By then, if it is aiming for New Orleans, it will be too late for residents to safely make their way out of town, and hotels sufficiently inland will be booked anyhow. So they make plans now—and will likely begin to leave days before we will know exactly where Gustav will go—because that’s what you do when you live in a city that is largely below sea level with infrastructure inadequate to compensate for that fact during hurricane season.

The past several days have been a surreal combination of tense conversations in households (“You think we should go to Hattiesburg or Alexandria, honey?”); anxious calls to motels a few hours inland (imagine 100,000 people doing this simultaneously); and desultory conversation (overheard from grocery stockers the next aisle over: “So, you got a plan yet?” “Oh, I’ll probably just put a few things in my car and head up to my mom’s place in Hammond for a few days. I already got most of my stuff stacked on tables and shelves.” “I hear you.”). It reminded me more of idle chit-chat about sports scores than strategies for keeping appliances and keepsakes from being inundated.

Then again, my hosts and I were no less schizophrenic about it. We dutifully filled the gas tank in the car, another canister of “emergency gas” in the trunk, and reviewed maps for a departure route. In between we were drinking casually all afternoon, smoking a brisket in the backyard, and planning a dinner party for seven which we had taken to calling our big Fuck You to Gustav. Tension mixed with resignation. But tense about what, exactly? Resigned to what, precisely? No one was sure.

One radio show on the local talk station was interviewing callers about the best ways to secure your RV on the side of the road if you got stuck in traffic on the highway during the brunt of the storm. A DJ on a rock station further down the dial was playing tunes for a New Orleans citywide going away party. What else can you do but make a plan, compare notes with neighbors, and then engage in gallows humor to pass the stunning 72 to 96 hours until you implement, tweak or abandon your plans?

But, like I said, most people will just go because they won’t wait until the last minute and risk getting caught in town when it’s too late to leave. That’s whom I was lined up with in that waiting hall this morning, and who are on this train with me now. Phil and Daisy Mason are heading to Atlanta to stay with her daughter. How long I asked? Weren’t sure—a week, maybe, they guessed? Mike from Slidell was heading the same place. Jackie and Marion, further north to the Carolinas. This was just a sampling from the tables in the dining car.

Tulane has canceled classes until next Thursday already to allow students to evacuate. Loyola has done something similar. The University of New Orleans is sure to follow if it hasn’t already.

Even if Gustav never comes close to New Orleans—if not so much as a single drop of rain falls in the delta, and if no mandatory evacuation is ever called by officials—100,000 New Orleanians are likely to have left town this weekend. That means hundreds of thousands of person hours of work lost as businesses close down for a few days. The city, in addition to the direct costs of orchestrating this mass migration, will be out that sorely needed tax revenue. And think of all the out-of-pocket money about to be spent by residents holing up in hotels and motels in northern Louisiana for a few days, possibly for nothing.

Several friends and colleagues here have told me that if Gustav is a substantial storm that hits New Orleans directly, the city’s done—end of story. People who came back before won’t come back again. I guess that may be true. But as concerning should be that this sort of mass fleeing in advance of storms which may never actually make landfall is unsustainable. Residents won’t be able to afford or endure it--assuming they heed the call at all, next time. Businesses—especially major national and international businesses—won’t tolerate it. This collective wincing in the face of approaching storms will chase away the private investment that is essential to New Orleans’ resurrection over the long haul.

So pray for Gustav to pass New Orleans by. And then pray for another three years before another storm is even forecast to come close. We need it.

Day 390 - Foggin On The Radio

2008-08-28T22:09:00.000-04:00

This is pretty neat. Today, my first national radio piece was aired on the Marketplace Morning Report. (Thanks to all of you who alerted me that you heard it while I was away!) Not bad for a first attempt if I do say so myself, though (of course) I hate my voice. I have one more scheduled to air in the next few weeks.

This one is a short piece about New York businesses which use firewood.

I’d like to say a few quick but huge thank yous: to my friend Alex Poolos who encouraged me to pitch stories to Marketplace and is most directly responsible for this opportunity; and to a fantastic reporter named Linda Blake who, over the past year, has been immensely encouraging of my foray into journalism generally, and who—more to point—edited my clips (from California, no less) to get them into shape. Thanks, too, to John, Jim and Kevin at Marketplace for the generous amounts of time and guidance they provided while I’m still learning the ropes. It’s encouraging to know there are outlets as prominent as Marketplace that are as open as they are to freelancers.

Days Afield: Days 384-387: Hill Country, Texas

2008-08-25T00:50:00.008-04:00

Leg 6: 511 miles from Guthrie, OK to and around Lockhart, TX
(3,462 miles so far)

The advice I had been given by two folks—Kevin Arnovitz, a devotee of Texas BBQ and an editor at Marketplace; and Pete Daversa, pit master at Hill Country in NYC—was to go to Kreutz’s Market here in Lockhart. In fact, it’s what Hill Country was modeled upon.

Gusty thunderstorms and rush hour fender benders froze traffic—me included—on I-35 in Austin at the tail end of my 500-mile day on the road, so I didn’t get to Lockhart until 8p on Friday night. After a once-around that convinced me there wasn’t an historic hotel in town—itself a gorgeous specimen of a late 19th Century Texas market town and railhead—I tooled up and down the wasteland of highway honkytonk on starkly adjoins Lockhart on US 183. I found the modest and adequate Lockhart Inn, a 1970s era two-story motor court. Set up with a place for the night, I got back in my car and headed north to Kreutz’s.

It wouldn’t be until the next day that I’d learn about Kreutz’s genealogy. But as I pulled up, I had to wonder if it was the original location of such a venerable spot. It is well north of the town center—and even of the hubbub of US 183’s main stretch—in what looks like an old pitched-roof warehouse the size of a small airplane hanger. It is surrounded by a vast swath of asphalt for parking. What it had going for it was being stuck down in a crook of infrastructure, beside the rail spur from San Marcos and in the shadow of a viaduct that takes US 183 over the rail line. Kreutz’s is painted the dull shade of red that is same as primer you sometimes see painted on bridges before they go over it with gunmetal grey.

Part of the parking lot is a woodlot for their smoker. A chain-link fence dissuades passers through from swiping the split logs of Texas post oak that are stacked row upon torso-high row, seasoning in the open air. When I got close enough the unmistakable spicy scent of the wood was suddenly in the air, outcompeting the smoke smell coming from the flue on the roof. A reflexive smile popped onto my face in the same uncontrollable way that, as a kid, would appear when I was caught doing something wrong by an adult.

I wandered toward the front door, past a few parked cars. Through the windows, I could make out a dozen or so folks sitting at various places along the long wooden communal tables you’d see in a cafeteria or at a church social in its basement. It’s funny, but I thought the place would be thronged on a Friday night. I imagined a crowd in cowboy hats at the bar in equal numbers to scores of folks gorging on brisket and pork ribs and hot links. But it was quiet. And there wasn’t even a bar. And then I rounded the corner and was really floored when I saw the sign that said CLOSED.

I had a bit to learn about what Texas barbecue was all about. I looked at the hours posted. 8pm closing. And closed on Sundays. This was a place clearly needing to cater to no one. And probably it doesn’t need to with the reputation it seems to have.

I found my way back into town along some back roads that crossed the rail spur at grade (which made me feel suddenly like a local). I nosed my car up a couple side-streets and found Black’s BBQ. (Black’s was specifically suggested to me as skippable. But given that I was damn hungry for some BBQ I decided to take my chances. And glad I did because I got in for the last 10 minutes of serving there, too.)

Black’s interior inside seems little changed from its 1930s debut. You enter into a closed area—kind of a chute of a cafeteria serving line that’s separated from the dining area—pick up a Styrofoam plate, and make your way down a short, cramped line. The tiny, aged woman who heads the line by dishing out sides told me that she had no more green beans. I asked if she could use her slotted spoon to try to fish out a serving’s worth of the little green nubs. (It had been awhile since I had some proper veggies, and that prospect wasn’t going to improve over the next couple of days.) Success! Then I turned a corner and was confronted with “What kind of meat, sir?” A man whose skin was so bronzed that he appeared to have been slowly smoked himself over the years, stood beside his butcher block behind the counter, leaning on his elbow. Behind him, encased in a brick hearth were four classic iron smoking boxes, each with a heavy top rigged with ropes and pulleys and counterweights blackened with three-quarters of a century of smoke and grease.

I was going to be in town for a while. So I just asked for a slice of the moist brisket he had on his butcher’s block, and a link of their “original” sausage.

“Just one?” he asked.

“Yeah, I have to pace myself.”

“Just one slice?” he asked again, in disbelief more than in goading.

“Yes, please.” I was chastened.

With a raised brow he sliced off a piece and brought it over to the scale. Meat in these here parts is sold by the pound.

Then you pay for your takings and leave the chute through a swinging door that leads out into a modest dining room folding chairs and long tables red and white checked cloths. The paneled walls are the original, shellacked yellow pine that have developed an orangy patina from years of smoke and grease, and, I suspect, years of years. There is a room off to the side with more folding chairs on top of tables and an old wooden accordion curtain wall that was opened when I arrived but which they closed down as they finished sweeping the area out. This, I supposed, is where the Masons or the Rotarians meet for monthly meals. Well, maybe not the Masons.

After dinner (tasty, not fabulous) I left the car parked and wandered through the historic part of Lockhart (population 11,615). It is a gorgeous old town—quaint without being kitschy. After dark it is hushed. I could hear only the occasional passing car on US 183 a few blocks over, and the hum of street lamps. I wandered around the perimeter of a square that circumscribes the ornate old county courthouse. (Lockhart is the seat of Caldwell County.) The courthouse, lately the town public library, rises in three grand stories of blond and red brick to a mansard roof in the Second-Empire style. Fringing the square is the Lockhart National Bank, Westy’s Pharmacy, the local branch of the Texas Farm Bureau, AAA Medical & Oxygen Supply, Countywide Abstract & Title, a half-dozen antiques shops, a couple salons and a clothing shop. Oh, and the democratic headquarters for a half-dozen local candidates; it and nearly every other window had an Obama poster in it. This swath of central Texas, once part of Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson’s Texas 10th, is still part of the erstwhile Solid South.

Just off the square down Commerce Street I came across a darkened building that looked a bit more downscale. BARBECUE is all the sign above the door said. I stepped off the raised sidewalk into the street to have a better look in the lamp light. Cantilevered over the old awning was “Smitty’s MARKET”. This was the other place that I’d been told to eat at, called by many the best BBQ in Texas. I checked the hours to see if they’d even deign to be opened the next day—a Saturday. After all, with laurels like that to rest on, I wasn’t sure they needed to be open on a weekend. (I take a contrarian’s view: places as good as these are public institutions providing a public service that need to meet the meat needs of the public. Alas.) But not to despair! Smitty’s would be open on Saturday! At 7:00am!

I was out of bed by 6:30am.

The prospect of smoked brisket and pork before noon titillated me. (It would, in fact, be the first of three days in a row in which I ate a pound of meat before 10am. I’m not necessarily proud of that. I’m not necessarily bashful about it, either.)

Since I was planning on being an unapologetic glutton for the next few days, I decided to walk the mile from my highway motel along the back streets of Lockhart. I passed a range of homes., from simple 2-room clapboards to a brick mansion with a Mercedes in front. On the fringe of the town center, two old filling stations with the old brick and wooden awning over the gas pumps came into view. One was still an auto shop; another a Chinese restaurant.

And then it hit me: wafts of barbecue. Smoke and meat and vinegar mingled with the earthy smell of the morning’s mugginess, which hadn’t fully burned off. Smitty’s Market was still two blocks on and a street over, but there was no mistaking what I was smelling. And, again, that stupid smile.

The screen door beneath BARBECUE slammed shut behind me. My eyes adjusted slowly to hallway, lit dimly by a lone fluorescent tube hanging from the rafters. An industrial fan partway back didn’t do much to disperse the haze of smoke that began about 8 feet above the old timber floorboards and continued to the ceiling. Running along each side were long benches and narrow countertops built into the walls. This was the communal eating area when Smitty’s was primarily a meat market that happened to barbecue and serve some of its product to folks in town. (Now all they do is barbecue.) Every few feet are chains hanging over the benches that used to hold the communal knives customers would use when needed to separate strips of brisket or pork chops into more manageable nibbles. (The health department put the kibosh on that long ago.)

You don’t have to walk too far back before you see the first pile of burning post oak. It’s right there, on the open floor right where the hallway widens into the pit rooms. It’s one of four piles that feed the ends of two large L-shaped smokers. Again, those brick encased iron boxes that open up like oversized steamer trunks of delicious smoking barbecue. In an ingeniously simple system, rising warm air through a common chimney creates an updraft that draws in heat and smoke from wood piles burning on the floor beside the smokers. Fancy smokers are closed-door affairs that monitor temperature and pressure. This is all but feel and instinct.

It was barely 8am so, while they were open and serving, not all of the day’s meat was sufficiently cooked. I wandered around for a bit, taking in the smoke and history. In the dining room, separated from the meat smoking room, several staff of different generations and ethnicities were sorting pinto beans from stones at the table. (I saw this each of the next three days I was there.) On the walls were soft drink signs from the 1930s and 40s that were originals, not reproductions—there since they were issued. Locals began to filter in to the dining area.

The dining room wasn’t nearly as dark and smoky as the hallway and the smoke room. At Smitty’s it became clear to me why the meat smoking area is closed off from the dining room. The walls in Smitty’s original seating area have the finish of a well-seasoned cast iron pot. And, blissfully, the smell of it, too. Yes, I smelled them. I won’t acknowledge here whether or not I licked them.

And over another hour, I read through a few books Smitty’s made available on the history of Texas BBQ. I learned that Kreutz’s and Smitty’s descended from the same family. A riff between two sides led to a split, resulting in Kreutz’s opening a few years ago. I never made it there, so I can’t say that I have strong feelings on which is better. But having seen the “real deal” and how authentic Smitty’s seems to be without any kitsch, it won’t surprise most of you that I wound up returning two more times to Smitty’s over the weekend.

(This is always the challenge: discovering something new and toiling with how much to sample and move on versus how much to repeat and absorb. Needless to say, I was pleased enough with Smitty’s to make it the focus on my visit rather than just a stop along the way. And they benefited to the tune of about three pounds of barbecued meat for me and me alone.)

Best dishes at Smitty’s, for when you make it there, are the pork chop, the roasted prime rib (thanks, J.O.!) and their sausage links. Go support great artisanal food done authentically.

Days Afield: Day 383 - Coffee, Barbed Wire, Beer, and (shhh) Catholics in Kansas

2008-08-21T23:12:00.000-04:00

Leg 5: 502 miles from Oberlin, KS to Guthrie, OK
(2,951 miles so far)

(Sorry for the dearth of photos. Camera battery was dead.)

I love regionalism, really I do. I love things that are slightly different from area to area in a country, or a state, or a city, reflecting the particular folkways or mores that a certain group has developed or adopted over time. In a world of homogenizing corporate and media influences, it’s getting harder and harder to find these differences.

All that said, I prefer my coffee dark and this part of the country simply doesn’t do dark coffee. It’s not necessarily bad or weak coffee. But they certainly don’t have a taste for French roasts. Theirs are termed “mild” or “medium blend”. Lannie Tauber of Hena coffee roasters taught me this almost a year ago, and it didn’t particularly click for me until the third cup of rust-colored hot water that I poured for myself at a roadside stop.

Driving south and east from Oberlin, KS, this morning, it became clear to me that this part of Kansas is actually what I always imagined Iowa to be like: nothing in any direction other than planted crops. Here, along KS-4, there was truly nothing but crops straight to the horizons, 10 or so miles away. At that point, grey outlines of grain elevators and water towers and the occasional oil derrick were barely visible in the morning haze. They are FAR away… miles and miles.

All the drivers out here seem to wave to passing cars, even at 65 mph in opposite directions. For an attention glutton like me, it’s a pretty cool thing. I moved up from waving to passing cars to sticking my whole arm out the window to wave to a guy in a tractor in the field off to the side of one road. He waved back. I was thrilled.

Thank god for Rand McNally maps. I mean, I love Google Maps as much as the next person. But when you’re touring and traveling, there’s something about a paper map rich with additional information that is just great. It’s how I found the Barbed Wire Museum of Kansas, which is where I was heading this morning.

I pulled of KS 4 in La Crosse and turned south down Main St. The map had it as just off to the right after the turn. I went the length of the strip of shops and back up to the state highway. How big could a museum devoted to barbed wire—just in Kansas—be, I thought, so it seemed to deserve a second, more careful pass. No dice. So I stopped in for some directions at the gas station on the highway. Back through town, I was told, and make a right immediately after going over the bridge.

The bridge? I been up and down this road twice and I saw no bridge.

“It’s there, just after the train tracks,” the kindly woman at the register told me.

And off I went again. The “bridge”, it turns out, is a car-length section of road that passes over a dry culvert not more than a foot or two deep. In Kansas, that apparently counts as elevation.

And there it was, set back along with the Kansas Historical Society’s local branch and the Post Rock Museum: the Barbed Wire Museum of Kansas. Truth be told, it was the largest of all the buildings there. A pre-fab job from the 1960s, the size of a small warehouse.

Raymond George, well into his 80s, greeted me at the door and pointed me toward a startlingly large—no, encyclopedic—array of barbed wire samples from the mid-19th Century through the late 20th Century. There is a ridiculous number of variations, some of them so slight as to be undetectable to the untrained eye. But each has a slight, differentiating nuance and its own patent number. And there are several bound books (all offered for sale) that chronicle the many variations in painstaking detail. The museum also provides pointers on starting your own collection. (I can't lie... I bought a few strands.)

Mr. George, who farmed a section near Great Bend, KS, for several decades, walked me through some of the more narrative sections of the exhibit: how the first barrier fence of wire was made and patented in the 1850s (which seemed rather late to me); to the different methods for stretching, stapling and connecting barbed wire, to the dozens of different post hole diggers and augers that were used to sink the posts. Along the way, he shared some tricks of the trade, like always posting in the spring when the ground is soft and wet and easy to dig and before the heat of summer expands the wire too much before it’s stapled.

There were two other highlights of the tour. One was the small room containing portraits of all the donors to the museum (which was launched, remarkably, in the 1940s) with representation from (equally remarkably) nearly every Kansas county, another dozen US States, and two from Australia. They’re all white men, yes. But that’s still some remarkable geographic diversity for the Barbed Wire Museum of Kansas. The other was a 72 lbs crows nest made from barbed wire snippings. Apparently, a pair of ravens (which is what they’re called out here) proceeded to construct their nest over several seasons. It was finally cut out en masse, part and parcel with the fence posts it was nestled between, and bequeathed to the museum.

I have to say, given how little overall variation there is among the thousand plus samples of barbed wire, and the dozens of post-hole diggers and augers (I used one just a few weeks ago that looked just like one of the first ones from the 1800s), it seems safe to say that all three have been little improved upon in nearly two centuries. Which doesn’t lend itself to a very, well, dynamic exhibit. (Crows nest notwithstanding.) That said, Mr. George was one of the warmest folks I’ve come to know on this trip and we shared a lot of conversation about where we were both from and how different the places and generations that we’re each a part of are. And I couldn’t have imagined a more lovely way to spend an hour. I hope to make it back again soon.

I was back on the road on a mission to find, in an unlikely place, a brewpub. It’s called Mo’s Place in the unincorporated community of Beaver, KS. When I mentioned this to Mr. George before I left, he said, “Beaver. That’s a Catholic community.” There was neither a trace of judgment nor derision in his voice. He simply stated it as though I ought to know that before setting out. A point of information.

I waited a moment to see if there was something else coming, like maybe “They eat their babies.” Then I ventured, “Do you mean as opposed to a Protestant community? Is that unusual around here?” Aside from not eating babies, I know almost nothing about religion, so this was shaky ground for me to be standing on, especially with post hole diggers nearby.

“Yes, as opposed to Lutheran or Methodist, which we mostly are here. I’m a Lutheran. And Beaver’s just always been a Catholic community—since I was a boy. We have a few Baptists, too, in other communities.”

This should not seem as strange to me as it did. I live in a city that still largely organizes itself based on ethnicity. And very often that ethnicity also corresponds to a religion. Perhaps in a place as exceedingly white as Kansas, I didn’t consider differences in religion—certainly not differences among Christian beliefs—as being different enough to organize communities around, or to represent diversity. But they are powerfully different, and they matter a great deal to folks. I mean, I try not to be naïve about these things. (I have, after all, read Garrison Keillor.) But this was really surprising me. And yet I loved discovering it and talking to Mr. George about it.

Duly warned, I dug around in my duffel bag for my rosary and set out to get me some locally brewed beer.

It's hard to even call Beaver, KS, a town. (Being unincorporated, technically it is not.) It's far out, truly, on farm roads miles from state highways. The railroad spur was pulled up long ago. There's little more than a grain elevator, a dozen houses (some boarded up) and almost nothing going on at midday in August. Not much else except for a smattering of activity around the grain elevator, and some more on the next block at Mo's Place.

I wandered in around 2:00pm, well after the lunch crowd—such as it might have been—was gone. The lunch special was gone, too. There wasn't anyone else in the place when I arrived except for me and the husband and wife that own it. Len Moeder grew up around here and Linda spent some time around her in school. But both had moved to upstate NY and Orange County, CA, for 35 years while they had corporate jobs. Then they decided they wanted to cash out and pursue their dream of opening a brewpub.

“We looked at property in California, but by the time you got investors—“ Len’s voice trailed off.

So the decided to return to rural Kansas.

We talked as I sat at the bar in the long, prefab building that, from north to south, houses the kitchen, dining area, bar and brewery. Stacked up in the brewery area are bags of grain. They keep the bar stocked with all seven of their brews by making a few 20-gallon batches each weekend. So far, they’re doing fine enough to live in town, walk to work, pursue their passion as their living, and only be open four days a week.

Len & Linda’s model is this is truly the embodiment of how beer used to be made: at the scale of the local proprietor selling to his or her clientele. Before Prohibition, most pubs brewed their own beer and didn’t distribute it any further than the reach of their bartenders' arms. (This is the way a restaurant prepares its food. Beer was considered as individual a product as prepared food was.) And, like restaurants, some pubs brewed beer that was great and some that were terrible, but most were just fine in between. Mo's Place's offerings trended on the fine side with room for some more body and maltiness (IMHO). But I loved about knowing that Len & Linda were making beer for their neighbors in Beaver and some of the surrounding communities. Now, they just need to wean all of straggling Coors drinkers off that swill.

I am pleased to say that I was their first New Yorker!

And I note another regionalism. Around here, a pint of beer served from the tap is called a “draw”. A quart would be a “large draw.” I love it!

Days Afield: Day 382 - Goodbye Grasshoppers

2008-08-20T20:56:00.000-04:00

Leg 4: 397 miles from Badlands to Oberlin, KS
(2,449 miles so far)

A strong blow began the day before I left the Badlands. It whirred across my ears all afternoon, blew dust and gravel into my eyes, and bowed my tent downward most of the night. I slept on the windward side to keep the stakes from getting pulled up out of the ground. It was strong and sustained enough to be a conversation topic among locals at the filling station the next morning. It continued the next day and blew the car around as I headed south on undulating SD 73 toward Nebraska. Amber waves of grain were more of a grassland maelstrom. And millions of sunflowers, all facing eastward and reminding me of weary, regimented soldiers more than future lipids (this is big sunflower oil cropland) were holding up, but just barely. But then again, maybe soldiers and sunflowers all wind up becoming grist for the mill in some fashion.

Even with the wind, the noonday sun brought huge numbers of grasshoppers out to warm themselves on asphalt of this sleepy state road. Let me tell you, these were some mongo-sized jiminies. Fist-sized, maybe! It was impossible not to hit them. At least that’s what I told myself after the first dozen. They make this god-awful sound when they get kicked up under your floorboards like stones. And then there are the ones that scramble side to side as you approach. Do you steer gently with them to try to keep them between the wheels as you pass over at 65 mph? That’s what I tried to do until I realized the tractor-trailer coming at me in the other lane would—in my quick, self-serving karmic calculation—do more harm. And this wasn’t my car to fuck up.

At the border, SD 73 turns into Nebraska 61. A few miles on is the nearly abandoned town of Merriman. And then it’s 67 miles until you get to Hyannis. Not a café or gas station or phone booth in between. Every 10 or 15 miles through these rolling hills you’d pass a lonely ranch gate. But these just led to rutted roads that disappeared over the horizon. No buildings. No silos. No barns. Nothing. Ranches halfway down this stretch need to go 35 miles in either direction to do ANYTHING. I only passed 5 vehicles going north in 67 miles, three of them in the last 5 miles before Hyannis.

Nothing but the simple stuff here along NE 2.

At Hyannis, I turned east onto scenic NE 2. This is a road I was on, going west, 12 years before, nearly to the day I suspect, on my first cross country road trip. One of the best parts is the active rail line it parallels that is basically a highway for coal. Every half hour or so, a 100-car unit train of coal from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming—one of the largest sources of coal in the world—lumbers eastward toward power plants in the Midwest and Southeast US. Today was so windy that as I was pacing one train (54 mph) I noticed what looked like smoke blowing off of the tops of the open-hopper cars. It took me a minute to realize it was actually coal dust. Lots and lots of it. Glad I don’t live beside these tracks.

For much of this trip, I’ve been listening The Omnivore’s Dilemma on CD. It happened to be in the glove box and I’ve been thankful for it through some of the long stretches of highway. It’s been oddly like a narrative for the entire trip so far. I began listening in Iowa when the earlier chapters focused on an Iowa corn grower. I heard more while in South Dakota as I was being introduced to Pollan’s calf on a ranch in Sturgis, SD. Eventually, I wound up in Kansas about 50 miles from the feedlot that his calf wound up on and I kept passing transporter trucks for that feedlot operation—Poky—on all the roads I was on. I started to think of The Truman Show.

So Kansas was another of the states I haven’t been to yet and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t totally giddy when I passed over the border. Of the three (SD, KS and OK) this is the state I really, really wanted to visit.

I pulled into Oberlin, KS, after most of the shops closed up for the night. And the downtown was pretty much deserted, save for a few cars in front of the local watering hole. Its Main Street is a period piece from the late 1800s with some 1950s storefronts mixed in. It has the requisite covered sidewalks that I really love. There are competing local drug stores directly across the street from each other and I wondered if there was a Hatfield-McCoy sort of feud going on. (And, if so, which one was the real McCoy.) I pulled in here because I had seen a sign for the Landmark Inn on the highway about 30 miles north. I hoped that it wasn’t going to be too dear because the thought of staying here for the night really appealed to me. And given the quiet, lonely state of affairs, I couldn’t see how it could be anything but a bargain. More importantly, I wanted to support this town with some economic activity.

The Landmark Inn is the old Oberlin Savings Bank. The old bank lobby is now the Teller’s Room Restaurant. The sign on the door said dinner was served from 6-8pm, but at 7:15 it was bolted tight. There wasn’t a single car parked in front except for my own. I wandered around the corner looking for a way into the hotel proper. Finally I found a door along the side street that opened into a small hallway across from an empty room that said Managers Office. I called a hello. Not a soul. At the end of the hallway was the back entrance to the restaurant as well as the adjoining gift shop. Both doors ajar but each area dark. Both areas were outfitted with dozens of antique fixtures in a potpourri of styles. Someone, clearly, was trying to curate this space. And it was spotless. I did note that everything I saw was on offer, each having a small handwritten price tag visible.

I made my way back to the office and hollered once more.

Finally, as I was getting ready to leave, the proprietor walks down the stairs in his socks and seemed a little surprised to see me. I suddenly wondered what he did with the bodies and their vehicles. Nevertheless, we exchanged pleasantries and handshakes and I asked how much for a room.

He cleared off a pile of books and paper from the chair in his cramped office and hit a few keys on the computer, toggling through screens which he scrutinized through squinted eyes like he was poring over an ancient ledger.

“Looks like we have one of our basic rooms—queen sized bed.”

In a place that couldn’t have had more than 5 or 6 rooms, all of which were perfectly empty, I couldn’t quite imagine what he needed to consult the computer for. He stared at his screen while tapping some more keys and said more slowly, as if a premonition where slowly coming into focus, “Also… looks like we have… a slightly… larger one for… a little more.”

Just as he was making his way into the third option, I decided to put an end to the little charade and asked him how much the basic room was.

“$69.00”

I suddenly felt less like I was sharing the wealth with this sleepy little town than I was being had. But I was tired and desperately needed a shower after 3 days of camping and so I signed on the dotted line. Upstairs, for my 69 bucks was one of the handsomest rooms I’ve stayed in. High ceilings with ceiling fans. Ten-foot windows with draw shades. A four-poster bed. Antique washstand. Not half bad.

And I was even more surprised when, at breakfast the next day in the famed Teller’s Room, there were indeed 4 or 5 other guests. From where they materialized overnight, I have no idea. But they were there and all knew the proprietor well and we all got on just fine as I shared my Kansas itinerary for the day and got earnest pointers from everyone.

Yes, I thought. Definitely Truman Show.

Days Afield: Day 381 - Good days in the Badlands

2008-08-19T23:16:00.004-04:00

Legs 2 & 3: 1235 miles from Chicago to Interior, SD
via Strawberry Point, IA, and Mitchell, SD
(2,052 miles, so far)

So the stated reason for this trip is to cross off my list the last three states in the Lower 48 that I haven’t yet been to.

Yesterday: South Dakota… check.

It’s hard to say this credibly, but what song do you suppose was playing on the radio as I crossed over from Minnesota to South Dakota? By Springsteen? (Wait for it….) Badlands. Yes, I’m serious. Pretty neat, actually.

Despite my intention, I’m getting to take this trip mostly out of circumstance and kindness. I’m actually delivering the car I’m driving to friends in New Orleans. They were in NYC for the summer and are returning directly to New Orleans after doing some other traveling; I got to take the car back for them—by way of South Dakota. Well, I didn’t exactly ask about South Dakota in particular. Uhh…

Point is, I had the car at the end of August. And I had these three states to get through. It wasn’t like I got to plan the trip to these places at ideal times. I actually didn’t know when the ideal time to be in the Badlands is, but it’s apparently not usually at the end of August when the temperatures are typically 100-105 during the day, around 80 at night, and the height of the dry season assures you that all the prairie grasses are brown and dormant.

Except this wasn’t like any usual year. Temperatures had been running 15-20 degrees below normal and they received about one-third more rain than they normally do. My dumb luck and good fortune. Grasses were green and lush and made for some spectacular early morning hikes on top of the highly eroded buttes. Just as the sun was cresting their jagged tops, I crossed paths at some distance with breakfasting antelope, stepped over cacti, craned my head to follow darting swallows and swooping finches, and even heard a rattlesnake. The snake’s rattle was less what I was expecting from theatrical representations, but when you hear it in the tall grasses a few feet off to your side, you know exactly what it is and it freezes you in your tracks.

And then the bugs start biting, so you keep pressing on.

I got a quick primer in the heavens, too. I joined Ranger Larry and some fellow campers for an evening astronomy program at the Badlands Amphitheater. Apparently southwestern South Dakota, along with parts of Utah, are considered some of the darkest parts of the continental United States, ideal for stargazing. Except this was also the time of a full moon. So any gazing we did was confined to the first 45 minutes or so of darkness.

A group of about 30 of us had been gathered around Rangers Larry as they used these nifty high-powered laser pointers to show us Antares, how to find Polaris from the ladle of the big dipper, and (this was most exciting to me) how to pick out orbiting military and meteorological satellites as they glided by dozens of miles overhead. There were even a few shooting stars!

“Nah, probably just space junk coming home,” Ranger Larry said, tamping down enthusiasm.

There was even some shooting space junk!

Then the eastern sky began to brighten over the buttes’ edges and, a few minutes later, the sky was set ashine by a moon so bright that I had to wince to look at it.

We gave our eyes a moment to adjust. Some of the kids were already staring at the moon’s surface through binoculars. Ranger Larry explained how the tidal relationship between the Earth and moon has slowed its rotation so that we always see the same side of the moon from Earth.

“That’s the same side of the moon that Jesus saw,” Larry pointed out, to punctuate the point.

In our hour or so of discussion of the heavens, this was the first time any hint of the actual or imagined place Heaven crept in. And while it struck me as a bit tinny to the ear. I’ve sequestered myself with a relatively agnostic crowd in my life such that more-than-casual references to a god sound strange to me. But as I’d discover elsewhere on this trip, God is an ever-present force in most other folks' lives.

In the three days I spent in and around the Badlands, I wandered afield to visit the Firehouse Brewing Company in Rapid City, SD, which also led me to an obligatory visit to Mt. Rushmore--one of the more successful bald-faced boosterism projects ever executed. It was conceived by local historian (and, no doubt, property owner) Doane Robinson in the early 1920s as a way to attract tourists to the Black Hills at a time of almost uncontainable westward expansion and hubris. [Read: “Let’s swipe this sacred land from the Lakota, chisel some white guys’ faces into the side of the mountain, and bring more white folks here to gawk at them while we fleece them, too, for their Lincolns and Washingtons in exchange for commemorative spoons and presidential snow globes.”]

By last year, Doane’s vision had succeeded for the small town of Keystone, SD (population 311) to the tune of about 2,000,000 folks a year. (The number of spoons and snow globes was not available.) I am now one of them. And the damn concessionaire that runs the parking racket for the NPS also has $10 of my money that I’ll never get back.

One of the most interesting side trips was to see the old launch facility for Minuteman ICBM missiles, lately a National Historic Site complete with War Games myth debunking. More on that later.

Days Afield: Day 379 - All caught up at Hot Doug's

2008-08-18T00:24:00.000-04:00

It's not hard to see why, when things are this much of a mess, you do the best that you can, trim away the rough spots, make it as clean as possible and then hope time takes care of the rest. There are parables here for the way we should lead our own lives. And, perhaps, for trauma surgeons with certain gunshot victims.

But I raise this not to be philosophical. Rather, only because it was the perfect Foggin urban view we had while sitting in the garden of Hot Doug's for owner Doug Sohn's take on the classic Chicago dog. I won't do much better than the review linked to here, so check it out if you're planning a visit soon. I will, however, share the photo below of the delicious table setting just before the carnage began. I had a classic Chicago dog and another made with blue cheese and topped with pear chutney. Also on table, according to my limited memory, was a jerk pork dog, a garlic dog, duck-fat fries and a few others I'm forgetting.

Days Afield: Day 378 - Chicago's Small Businesses

2008-08-17T23:43:00.003-04:00

The first leg of my cross country road trip took me 817 miles from NYC to Chicago. It had been almost 3 years since I was in Chicago last, which is about two years too long for my liking. As provincial a New Yorker as I am, Chicago is a town I never get tired of visiting and which I think I could live for awhile, if only to document all of the incredible neon business signs. And places to drink. And industrial businesses. And public art. And…

And on this trip, my friend and Chicagoan Bekah Scheinfeld introduced me to a great strip of small, locally owned businesses along a stretch of N. Clark in the erstwhile Scandinavian enclave of Andersonville. The water tower off to the east of the strip and visible from the main intersection of Clark and Foster is still painted blue with the gold Swedish cross upon it. I understand that, until recently, it was also a Middle Eastern strip. It still has two Persian restaurants and a hookah & tea shop.

This 6-block stretch of N. Clark is a neighborhood shopping street that was a hive of industry and activity in the middle of a recent weekday afternoon—a sure sign of a healthy strip. There is a mix of neighborhood services including a jeweler, a barber, a couple salons, a couple banks. a sensible shoe shop, a smoke & news shop, a few local drinking joints and a range of restaurants. There were also shops that were destinations for a wider clientele like a bookshop, some fancier restaurants and cafes, furniture stores, antiques shops, and chic-chic home decorating stores. Two blocks south is an industrial laundry that was abuzz and ablaze well past 11:00 PM one night. In short, it’s a neighborhood strip with a range of uses active at different times of the day. And nearly every one of them was a locally owned business, not a national retailer. Always heartening since locally owned businesses tend to keep more of their revenues in the local economy, largely by purchasing their services locally. And it also creates a distinctly local flavor that sets one neighborhood’s strip apart from another. And that, in my mind, is one of the best parts of cities and especially a city of neighborhoods like Chicago is. If you want homogeneity, move to the suburbs. Cities distinguish themselves, or should, by encouraging a mix of interesting destinations.

Two quick plugs:

Tanoshii is one of the best restaurants I’ve been to in several years. Yes, it has super high quality sushi. But it’s the proprietor, Chef Mike, that really makes the experience. He basically treats the whole restaurants as one big chef’s table. Regulars, or anyone new willing to listen to the gentle entreaties of the staff, know to skip the menu and provide Chef Mike with just some basic guidance (“no shellfish, please”, “anything with tuna”) or inspiration (“something with fruit!”) and let him figure out the rest for you. It’s delicious, no question. But that kind of personal connection with clientele is what makes a restaurant—or any business—a neighborhood institution. It creates community capital.

Across the street and south a few blocks is Simon’s Tavern. This untouched relic from the 1930s is an Art Deco period piece. Opened as a speakeasy during prohibition by local Swede Simon Lumberg in 1929, it became a proper cocktail lounge with the repeal of the Volstead Act in 1933. Current owner Scott Martin took it over recently and, with the exception of a few additional flourishes (including a neon herring cantilevered as a marquis over the front of the place, as well as a hip beer list), hardly a thing has changed. The gorgeous, if ostentatious, mirrored deco wood bar has original portholes still lit from behind. Table seating is with blue and yellow upholstery, evoking a Swedish theme and likely added in the 1940s or 1950s. The point is, something like this in New York City would have been totally gutted and remodeled in an updated style. Scott (who, by the way, will take you on a tour of the old downstairs speakeasy for a nickel) decided to keep everything and celebrate it. And Chicagoans of all stripes (not just blue and gold ones) seem to have taken to it enthusiastically.

Oh, and did I mention that Scott, who owns a Swedish restaurant a few doors up, lives above that joint? It’s the classic arrangement that years ago in New York we called a “taxpayer property.” A proprietor would have bought a small building with a storefront on the ground floor and a living space for his or her family above. The income from the store was supposed to cover the annual taxes on the property (which was the only real cost since most property was bought cash on the barrel in those days).

Day 355 - City Workers' Art Show

2008-07-24T23:42:00.004-04:00

You may remember Marvin Franklin as the name of the 55-year old subway track worker who tragically was killed by a passing train in April 2007 while on the job. What a lot of people may not know is that Franklin was an accomplished artist. In fact, he won best of show at the Salmagundi Art Club’s first ever City Worker Art show just a year before death. Last week, the Salmagundi mounted the second exhibition of city workers’ pieces, and dedicated this year’s award in Franklin’s name.

The exhibition spaces in the Salmagundi’s 5th Avenue brownstone in Greenwich Village looked a lot like a museum gallery. There were oils and watercolors, photographs, and occasional charcoals and pastels. A smattering of sculptures were distributed among the framed pieces. There was even one quilt. Subjects ranged from still lifes of flowers or fruit to portraits. The subway also featured prominently. But unlike most art exhibitions, the artists—-every single one of them—-is a working New York City employee.

Paul Thiesing is an educator with the City's Department of Environmental Protection. He used his daily travels through the upstate watershed to inspire an exquisitely rendered watercolor of a rainbow trout being taken from a creek. Every scale is discernible in a gently shifting spectrum of pinks, greens and yellows. Paul, who took home an honorable mention for the trout, was trained as an artist in school, but most exhibiting at the show were not.

A few paces away, Gary Sloman, with the city’s housing department, proudly stood in front a candid black-and-white photo. The 60-year old picked up a camera only a few years ago. His entry was a shot through a Soho restaurant’s porthole window of a couple gazing at each other as they finish dinner looks like it could have been posed for a fashion magazine.

“This is very upscale restaurant," he said. "You’re looking down into the restaurant and it looks like a first date. The woman looking very sexy and receptive. And the man looking like the guy in charge and also picking up the tab. And it looked like a very evocative photo.”

When Marvin Franklin won the top prize at the first City Workers Art Show in 2006 for his oil paintings of homeless people in the subway, he received a year’s membership to the nearly 140 year old Salmagundi Art Club. But the subway worker didn’t really come around. He worked the overnight shift on a gang of trackworkers based in Brooklyn, would commute to the Art Students League in midtown each morning to study for several hours, and then head home to eastern Queens to be with his wife during the day before sleeping for a few hours and starting again.

Ed Lynch is the curator who put together the show to celebrate artists who balance a life of working hard serving others while remaining dedicated to their art.

“The thought behind the first show," Lynch explained, "was these are going to be uncelebrated artists. They’re going to be people who decided to do art no matter what.”

And that certainly described Marvin Franklin’s discipline.

“If you can do what he could do," Lynch continued, "which is study-—really understand what you can do, what is your honed talent—-and then step away from the studio, reach out into the world in which you live and inform your work, then you can turn around and be like Marvin Franklin, And it would be a great compliment.”

And so this year’s best of show prize was given in Franklin’s name to honor that dedication to craft. Of nearly 300 submissions by city workers from all sorts of agencies, 123 were finally considered for the prize. It went to Pico Reinoso, an art teacher himself at P.S. 189 in East New York, for a piece entitled Afternoon Sonata.

“I teach the students, the elements--I emphasize the elements of design," Reinoso said. "The concepts of lines, the concepts of shadow, the concepts of perspective.”

Reinoso’s painting incorporates all of these elements. A soulful looking young woman about to blow into a recorder while contemplating the New York City skyline, distantly out her apartment window. Behind her, sitting on the couch in the sparsely furnished room is a woman with a similar likeness, maybe 20 years older. It’s meant to be unclear, Reinoso says, whether the older woman is the girl’s mother, or if it is the young girl as she imagines herself in the future.

All of the works that made it into the competition are serious art from a technical perspective. But not all are necessarily serious pieces. One certificate of merit went to Jennifer Sabino’s painting called, simply, Spam—-a Norman Rockwellesque portrait of a smiling pig seated at a table, a can of Spam placed before her. And then there was Duck Duck Goose, a satirical and unusual oil color of five police officers in full uniform seated in a circle on a highway, of all places, while two other officers ran around the outside in the way of the children’s game. Who, one wonders, could have pulled this off?

Alexandro Berrios is a 28-year old police officer in North Brooklyn. He may have chosen a fun subject, but Duck Duck Goose took him more than four months to complete, he says. In the spirit of Marvin Franklin, Berrios works hard to manage his city job and still find time for his art.

“I’m renting a studio in Long Island City," Berrios said. "I work the midnight tour. I hop in my car and I go to Long Island City, lock myself in an 11-by-18 room, paint for 4 or 5 hours, go home and take a shower, take a rest and then go back to work.”

For some the artists, their art is a way to tie different parts of their lives together. Nathanial Ladson is a city housing inspector with a portrait in the show. “You meet interesting people, you keep it in mind, and you put it on canvas. And sometimes it gets a little hectic, and I come home and I paint. That’s my peace.”

Day 350 - Harlem Red & Green

2008-07-19T13:15:00.000-04:00

Walking north from Morningside Heights into the valley of Manhattanville along Broadway or Amsterdam yields a dramatic perspective. It's about a mile, as the car drives, from the crest at 116th Street to the crest at 138th Street on the other side. It's an amazing view, day or night. But there's something that tickles me about seeing all the brakelights go dim and the traffic lights turn green all at once, only to be followed by a river of red again about 20 seconds later.

Day 333 - The Night Stripes

2008-07-02T23:12:00.000-04:00

My friend Dave and I were walking home late one night after some carousing when we came across this great scene--a little hard to see in the dimness of the light. But if you're like me and ever spent any time at all wondering how stripes for cross walks and lanes get painted on the street, wonder no more. They're not really painted; they're applied. Actually, they're melted on. You'll see in video below that use a hand-pushed contraption that is part Zamboni, part lawn fertilizer spreader. On board is a bin that holds white or yellow thermoplastic pellets with minuscule glass beads mixed in for reflectivity. There is also a propane-fired burner which melts the plastic just as its being applied to the street. It seems to harden immediately.

The crew that applies the stripes and crosswalks--at least for routine maintenance--are contracted by the NYC Department of Transportation to do the work. (This one happened to be based out of New Jersey.) They work at night when traffic is lightest--which isn't to say that traffic is light. These folks were working on Amsterdam Avenue with a minimum of cones and blinking warning lights as cars, trucks and buses whizzed by. It was pretty neat and not a little courageous!

Day 331 - Bus Rapid Transit Arrives in the Bronx

2008-06-30T22:00:00.005-04:00

Not that I ever need a reason to spend time in the Bronx. But I happened to be heading up there for a meeting at Fordham and realized that it was the first work day of the MTA's version of bus rapid transit--what the call "Select Service" on the Bx12 route, which runs along Fordham Road from Co-op City & City Island to Inwood.

While other transit systems have envision BRT as buses on dedicated rights of way, or with the ability to prioritize traffic signals for its vehicles, this introductory version is not quite that. That said, there are some innovations over current bus service that are great starts toward a more robust BRT system.

There are stops at only 15 major points along the route, instead of several dozen regular stops.
Riders swipe their card or pay their fare at the stop instead of queuing up at the farebox on board. This in turn allows...

...riders to board at both the front and back doors and take their seats immediately. (A receipt is issued to the rider at the bus stop when she or he pays the fare. This must be presented to an MTA employee or cop who make random checks on board.)
There is some signal prioritization at certain intersections, meaning that if the light is about to turn red but the bus is about to pass through, the light will stay green for a few seconds longer.
There is a dedicated bus-only lane along the route, though it is not well enforced.

Other cities--especially in other countries--are so much further along with innovative transit than we are. That said, there has been a sea-change in New York City in the past 18 months with both the new DOT commissioner and MTA president--two transit advocates and thinkers.

Select Bus Service is due to be rolled out along at least one route in each of the other boroughs over the next couple of years.

Day 330 - ¡Viva España!

2008-06-29T19:22:00.003-04:00

God, I love New York!

For today's final match in the Euro Cup 2008 between Germany and Spain, I could have watched it either at Gottscheer Hall in the dissolving German enclave of Ridgewood; or, as I did, with Spaniards at Casa Galicia in Astoria. Boy did I guess right!

Even though Germany was favored to win, there was something drawing me and a friend to crowd in with the Spaniards in the large eating-and-drinking hall of this members-only social club for natives of the northwestern Spanish community of Galicia. I'd been before for other events, but only with my Galician friend and member. But on a day like today, we didn't have to worry; the folks here seemed to be taking a liberal view of who was Galician. (There was a lot of English being spoken among a sea of Spanish.)

I won't pretend to be prepared to describe the match intelligently--I'm a fan of what soccer does to fans more than the sport itself. But I can say that Spain's upset victory (Fernando Torres scored the only goal in the 33rd minute) was made even more special by the fact that they kept the favored Germany from scoring a single goal. By the end of the match, Spain had won their first Euro Cup since 1964--the year of the second European Nations cup and, poetically, the year they hosted the tournament.

I'm sure Gottscheer Hall would have been a great place to watch the match--whether or not Germany won. But it's hard to imagine more heart than in these elated Spaniards.

Day 325 - A step back in time

2008-06-24T23:23:00.005-04:00

I met a couple of friends at Cavalier in Jackson Heights and found myself in a time warp--about 45 years earlier. The place, while recently renovated with a (slightly) updated color scheme, is nearly unreconstructed 1960s nightlife. It has an undulating, kidney shaped bar up front and semi-circular booths on risers built along the walls. On the menu are traditional surf & turf selections: clams casino, shrimp cocktail, steaks, chops, French onion soup. The menu was classically displayed outside in a stainless steel and glass case. At any moment I expect to see Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta step through the door in a scene from Goodfellas.

I wish they had.

Instead, the bar was filled--such as it was--with a group of women well in their 70s having Mai Tais before catching the early bird special. (Yes, there really was one on offer.) And the satellite radio had neither Bobby Darin nor Johnny Mathis piped through the speakers recessed into the ceiling. But the bartender made one hell of a dirty gin martini. The glass however, was caught somewhere between the classical era and ours...

Day 317 - Recipe For Growth

2008-06-16T20:45:00.001-04:00

Jessamyn Waldman grinds blue corn into flour for her socially conscious baking business--Hot Bread Kitchen--at Mi Kitchen es su Kitchen, a shared space for food entrepreneurs in Long Island City.

I just had the pleasure of having a commentary published the excellent Center for an Urban Future this month.

Recipe for Growth explains how entrepreneurs are clamoring for affordable space in one of NYC's growing manufacturing sectors--food production. More than 16,000 New Yorkers are employed baking bread, making chocolate, mixing spices, or brining pickles, just to name a few products. Another 2,500 New Yorkers operate independently as sole employee food businesses, suggesting that there is a large number of entrepreneurs trying to break into the industry and become the next group of full-fledged firms. Their biggest obstacle? Affordable space. To find what the City can do quickly to help seize this opportunity for home-grown economic development, read on here.

Day 309 - Tour de Queens!

2008-06-08T20:26:00.007-04:00

Today was the inaugural Tour de Queens bike ride. Queens now enters the pantheon of borough-centric, awareness-raising, advocacy-building bike rides following no lesser venerable rides than the Tour de Brooklyn and, the one that started it all, the Tour de Bronx which I rode back in October. Back in March, you may recall, I helped host a fundraiser which involved bike racing IN A BAR in order to make the Tour de Queens possible.

The TdQ had more than 400 riders particpate and signed up a bunch of new members for Transportation Alternatives in a borough with a growing awareness of the importance of pedestrian and bicycling issues, thanks to the Queens Committee of TA.

We were graciously hosted at the start and finish lines by the Queens Museum of Art who even marked the 20-mile route through central and western Queens on the legendary Panorama! (Pink tape below--it's hard to see in this light.)

Day 308 - The S.I. Railway Pub Crawl

2008-06-08T06:11:00.004-04:00

Local ruffians. I used to be scared of these shirtless bastards.

Last night, I joined my friends and colleagues from the Bridge & Tunnel Club for perhaps the coolest pub crawl I've ever been on.

This once- or twice-a-year affair follows the same general itinerary. It starts just before sunset at the southern tip of the Island--in one of New York State's southernmost restaurants--a few minutes' walk from the one-car-long flag stop known as Atlantic on the SI Railway. Last night began with several courses of pasta and some wine at Rocky Toto's, a classic (and very good) red sauce joint in Tottenville.

From there, we headed back on the train and began the crawl in earnest, stopping in at a bar at each of several stations on the way back toward the ferry: Talk of the Town in Great Kills where we played some bar shuffleboard; the Night Gallery (which reminded me of a suburban finished basement with a wet bar installed) in New Dorp; and the classic Lee's Tavern in Dongan Hills for thin crust barroom pizza. I pealed off after that, but the rest of the crew hit a few more bars in Stapleton, Tompkinsville and St. George before, well, crawling back onto the ferry in the wee hours of the morning.

As a Staten Islander by birth and through adolescence, and a proud denizen of the outer boroughs, it was a little embarrassing to not have been to a single one of these bars growing up. To be perfectly honest, I was a pretty good kid who didn't begin dabbling with such things until well into high school and, by then, I was leading a decidedly non-Staten Island-centric life.

The whole evening was marked by turning heads (as our entourage basically barged into locals-only hangouts), quick drinking (as we were timing our stays and departures to meet the next train), and lots and lots of cheap beer. It was divine!

Day 298 - I ♥ Ridgewood!

2008-05-28T21:05:00.005-04:00

Ridgewood, Queens (and for that matter, Ridgewood, Brooklyn) have been pre-occupations of mine this spring. A group of friends with whom I do informal walking tours of outer borough neighborhoods came here in April. I returned today. The neighborhood, which straddles the Brooklyn-Queens border, is an amazing mix of sold, handsome housing stock that manages not to be ostentatious. It is mostly rows of 3- and 4-story apartment buildings, uniformly constructed by the same builder around 1931. Blond and deep orange brick face dominate, giving sun dappled streets a warm glow in the late afternoon.

It began as an enclave of German refuges who arrived between the world wars. There is a smattering of Germans left, many of whom find camaraderie at Gottscheer Hall on Onderdonk Ave. This period place has been reinvigorated in the past several years by the general manager Will Osanitsch. On Friday nights there is live music--often of old German influence.

Today, the residents are much more mixed. Poles have moved in over the past few years as they have been priced out of gentrifying Greenpoint. Each street has a healthy share of Hispanic residents, too, though their proportion is greater on the Brooklyn side of Cypress Avenue.

The whole area retains an old-time feel. Stores are entirely locally owned with simple signs that provide basic neighborhood goods and services. Aside from uniformly beautiful brick buildings, the most dominating feature of the neighborhood is the elevated branch of the Jamaica El which passes through here on the way to Fresh Pond Road.

You can imagine this being the next cool place to become hippified. God help us.

Grover Cleveland Park, at the north end of the neighborhood, and nearly in the shadow of the imposing spires of St. Aloysious RC church, is a center of family activity after school hours during the week. Mothers gather in klatches at the edge of the playground while gaggles of kids clamber up slides and swing from monkey bars. If the trees aren't fully in leaf--and if the sun isn't setting in your eyes--you can gaze west, and catch the teeth of Manhattan's skyline beyond the low-lying plain near the mouth of Newtown Creek.

Wander a little east and south from Grover Cleveland and you'll come across the most bizarrely decorated house you're likely to see outside of Halloween. (See pics below.)

Day 292 - The Smallest House in Brooklyn? Wrong Number!

2008-05-22T23:17:00.012-04:00

A friend passed along an e-mail with one of the most titillating subjects an urban nerd could imagine: Brooklyn's Smallest House!

Before you read too far along, I might as well be clear: I was had. But the adventure and trip back and time were well worth it. Read on.

It's true, the note smacked of artifice. No, it didn't have thousands of e-mail addresses or endless historgrams of carats from being forwarded umpteen times. But one could tell by the language obsessive variety of text colors and animation that it wasn't something casually forwarded to a friend of a friend of mine.

One photo showed this breadbox of dormered A-frame, allegedly 300 square foot in total, at the head end of a walkway and nestled between two larger homes. On reflection, I (perhaps of all people!) should have realized that NYC's zoning was unlikely to allow something like this to be built.

But I was taken in!

With property values pressing ever upward, and there seeming to be no cranny of empty space in which a developer would not fill with new homes when it's legal (and occasionally when it's not), it almost seemed plausible.

The location information was also convincing, despite its lack of precision. "This house is in the vicinity of Avenue T and Van Sicklen Avenune." That would be the heart of Gravesend... hardly a popular place in the blogosphere for a hoax, and one in which a small-time developer just might try getting away with something like this.

So I happily played hooky one afternoon last week and went to have a look.

I got off the N train to the zed-end of Brooklyn, a few stops before Coney Island, and wandered along Avenue T through a low-slung residential neighborhood. Sidestreets were two- and three-story single family homes. There was local retail on the corners. A few blocks east of the station, I crossed Van Sicklen Avenue and saw the church of St. Simon & St. Jude. An omen? St. Jude is the patron of--that's right--lost causes.

But the area looked promising: cheek-by-jowl homes with car-wide margins between that I had seen in the e-mail.

I wandered in each direction from the intersection, methodically surveying each block "in the vicinity of Avenue T and Van Sicklen Avenune."

There was plenty of intriguing architecture. The homes were aged, handsome and modest. A few bore the apparent eccentricities of their residents. And if you were magically teleported here, you might not know if you landed eastern Brooklyn in the early 21st Century, or the mid-19th.

I looked and looked, but there was no sign of the smallest house in Brooklyn. One structure that might have passed for it turned out to be merely a converted garage. Judging by the satellite dishes on top, it something a husband likely used to hide out from his wife.

I headed back toward the train station and passed, for the second time, The Wrong Number Cocktail Lounge. I happily made a mental note earlier that the lighted Bud sign meant that this period piece of a bar (circa 1966) was still serving suds. Surely, if anyone in the neighborhood would know about a crazy tiny house shoe-horned between two others, it would be the crowd in a place like this. Such a structure was likely to be the derisive talk of old-timers in the neighborhood. And this place, I was confident, would be full of old timers.

Well, "full" would be a stretch. But, yes, there were old timers--at least in the sense that every one of them grew up in the neighborhood within a few blocks of the joint. The place was pure unreconstructed 1960s Brooklyn that could have passed for a Scorsese set: dark and long; low ceilings punctuated with Deco-style round air vents rimmed with dust; occasional incandescent lamps. But most of the light in the place crept in as wisps of cigarette-filtered sun through the front window at the narrow end of the bar. It silhouetted a wizened woman of perhaps 50 who wore a startling amount of lipstick, and her quiet companion. Toward the back were three gents in their 60s, and one bandanna-topped laborer in his 30s pacing along a row of barstools, exercised about something and grousing loudly to no one in particular. Behind the bar was a simple set of shelves that looked to come from a hardware store which carried a modest selection of spirits for the usual clientele. Yankees and Giants souvenirs hung from a mirrored wall beside signs describing the flouted no smoking policy. A hand-lettered, yellowing oak tag poster announced the results of the Superbowl pool from several months back.

I loved The Wrong Number immediately; I was brought to places like this by my parents when I was growing up. But despite it feeling familiar, I hate being the new guy anywhere--particularly in a place where regulars seemed wary of anyone new.

So I swallowed hard, sidled up to the bar and got the attention of the ancient bartender.

"Hi there. Wondering if you could help us find this house." I pulled out my BlackBerry (idiot!) and called up one of the photos as he shuffled over to where we were standing. He looked pained to have to learn a new customer's needs. "I hear it's the smallest house in Brooklyn and it's around here," I added trying to be helpful.

The bartender looked quizzically at my contraption and asked sharply, "You got an address?"

"No, but the e-mail it was attached to said it was near the corner of Avenue T and Van Sicklen."

"Well, that's just down this way a bit." He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder.

I explained that I had already been there, walked a half-dozen blocks around there looking for it, but no dice.

By now, the other folks in the bar were looking up from their beers and offering their help.

"It's for sale?" one asked.

"Well, it might be," I said. Then I quickly realized that this crowd probably couldn't understand why some dude would come to the neighborhood to see something like this if they weren't going to buy it. "I think so," I settled upon.

"Well, I never seen nuthin' like this kinda house around here and I lived here all my life. Show dis ta the guy overdere."

I walked down the bar to another old timer and offered my BlackBerry. But he quickly handed it back, pointing to his face. "Don't got my glasses. You got an address?"

My kingdom for an address.

"No," I said, and repeated that it was near Avenue T and Van Sicklen.

"Well, that's down that way," the old timer said as he pointed over the bar.

I was wandering deeper into an Abbot and Costello routine.

But I seemed to be getting into the good graces of the folks here and they were trying to be helpful. So I ordered a glass of Bud as a courtesy. This seemed to me like the old school kind of place where you could get a glass of beer--not a pint but an eight-ounce glass as was the custom in working men's bars a generation ago.

"A glass?"

"Yes, please."

A red plastic Solo cup full of foamy warm beer was eventually produced. An incredulous customer at the front of the bar hooted to the bartender. "John, you got tap beer? When was the last time you poured a tap beer? You're always sayin' the lines gotta be cleaned or sumthin!"

Oy. Bottoms up.

After a little bit, my nearest neighbor said, "You see that guy over there? Ask him. If that house is in this neighborhood--and I don't think it is--he'll know about it. Been here all his life. This place is his." His eyes moved toward the ceiling and I got what he meant.

Tony--"Baldy" as he said everyone has called him since he was a kid--came over in a rust-colored velour Puma jumpsuit and took my BlackBerry into hisi beefy hands. He was hovering around 70, I thought. But despite a sizable paunch and being a few inches shorter than me, could have flattened me without much effort.

Baldy bantered back and forth with the other folks at the bar, all of whom offered anew their opinions on where such a house could possibly be near Avenue T and Van Sicklen Avenue. But none satisfied him.

"C'mon," he said to me. "If dis place exists, I wanna see it myself."

We walked out into the shockingly bright afternoon sun to a parking meter halfway down the block and climbed into a white SUV. I fastened my seatbelt and became immediately conscious of the act as a minor slight; Baldy didn't wear his.

"Dis here is Gravesend. It's the oldest parta Brooklyn. I lived here all my life." With a little prodding, he offered that his parents arrived from Italy and lived on Thompson Street in Manhattan for awhile before coming out to Brooklyn. "I lived right on this block most of my life," he continued as he stuck the accelerator along an empty side street. "That house isn't here," he said with authority. "But if it was, this is where it would be." I pondered that for moment and wondered if he was channeling Yogi Berra.

Inside of five minutes, we had retraced every block that I had gone up and down on foot, along with a few more, and I wound up with a gruff and parsimonious nickel tour of old Gravesend. Unsuccessful, Baldy took drove back to the bar where I thanked him and said goodbye as he walked away back to the bar, barely acknowledging that a stranger had just joined him for a ride--at his invitation--around his neighborhood. It was so strange. I loved it!

Day 274 - Fairview Cemetery

2008-05-04T16:50:00.002-04:00

I took a friend to Staten Island to show off Joe & Pat's--my favorite pizza in New York City. (This tends to change from time to time, but having grown up less than a block away, I find myself continually returning here. We can discuss separately, if you'd like.)

After scarfing down most of a pie, ordering it a slice at a time, I was left with needing to give a nickel tour of the old neighborhood. We wandered west along Victory Blvd. a few blocks from the pizzeria and stumbled, quite unexpectedly, on a cemetery I never really knew existed, tucked back behind a stand of trees and climbing a gentle incline. Fairview Cemetery, with a modest sized grounds, has apparently been accepting interments since 1876 and doesn't seem to be in danger of filling up anytime soon. (Though new plots are creeping closer to the front gate on Victory Blvd.) It does have a very eclectic collection of monuments and headstones which I thought worth sharing here. Look at each one closely--some are really intriguing.

I, of course, mean no disrespect in sharing these images.

Day 265 - Cherry Blossoms & Pantaloons at Conservatory Garden

2008-04-25T23:16:00.001-04:00

I spent the afternoon with my friends from Metro Metro wandering around Conservatory Garden in Central Park. They were preparing for their annual Metropolitan Odyssey scavenger hunt. I was following along for a radio piece I am hoping to do on the hunt. But what a treat to see all the cherry trees in full bloom. Even better to find a couple in full bloom themselves. The only thing that fascinated me more than the decorated, sinewy cherry branches where the purple and lavender pants worn by a sweet old couple I spied. Take a peek. Click to begin the slideshow, again to enlarge.

Day 258 - TriBeCa Graffiti

2008-04-18T17:14:00.001-04:00

From along a single stretch of Lispenard St., in TriBeCa. Some great details in here for those stopping to gaze long enough.

Click the slideshow above to play. Click again to enlarge.

Day 256 - Phylacteries In The Park

2008-04-16T22:01:00.003-04:00

I was reminded this afternoon, as I often am, how incredibly spoiled I am, being a New Yorker. I was killing a few minutes in Washington Square Park late this afternoon before attending an event nearby, when I looked up from my book and saw the man above--a rabbi, I presume--roving around the benches, looking for Jews with whom to spend a few minutes praying. He approached the family a few seats down, suggested prayer to the young father, and proceeded to wrap his arms and head with traditional phylacteries, or tefillin, in an encounter that lasted last than three minutes before he moved on.

While I'm not a historian, nor a philosopher, I know there were ancient cities that were as or more open and multi-cultural than New York through the ages. But short of Paris, or perhaps London, I'd be hard pressed to want to be living anywhere else but a city in which the prayerful and the playful get to exist, side-by-side, in relative peace.

Day 252 - Ridgewood Reservoir Redux

2008-04-12T16:57:00.001-04:00

A few of us walked up the terminal moraine that runs along the spine of Brooklyn and Queens to see Ridgewood Reservoir. It was the first time I had been back since October. But this time the leaves were off the trees and we wanted to see how much we could see from the tippy top without the canopies blocking our view.

Along the way, we saw some of Queens' many cemeteries, including a Jewish cemetery with lots of stone tree trunks as headstones (see above). Fascinating.

Day 245 - Elmhurst, of Noodles and Signs

2008-04-05T23:43:00.001-04:00

Been spending a lot of time in Elmhurst lately. It's hard not to want to. There is a ridiculous amount of phenomenally tasty food that costs next to nothing. Among my latest pre-occupations has been a hand-drawn noodle place on 45th Ave, about a block away from the subway at Elmhurst Ave.

It took too long to get to this point, so cut to the chase (when they actually start getting drawn into noodle-looking things)...

My friend Grace, some of her friends, and I were wandering around there today though and taking in some of the market scenes and the really terrific hand-drawn signs that can be found around...

Day 220 - Queens Roller Derby

2008-03-11T19:29:00.005-04:00

To promote (and raise money for) the first-annual Tour de Queens in June, the Transportation Alternatives Queens Committee (of which I am an at-large member) hosted a fundraiser tonight at The Creek & Cave in Long Island City.

There were the usual drink specials and auction items. But the highlight was probably the bike racing competitions we held--inside the bar.

Thanks to Dave Perry of Bike Works NYC, we were able to use several of his Barelli competition rollers to let supporters of the Tour de Queens race against the clock--and each other. We even held a face-off between representatives of the advocacy world and the Department of Transportation.

The event was a smashing success. Sadly, no one got video of me trying the rollers. I got the hang of it, but it's harder than it looks!

Day 214 - The NYC Civic Three-fer

2008-03-05T19:28:00.007-05:00

I did it! On a visit to the Brooklyn Public Library today, I completed the civic trifecta and now possess a library card from each of New York City's three public library systems: Brooklyn, Queens and the New York Public Library serving The Bronx, Staten Island and Manhattan. Brooklyn's and Queens's systems predate the consolidation of New York City in 1898 and remained as separate institutions afterward.

I accomplished this fun feat at the BPL's paean to early 1950s modernism--their main branch on Eastern Parkway. This is one of several civic edifices in Brooklyn built around this time and in this style, celebrating the public good. (I'm thinking much of Cadman Plaza, especially the Brooklyn Heights branch of the library and the criminal courts building there.

I took some time to poke around and appreciate some more of its architecture, including finding what is possibly New York City's most pristine telephone booth!

Day 213 - Williamsburg's Ethnic Arc

2008-03-04T21:53:00.003-05:00

My friend Shelby and I took a wonderful stroll through an arc of ever-changing Williamsburg today.

We started out at Pratt in Fort Greene and wended our way north through the Hasidic neighborhoods in South Williamsburg. Incredibly, I don't think I'd ever really been through this area before on foot--at least not the eastern sections in Broadway Triangle that appeared more like a shtetl than a Brooklyn neighborhood. It was an incredible sight: every sign in Hebrew or Yiddish and every single person I passed a member of the Hasidim. I don't know why I was so naive about this, but it was exhilarating to walk through.

North of Broadway, we stopped in at the Moore St. Market which is one of the dozen or so public markets created during the LaGuardia administration in the 1930s to round up and put all of the pushcart peddlers under one roof. The goal was primarily to make streets less congested. But corralling the vendors also made it easier for inspectors to check their scales and ensure that they weren't shorting customers. The market is the source of some community consternation lately. Vendors, mostly of religious and cultural knick-knacks and a handful of purveyors of produce of questionable quality, feel pressured by the City's Economic Development Corporation to move out. EDC, at the same time, is working to improve the breadth of offerings at the market. Always in this neighborhood, change is viewed suspiciously as gentrification--as catering to a younger, whiter, more affluent group of newcomers at the expense of current residents.

After some malta, we set out on a route that took us north through old Italian Williamsburg along Manhattan, Grand and Metropolitan Avenues. These are areas like I grew up in--at least in terms of the demography. I was actually surprised to see as much as is still left. I assumed they were all hipsters at this point!

Here are some shots of old store signs and the odd architectural or street scene curiosity.

Day 208 - Signs, Signs, Everywhere There's Signs...

2008-02-28T21:21:00.008-05:00

Q: So, how many street signs would you say there are posted on NYC's streets?

A: about 1.3 million, give or take a few thousand. That’s about one street sign for every six men, women and children of New York City. I walked along a busy avenue where I live in Morningside Heights, recently, and carefully counted every one way, bus stop, street name, do not enter, no parking, no standing, school crossing, snow emergency route, merge right, no right turn, no left turn, one-hour parking, two-hour parking, truck route, no commercial traffic, and stop sign along a 25-block stretch and came up with—-are you ready for this?--501 signs. That’s about 20 signs on each block. And almost every one of them is designed and manufactured in Maspeth, Queens, at the New York City Department of Transportation’s sign shop.

It’s not much to see from the outside: a squat, 2-story cinderblock warehouse built sometime early in the last century in one of those mixed neighborhoods where rows of old wood frame houses edge up to light industry, facing off just across a narrow street. But as one gets closer, there’s little question that this is where New York City’s street signs get made. Outside over the front door is a highway sized sign—in the familiar color of highway sign green—welcoming visitors. Perhaps not surprisingly, there were 5 other signs giving the address, admonishing employees against being loud, throwing cigarette butts on the ground or parking in front of the driveway.

Nick Robinson is the main supervisor and 25-year veteran of the sign shop, overseeing a crew who design, manufacture and install signs all around the city. He walked us into the warehouse where house-sized panels of aluminum are stored, ready to be made into signs.

"We use two thicknesses of aluminum," Nick explained. "One is 80/1000 of an inch thick. The other is 125/1000. The 80 is for most of the smaller signs you see on the street and the 125 is for the larger highway signs that you see overhead."

Large four-foot by twelve-foot sheets of aluminum move into the machine shop where workers at old fashioned metal presses that make a helluva "boom" sound with each pass of their blades cut them down to the size and shape of the signs you see on poles and lamp posts all over the city.

“Most of our bread and butter are parking regulations," Nick said. "Basically they’re 18x12, 18x18. There are some other oddball sizes, but that’s the bulk of what we make.”

Not every sign is made here. They contract out to many similar signs, like one way and stop signs. Even still, the Department of Transportation produces about 70,000 signs at the shop each year. Most are replacements, like when a delivery truck backs up into a pole and sheers off a “no commercial traffic” sign. If it’s one of the more frequently used signs out of the 10,000 different ones they have in their library, the sign will be printed with ink through a silk-screen template, not unlike the way many t-shirts get printed with designs.

But if it’s a special request, say like when the city installed special purple “thru-streets” signs in midtown to attempt to speed cross-town traffic a few years ago, then they’re made with weather-resistant vinyl labels instead of paint. The sign is designed on a computer. Then a special plotter will “print” not with ink, but by perforating letters and graphics onto a sign-sized label which is then affixed to a sign blank.

Lisa Hall is, in the parlance of civil service, a traffic device maintainer. She describes the printer. "It’s similar to an inkjet, except it uses a blade to cut out the vinyl, and we remove the excess from the background which leaves the graphic.” She was working on a specialized No Parking sign when I visited. “The first thing I do is I’ve applied transfer tape," Lisa explained. "I’m going to trim it to size to help me apply it easier. And on a clean, dry surface, I’ll take the transfer tape, remove the slip sheet." Then she squeegees the final image into place.

Alexander Soultanis makes a different kind of sign for the city.

“I’m on my 21st year," Alex told me. "I came here as an old school sign painter—the hand painting of signs. Everything’s now computer graphics and moved away from paint. When I first came here, they really didn’t do any hand painting at that point. Mayor Koch used to order hand-painted banners for us. That kinda started into other things, including street painting.”

Back in the 1980s, DOT began painting streets for special events. Alex had one night to paint a 5-lane G-clef in front of Radio City when the city was trying to lure the Grammies back.

“It was 56’ tall," Alex recalled. "I marked the street into a grid of 2-foot by 2-foot boxes that I used to transfer the design over from graph paper. It’s not easy getting all that painting done and having it dry in time for traffic the next morning.”

That 1.3 million sign figure, by the way, doesn’t include Alex’s G-clef!

Day 208 - The Brooklyn Navy Yard, Then & Now

2008-02-28T17:41:00.000-05:00

I was treated to a tour of my friend Deb Johnson's new workspace in Building 280 at the venerable and still exceedingly relevant Brooklyn Navy Yard. Deb is a professor of industrial design that the Pratt Institute where she also started the affiliated Pratt Design Incubator. She's taking a break from teaching to head up Pratt's various sustainability initiatives.

And in her spare time (ha!) she's also getting a personal project rolling: the Brooklyn Design Co-op. A section of the 5th floor in Building 280 houses a shared work space that she is currently filling with like-minded designers focused on creating sustainable solutions to myriad world challenges.

Cool in its own right, of course. But on this crisp winter day, I was utterly smitten with the views--both from her building's roof and of the industrial relics surrounding her, including Building 128, whose days are numbered. The hulking steel behemoth, built in 1899, used to be where huge steam boilers were assembled. Now, falling apart, it's slated for demolition and redevelopment to provide affordable space for modern light industrial uses.

I'm looking forward to learning some more about the history of these buildings. So is BNY. So much so that they hired an archivist recently and launched the BNY Historical Center. Enjoy some decent pics of amazing views!

Day 196 - WoodJackElmCor Jaunt

2008-02-16T22:56:00.006-05:00

A few weeks ago I met a friend in Flushing for archery lessons. The #7 train was in the midst of some pretty serious construction east of Woodside. Anyone wanting to go past there had to get off and catch the LIRR along the Port Washington branch to get to Flushing. I hadn't done that in probably 10 years.

The landscape that the Port Wash cuts through is not the glitzy, exalted "International Express" that the #7 is along Roosevelt Avenue. Instead, it's the common man's route to Flushing. At first glance, it is block after block of hardscrabble wood framed row houses backing up to the tracks, cars shoehorned into frontyards where a postage stamp of lawn might otherwise grow up through. This is occasionally interrupted by a nondescript brick industrial building. Not the stuff of urban adventures. Or is it?

I happened to catch a couple of sights as we whizzed by at 60 mph... a Thai temple, balconies overloaded with bicycles, halal butchers next to massage parlors... all stuck among this strip of industrial residential landscape that gets no attention. So I took the train back (and forth) through this stretch today to see it again. And when I still wasn't convinced I had seen it
closely enough, I got of the LIRR and walked back (and forth, again) the 5.3 miles. Below are some of the fun things I saw. (To see larger versions, go directly to the Picasa page.)

Day 180 - End of the line?

2008-01-31T23:56:00.000-05:00

Here we are. Day 180.

This will surprise, and likely chagrin, the more nerdy among you, but just today I rode the last of the subway system that I had not been on: the Franklin Avenue Shuttle. It seemed an appropriate way to celebrate Day 180, the putative end of this line I’ve been traveling for six months.

I've been taking stock of my gerund-rich time. Traipsing, tramping, rambling, writing, interviewing, broadcasting, cooking, cadging, googling, surveying, burnishing, divining, dallying, contemplating, resting, and becoming restless. I’ve spent time in every borough, in dozens of parks, in a score of library branches and in more cafes than I care to count. I have learned to roast coffee beans in East New York; treadled a letterpress in Gowanus; muffled my ears against the deafening chatter of a half-ton of Jordon almonds tumbling around the insides of a dozen century-old copper drums spun by pulleys and leather belts in Hunts Point; watched biscuits of vinyl pressed into records in Sunset Park; wandered a vineyard in Floral Park; and am preparing to leave Staten Island to spend a night in New York Harbor, on a pilot boat, as my grandfather did all of his adult life half a century ago.

I’ve wandered around sugar farms in Cajun Louisiana shucking cane stalks with a pocket knife to suck their juice right in the field; camped in Death Valley; and spent days lazing on a patio along the Santa Fe railroad in Arizona watching train after train after train lumber by over the high desert. Each seemed a little more like heaven than the last.

I’ve been generally unrushed. So, for instance, in waiting for the subway I have been able to let one train pass by in favor of the possibility that the next might be made up of older cars. Why is this important? Because on the newfangled trains it isn’t as easy to look out the front window and enjoy the tracks whizzing by beneath me; or to espy switches or branches off of the main line that I hadn't noticed before; or just to reminisce about high school days when I'd fight my way into the first car, no matter how crowded, and shoehorn myself in front of the window. What makes for a more comfortable, capacious cab for the train operator is depriving a new generation of nascent subway buffs this important experience to appreciate the infrastructure many of their ancestors may have helped to create. I have wanted to indulge in it at every opportunity I can before they all go away.

I have discovered that the so-called creative class really is an important part of our economy, at least if I’m typical. I am convinced that, alone, I am contributing at least 0.5% of the Gross City Product in terms of cafe expenditures. By my accounting, I've plunked down $350 in the past few months just on things that paid for my reading and writing time in cafes.

I have rediscovered public libraries, and in a big way. I hadn't checked a book out of the public library since I borrowed The Lord of the Rings from the Huguenot Park branch during the summer between 8th & 9th grades. But in the interest of economy, I now routinely reserve items from the NYPL that are delivered to my local branch when they're available. It's brilliant and I've turned others onto it. And when I’m out and about—and when I’m tired of stopping in at cafes—I have used libraries throughout the city as satellite workspaces. I've spent time in a library in every borough in the past six months. NYPL is the paragon, of course. But Queens is still my favorite system: so unprepossessing and utterly useful to its mostly immigrant clientele. It is so, well, Queens. No bells. No whistles. Strictly utilitarian. Filled with patrons as varied as the borough it serves—every one that I’ve been to. I love it.

I've been surprised at how important parks have factored into my wanderings, without my intending them to. I hesitate to say that I discovered how essential they are; I was, after all, a Parkie for a year, and I support the relevant parks advocacy groups and causes. But I think back now in wonder at how many hours I meandered through Pelham Bay Park, Soundview Park, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park; along the boardwalk and on the beach at Coney Island and the Richmond Terrace Esplanade; in J. Hood Wright Park near the GW Bridge; in Alley Pond Park way out east; in Highland Park around the old Ridgewood Reservoir; at LaGuardia Landing Lights Park so close to the undersides of landing 737s that one can make out the rivets in the fuselage; and around Bethesda Fountain where I just paced back and forth for much of one glorious and ponderous afternoon. Sunset Park was a particular treat. I made my first visit to it on one of my summer bike trips and couldn't believe I hadn't been there before. By any measure, it was thronged, but especially for a weekday afternoon: soccer playing adults, scooter-skipping kids, skewer-selling vendors, and languid, chatty old men and women with wizened faces sitting shoulder to shoulder on every bench lining every walkway up and down the ridge from the flagpole to the bottom of the hill.

And, of course, I got published as a journalist. Technically. I had many goals and intentions for my time off—most of which have not been realized. I intended to become proficient at Spanish, to finally start harmonica lessons, to systematically make my way through Harold McGee's classic "On Food and Cooking," to cook at least 4 nights a week, and to try my hand journalism. I've dabbled in all, but the one thing I can say I really succeeded in was getting published. It was a gallant attempt with a modest result, but it was one of the most gratifying things I've done outside of pubic service.

After spending the first 60 or so days casting about rather aimlessly (though, in retrospect, appreciating the salubrious effects of catatonia), and finally getting up enough guts to pitch stories and interview strangers, and to overcome my biggest challenge—procrastination—I have finally hit a stride. I am working through story ideas, getting things down on paper, and making connections. In short, I feel like I'm finally getting warmed up. I have more to say and more I want to do in this regard, and I’m not quite ready to give it up. Not just yet.

Which brings me to Day 181 and beyond. I wish I had more concrete ideas about what the next chunk of time will bring. I need to begin making a living again. This has been a decadence that I have relished but which is not sustainable. I have begun exploring options, including consulting gigs that let me use my knowledge of government and my skills at navigating bureaucracy while allowing me to maintain some flexibility to pitch and pursue stories. I’m grateful to friends and colleagues who have made connections for me in this regard lately, and I look forward to hearing more.

In the meantime, check back when you can. The name of the blog won’t change; the sentiment is still the same. And I’m as tickled now as I was in August. Probably more so.

Day 176 - World's Biggest Road Map

2008-01-27T17:27:00.000-05:00

For the 1964-1965 World's Fair, modernist marvel Philip Johnson was asked to design a pavilion to celebrate the host state: New York. You all know it, I'm sure, even if you don't realize it. Many of you have probably seen the most notable component--the flying saucer lollipop-looking contraptions--while driving by Flushing Meadows Corona Park on the Grand Central Parkway. The rest of you probably know it from Men in Black.

Less known today, since it's mostly gone, is the adjacent Tent of Tomorrow whose colored panels (think '60s) were suspended over the artistic piece-de-resistance of the pavilion: the world's biggest road map. The map is a terrazzo reproduction of the 1964 Texaco Roadmap for New York State and one of the most fabulous pieces of pop art you are likely to see--whether you're a map geek or not.

Most of the World's Fair structures were constructed just for the fair and did not last much beyond its two seasons. The NYS Pavilion as a whole has been in limbo since then. It was too grand and ostentatious to dismantle. And yet it was too operationally challenging to be used effectively after the fair. It hung on for a bit as a restaurant and viewing platform, as it was during the fair, but it could not hold its own financially. The futuristic heaven-pointing monument that the City--or, more correctly, the World's Fair Corporation--was willing to subsidize during the world-renowned event of the fair itself, was harder to justify for a city slipping into fiscal purgatory.

The towers remain (or, at least, have persisted); their external elevator now frozen in place partway up the side and their internal stairwell rusted out from four decades of rainwater pooling upon their treads. The spectral plexiglass panels of the Tent of Tomorrow fell in many, many yesterdays ago; the criss-crossing guy wires hold nothing in place today. And the gorgeous terrazzo map of the Empire State has been rent apart by mosses and ailanthus, succeeding in creating a rift in the Mohawk River valley in 40 years that the Earth's tectonic movement couldn't do in 40 million years. There have been several attempts--most half-hearted, a few zealous--to create a justification and a funding stream to stabilize and possibly renovate the pavilion. The most recent one I remember involved creating a space museum that would be sited there. Each has been done in by a combination of municipal malaise and the daunting
sums of money needed to make it happen.

Recognizing at least part of this vanishihing landscape, the NYC Parks Department, along with the University of Pennsylvania's historic preservation program, recently began documenting and conserving parts of the Roadmap. With an eye toward telling a new generation of aficionados about the map, the Queens Museum of Art just opened an exhibit this weekend that explains and celebrates some of this work. Dave Jacoby and I attended. I was pleased to see such a variety of folks there and interested in this relic. All hopefully will be motivated to help develop a broader constituency for it.

Day 176 - Bulls Eye!

2008-01-26T13:52:00.000-05:00

Way back on Day 63 after visiting the Queen County Farm Museum to make wine, I was biking back through Auburndale, just east of downtown Flushing, along a road paralleling the LIRR. There were a couple of warehouses abutting the residential neighborhood--vestiges of the railroad's industrial linkages in the past. One had a banner hanging outside saying, simply enough, ARCHERY.

?!?

So I pulled over and peered in through the glass doors. Sure enough, along the far wall was a line of colored targets. And standing between me and each was an archer holding up bows--no two of which looked alike.

Taped up to the door were a few news articles from the local rags profiling the Queens Archery Range & Pro Shop and its owner, Al the bow doc. One mentioned that a basic lesson and an hour's time on the range was $17.

How neat! For less than $20, I was going to do something that never would have occurred to me to seek out and which I never would have even been presented with had I not been biking down this particular road. I loved it for the serendipity as much as for actually getting to use a bow and arrow.

This past weekend I returned and brought my friend Lorna who, growing content with the challenges of raising her daughter has, of late, been musing about taking up hunting.

?!?

Reasonable enough. And who's going to argue with a determined woman with a bow?

Drop-ins are welcomed at Queens Archery, but you might want to call ahead to make sure there aren't any tournaments going on. Brush up now on your cupidity in time for Valentine's Day.

Day 172 - Foggin & Trix's Topographical Adventure

2008-01-23T19:18:00.002-05:00

When an old friend from high school got in touch to tell me she was living in Teaneck, it only seemed right to arrange to get together (for the first time in 18 years!) uptown, near the GW Bridge. Besides, I've been fascinated of late with the dramatic topography of upper Manhattan--and the step streets that define some of the thoroughfares there as a result...

Day 171 - What I Love Best About Queens

2008-01-22T16:15:00.000-05:00

I happened upon this on my way to make pickles. I don't know what made me happier--the flags or the pickles. God save Queens!

Day 170 - Number, please?

2008-01-21T12:52:00.000-05:00

OK all you New York City nerds... here's a question about Manhattan geography I'd like an answer to:
On cross-streets below Houston Street, in which direction do address numbers ascend? To the east or to the west?

And, while we're at it:
On cross streets below Houston Street, on which side of the street are odd address numbers? On the north side or the south side?

Obviously, the answers aren't straightforward, or I wouldn't be asking. So when replying (which you can do by posting a comment below) be sure to give evidence--even just an example you're aware of. And if anyone (and I suspect there will be several of you) knows what I'm getting at and can shed some light on historical anomalies, the information will be welcome!

More to come on this topic as research continues, but post your comments for everyone to see in the meantime!

Day 159 - Our Montmarte(s): NYC's Step Streets

2008-01-10T16:31:00.000-05:00

The picture above is a New York City street, maintained by the city as a public thoroughfare. It's just not for cars.

We're not San Francisco. Nor Seattle. But we have hills--even a few steep ones.

Perhaps readers of this blog won't naturally fall into the category I'm about to describe. But I think it's fair to say that many New Yorkers--certainly those with largely Manhattan-centric lives--may not notice that the city has topography; that in rectilinear, orthogonal Manhattan there are hills and dips and rises. It's hard for many people to imagine the that New York Public Library's main branch is at the crest of a long, gentle hill dipping southward along the axis of the Fifth Avenue. If, on a quiet Sunday morning, maybe in the summer when the city has decamped for the weekend, you were magically able to place a bowling ball in the center of avenue in front of the lions, and you gave it a slight nudge downtown, it might not stop until it passed under the arch in Washington Square Park. Who'da thunk?

The scenic heights of northern Manhattan and the western Bronx, variously named, are dramatic exceptions. Beginning at the northwest corner of Central Park and running along the neck of Manhattan into the western Bronx a ridge of hard schist juts skyward with spectacular views west toward New Jersey's palisade, and east across the Harlem River's basin (eroded through softer, weatherworn marble) to more highlands in the Bronx. This spine has been thrust up over many millions of years as a massive sheet of the Earth's crust just off the Atlantic coast slowly, inexorably crashes into New York and New Jersey. If you imagine this happening in your bedroom between, say, your dresser and your bed, the resulting bunching of the carpet in between would represent this ridge.

It presented a challenge for stateman Gouverneur Morris, the lawyer John Rutherfurd, and the surveyor Simeon De Witt. This triumvirate comprised the commission which suggested to the New York State legislature, in 1811, how Manhattan, north of 14th Street, should be sold and developed. Most essentially, it laid down the grid pattern of streets and avenues which is the epitome of Manhattan today. The ridge, running obliquely to the grid, required the occasional imposition of odd-angled streets along the upper and lower edges of the ridge. In between, the rocky outcroppings that were not easily developable by real estate interests laid fallow until, eventually, several were planned and landscaped as parks by, among others, Central Park's chief designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. The line of parks along the ridge include Morningside Park, St. Nicholas Park, Jackie Robinson (nee Colonial) Park and Highbridge Park.

While parks were used as a natural alternative to building housing along stretches of the ridgeline through this area in the late 1800s, the arrival of the subway beginning in the early 20th Century, coupled with improvements in construction technology, created a synergy of demand and ability. Now buildings could and would be built along precipices, or straddling the change in grade. In some places, buildings are constructed into the sides of rock, creating the curious opportunity to enter the front door into the main lobby at the 7th floor from wher one can take an elevator down to the first floor at the back of the building.

Roadways could not easily navigate this steep change in grade. Where east-west streets crossed the ridge, they usually ended in cul-de-sacs at the top or bottom. The ridge was a natural barrier in many areas. But as development increased, this become more difficult to manage. Eventually, some streets were punched through--as step streets.

Not surprisingly, most are in northern Manhattan and the western Bronx. But there are some along the terminal moraine in Queens and Brooklyn and Staten Island--the points furthest south that glaciers pushed during earlier ice ages where they left all the soil and till that they had bulldozed along the way from Canada. I've been fascinated by them for awhile, now, and am beginning to catalog all of them. Most are elegant, appointed with balustrades and stonework at a time when public works had more elegance. Some are rickety and in disrepair. The tallest I've found so far is 130 steps. I also found one that was only 31.

The NYC Department of Transportation has jurisdiction over step streets. I'm working on getting a list and trying to visit each one, though it may not happen before Day 180! Stay tuned.

Day 156 - The Speakeasy Burger

2008-01-07T11:04:00.000-05:00

Today was my turn to return the favor and treat my friend Dory to a birthday lunch in an out-of-the-way back room of a lunch joint. (And to celebrate her engagement!) Only instead of falafel in the back of a loading dock, we sneaked into the lobby of Le Parker Meridian to have a burger in the back of hallway off of the lobby.

To find The Burger Joint, head into the main entrance on W. 57th Street and into the atrium. To the left and up a flight of stairs you'll find their hotel restaurant. That's NOT where to go. Go the other way. Look for a dark hallway just to the right of Registration. If the heavy black velveteen drapes are pulled apart sufficiently (if another surreptitious diner is skulking in or coming out) you might catch the glow of the neon sign that tells you you're heading in the right direction.

Even though you swear you're not supposed to be there (I think of that scene from Goodfellas--ducking into the Copa through the back door) you'd be lucky if there wasn't thronged with folks from the neighborhood, ice-skaters-in-the-know from Wollman Rink, and hotel help. The faux-wood paneled walls are dimly lit to reveal a mix of entertainment world kitsch, apparent celeb graffiti, and totems of burgers.

Over the counter window is a magic-marker scrawled menu on brown cardboard and another sign with handwritten directions on how to order. (How many burgers? How do you want them cooked? What do you want on them? There was no instruction for the shake, so I just blurted it out at the end. The guy at the register furrowed his brow and looked up slowly at me, so clearly I didn't do something right, but I got the delicious shake anyhow.)

The crew behind the counter is engaged in a constant smile suffused banter that makes the orderer feel like he's interrupting someone's party. It's not entirely clear when you have their attention sufficiently to place an order, but somehow they convey annoyance if you've waited too long to break in. But as surly as the interactions are, I did get a "here you go Darlin'" when I was called back to the counter to pick up my order.

For $20 we got two deliciously broiled burgers with "the works", an order of fries and split one of the best chocolate shakes I've ever had.

The only trick is finding a free table in this tight spot. Go early (11:30a) or later (after 2p) to avoid that part of the adventure.

Thanks to urbanerd and nascent New York foodie Andrew Caddock for the tip!

Day 148 - My big break... on the radio.

2007-12-30T07:12:00.002-05:00

So, five months almost to the day from when I decided to jettison the trappings of a nerdy bureaucrat to dabble in journalism, it seems I've finally broken in. In Cincinnati.

The brave, kind folks at NPR's Cincinnati affiliate, WVXU, ran the six-and-a-half minute piece on Sunday morning based on interviews I did with a bunch of folks attending Cincinnati Night at Edward's Restaurant in TriBeCa.

My deep thanks to: Brady Richards for the lead on such a fun story (and a great primer on Cincinnati, much of which you'll hear on the piece); Marcos Suiero who donated two valuable evenings away from his wonderful family to engineer the sound so that it actually sounds like a real NPR piece (and, by extension, to the very patient Lorna & little Daniela); and to Gerry Donnelly at WVXU for giving me a shot and for helpful feedback for the next time.

Day 145 - A wonderful day entirely north of 123rd Street

2007-12-27T16:09:00.000-05:00

A weekday afternoon. Overcast. A slight, intermittent drizzle. Warm for late December. Maybe the perfect way to be tramping around looking for owls who fly down from further north to spend winters in Pelham Bay Park.

But owls or not, (not, by the way), this was the first time I made the full loop around the nature trail on Hunter Island at the northeastern tip of the park. Views in virtually every direction were foggy and drear--and magnificent. When we made it further north and looked out past a little bay toward Cat Briar Island, there was virtually nothing convincing you that this couldn't have been 500 years ago--still untrammeled wilderness. A fleet of hundreds of brandts bobbed up and down in the bay just far enough to be inaudible. Smaller squadrons took turns circling in formation on brief missions before landing again. It was like watching a busy Richard Scarry airport from afar. From the water's edge, along the fringe of stands of poplar, oak, jewelberry and dogwood, and staring into the mist with faint outlines of islands further away, it wasn't hard to imagine that this is what the Lennape saw before the Dutch and the English arrived. Not sure if some of my pictures will do it justice.

Matt Symons, a NYC Urban Park Ranger, led me around the northern tip of the island along the Theodore Kazimirioff Nature Trail, up an old carriage road that led to the high point of the island and the estate--long gone--of John Hunter. In its place is a stand of white pine whose softly green needles stood out sharply against the browns and ochres of autumn--more so on a shadowless gray day. These are where the owls would be found if they were sleeping, as they tend to do during the day. (Indeed, we found a few saw-whet owls sleeping afternoon away in this very spot a few years earlier on a less rambling walk.) But not on this day. Our only consolation was the sighting of the extremely rare wild Pinus christmas which was in bud when we came upon it.

The afternoon was framed by lunch at Feroza's Roti, a modest, tasty joint on Burke Avenue in the Allerton section of the Bronx; and dinner at Sisters' for jerk chicken, callaloo & collards on E. 124th St. in East Harlem. Feroza's is a (by now) old favorite, thanks to Matt's introduction a long time ago. It gets mixed reviews and I'm no roti expert, but the conch is excellent. Sisters' was new to me and a great place to catch up with an old friend in the neighborhood.

Day 144 - Christmas, Brooklyn-style

2007-12-26T16:08:00.000-05:00

So, Dyker Heights isn't a particularly new thing for me. But it's the kind of thing I feel like I never do enough. I get there once every third year or so. There's even less incentive these days now that Lento's amazing, unprepossessing barroom meatsauce pies rather unceremoniously faded into memory a couple of years ago as part of a family dispute. (I just found out that there's a new Staten Island Lento's, apparently of the same family. I'll be checking that out in short order, but it can only go so far since part of the allure was the unchanged--in good ways and bad--1930s Deco barroom.)

But despite Lento's demise (or, at least, relocation), there is a new reason to see the Dyker Heights Christmas lights, and to spend time in Bay Ridge, generally: Tanoreen. This is a Palestinian-owned middle-eastern restaurant on the corner of Third & 77th--just a block-and-a-half from my old Bay Ridge home. Chowhound it and read all of the reviews yourself because they do a much better job than I will in describing individual dishes. All I can implore you to do is to ask the server what's been made on the night that you go that isn't on either the menu or the specials listing. This was one piece of advice we got and my friends and I had the most delicately wonderful lamb sausage in a tangy tomato-sumac sauce. Now a few days on, I get a little weepy just thinking about them.

Tanoreen has no alcohol, but you're welcome to step across the street to Hendrick's wine shop which has what seems like a perfectly serviceable selection of wines--at least to this non-connoisseur. And if you're really feeling old-school after that, you can wander into Mooney's Pub next door. If it's after 10pm, you can even enjoy a cigarette or two or twenty inside. While strangely nostalgic, I remembered when I woke up the next day and smelled my jeans why I so much prefer the smoking ban.

Not the most elegantly executed photo, but possibly my favorite since you get both Christmas AND
the emerald-top of the Verrazano to the right.

Day 131 - Sweet, sweet Cajun country

2007-12-13T16:04:00.000-05:00

If you travel just 45 minutes by car to the west out of New Orleans, you'll probably be on the Cajun Highway--US 90. Pull off into Raceland and you'll be on the threshold of southern Louisiana's sugar cane country. The broad arc that sweeps from the Mississippi River across to Lafayette westward along this road is, more or less, the frontier between the crawfishing, shrimping and fishing bayous to the south and sugar cane country to the north.

This year, about 400,000 acres of the flat, marshy deltaic plain--about twice the size of NYC--is under cultivation for sugar cane in Louisiana. And around now, assuming the weather has been good to the farmers--wet early, dry later, bone-dry at the end--some 700 farmers will be riding their fields in combines shucking sunflower-high stalks of cane. In their wakes, dozens of egrets who have flown over from the bayous swoop in to catch insects and field mice dislodged from the stands of stalks.

The farmers make a bit of gamble: to wait as long as possible to begin harvesting without running out of time to finish cutting their 2500 or 5000 acres before a deep freeze settles in by late December or early January. The longer you wait to begin, the more sucrose accumulates in the cane. But the risk of losing a good deal of your crop to a freeze also increases. A few days of rain somewhere in between can delay harvesting for a week and increase the risk of missing the deadline even more. This year has been dry and warm.

The farmers will deliver some eleven- or twelve-million tons of shucked cane to a dozen sugar mills. The mills are industrial behemoths of rusting battleship-gray corrugated steel siding with steam-belching stacks seemingly from another era. They crush the cane to extract the sucrose-laden juice that, with some heat, spinning and chemistry, will become a million--perhaps one-and-a-quarter million--tons of raw sugar. That's just in Louisiana. Texas, Florida & Hawaii also grow cane. Sugar beets, which can grown in more temperate climates, can grow further north. Beet sugar is more prevalent than cane sugar these days. Both are dwarfed by corn syrups in the sweetener market.

I still have more to learn--including about price controls, the characteristics of the industry, etc. But I got to spend a pretty incredible day touring a sugar mill and meeting a few farmers, including Jessie Breaux, pictured below. He comes from an old Cajun cane-farming family who loves what they do and struggle a bit in an industry that continues to demand more and more cost savings through consolidation--but that's the challenge of all commodity farmers at the moment. He was working through Christmas Day this year, as all of his neighbors were, to take advantage of the late warmth and the great yield this year. "Santa will be riding his two-row," he told me with a weary smile. His two-row combine, that is.

Day 130 - Guerrilla Benchmaking in New Orleans

2007-12-12T15:42:00.000-05:00

New Orleans is improving. Plans are coming to the fore. There’s still a long way to go, and there are some very tricky questions still to be worked out: how those of the nearly 200,000 residents still displaced who want to return can be repatriated; the wisdom of rebuilding below sea level (indeed the wisdom of levees for that matter); the fate of public housing; the dramatic demographic shift of the city from pre-storm to now and in the next several years. On that last point, Mayor Nagin two years ago famously, if artlessly, said New Orleans was and always would be a chocolate city. And it may, yet. But it is decidedly more dixie cup at the moment.

Money finally is beginning to flow. Governmental and non-profit partners are moving from a hired-gun approach in addressing the most critical problems haphazardly to being more deliberative. Programs are becoming institutionalized; staff are being hired.

But it’s slow. And the seemingly small problems that fall far down on the list of priorities are actually more crucial than they might seem. When I was last here nine months ago, I estimated by a rough count that those areas of the city that were still inhabited were missing street signs at one-third of the intersections. A big deal? Perhaps not when you’re worried about getting your FEMA trailer hooked up to the street’s sewer line in front of our house so your family has a flushing toilet. Or if you have to find the title to your property--which has been passed down for several generations without re-registering with the city’s deed office—in order to apply for a building permit. Street signs are the last thing you might care about. But they do an awful lot to tell everyone—residents, visitors, volunteers—that the city is getting back on its feet.

Virtually every intersection I drove through in the more inhabited neighborhoods have their signs now. But they’re still largely missing from the inundated Lower Ninth Ward and Lakeview areas. That is, official street signs are still missing. But local residents have pitched in to help out in a pinch and posted their own. I hear that people who lived in corner houses—if they were still around—did this since they knew what their intersection was. Guerrilla sign painting. My friend Philip pointed out to me that New Orleans is a town that is being rebuilt—such as it is—largely through such guerrilla benevolence. In addition to the signs, there is the guy who owned a couple of hotels in the French Quarter and couldn’t get the city to come pick up his garbage for a good long while after Katrina and so bought his own garbage truck and Dumpsters and now has a side business in sanitation. Truly. (He even recently won a couple of the city’s contracts for waste hauling.)

And then there are the guerrilla benchmakers.

The Bench Women, as they call themselves, were introduced to me by my friend Robin Barnes—herself a Bench Woman. She and two colleagues—all involved in New Orleans’ rebuilding, though in less manual ways—spend some of their weekends building, painting and deploying simple, sturdy benches at bus stops in New Orleans’ Central Business District. Surreptitiously. They don’t do it under cover of darkness or anything like that. But they don’t have permission either. But neither did the folks posting street signs. Nor, at first, the hotelier turned garbage truck king.

The benches are the inspiration of Carey Shea after she noticed people massing at the street corners downtown throughout the day.

“At first I thought something free was being handed out,” Carey told me. “It was just a few months after the storm and there were very few people around at that point.” So large groups were downright noteworthy.

Carey, a former New Yorker and current New Orleanian, is a program officer at the Greater New Orleans Foundation working on affordable housing issues. Her habit is to ride her bike most places around New Orleans. She began to notice—in the way that the slower, more deliberate pace of a bicycle ride through a city allows—that throngs of people were gathering on some of the street corners in her neighborhood.

She realized that they were simply waiting for the bus. These were the 10% of the New Orleans transit ridership that had returned—because they had few other choices—to use the skeletal, limping system of buses that arrived infrequently, if at all. The waits, even now, two years on, can be over an hour on many lines. Carey said she thought to herself that someone—the city, the transit authority, someone—should put benches there for the waiting patrons, many of whom were elderly. But New Orleans was a town of dire infrastructural need even before Katrina. Bus stop shelters and benches are still a luxury that MIGHT be indulged in after new buses are bought, streets are paved, electricity is restored to swamped neighborhoods, and housing is rebuilt.

Then Carey realized that she had her own power tools

Robin Barnes’s sideyard has become the staging area for benchbuilding. Every couple of weeks she’ll arrive home from work to find a half-dozen pieces of lumber waiting behind her gate. She then knows that Carey “made a drop,” and that they’ll be building and painting at the weekend. The team includes the two of them as well as Robin Keegan, a New Orleanian by birth who lived in New York until Katrina and who has since returned. In about 90 minutes, they can assemble a 16” high bench that is 8 feet long. Two of these, bolted together after they arrive at the bus stop where it will eventually be deployed, gives about 10 people space to wait for buses.

While two of them work on construction, the other is painting and varnishing the previous session’s benches just prior to delivery. The most recent one was a deep pink with black fleurs-de-lis stenciled on. It’s at the corner of Loyola and Common, downtown. I wandered over there the other day and found a few folks sitting on it. It’s just used—constantly, it seems.

I asked Joanne Johnson when she first noticed this bench here.

“’bout two weeks ago.”

And what did she think of it?

“They have a lot of old people. A lot of people that be coming home from work they need to be sit down waitin’ on these long buses. It’s hard. It’s real hard.”

Did she know where the bench came from?

“No, just showed up one day.”

I told her about the Bench Women.

“I’m a senior citizen and I thank the ladies very much for the bench.”

And then Ms. Johnson pointed up the street and asked me to tell them which corner she thought the next one should go.

Day 117 - Briney! Preserving local manufacturing.

2007-11-29T22:12:00.000-05:00

Hundreds of jars, mint leaf waiting quietly at the bottom, ready to receive champagne vinegar spears...

As many of you know, I have, over the past year, joined Jon Orren of Wheelhouse Pickles on occasion for an evening of slow, artisanal foodmaking. He makes fantastic pickles. I have gotten to slice pears for his tangy, slightly sweet Irma's Pears, to quarter cucumbers for his champagne vinegar spears, and to roast and peel with my hands a couple hundred pounds of beets. He also makes peppers, wax beans okra and, occasionally, turnips. His "whim" line includes some of his most fun experiments including very, very fresh horseradish and, most recently, a chutney made with Red Hook's own Six Points Ale.

Jon makes his pickles at the Artisan Baking Center's kitchen incubator for nascent food businesses. For a nightly rental fee, Jon gets to use ABC's industrially equipped kitchen after hours for a night or two a week. This saves his young, growing business the cost of leasing a space that he isn't yet big enough to use fully. It also saves him the cost of buying a lot of equipment. For the challenge of not always having exactly what he needs at hand in the kitchen, he is saving himself a lot of money. More to the point, since he might not have been able to raise the kind of money needed to buy all that space and equipment, ABC has allowed him be in business when he otherwise might not have been able to thrive.

While I was at the Mayor's Office for Industrial & Manufacturing Businesses, we commissioned a study by the New York Industrial Retention Network and the Fiscal Policy Institute--More Than A Link In The Food Chain--to explore how to take advantage of New York's already vibrant food manufacturing sector and make it even more so. One key recommendation is to find more large, industrial or institutional kitchens that, with some effort at programming, can be turned into incubators for New York's food entrepreneurs--many of whom are immigrants and women.

On the nights I've worked with Jon and his team, we've been side-by-side with an organic, small-batch granola maker, an organic dog treat maker (better ingredients than are likely to be in your typical ham, egg & cheese sandwich at your local bodega), a high-end fat-free dessert maker, and another who serves exclusively airlines traveling between New York City and east Asia. And that's one night a week. It's open all seven for similar businesses.

Access to affordable space that allows for manufacturers to craft products that are locally demanded and supplied, and which take advantage of its talented pool of skilled labor, is the single biggest challenge for many businesses anxious to set up shop in New York City. Many of the City's most successful industrial areas have vacancy rates, conservatively, below 5% with waiting lists for spaces that are becoming more and more expensive as the specter of rezonings and the allowance of non-manufacturing uses bids up rent levels. A land use policy that incorporates a balanced approach to mixing uses (scroll down)--light industrial activities like pickle making and appropriate densities of residential units--could help ensure that these jobs and activities remain in New York City. And in a town that is more than two-thirds foreign born, having good paying jobs that provide opportunities for folks with limited education and English proficiency--not to mention a much more interesting urban landscape--couldn't be more important.

Day 115 - Hena Coffee Roasters

2007-11-27T22:10:00.000-05:00

I spent a pretty spectacular 3 hours today with Lanie Tauber, one of the duo of brothers running Hena Coffee Roasters out in very industrial East New York. They are the third generation of coffee roasters in their family. Their grandfather Harry H. Wolfe was a roaster for then-ubiquitous Martinson before setting up his own shop with his son. Harry H. Wolfe & Son was a roasting house that worked under contract to other coffee companies, commissioned to render the art that is roasting their coffees for their labels.

Cutting out a lot of details (for a change), Hena is the latest incarnation of the family's coffee roasting heritage. Lanie and brother Scott operate in the specialty coffee market--higher end products for fancy restaurants and gourmet shops.

I'm a fairly recent coffee drinker, so I assume almost everyone else in the world knows more about coffee than I do. But Lanie was gracious enough to give me a crash course in the art of buying, blending and roasting proprietary combinations of coffee that give each roasting company their signature tastes and characters. I learned the spectrum of roasts from lighter American City roasts, through Vienna roast, French roast and, finally, Italian roast. All the same coffee--just a matter of how long it's in the roaster. And the difference between the different roasters can be a matter of seconds in small batches. That's part of the art, too.

Lanie and I mixed together a few handfuls of green coffee beans from Kenya, Uganda, Guatemala and Columbia and then tossed them into his vintage Jabez Burns & Sons sample roaster. This is an ingeniously efficient machine that is--for nerds like me--perhaps more of a highlight to witness than the magic of roasting coffee itself. Gas jets are lit beneath a pair of small rotating drums that, to me, evoke clothes dryers except each is about he size of, well, a can of coffee on its side.

A small amount of our green beens are funneled into the roasters where they are kept in constant motion above the flame. Bafflers line the drum to ensure the beans flip and are not just running along the smooth sides of the drum. With only 1/4 lb of beans in the roaster, it doesn't take more than a few minutes for roasting to begin. Lanie likes to say coffee is a food. And as he talked I went a step further and thought of it as wine. The terms used for the aromas that are released at different points of the roasting are widely discussed at coffee samplings. Like wine, the terms seem to be as precise as they are subjective. Smelling the grassy, earthy bouquet of coffee beans taking on heat and just beginning to give off some aroma was straightforward enough. But when I went a step further and said I thought I detected a nuttiness, I got a frown from Lanie who explained that that would bad. He smelled it and detected no nuttiness. What do I know?

Over the next 3 or so minutes, the beans quickly moved through the American family of roasting shades and into the espresso family: Vienna, then French, then Italian. Lanie took a scoop out every few seconds not so much for him to check progress (he can do this blindfolded) than to show me how quickly the beans progress through stages. Different oils come to the surface at different temperatures, producing a popping sound at two distinct points along the way. He'd put the scoop beneath my nose, I'd inhale and immediately recognize lovely, familiar notes which, when I offered them aloud, caused Lanie to furrow his brow again in worry, check it himself and gently correct me. (This is why, while fascinated by and a lover of good food, I'll never be a proper foodie. Secretly, I want to be. But I'll never know how.)

A few seconds more and we dumped the hot beans into the trough in front of the roasting drum which quickly passes cool air over them to arrest the roasting process. If this wasn't done, they'd continue to cook. Another minute and we ground our VERY fresh coffee. We placed a tablespoon into some sampling cups and poured boiling water on top and let it steep.

Who samples coffee? While they can be retail events in the way that wine tastings have become, they don't seem to have caught on. Most roasting houses have sampling rooms in order to test the quality and characteristics of the green coffee beans they're purchasing from growers and brokers. Wholesale customers can also arrange to come and taste different blends and products.

After a minute or two of steeping, each cup developed a crust of oils on top called the crema. This is key. The best time to smell brewed coffee's aroma is as soon as that crema is broken with a spoon. That is the point at which they are the most concentrated. After that, sampling would proceed with several coffees of different blends or different roasts, or both. A spoon is used to take a sample, it is slurped into the mouth to aspirate it, and then sloshed around all parts of the tongue and palate to trigger all of the taste sensors. And then there is a big old spittoon-like vessel into which it is to be spat, not swallowed.

UPDATE
It turns out that you can roast coffee at home either in a hot-air popcorn popper or in a good pan on a medium-high heat on the stove. My friends and I did the latter to great effect this past weekend with a bunch of green coffee beans Lanie was kind enough to send me away with. I'm now a convert!

Day 107 - Hang Gliding School

2007-11-19T22:09:00.000-05:00

For much of the last 10 years, I've been spending Thanksgivings with family in a decidedly non-NYC way: on the Outer Banks. In the wonders of modern family, I have the benefit of a dozen or so step-aunts and -cousins to carouse with for several days each year on a wind-whipped beach during a season when it might be 75 degrees or 35. While it is decidedly a destination and resort area, there is a great deal of history along this 100-mile strip of barrier island. And when not in the high season, it's a lovely place to spend a few days exploring in addition to relaxing.

Most people will undoubtedly know the Outer Banks as the site of humans' first heavier-than-air flight. On December 17, 1903, the Wright Brothers succeeded in powered flight from a natural sand dune in the village of Kill Devil Hills. News of their success was transmitted from the telegraph station in nearby Kitty Hawk, forever linking--erroneously--that community's name in millions of school children's minds with the actual event.

A wonderful Art Deco granite monument was erected atop the dune in 1927 to commemorate the event. Only problem? As sand dunes tend to do when nature is interrupted, they slowly migrate in the direction of prevailing winds. The smaller granite markers that were placed in the ground to show the distance of three successive flights are now much further away from the apex of the dune than they were 104 years ago. In the quarter century between the inaugural flight and the dedication of the memorial, the dune had migrated south more than 100 yards. It was stabilized, to some degree, with vegetation when the monument was erected. Nature will, undoubtedly, have her way at some point.

A little further south in Nags Head, the same dune system continues as part of Jockey's Ridge State Park. After years of passing it by on the highway and ignoring the sign "HANG GLIDING SCHOOL," I could wait no longer. I signed up for a lesson which included five "accompanied" flights. You fly solo (there are tandem flights from higher altitudes) but are tethered to a couple of instructors running along on the ground with long nylon cables that don't let you get much more than 40' off the ground--at least until you've had a few lessons.

It was both easier than I would have thought and trickier to actually manipulate the glider. My first flight landed me face-first in the sand and I have a great big bruise on my thigh as a war wound. But the next four flights went really well. I got high enough to be able to steer a bit. It was exhilarating! This is not normally the type of things I'd do, but I'm really, really glad I did. Notice any similarities?

Day 102 - The Last of the World's Fair

2007-11-14T22:08:00.000-05:00

I was fortunate enough to be a guest at the Long Island City Business Development Corporation's annual luncheon today. It was held at Terrace on the Park in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. This was a noteworthy event for me. Yes, I was pleased to have been invited by LICBDC. But there was something else. This was the only relic of any import remaining from the 1964/65 World's Fair that I had not been in.

In its current incarnation, Terrace in the Park is an event space and catering hall--with panoramic views of that glorious borough that is Queens. But the structure is also the former Port Authority Pavilion from the Fair. From outside, it looks vaguely like one of the Space Invaders (second row from the bottom, I'd say) in the futuristic style of the fair and of the day. But there is reason for the high-top, flat-top look. It was the Fair's heliport. Helicopters ferrying the city's business titans (and Port Authority executives, no doubt) to and from the fair would alight and take off from here.

Despite still being open to the public--Terrace on the Park is the scene of an endless parade of retiring city officials' sendups and a not insignificant number of my friends' and colleagues' weddings--I somehow had not been in there yet. (I have even been able to climb to the top of the nearby off-limits NYS Pavilion--what most folks think of as the flying saucers or the things from Men In Black.) Other than scaling the outside of the Unisphere, I think I've conquered the Fair's main extant sites now.

Many thanks to LICBDC for the opportunity!

Day 101 - Midtown Modernism to Manganaro's

2007-11-13T20:14:00.000-05:00

Had some time to kill today between a talk at the MAS and a food meeting at the Cornell Cooperative Extension on 34th Street. So I headed to B&H Photo on foot to get a new mic stand. This hazy late morning was perhaps the last mild day before the bitterness of autumn finally settles in on the City. I love the seasons--every one of them--but there is a bit of cruelty to offering a snap of springtime when it is likely to be followed immediately by autumn in earnest. Like an aperitif at the end of a meal.

As I wandered westward in the fifties past the Rockefeller tree enshrouded in scaffolding--like every other new or newly gussied edifice in the city these days--the monoliths of modernism along 6th Avenue yielded to lower-slung old taxpayers lining 8th and 9th Avenues. They're filled with modest businesses along the street that, in the old days, helped to subsidize the residential apartments in the 3 or 4 floors above. But they're all leaving. Ground floor shops and watering holes of long standing if questionable quality are closing up as their leases end and the buildings' owners realize the value that can be unlocked beneath their stately, if soot-smudged, brick facades. These are buildings from turn of the century New York when stone masons arrived by the hodful in steerage from Italy to erect handsomely clad buildings with decorative window lintels and pressed-tin-covered parapets that, on my of these old-timers, still cling to the top edges.

But now their time is past. Entrepreneurs rarely own, develop and run a business--or a building--on a single lot anymore. Aside from the odd sliver building that bucks this trend (see picture) most of these properties are being emptied, sold, and assembled by developers who are aggregating air rights and awaiting (or presaging) the transformation of the far west side. The most recent casualty close enough to me in my extended family of neighborhood joints for me to mourn a bit was the Collins Bar on the east side of 8th Ave, just north of 46th. Don't misunderstand: while this was a relatively young concern--less than 10 years--it was in a space that had all of the charms of a local gin mill for generations: darkness (true darkness, not loungy, candleflicker dark); dankness; improbably narrow with barely enough space to edge your way behind barstool patrons to the small dumbbell nook of tables at the back; tall, pressed tin ceilings; and a popcorn maker. Despite the cajun spiced salt and the high-end beers, this was still pure localism.

A little further down, a few relics which have hung on so long they're in danger of becoming, first, campy and, eventually, a kitschy throwback to yesteryear: Manganaro's Grosseria. Click here to read about the longstanding feud between it and the neighboring, not quite related, Manganero's Heroboy.

Day 98 - Urban Detective In Training

2007-11-10T07:44:00.000-05:00

I spent this chilly autumn morning with my buddy James (above) who was interested in becoming an Urban Detective Trainee. We met a group of other UDTs beneath the arch in Washington Square. There, the Municipal Art Society was hosting a tour geared at teaching young people about Jane Jacobs and her virtuous life in her neighborhood.

Before we set out we were given a map of the park and ambled around as a group looking at where people were gathered in the park and what they were doing. Some folks were playing with their dogs in the dog walk. One group was taking a tour, just like us, but not with as many young people. Some people were just sitting and talking on the benches (even though it was so cold!) and a lot of people were using the bathroom to wash themselves. (It turns out we learned some people live in the park.) Afterward, we came back as a group and completed two exercises. We filled out a grid with what things we thought a good park should have in it and, then, did the same thing for a good neighborhood. Here's some of what James came up with:

in a Park:

bathroom
flagpole
paths
dog area and dog fountain
people fountain
trash cans & ashtrays (so people don't throw cigarettes on the ground)
trees
benches
good lighting
play grounds

and in a Neighborhood:

a school
card store
arcade (didn't know kids James age knew what these were!)
entertainment
bowling
museum
clean stores
food store
theatre
subway station
firehouse
police station
army (oy...)

Good lists!

Then we set out with our guide from MAS and began walking around the neighborhood outside of the park to see some other strands of the urban fabric. We walked up to Washington Mews to see a quiet little enclave in the busier, bustling city outside its gates. It's a lovely space, a gem of a row of residences in old carriage houses. James and I saw something really cool: a tree or vine that had grown through the iron gates in front of one of the doors. We wondered how long the people had been stuck inside! And I was tickled that, incredibly, I had not been here myself, yet. But I wasn't sure this is what I wanted to show off to young Urban Detectives in Training as ideal urban living. (Though I was pleased that we got to go behind a gate and poke around in a place that otherwise seemed off-limits. Learning similarly at a young age has led to many, many years of me poking around in places I shouldn't have been. Including some subway tunnels. Sorry James' mom!)

We learned that the apartment buildings across the street at 2 Fifth Avenue has a fountain in its lobby that supposedly liberates water from the hidden watercourse below ground that used to be Minetta Brook and is now covered (UDTs take note!) by all of the streets and buildings and parks and trees-growing-through-doors that people have all built in New York in the last 400 years.

Unfortunately, after that the tour got a little boring. There was a lot of interesting adult stuff being talked about, but not so much for younger folks. Plus it was cold. We decided we'd head off to a bookstore a few blocks away to warm up and wait for James' mom. (Oh, and pore over Japanese graphic novels--James had a lot to teach me!)

On the way we thought we'd make the most of the rest of our times outdoors to polish our Urban Detective skills. (I always like to keep mine sharp as an Adult Urban Detective.) We saw some really cool things. First of all, walking back through the park we saw what must have been a discarded piece of fruit on the cobblestones beneath the arch that looked suspiciously like phosphorescent alien brain.

Then, just because we happened to be looking up in the air, we found what must have been the vestiges of an old tree house! There, about part-way up a tree in the park was--a mailbox! What a strange, fun thing to see!

Given the style of the mailbox, I think we assumed it was from the late-Levittown Suburban era, possibly early McMansion period. It was particularly odd to see an example of that style kitty-corner from the Federal style just a few yards away along Washington Sq. North.

I've been on a manhole cover kick lately and spending a lot of time paying close attention to the markings on steel castings that are either covers or sewer grates. (The Times scooped my story idea which I am in the middle of researching--about why so many of them are made in India now. Dispiriting, I tell you...) But this cover was one that I hadn't seen before. My guess is you won't find too many of them around the City. Note James' feet added in order to appreciate the scale...

Then it was time to learn about terra cotta. On the southwest corner of Washington Square Park is a fancy-pants apartment building over whose brass and copper awning is some prettily-colored baked tiles framing the window lintels and encircling the faux columns beneath some of them. James was more interested in splashing in puddles by this point. And given the temperature (and now the wet feet) we decided we'd proceed directly to the bookstore with now more boring distractions below our feet or above our heads.

But I'm really sad James wasn't with me just a couple of hours later when, after I left him with his mom, I found the most curious discovery of the entire day. And it made me feel good. Like an angel--or at least someone with special powers--was looking over us, every single day, in this busy, hazard-riddled city of ours.

Day 95 - Lunch in a Loading Dock

2007-11-07T07:43:00.000-05:00

My friend Dory took me out to lunch for my birthday. I was asked if I could meet her near her office in the Garment District and given the choice of a Japanese curry joint or falafel in a loading dock.

As if she had to ask.

Pick-A-Pita does a brisk business in the back of a loading dock that you get to from the north side of West 38th Street. It looks like it was built out from where the old mailroom in this old garment building was. Florescent light banks line the ceiling like an office. The Snapple refrigerator competes with space for the 4 or 5 tables on asbestos tiles. "Garish" is an apt word. "Perfect," too. Falafel was excellently spiced (not too much cumin) if a little overcooked for my taste. But the ample, endless sides and condiments make it an even bigger treat.

Walking back to the subway, we passed the curry joint Dory had also suggested. Go! Go! Curry is just a few doors down. The Japanese owner is described as an obsessive fan of #55 on the Yankees, Hideki Matsui. How much so? Consider the shop's hours of operation:

Days Afield: Day 88 - Lost Between Pizza, Ploughshares & Pitchers

2007-11-02T20:45:00.000-04:00

The lure of a rental car that was one-third the price of a Manhattan rental was just one thing that drew me to Philadelphia on Halloween. In fact, it was just one-third of the lure. The other two-thirds? A pizza pie from Tacconelli's before setting off on a road trip to see family down south.

Tacconelli's is a neighborhood joint tucked into the ground floor of a rowhouse in a working class neighborhood lined with three-flats. A little further east, down a gentle slope, Sommerset Street passes under I-95 before it stub-ends onto the old port's piers which reach arthritically into the Delaware River. The waterfront is still lined with industrial concerns but few, if any, seem still to rely on the river for much other than buffering them from development. The modest brick and woodframe houses up on the hill were home for the Polish and Italian dockworkers. And based on who I saw and heard sitting out on front stairs in the straining daylight, patiently waiting for trick-or-treaters with candy supplies in hand, easily calling to neighbors on the next set of stairs or across the narrow street, they're the same folks. It's their kids' kids now scampering from stoop to stoop filling bags with goodies.

Tacconelli's is unpretentious: pizzeria meets red-sauce sit-down joint, only without anything but pizza. It's a few steps up from the sidewalk into a faux-paneled vestibule and then into a 1980s era dining room with booths beneath a drop ceiling. Along one wall is a soda fountain and ice chest with a plastic rolling cart holding paper cups and plastic lids. It reminds me a bit of what a finished basement would look like if you turned it into a pizzeria.

Despite (or maybe because of) the lack of pretension, Tacconelli's is sometimes hard to get into. But reservations are needed not so much to hold a seat as to reserve a dough. They make only enough dough each day as is needed for the number of pizzas folks have reserved. Reserve 3 doughs for your party of seven and decide you want just one more gorgeous tomato pie? Sorry. Unless, of course, someone before you committed the treasonable act of taking fewer pies than they reserved. The menu and website both admonish diners to take what they've ordered and warn them not expect an extra.

Belied by the décor are brick oven masterpieces of exceeding simplicity. Each pie, individually made, has some combination of the following: dough, oil, cheese, tomato sauce. A “white pie” will be just oil and cheese on the dough with salt, pepper and liberal handfuls of garlic. The tomato pie, probably my favorite with a few anchovies added, is sauce on dough done to perfection. There are a couple of other equally simple combinations—and the standard toppings. But few, if any, are needed.

The brick oven into which the current pizza maker slips his works of simple artistry into is do deep that his wooden spatula has a handle that is nearly 20 feet long--so long that when it's at rest just outside the mouth of the oven the tip-end rests on a standing roller ten feet behind him to keep it from snapping. When feeding the spatula in to the oven to slip a pie in or retrieve a perfectly crusty one from it, the roller supports the handle gliding along behind the oven master. It's a beautiful one-man pizza operation. Stop by for a pie (call ahead!) and ask them if you can peek into the kitchen. If it's not busy, they'll simply step aside and let you ogle the place for awhile. Heaven on earth—in Philadelphia.

* * *

Most of you know how tickled I am by maps. And gadgets. So it's with some curiosity that I haven't embraced the advent of GPS and, for instance, chosen a cell phone with one if only for plotting my bicycle rides. But I also don't use them when I'm driving. I dunno.. seems a little like cheating. I pride myself in being able to find my way around just about anywhere with an admittedly keen sense of direction and a good, old-fashioned paper map. But I have to say that I was mesmerized by my friend Lucinda's on-board navigation system while we were making our way around Philly and its environs. For a little while after dinner, I really thought that it might be fun to be navigating my cross-country journeys with a dash-mounted map instead of having to pull over and consult a bound volume to double-check a coordinate or confirm a missed turn.

But then the next morning I got lost in central PA. Not the first time, frankly, and I hope it’s not the last.

I was cruising west along the Pennsylvania Turnpike waiting for my exit for I-81 south. A combination of insufficient caffeine levels and a rather robust two-fer of Bryan Adams on the radio is the likely reason that I realized I was zooming past my exit only as it was happening, doing 70. But, being unemployed and on a vacation within my vacation, there was little I could do to justify being angry. After all, what was my rush? I’d simply get off at the next exit and get back on in the other direction and get back on track. Ten miles passed. Then 10 more. Despite my best efforts, I was getting annoyed. Mostly it was this: I had no idea how far it was until the next exit—and I didn’t have a paper map; I forgot to take my road atlas from home. A keen sense of direction is a gift (as well as a developable skill) I’m proud to have, but it’s only part of what makes a successful trekker. I didn’t know if the exit was in 5 more miles or 25 more miles. Then when you add on the distance back to 81, it’d be double that. Two-x, x being an unknown value. Luckily it was only 5 more.

I scooted off the turnpike and found a gas station with a set of maps. I snuck a perusal and put back on the rack. Rather than go all the way back I found a route that let me triangulate to I-81 from where I was now. It required wending through some small roads but it was mostly a straight shot. And, secretly, I was pleased to be off the highway and tooling around in a new place.

Penna. Route 997 twists southward from the Turnpike through the great, fertile Cumberland Valley. It passes through a few small farming villages that seem like period pieces—further reinforced by Amish and Mennonite farmers who were out tilling their maize stalks into the ground for the winter on sled-plows drawn by small teams of 2 or 3 horses. Route 997 eventually merges with old US Route 11—one of the original Federal highways from the 1920s that picks a route from north to south from the Canadian border to New Orleans, largely through the north-south valleys paralleling the ridges of the Appalachians. I-81 runs nearly parallel to it for hundreds of miles, taking advantage of the same geographic advantages US 11 does.

Through these parts, US 11 is known as Molly Pitcher Highway. It was the nickname given to a Pennsylvania woman reported to have fought in the Revolutionary War beside her husband. In late June of 1778 in searing 100-degree heat, the Battle of Monmouth took place on the Jersey shore as the Continental Army attacked the evacuating British troops as they tacked north from Freehold. Molly’s husband was manning a gun or cannon was either wounded or felled by the heat as nearly half of the fighting force was that hot day. She took up his position and began firing on the British without missing much of a beat.

Historians seem to differ on whether or not Molly Pitcher actually existed or was, rather, a folklore composite of many women who contributed in heroic ways to the war effort. Whether real or apocryphal, Molly is memorialized along this section of Route 11 here in south-central Pennsylvania. There is also a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike, closer to the site of the battle, named for her. One woman with better documented contributions of heroism—Margaret Corbin—took position at her mortally wounded husband’s cannon against the British at Fort Washington two Novembers earlier. She herself was apparently wounded by enemy fire and became, after much haranguing, a pensioned invalid soldier—as a woman. Corbin’s contribution is similarly commemorated near the former site Fort Washington, just south of the Cloisters, at Margaret Corbin Circle. God help me if I ever do something important enough to name a road or rest stop after me.

The things you can learn from getting lost.

Day 85 - Cincinnati, NY

2007-10-28T23:20:00.000-04:00

Photo credit: A bowl of 4-way Skyline Chili by Cathy Erway, noteatingoutinny.com

NYC being as cosmopolitan as it is, I've always been fascinated about where folks who are from somewhere else gather to be around compatriots. Almost everyone from someplace else longs for the comforts of home: a crowd with whom to root for the home team, people who speak with familiar cadence and terms of speech, and comfort food. New York must be filled with these sorts of places and I wanted to start visiting them.

So I recently put out a request to a few dozen of my more worldly friends here to ask them for suggestions.

The most intriguing spot I heard about was Edward's in TriBeCa. One night a month, Edward's creates a little Cincinnati in New York by importing a handful of classic dishes from the city of seven hills. Things like Montgomery Inn Ribs, LaRosa’s Pizza, and Graeters Ice Cream. Now, this was not, strictly speaking, what I was thinking of when I was asking about expatriate bars, but that may be why it captured my interest.

But first, I had a lot to learn about this fair city: its people, their food and, quickly, the geography. In particular, whether one is from the East Side, or the West Side.

I pulled a seat up to a table with Ben Berman. Ben's a real estate development consultant from Cincinnati who works in San Francisco but just happened to be in New York on business and joined a friend from Cincinnati at Edward's.

“The east side associates itself with the eastern United States, essentially, I think," Ben told me. "And the west side seems to be more heartily Midwestern. So all the connotations of whatever that means for people in other part of the country are probably true for people who live there and the way they conceptualize themselves. They educate their kids in different places. They go to church in different places. They live in different cities when they graduate from college. I mean, it makes a very big different in terms of how you orient your life.”

He might be right about where folks settle when they leave Cincinnati. I interviewed more than a dozen people and all said they were from the East Side.

Brady Richards is an author from the Hyde Park neighborhood of Cincinnati, living in NYC after leaving his hometown for college 10 years ago. I asked him what characterized the typical Cincinnatian.

“We’re extraordinarily down to earth, humble, ouch!. I think there’s a strange groundedness to a lot of the mid west and Cincinnati is the heart of that, as they say. I’m also a meat and potatoes guy—it’s that kind of person. There's a real community feeling there. Growing up, it’s generations of the same families that you know everyone’s parents grandparents, that kind of thing. It’s a little harder to get here. But it’s nice to grow away from that in a way and try to establish that sort of feeling elsewhere."

At the next table over, Nicole Ginocchio, a new kindergarten teacher at a public school in the Bronx who also grew up in Hyde Park, was having dinner with a couple of other friends who recently moved to New York City after graduating from college. I asked her how she’d describe Cincinnati to someone who has never been there.

“The thing about Cincinnati is it’s kind of confused," Nicole said. “It’s in the Midwest geographically. But the people are this southern Midwestern hybrid. It is either like the most southern Midwestern town, or the most Midwestern southern town, ever. My dad always jokes that if they ask you where you went to school in Cincinnati, they don’t mean where you went to college, they mean where you went to HS, because they assume you never left, because everyone stays in Cincinnati.”

And then, a classic Cincinnati moment--or what must be. Brady had overheard my conversation with Nicole and leaned over and asked if she was related to the Ginocchio he went to school with.

"That's my sister!" Nicole said. And with that, the she and Brady caught up with a totting of houses bought, babies born, etc. "There you go," she continued, turning back to me. "Old Cincinnati right there!"

Which brings us to the food from Cincinnati. It's what seemed to unite all the Cincinnatians I met that evening: a nostalgia—or, at least, a craving—for particular dishes that are not easy to get away from the greater Cincinnati area: Montgomery Inn ribs, LaRosa’s pizza, and something called 3-way.

“A 3-way is three ingredients," Brady explained to me. "Spaghetti, chili, cheese. 4-way, you have you choice of either adding onions or beans. 5-way is adding both.”

Now the chili served at Edwards and in Cincinnati is different from what people in other parts of the country think of as chili. “I think that people who grew up with chili as its own meal probably do not understand--and possibly even hate--this being called chili because it’s just, in a way, meat gravy. You would never, in my experiences, order just a bowl of Cincinnati chili. But it’s much better as a condiment than regular chili is. While I’d love to a bowl of chili from Texas, or something like that, when you’re having a 3-way, the only way to do it is with Cincinnati chili.”

Even calling it meat gravy—which I had growing up in an Italian neighborhood here in New York—doesn’t quite capture Cincinnati chili’s hints of chocolate and cinnamon. From what I gathered, chili in Cincinnati is served in parlors as ubiquitous as pizza parlors are—or once were, anyway—in New York. Unlike New York’s history with pizza, though, Cincinnati chili parlor families opened many outlets for their respective brands. The two biggest are Skyline and Gold Star. Brady’s tastes have evolved over the years, it seems.

“I think like many of the chili parlors, started by a Greek immigrants to Cincinnati who had their own recipes. My history is a little shaky even though it’s written usually on the menus and the walls. My personal history is that I was a Skyline—well, I guess I was actually a Goldstar kid for most of my youth. But then when I hit HS it was skyline all the way and it still it. It’s the most prevalent one. There’s one in every neighborhood pretty much.”

Edward Youkilis is the owner and namesake of Edwards and the instigator of these monthly reunions. He left Cincinnati in 1969. On this night, we were watching his nephew Kevin prepare to help the Boston Red Sox sweep the Colorado Rockies in Game 4 of the World Series on a big screen TV. In between innings and bites from a rack of Montgomery Inn ribs, he shared some of the thought behind Cincinnati Nights.

“We started the Cincinnati night about 3 years ago with a friend of mine who worked here named Seth Workman and I started it together. He’s also from Cincinnati and was the manager at the time. And we started small and we started realizing that there are a lot of people who moved here from Cincinnati or worked in Cincinnati who missed a lot of the very specific food they were associating with Cincinnati. So little by little we developed this menu. And I think tonight is our 37th or 38th Cincinnati night here, so we’ve had quite a few of them.”

Toward the back of this narrow restaurant I found Megan Schlegel, an event planner for a large department store and Alexi Tavil, a personal assistant. They met through work and when they realized they were both expatriates, they decided to get their other Cincinnatian friends together to check out the scene at Edwards. It just took them awhile to find the place.

“We’ve been trying to find this place for two years," explained Megan. “I was googling it and could not figure it out. We had a friend who was here on an internship and told us about it. And we could never figure it out where it was and we just did. And I’ve been looking forward to this all week.”

Alexi moved out of Cincinnati about 5 years ago and her family subsequently left the city as well. Does she miss it, I asked?

“Yes, it’s where I grew up. So I lived there for 20 years. You get used to a certain way of life and you get used to a certain kind of food, and then you go away and you can’t find anything similar. I was actually telling everyone before that my parents still will send me, when they go back to visit friends, they’ll buy me cans of Skyline, buy me bottles of Montgomery Inn, and they still have Graeters ice cream dry-iced and shipped to where they live in Washington.”

And how does Edwards compare to back home?

“You know, it’s good," Alexi agreed. "Tastes the same.”

And would they come back?

“Definitely. We’re talking about making our reservation for next month tonight.”

Megan and Alexi were surrounded by about 8 others who, in turn, were surrounding a few LaRosa's pizza pies. Were these their steady Cincinnati friends living abroad here in NYC, I asked.

Is this your kind of standard group of folks you know from back home?

“Actually we know each other very distantly through work, and so these are her friends and these are my friends," Alexi said pointing to each half of the table. "And we just came together.”

“Over Skyline,” crooned Megan.

“Over Skyline,” gushed Alexi, with a smile.

Day 82 - Why do they call it Conduit Blvd, anyway?

2007-10-25T14:00:00.000-04:00

I've been saying this a lot lately, but days like today remind of how lucky I am to have time that is my own. I saw an article in today's Metro NY on the Parks Department's proposal for part of the disused Ridgewood Reservoir. All I know about the plans is what I read in this article. In brief, it seems one of the basins may be filled in to allow for ballfields of artificial turf to be installed for active play. I don't yet have a strong opinion on it. My initial reaction is that natural green spaces should be maintained as such and perhaps adapted to allow recreation that complements their landscapes. I realized that this was one of the few parts of NYC's water infrastructure I still hadn't seen. But being concerned that there may be some significant changes in the offing, I wanted to have a look for myself. I was interviewing a manufacturer in nearby Ozone Park for a piece I'm working on, and since I had nothing to do afterward, I took the Q56 down Jamaica Ave. to Highland Park to have a look around.

The bus lets you of just past the Cypress Hills National Cemetery's perfectly aligned rows of headstones, and its rusting cyclone fence. It was gray and blustery late morning--perfectly autumn. Treetops were beginning to smudge from deep green to yellows and ochers, more vivid beneath the diffused light of an overcast sky. I slung my bag over my shoulder, leaned forward into the wind and marched up the path. Near to the top an old pair of staircases lead to top edge of the old reservoir. At some point it was probably a common thing to see folks from the neighborhood mount the hill and circumambulate the basins high up over the graveyards and apartment buildings. Along the path, the globes of all of the lamp posts--scores in total--are smashed to bits now, but I bet this was a lovely place to take an evening walk at one point. Might still be. Just darker.

The reservoir is fenced off. Some sections have been peeled back by folks intent on being inside. One such opening led to the top of the wall that bisected the basins--a path I was salivating over sneaking into. But nobody knew I was here, it was now raining pretty steadily, and the reservoir at mid-morning is a lonely, overgrown place. The stone walls sloping down into the undergrowth were slick. I used to be braver about such adventures. I'll be back, though.

One basin is filled partly with water and forms a makeshift wetland, fragmites and bullrushes looking more like Jamaica Bay than the Brooklyn-Queens border. The other is almost fully covered in cherry and willows and mulberry. At the edges are boarded up buildings that were the pump houses and valve chambers, in use until the mid-1960s. All are out of reach behind the fencing, ivy overtaking their thresholds.

The old reservoir sits atop the moraine that is the spine down the center of all of Long Island--from the East River to the East End. This is the furthest point south to which glaciers advanced during the last ice age. As glaciers pushed southward over tens of thousands of square miles, trillions of tons of soil, shale, boulders and sand were scraped up along its frontier, a Mother Nature-sized bulldozer. As the ice sheets retreated, all of that detritus was left to form the geologic feature that gave us the makings of many bridge-and-tunnel jokes. It also created a porous land form wonderfully conducive to naturally filtering and holding rainwater in underground aquifers.

The City of Brooklyn burgeoned in the mid-part of the last century and its collective thirst for clean water grew commensurately--probably moreso. At any rate, it outstripped the ability of wells and natural aquifers in Brooklyn to slake the thirst of residents, brewers, tanners, and gristmillers. Ridgewood Reservoir was commissioned around 1858 to hold waters brought in from Baisley Pond in what is today southeast Queens but was, then, still Nassau County. Water ran through an aqueduct--or conduit--westward from there into Ridgewood. The curiously named North and South Conduit Boulevards--familiar to anyone driving along the Belt Parkway to JFK Airport--framed the route from the pond to a point at the foot of the hill beneath the reservoir. From there, a steam pump forced water up the incline (the eponymous Force Tube Avenue, just south of Highland Park, marks its path) into the receiving basins where it would sit, ready to be used by Brooklynites. The height of the reservoir allowed gravity to do the rest of the work of distribution. After the greater City of New York came into existence in 1898 and Brooklyn was included in the more reliable Catskill watershed system, the Ridgewood Reservoir became vestigial.

If you can visit soon, it's a worthwhile spot to take in some fall foliage. And if you have a chance while you're out there, arrange to take the A-train out to Lefferts Boulevard. This is one of three routes to which I had not been to the very end of the line. Beneath the elevated, along Liberty Avenue from from Lefferts Boulevard all the way back to Rockaway Parkway, is one of New York's classic shopping streets. It's updated to reflect the Guyanese population that has largely filled in the modest row houses in Ozone Park. But it is a classic, disappearing scene in New York: a strip of locally owned stores providing a range of products and services for a diverse population. I don't recall a single chain shop, and saw quite a few old-time bakeries and fish markets. Residents appeared to have almost all of their needs met by this 20-block strip. It is magnificent.

Day 78 - Tour de Bronx

2007-10-21T20:42:00.000-04:00

It was a gorgeous day to be on a ride in the borough I've conquered least--the Bronx. Today was the annual 40+ mile Tour de Bronx ride sponsored by both Transportation Alternatives and the office of the Bronx Borough President.

With my time off, I assumed I'd get to see more of the Bronx to round out my knowledge. (I actually thought that abbut a lot of places in the city and have been surprised by how much less of it I've done; I imagined being out and tramping in a new neighborhood each and every day.) But on this ride, I realized I'd really seen quite a lot of the Bronx already. There were only a few legs for a few miles each that I hadn't really seen and said "oh wow" to myself on realizing I was riding through an area new to me. (Though nerdy and a little obnoxious, there aren't a lot of places in New York City left that I haven't seen before. It's a wonderful surprise when I can still be surprised by a street or a row of stores I hadn't seen before.)

For fun, I'll let folks try to guess which neighborhood was truly new for me.

The crew I rode with was as crowd-averse and anxious to get started as I was, so we set out ahead of everyone at all the different checkpoints. It was, for the most part, a benefit not to be caught up in the scrum of riders for the whole way, especially as they were delayed by over an hour beyond their scheduled times. But, to my great disappointment, being early meant that we were not able to ride along (on top of!) the Sheridan Expressway. The cop at the entrance wouldn't let us on until the main body of the ride was there. Rather than wait 90 minutes (though we did sweat it out for about 30, hoping we could sneak on), we found a parallel route and headed to Soundview. I'll be back next year to get a shot at that.

A modified version of the route I rode on appears here.

Day 75 - Of Small Businesses, Olives & Sauerkraut

2007-10-18T20:49:00.000-04:00

Dateline: Arthur Ave., THE BRONX

It's days like today that I relish being accountable only to myself. Woke up, checked e-mail, read the paper and did a little writing. Made a few phone calls and then packed up and headed out on an adventure.

Headed first into Brooklyn Heights to find some proprietors to interview for the story I'm doing on Worksman Cycles--to round it out from the customer angle. It was quite possibly the last day of indian summer, the sun streaming down Montague Street at a low, autumnal angle, warming my neck. Montague, despite the increasing incursion of chains and so-called format retail stores, is still a street of small businesses and individual propriety. I fell in step behind (I eventually deduced) the local dry cleaner, nattily dressed, who was greeting warmly and with recognition everyone walking toward him. He was like a little mayor of the block.

I was waiting for owners to show up at Monty's Pizza and Lassen & Hennigs and so killed som time reading The Onion and noshing at Montague Bagels (only so-so... too much like a sandwich roll). I wandered back up the street and got the brush-off at both places and sort dejectedly got on the train to Manhattan. I had business card proofs to pick up in Chinatown.

Walking east on Broome I passed a few restaurant supply stores and remembered that I wanted to try curing olives after reading about it in the Times yesterday. I went from store to store looking for gallon Mason jars. No luck. Went into about six places including the magical DiPaolo's Market who I assumed might have some in order to cure their own olives. Nada.

Late morning by this point. The morning mugginess never burned off as the sun climbed in the sky. A little uncomfortable for a stroll in jeans, but I kept nosing up and down blocks along and across the Bowery. On Mulberry, just north of Grand, a couple of old Chinese shop workers argued loudly across the way, squatting on the shady side of the street.

Over on the Bowery, I wandered into Balter, one of the last few old-time supply shops along the strip. These places are little more than storefront warehouses that are hums of human activity. At Balter, you make your way down a tall, narrow hallway with ancient, creaking floorboards. The fluorescent light flickers, barely making its way down past the stacks of boxed wares. It is a supremely satisfying, fleeting feeling to be a retail purchasers in a wholesale market. It feels select. Behind-the-scenes. If you're an educated consumer or connoisseur of your quarry, you might be able to avoid being fleeced. It's titillating.

Yet, no one down there is carrying gallon Mason jars.

I finally gave up and headed up to Teitel Brothers on Arthur Avenue for the fresh olives that I would cure, hoping I could also procure a couple of empty bottles from there or nearby. I took the 5 train up the Dyre Avenue line. For subway aficiandos, you'll appreciate why getting off at stations along this route is a treat. This branch is a former leg of the old New York, Westchester & Boston Railway that was converted to subway use in 1941. Its most notable features to non-railroad enthusiasts are its capacious stations that are spaced at commuter rail intervals instead of more tightly spaced rapid transit stops. From the Pelham Parkway stop, Arthur Avenue is a quick trip on the Bx12 bus.

I was rewarded!

Teitel Brothers is a treat to visit all by itself. This is an old-style market with a half-dozen brawny guys behind the counter fetching most things for you. The olives were piled in boxes in front of the store, underneath cheeses and sausage. Eight pounds of fresh olives? "No problem!" Two empty gallon jars? "No problem! But you gotta clean dem."

No problem indeed. I walked out with a shopping bag filled with olives and two more, each with an empty jar that had held a bunch of pickled gardenia recently transferred to serving dishes in the store. (And they still had the vinegar smell and streaks of roasted red paper and caulilower florets to prove it!)

And here I am, taking a break over coffee at a sidewalk cafe just up the street from Teitel Brothers. There are neighborhood regulars and Fordham students ordering biscotti or cannoli. In a few minutes, I'll hop back on the Bx12 and keep heading west over the Fordham Road Bridge into Inwood for a subway home. Not a bad prelude to making my first two gallons of homemade olives--and pickling my first homemade sauerkraut from a head of cabbage I've been meaning to use while I'm at it.

Day 63 - Making Wine in Queens!

2007-10-06T20:19:00.000-04:00

New York State’s latest experiment in viticulture is, right here, in New York City. That’s right. Long Island’s merlots have been gaining a grudging respect for their trademark oaky flavor. And the upstate Finger Lakes region is known for its award-worthy Rieslings. The next region to become well-known? How about Queens? As in New York City.

The Queens County Farm Museum is a 47-acre farm, the last one in New York City. And though it’s just blocks from the Nassau County border, it’s New York City, alright. The Q79 bus stops right out in front. It’s been a working farm since 1697 and open as a museum and educational institution since 1975. The museum helps to interpret the site and to teach the public about the City’s agricultural history. There are sheep and pumpkins and goats and hogs and corn and, says Gary Mitchell, the farm's operations manager, “We also have planted in 2004 an acre-and-a-half of vinifera—French wine grapes on American root stock. And we have 4 varieties here on the farm: We have chardonnay, merlot, cab franc, and cab sauvignon.

“Our first harvest in 2006 which we’d taken to our wine maker at Premium Wine Group in Mattituck, and from that we have a merlot and possibly a red blend will come out of that first vintage. The second vintage is in the middle of harvesting now. We took a chardonnay and a merlot in. So our second 2007 vintage will be a white and a red.”

In theory, it shouldn’t be that hard to grow grapes in Queens. Climatically speaking this area gets basically the same weather as the vineyards 100 or so miles east on the end of Long Island. But there’s something about the notion of growing wine grapes in New York City that still seems to defy nature—or at least the odds.

“Obviously, no one had planted grapes on the farm before," says Gary. "So there was a little bit of a mystery about whether the grapes would grow and flourish, but they have.”

Gary, in his 50s, is a theater actor turned farm manager and non-profit winemaker. And he sports the straw hat and reddened neck to prove it. He was showing me around his vineyard a few weekends ago. The farm decided to grow wine grapes as an experiment to see what was possible—and as a way of creating more programs that would appeal to adults.

Hence, winemaking. Or wine-growing, really. The grapes are grown here. But modern-day winemaking requires specialized equipment like automated grape presses, large fermentation tanks, and a bottling facility. The Queens County Farm Museum has none of this. It doesn’t even really have enough grapes to get a sufficient volume of wine for modern day equipment. So Gary spoke to a fellow wine maker out east on Long Island.

“And his suggestion," Gary continued, was that because of minimum size of fermenting tanks and because of the amount of wine we actually wanted to make—which is by far the smallest quantity anyone makes with him, about 350 cases—it was decided very early on that we would have to source grapes from other LI growers. Any one variety here wouldn’t sufficient to make enough wine because it is only about an acre-and-a-half to two acres.

“Once we saw that we had some quality fruit. We’ve purchased some grapes and mixed ours in there so there’ll be a nice heavy percentage of our own grapes in the bottle, and make wine under the name Queens Farm Vineyards.”

Alice Wise of the Cornell Cooperative Extension in Suffolk County has been conducting viticulture research for the past 20 years. She says she is pleased with what the Queens experiment will mean for raising awareness among City residents of the importance agriculture retains in the region. Besides, she says, “New York City is probably the most important wine market in the world. Why wouldn’t we want to have some examples of local wines here?”

Back on the farm, a couple of Gary Mitchell's farmhands were snipping some examples of cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon grapes in order to introduce a dubious public to Queens’ possible future as a winegrowing region. The dozen or so rows of vines are all covered with netting that protects the precious grapes from birds, including the farm’s own Guinea hens which had raided a couple of rows a couple of weeks earlier. Underneath one was Carmen Ortiz, a baby-faced 29-year old father of three from Spanish Harlem who makes the hour-and-a-half trip out here to help out on the farm. Gary hired him earlier this summer after Carmen had come out here with his kids on a day trip to visit the farm.

Throngs of parents pushing strollers with rambunctious children in tow, some weighed down with bagfuls of apples, made their way up the farm’s main drive, from the entrance, past the hog pens and the sheep corrals. Some branched off for the obligatory corn maze. But an increasing number gathered around Gary and his assistant Carol Nicolini-McCauley as they handed out some samples from bins of wine grapes. Gary and Carol described the process of growing and harvesting wine grapes.

The vines receive as many as five prunings throughout the season. The prunings ensure that only the best grapes remain during the months when their fermentable sugar is concentrating in the fruit. Pruning also ensures that air can circulate around the grapes. This reduces the likelihood that a scourge of wine grapes in this region--powdery mildew—will take hold and ruin the crop.

Deciding when wine grapes are harvested is determined by several factors. Most are scientific, the most important being the sugar content in the grapes which increases throughout the season to a peak point before the grapes begin to raisin on the vine. Close to picking, the sugar can change by the day, and part of the art of the vintner is finding the exact moment to harvest.

But there are also practical challenges, such as when a non-profit farm museum can locate enough labor to pick an acre or so of grapes by hand. Or if Gary’s pickup truck has enough payload capacity to haul all the grapes to the winemaker.

Carmen lugged up a couple of crates of clipped grapes and Gary asked the assembling crowed who wanted to crush some grapes. A chorus of "MEEEE!"s went up--largely from the adults.

Nancy Santiago took her shoes off and stepped into a steel vat about twice the size of a bathtub and filled up to her ankels with cabernet sauvignon grapes. "This is weird. It's like stepping on bubble wrap!"

Last month, the farm harvested their chardonnay grapes, followed by the merlot a week later. This year’s chardonnay which, as a white wine, requires less time to ferment, should be ready at roughly the same time that last year’s merlot vintage will be ready: early next summer. Orders for the few hundred cases will taken by the Queens County Farm Museum soon.

When one dubious visitor asked if the wine that was being made was any good, Gary offered a honest appraisal:

“Drinkable. Really nice. We’re not going to make an award-winning wine. But we’ll make a decent tasting wine that you can take home for dinner and not be embarrassed.”

Day 50 - Please don't let us die at Lake Mead, alone.

2007-09-24T16:34:00.001-04:00

The picture tells you all you need to know.

The most important additional information is that after a long day of driving and racing to get to the Hoover Dam in time for the last tour (yes, I'm that much of a nerd) Megan and I were beat. So we were pleased to be giving our money to the National Park Service--or, at least, their concessionaire--at the very nearby Lake Mead National Recreation Area lakeside lodge. We pulled in at sundown, just in time to catch the last rays of sun over the shrinking lake. The lodges were a series of 1940s-era single-story motor-lodge buildings. There were maybe a dozen of these scattered around the lakeside, each with four single rooms.

The place seemed deserted. There wasn't a single car in the place except for one maintenance van outside the lodge office. The office itself was closed. A scotch-taped piece of paper said to ring the bell. But before we could, Tom suddenly appeared from around the corner. Chuckling. To himself. His company nametag was prominently displayed.

"Got to ring the bell. Heh, heh, heh, heh. You ring that bell, now! Heh, heh, heh, heh. Someone's there, alright. Heh, heh, heh, heh." And with that, he began systematically trying the knobs of locked doors down the row just to our left.

Megan rang the bell.

An opaque Prohibition-era window slid open and a revealed the face and not much more of a kindly silver-haired woman who briskly but not unpleasantly asked us the necessary questions to give us a room and charge a credit card. According to her nametag, she was Tomina. Tom and Tomina. Hmm .

Tom shuffled a little closer and said "Evening Tomina! Heh, heh."

"Evening, Tom," she called back from window.

Tom seemed to be around 40 with thinning hair beneath a company ballcap and a bushy beard beneath. T-shirt revealing a bit of a paunch that jiggled as he continuously chuckled mostly to himself and walked around with a halting gait. He was a charmed fellow, having some clinical issue with which he grappled. But why he was trying all the doors was a bit of a mystery.

"Looks like we have a few guests tonight, hmmm, Tomina?" he asked. "Heh, heh, heh."

I shit you not.

"Yes, Tom, we sure do." She answered him not in any complicit, creepy way. Rather, it was as though she was used to his oddness and learned how to engage him minimally enough to avoid getting into a conversation.

Or minimally enough not to be hacked to pieces when she stepped out back for a smoke.

Tom tried some more doors and went back around the corner.

"Now here's your key," Tomina said to us, finally, struggling to get a plump arm through the window without blocking her face. "Now don't leave it in the room if you go outside because the door locks behind you automatically. And after 10pm I'm gone and the office is closed for the night. Security is here after that, of course." And with that she pointed her chin past us to Tom who was walking back toward his van. "But he doesn't have keys to the rooms." She seemed to offer this last bit as reassurance rather than as a scold.

Tom called from his cab window, "You folks have a good evening. Heh, heh, heh, heh."

Now, it's important to point out that I'm writing this with the benefit of retrospect, but I'm not embellishing anything. That said, this all happened so quickly that, while we found him odd and, well, touched, I don't think Megan nor I thought much about the whole encounter. In fact, we were probably more frustrated that we were being charged $90 for the room.

But as we were driving from the office, aaalllll the way to the last room in the last building at the edge of the lodge property--in the dark--a certain sense of apprehension began to build.

We parked and unloaded the car. The room, on the corner of the building, had hand-crank windows with leaded glass panes on two sides. They were set into brick walls that had barely a coat of paint on them. There was a bed and and TV and a little table and lamp. No dresser. And no phone.

We walked around the 10-foot square box opening the windows to let in some of the beautiful evening lake air. We cracked open a couple of beers and, when we realized they were pretty warm, I headed back to the office to get some ice. I took the car to make it quicker. Suddenly, the fact that we were literally the only folks in the place, aside from Tomina and our guardian angel, Tom, began to weigh on me. More to the point, my imagination began to churn through a series of plausibly gruesome possibilities.

I wince now at the lack of creativity, but one involved Tom breaking into our room at about 3am (a time, incidentally, just late enough to lull edgy, alert city folks into a sense of their own ridiculousness and allow them to drift off to sleep for a few hours) and hacking us to bits.

But the one that took strongest root in my psyche was the thought that Tom was, in fact, relatively harmless in his compromised mental state. Despite that, I began to convince myself that he had several friends back in his neighborhood who would routinely pay Tom off with cigarettes and JuJu Fruits so that they could maraud around the grounds after Tomina left for the night. And what if, on this one night, they were sufficiently ennobled on meth to realize that of all the things on their lives' to do lists they hadn't yet crossed off "Killin Humens". Heh, heh, heh, heh. Maybe they always wanted to see how far someone could run after having a few knives thrust through their their...

WHOA...

Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous, I reassured myself as I pulled back up in front of our room with a bucket of ice. If such goons existed, surely they would have plied their boredom and penchant for evisceration on some other unsuspecting uptight saps before us. That said, I backed the car into the parking space for a quicker getaway. Just in case.

I walked back into the room and immediately posted myself at the table by the windows, watching out through the blinds into the darkness. Megan asked what was wrong. I was embarrassed to say what I was thinking. More to the point, I was scared of what I was thinking. "You worried about Tom?" she asked me.

"No," I said curtly. I was worried about his friends.

I didn't keep the charade up for long. Within a few minutes, we were both cranking the windows closed on the comfortable 60 degree evening and turning the air conditioner on.

After a few minutes more, we killed the lights so it would be easier to see out than to see in. I punched out 9-1-1 on my cell phone and had it ready to hit SEND on the nightstand. Atop Gideon's bible. I crawled into bed with the car keys which, I thought I was clever for remembering, had a panic button for the car alarm. What the fuck I thought that was going to do, I'm not sure. Maybe the striped bass would come flailing up the shore from the lake, in the dark, cross the road and the parking lot and save us from whoever was trying our door.

After awhile I didn't even feel comfortable with the TV on since it was keeping me from seeing if headlights were approaching the front window. This was sick stuff.

Megan tried reason. "Are you really more freaked out about staying here than out in the open in Death Valley? With coyotes?" I appreciated her a approach, but YOU BETTER FUCKING BELIEVE I WAS.

I responded in kind, with analysis. The only reason I was unnerved, I explained, was because we had empirical evidence of a strange-acting fellow whose putative job it was to walk around yanking on doors that were supposed to be locked. And that's when I flipped out a bit. The lock had not been changed on our door since this place opened in the 40s, I was sure. If Tom yanked too hard, I'm not sure it wouldn't give. So I crawled out of bed for what turned the culmination of the stupidity that was unraveling our perfectly nice day into an evening of intense anxiety and ruefulness at deciding to stay at such a desolate place with a fellow named, heh heh heh, Tom.

I took the old captain's chair from beside the table and wedged it beneath an edge in the door as I double-checked the lock. I don't know why--especially since I knew that that splintering, termite infested door was likely to crumble to sawdust if anyone gave it even a moderately forceful shoulder. But, somehow, having the chair wedged behind the door gave us a sense of security that was as irrational as the fantastically fiendish stories we had made up in the first place.

And with that, inexplicably, we both fell asleep for several hours until sunrise (below), albeit with the key ring around my finger and the phone under my pillow. Here's the sunrise we awoke to:

Days 49-50 - Death Valley Days

2007-09-24T16:32:00.004-04:00

We arrived in Death Valley at a propitious time for the lithospherically curious. Daytime highs had just dropped from the one-teens a few days before to the upper 90s. Associated with the cool front was a freak summertime storm that passed through the night before. It dropped a whopping six-tenths of one inch of rain-- 63/100 of an inch, to be precise. It doesn’t sound like a lot but in a place where the mean annual rainfall is just over two inches, you can do the math and see that they received one-third of their rain in an evening—and in the summertime instead of the usual wintertime.

In the desert, it doesn’t take a lot of water to create flash floods. The ground is so parched that it doesn’t readily absorb water quickly introduced through precipitation. So rain has a tendency to fall in the mountains that surround valleys, like Death Valley, and run straight down canyons, acting as sluices, to the valley floor. Improbably small amounts of rainwater accumulate momentum running down mountain faces in rivulets that grow immediately into rivers that didn’t exist 15 minutes earlier. These flash floods, in turn, wash tens of thousands of tons of boulders, gravel and sand along with it. Across the face of the mountain range, dozens of small canyons all direct this slurry into a single wall of water that rushes across the valley floor. Frightfully, rain falling 10 miles to the west can result in a flood that reaches your campground in minutes, even if a drop of rain never falls directly on your rainfly.

The storm that passed through the night before we arrived closed the roadways to the northern half of the park. Some were impassable just from being covered in the silt and dust washed in by the flood. The water, over hours, will soak into the ground or evaporate and leave behind the slurry that dries to a consistency not unlike cement. Other roads buckle and crack as the force of the wash erodes the roadbed. Anything sitting in the low-lying areas of the valley in the way of the bedload of the flood gets bulldozed along for hundreds of feet—tents, 4x4s, campers, buildings, hikers. I’m not sure that the whole scope of damage was known by the time we left a few days later. But there is a well-documented flood from a similar wildcat storm around the settlement of Furnace Creek in the valley from 2004 that may act as a guide.

Death Valley is a large depression that was once the site of a large inland water body—Lake Manly, long ago disappeared—which was hemmed in on the western side by the Panamint Mountains and on the east by the Amargosa Range. It is, as you all know, the lowest place in the western hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. Through a fascinating set of geological forces that can be explained much better by John McPhee than by me, the floor of Death Valley is subsiding while the mountain ranges framing it continue to rise. It is just one example of hundreds in this part of the country that is, geologically, referred to as the Basin & Range Province for the north-south undulations across nearly 1000 miles that lead a traveler moving east-west to the impression that they’re on a continental-sized roller coaster: up a range, down a range into a basin, up another range; relentlessly. It is what creates the pulse-quickening vistas of a single road struck out across a vast expanse of nothingness heading straight for a monumentally size slab of rock.

Understanding how all of this works over millions of years makes it occasionally hard for green-minded, tree hugging neurotic obsessives like me who are conscientious about “saving the Earth” to wonder what impact, in fact, humans will ultimately have left on the planet 100,000 years on, even if our time here ends in environmental cataclysm. The most apocalyptic ending you or I or the most creative science fiction genius could imagine will be merely a blip on the timeline. It’s a little fucking depressing.

So, enjoy it while you can. And with that in mind, we hiked into Golden Canyon. Twice, in fact: once along the sheer western escarpment of the exceedingly phallic but definitely named Manly Beacon during the late afternoon setting sun; again the next morning from the opposite face as the sun rose. I won’t do the landscape’s tactile polychromatism justice. The pictures below will do only a little bit better.

In between we camped in Furnace Creek beneath the spindly needles of a tamarisk tree. As the sun finished setting silhouetted puffs of cumulus clouds faded to shadow in an inky sky. They had been approaching from the west for an hour or two. We saw a couple flashes of lightning in the way-off distance. We wondered if there’d be more rain tonight.

It took me awhile to fall asleep. Much as I love it, I always have a bit of trepidation about sleeping in a tent. It didn’t help that the dusk seems to always bring a stiff wind in the desert. As the sun sets and the air cools, the ground gives up a tremendous amount of absorbed heat from during the day. This radiant cooling creates temperature differences across the valley and, often, strong winds. I cringed a bit while lying away for hours, reading, and watching the top of my tent bend over almost 90 degrees and wondering when we’d go tumbling across the salt pan in it.

It took me awhile to realize the wind blowing through the tamarisk tree above our tent wasn't the whoosh of cars passing by on the road. We weren't even near enough to the road to hear cars as I thought about it.

After midnight, the wind died down and, finally, I drifted off.

At 1:00 A.M. what sounded like a gaggle of school children laughing and screaming at recess came from somewhere outside the tent. I awoke with a faint sense of startlement and disorientation. For a minute I thought I was back in my apartment with the sound of children drifting up and over the lip of my windowsill from the PS 125 schoolyard below at noon. (The moon was brightly lighting the tent now that the sky had been blown clear.) Then I remembered the tent and began to wonder what I could have been dreaming that reminded me of kids yelling and carrying on. But as the fog of sleep burned off a bit more I heard the sound again and realized I really was hearing something like baying children. My heart beat into my throat.

Now I have been to the desert only once before. And I’ve never heard a coyote before. But very quickly I settled on the notion that I was hearing baying coyotes. They didn't sound like the classic movie coyotes. (Do they ever? Cue the moon; cue the howl.) I listened closely and discerned two distinct sounds. One was a group of high-pitched whining and howling coyotes—truly like a crowd of children. And they were close by—certainly somewhere in the campground. Whenever they died down, a deeper, lone howl way off in the distance clear across the salt pan would wail. And the group nearby would respond. This went back and forth for a while. Was it a group of pups, wandered off, howling for their mother? Was she chastening them? After awhile, eerie, unnerving silence. I tell you—teeth chattering—I couldn’t stand it.

Days 45-48 - L.A. Days

2007-09-23T16:30:00.000-04:00

It took my second trip to California to finally see Los Angeles. And Santa Monica. Never really had any yearning to go there. It was easier, as an avowed urbanist, to just hate it unseen. As I found out (and, truthfully, as I suspected) there were aspects of the place that I was utterly fond of. Sure, there was eye-rolling audacity. And, in fairness, I was pretty jazzed when we had dinner sitting beside Jon Favreau (Queens kid; Bx HS of Sci class of '84) one night at an upscale sushi joint in Brentwood.

But there were also delightful enclaves of Arts and Crafts houses bracketed by rows of Indian laurel fig trees which are common, handsome street trees in LA. Palm trees may be more numerous, but the Indian laurel fig is more distinctive with its birch paper-colored bark and strong sinuous trunks and branches growing up in erratic directions, like a live oak--or Malcom Gladwell's hair. And the streetsigns in old LA are deco-era cobalt-blue porcelain and enamel-on-iron. The edges of municipalities are gerrymandered into irregular sawtooth patterns here, but you always know when you've drifted back into LA when these beautiful signs reappear on the poles for a block or two or seven.

Megan and I spent some time looking for the iconic, mid-century Stahl house, number 22 in the Case Study House project. We snaked our way up and down some compact car-width switchbacks up and down the road it was supposedly on in the Hollywood Hills. We could tell by the view across LA that we were close, but the house itself seems to now be behind gates to keep the likes of gawkers like us out.

And there isn't much I'll be able to say about the Getty that hasn't already been effused. If you have any interest in line or light, this is a place you must come to. Given one day, I was pleased to see it in sunlight. But I want to return in different seasons, at different times of day, to see how haze or night or a sun setting beyond the Santa Monica mountains plays with the color of the travertine, the curve of the banisters and the woody gardens.

Days 45-59: Days Afield

2007-09-22T16:40:00.000-04:00

Writing in retrospect, the next two weeks that will be chronicled here are a trip that I should have taken sooner in my break, if only it were possible. Megan and I headed out west for a couple of weeks of visits with family and roadtripping through the desert. As I am quickly becoming accustomed to, the desert's great expanse and vast quiet have a way of focusing the mind for a bit. If you're lucky enough to be paying attention while it's happening, it can be instructive; I've been far more productive since being back than before I left.

And, of course, there are the wonderful moments on the trip itself that are fun to replay. I'll be adding posts from our time away over the next week or so. Stay tuned.

Day 43 - Newtown Creek

2007-09-16T23:06:00.000-04:00

As we nosed into the mouth and rounded the knob of land that is north Brooklyn, the Manhattan skyline drifted over the industryscape that lines both sides of the creek. I felt, for a moment, like I could be in the Meadowlands. Or Bayonne.

But it was New York. Old Newtown, in fact, on the creek that bears the erstwhile western Queens placename.

On September 16th, the Newtown Creek Alliance held a second boat tour of the creek (I missed the first one). While I've spent a good deal of time working and poking along both edges of the creek, I'd never been on it. So Megan and I headed over to the East 23rd St. marina, down the gangway past moored yachts and aboard M.V. Half Moon, the worn but reliable dinner cruise boat that NCA seems to get to use for a lot of its on-water programs.

The pictures below catalog a good deal of what we saw on this dynamic waterway. It has a very rich history in several respects. Part is economic. By 1910 the value of commerce along this 3.5 mile tidal estuary eclipsed that of the mighty, muddy 2,320 mile Mississippi River. It still abuts three of New York City's most productive industrial areas: Long Island City, East Williamsburg, and Maspeth, though its share of water-dependent uses has dwindled. It is, unfortunately, the receiver of millions of gallons of storm-water runoff each year during heavy rains. And because much of New York City's sewer system combines storm- and sanitary sewer pipes into one system, heavy rain often mean that tons of raw sewage wash into the creek. Then, of course, there is the huge plume of oil caused by years of leaking tanks at the former ExxonMobil site in Greenpoint which continues to send oil percolating up from the shallow water table to the skim of the creek.

The NCA's mission is to "revitalize, restore and reveal" Newtown Creek. The tour, if repeated, is a lovely way to spend and afternoon--malodorous though the upper reaches of it may be. Cotton puff clouds and a crisp late-summer breeze help to ease the smells a bit.

Day 38 - Worksman Bikes

2007-09-11T22:33:00.000-04:00

I wish I had more pictures to share the experience visually with you, but I spent an hour or so this morning with Wayne Sossin of Worksman Business Cycles in Ozone Park, Queens.

I was interviewing Wayne to learn more about his 110 year old business building "business cycles". These are not Lance Armstrong's cycles, though if you want a bike that will live strong for a generation or two, these are the ones to buy. Worksman markets most of their products for industrial or work-related uses: moving small payloads around factory floors, letting mobile maintenance crews at a plant zip around as needed, delivering pizza or groceries to apartments in the neighborhood. They have also branched into similar lines of work, including heavier-duty recreation bikes that provide a sturdiness for older folks or special-needs riders.

Wayne quipped, “You’re not going to ride a century on a Worksman cycle, but if you need to get from here to there and need to have reliability that when you run into a curb there’s nothing at all is going to happen to your wheel, but the curb might break, that’s what we’re all about.”

Nothing like naming your business to clearly identify yourself, right?

Dumb luck, actually. Or an enterprising immigrant who recognized the power of changing one's name for the right business opportunity.

Morris Worksman was a Russian immigrant who came to New York and set up a sundries business in lower Manhattan near the turn of the 20th century. He saw an application for using the newly popular bicycle to help move goods around factories and, importantly, to make deliveries instead of the typical horse-and-cart. It was an apparent success. Fast-forward three decades and Worksman had its next big source of demand: mobile vending.

In the 1930s, an Ohio-based confectionery who had recently invented a sweet treat that froze sweetened cream on wooden sticks had just sold its invention--Good Humor ice cream bars--to a New York investor who subsequently expanded and franchised Good Humor routes across the country. In the suburbs, Good Humor Men may have rode around and sold their sweet wares out of their signature trucks. But in NYC and other urban areas, Good Humor Men often used bicycles—Morris Worksman’s bicycles. The basic need hasn't changed much: the need for a sturdy, dependable machine to carry a lot of weight easily and efficiently.

Seems a little anachronistic these days, no? Or, at least, not a growth industry.

Maybe not. But Wayne points to the fact that he has had sales that have held steady over the past several years while several other US-based bicycle manufacturers have either closed or moved their production off-shore. In fact, according to the National Bike Dealers Association, over 99% of bicycles sold in the US in 2006 were imported.

To grow his business he is working with several universities to use his bikes and trikes to set up bike-sharing programs like ones written about recently in Paris and Berlin and openly discussed in some circles in New York City by the New York Bike Share Project.

The other thing Wayne is doing--and almost all savvy New York City manufacturers know they have to do this--is to reduce his biggest costs. Wayne's lucky. He bought the building he's in now a number of years ago. While it required a large capital outlay (which he was lucky to be able to pull together--not all manufacturers can) it has insulated him from the market's recent overheating. He also has some of his fabrication completed overseas before receiving them here to do the bulk of the building and customizing work for customers. And he's working the the New York Industrial Retention Network to figure out how to use his factory building's large rooftop to generate some of the electricity he uses from solar energy to further reduce his ongoing costs. This and similar programs are offered by NYIRN through RenewableNY.

It's not easy doing business in New York, but Wayne says he couldn't imagine doing it anywhere else.

“Being born in NYC holds a special place in my heart," Wayne says. "Being able to have a business here where we employ a decent number of NY residents is a wonderful feeling and I’m committed to make sure that that continues. It would be really easy for us to pack it in in NYC and move to a more modern place where costs are lower. But the beautiful thing about being here is that there is a certain magic of the NYC resident."

Describing his 60 or so employees from a half-dozen countries, Wayne continues, "They’re resilient and hard working. There is a great pool of labor in NYC which I think is often overlooked. You can see the ethnicities based on what they’re eating for lunch. We definitely have some interesting aromas here around 12:30.”

Day 36 - French Charley's

2007-09-09T20:33:00.000-04:00

Today was the NYC Century. I had bold visions of biking most of it. But after a couple of longish rides in the week leading up to today I decided I was still too out-of-shape to do a long ride. And this important point: I never get to see the Bronx portion of the NYC Century, lacking the stamina to do the whole 100 miles with the Bronx always the last 25 or 30 miles of the route. So as to compromise this year I headed straight for the Bronx portion of the route to do my own quarter-century ride in the quiet of the South Bronx on a sunny Sunday morning.

I sneaked over the Willis Ave. Bridge before 7:00 AM to skim the top of Hunts Point along the Bruckner. Finally, I made it into the Bronx during my time off. (I had taken one other quick trip up here several weeks ago to have lunch at Mo Gridder's BBQ in Hunts Point, but this was my first real exploring.) The biggest treat was heading into Soundview Park for the first time. The Century's route took riders along the newly opened bike paths in the park which head toward Classons Point beneath the planes landing on Runway 22 at LaGuardia just across the Upper East River.

From there I headed north into the heart of the Bronx through Olinville, a neighborhood just east of Bronx Park centering on Burke & Allerton Avenues and including the erstwhile turf of The Wanderers, one of a number of gangs of the era that loosely monitored a number of neighborhoods throught the Bronx at the time. I learned all this from my good friend Wilfredo Lopez who, in part, grew up in Olinville--and was a Wanderer.

From there I headed north into the heart of the Bronx through Olinville, a neighborhood just east of Bronx Park centering on Burke & Allerton Avenues and including the erstwhile turf of The Wanderers, one of a number of gangs of the era that loosely monitored a number of neighborhoods throught the Bronx at the time. I learned all this from my good friend Wilfredo Lopez who, in part, grew up in Olinville--and was a Wanderer.

Olinville is largely West Indian these days. (One of my favorite roti shops, Feroza's, is on Burke just east of White Plains Road--thanks, Matt!) But in the 1960's it was almost uniformly Italian. And Wilfredo moved in as one of the only Puerto Rican teenagers at a time (and in an age group) when ethnic identity was all there was for a person.

I know Wilfredo from my time at the Health Department. He retired this year after a career as their general counsel during one of urban public health's most activist and contentious periods in the modern era. It included, only most recently: the smoking ban, an effort to post caloric content on fast food menus, and regulating better tracking of diabetes patients to help them find better care in managing their disease. There were more than 20 years of similar struggles to balance the health needs of the public with the civil rights of HIV and TB patients. He has also been re-writing the health code to consider the chronic illnesses that are killing people today as thoughtfully as the contagious diseases that were the public's bane a couple of generations ago. But when I found out that he grew up in the Bronx and was willing to show me around his old haunts, I was even more enamored of him. And it's when I learned about French Charley's.

Wilfredo was a smart kid who hung around with an assortment of characters growing up in the 1960s. And it being the Bronx, the assortment include some folks who messed around and got in some trouble--mostly as a gang called The Wanderers. And French Charley's was one of those places where those sorts of guys hung out. Well, it was where they hung out when they wanted to make a little trouble. With the Ducky Boys. With the Fordham Baldies.

In his classic Bronx voice, undulled by a couple of decades on Long Island at this point, he told me on one of our tours of the old neighborhood "When we had a beef with anudduh gang, we'd go to French Charley's over there in the duh park to seddle it."

"French Charley's? What was that?" This had to find its way into a story somewhere, I thought.

"It's in duh park over dere. It was a low spot where we'd go tuh rumble. I dunno why duh hell dey call it 'French Charley's' but dats what we called it and, man!, did we guys get into some trouble down dere."

And now, a few years later on my Sunday morning bike ride through this same park, I came upon this sign:

French Charley's, as I could now see plainly, was an ideal spot for a rumble--or for cutting up in a friendlier way with friends. It is a hollow at the base of a tall, winding stairwell of Fordham gneiss and schist, out of view of most passers by. I have no proof of this, but the play equipment and signage is almsot undoubtedly better today than it was forty years ago. Here's how John McNamara describes the place from History In Asphalt: The origin of Bronx street & place names:

"A well-known ballfield and picnic grounds that were bounded by Webster Avenue, the Bronx River, and East 203rd Street was the former grounds of a French restaruant, of which "French Charley" Mangin was the proprietor in the 1890s. His daughter married a Philip Bianchi, stonemason, and lived her entire life not far from where her father's restarurant had stood."

So dats why dey call it dat.

Further along the ride, out of the idyllic gangland that was Burke Avenue, I rode into Van Cortlandt Park along bike paths that I had only ever hiked along. (Some great downhills to top out at 25mph on!) Around a few bends that weave over and under Mosholu Parkway I came across the NYC Century Bronx rest stop. Most century riders doing the full route weren't due through here for a couple more hours. So imagine their surprise when I rolled up as they were still quartering oranges and smearing peanut butter onto half-sandwiches. Sheepishly, I decided not to confirm their astonishment at my stamina and speed; I explained how I cheated.

The rest stop was set up beside the right-of-way for the old Putnam Division of the NY Central Railroad. I had known about this for years. My friend and Urban Park Ranger Matt Symons brought me here one fall afternoon to show me what had become a trackless hiking trail, knowing my love of history and trains. But what I hadn't noticed until chomping on a banana and refilling my water bottle here was the relic of the old Van Cortlandt station on the line. It's not much to speak of. The iron girders that held the canopy over the open-air station are all that stands beside the trail. The line, in different incarnations, ran from The Polo Grounds in upper Manhattan across the Harlem River and under High Bridge in the Bronx and then north in Westchester and Putnam counties. If it were still used today, it would have been roughly parallel and between Metro North's Hudson & Harlem divisions. From what I can gather from a few non-primary sources, passenger trains last ran over this line in the 1940s with gradual retrenchment along the ends of the line--as was common in the time of the automobile ascendant--until trains were completely gone in the late 1960s.

Back into northern Manhattan for my first ride down the Harlem River esplanade in over a year. On the river, students studying sculling in the morning shadows. Further down, one of the nicest treats for anyone who appreciates great structures and accomplishments of civil engineering:

Day 33 - The Bayonne Bridge, Finally

2007-09-06T22:12:00.000-04:00

So, occasionally, the effort to do new New York City things requires detours into, well, New Jersey.

I took the opportunity to visit a friend and her new 9-week-old in Hoboken today and used it to do a good pre-ride in anticipation of the NYC Century at the next weekend. I'd been to Hoboken before, but taking a bike there allowed for a few other firsts. I got to bike over the north path of the GWB. Typically the south path is the one bikers use as it's a pretty easy ride with no stairs and a single, gently graded ramp on the Manhattan side. The north path is, on the hand, a tangle of steep stairwells, cages and underpaths woven among vehicular ramps at either end, evoking a outsize game of chutes and ladders. They are dark in places (even during the day) with tight corners where folks who choose to linger on the path can secret themselves. Though I will say it's worthwhile to make it onto the span in between these seedy ends to get a gorgeous view of Inwood Hill and northward up the Hudson River canyon.

From the GW down to Hoboken is a pretty easy ride (I hit 30mph dropping down from the palisade at the bridge to the shore!) mostly along River Road through towns whose names I've always heard on traffic reports and had vague notions of where they were on a map somewhere west of me--Palisades Park, Guttenberg, Weehawken--but had never spent any time in. Particularly fun was biking underneath The Helix--the corkscrew of an approach that winds its way down from the Jersey palisade to the mouth of the tunnel and is how most people enter it from the Jersey side. It's such an impersonal behemoth when you drive up or down it that it's hard to imagine a community with people and houses down below, but they're there.

South of Hoboken I wended my way south and west through Jersey City toward Bayonne, into a steady headwind for 15 miles. I'll have to do the research, but my sense is that Bayonne is as old school a working class enclave as perhaps still exists in the New York City region. Homes, cheek-by-jowl in the best spirit of many spots in Queens, were all immaculate, if modest. It's impossible to be anywhere on the peninsula that doesn't overlook the lurking creatures of the port in Newark Bay and be reminded of how much is shipped into the region and handled by folks like those sitting on stoops up an down the streets here. Kids returning from school have only to look westward down the streets to see silhouetted reminders.

This place, among others nearby, was a primary beneficiary of the port trade that decamped from New York's Hudson and East River piers for more inexpensive and less encumbered space. A brisk business in the barging of rail cars across the Hudson River left gantries just north of here in Greenville. After the 1940s, though, there was less--and a lessening--need for the bulk commodities that rail shipping favors to enter--or leave--New York City. Robert Fitch's The Assassination of New York, recently updated, tells one version of these events. Sad for us. But bully for the working schnooks here.

Further on down the peninsula, the parabola of the Bayonne Bridge came into view. It was really the whole reason for this trip by bike: it's the only bridge in New York City that allows bikes and pedestrians over it that I hadn't yet traversed. The whole ride here I had been assuming--with no particular reason or evidence--that the bike path would be on the eastern face of the bridge. For several miles of tough biking into the wind I had imagined cresting the bridge, hopping of my bike for a few minutes, and sitting cross-legged to eat the rest of the sandwich I hadn't finished at lunch. And in the way that tough bike rides have a way of focusing one's mind on particular goals or scenes in one's mind, if only one was to make it, I had assumed that this would happen in the shade of the bridge with the sun setting at my back while I gazed eastward along the Kill Van Kull toward the Bay.

Except the pathway is on the other side.

I can't explain the strangest, if slight, sense of disappointment this created. It is a gorgeous, sun-glinted view from up there nonetheless. In fact, it was probably a far more dramatic view. The path launches up and curves around toward the handsome steel arch that is in its diamond jubilee year. Beneath the bridge's pier on the Bayonne side are a small sprawl of tidal mudflats with frogs and crickets chirping away in the late afternoon. The zenith offers faraway views of Staten Island's other three bridges as well as Lower Manhattan. Lumbering below in the Kill Van Kull was a sleepily groaning tugboat. I wanted to see a container ship pass beneath on its way to Newark Bay; I'm told the largest among them can't make it under the Bayonne's still-impressive 150 foot clearance at mid-span. And most of the rest have to fold down their antenna just to squeak under--at low tide.

Down the other side, the Bayonne Bridge lands in the Port Richmond neighborhood on Staten Island. The houses are similarly modest here and of a similar age as those in Bayonne. But unlike on the other side of the water, the bridge lands right in the middle of a neighborhood. From the bike path, I could see what some folks were preparing for dinner.

As a Staten Islander, I have always admired this bridge. As a kid, it was probably because there was hardly any reason to go over it and that made me curious about it. The Verrazano, Outerbridge and Goethals all took our family to places of greater import, I guess. (A lot of other people must feel that way, too. Respectively, their average daily vehicle counts are: 194,000, 84,000, and 76,500. The Bayonne? 23,400.) But as I've gotten older, I've fallen in love with its soaring, parsimonious steel arch. There is a deco, streamlined feel to it. And it reminds me of my most favorite bridge in New York: the stately, slightly older but equally anachronistic Hell Gate.

Of all the bridges I'm not supposed to cross but want to, that one's at the top of the list. :-)

Day 30 - Waning Days of Summer, at Sunset

2007-09-04T23:37:00.000-04:00

More surprises where I expected least to find them.

I took this long circuitous bike ride (with thanks to MFS for introducing me to bikely.com) from my place in Morningside Heights through Downtown Brooklyn, Crown Heights, Ditmas Park, down Ocean Parkway, through Brighton Beach, along the Coney Island boardwalk (stopped to watch a Cyclones game), through Bensonhurst and Bay Ridge--all real estate that was well-trodden to me: Riding over the Manhattan Bridge always reminds me of a Bernice Abbott photo, no matter time of day nor weather; I was familiar with the Victorians in Ditmas Park and they're as gorgeous as ever; I used to be a Cyclones season ticket holder and it's still the coolest thing in the world to watch double plays in one direction and the surf beating the shore in the other; I used to live in Bay Ridge and the limestone rowhouses are the handsomest I know in the boroughs.

I was riding with Megan and showing her some of these places for the first time, which was just as fun for me. It's always a little bit new to see a place again by telling someone else about it from memories: first apartments, run-ins, trysts, favorite pizza. Heady stuff.

So imagine my surprise most of the way up 6th Avenue, climbing into Sunset Park, to realize I'd never been there. Never once. Thirty-five years in New York, minus a couple of inconsequential ones, and I had never stepped foot in the actual Sunset Park. Been to the neighborhood a hundred times. Even skirted the park itself a bunch of times. But never once inside. Ridiculous, it seems.

Even more awing when we wound our way through the hundreds--maybe a couple thousand--of neighborhood residents lounging, barbecuing, biking, dribbling soccer balls, batting at tennis balls or slicing salted mango with paprika and lime, is the view from the ridgeline in the center of the park. Off to the west, through a thin afternoon haze, was the evidence of a still-working waterfront on the Brooklyn shoreline, a procession of rooftop watertanks and, almost within reach if you tried, the skyline at the Battery. I suspect we accidentally and quite happily stumbled upon this special place on the best day of the year: a picture perfect final summer day at, well, sunset. The stats I read tell me that Flushing Meadows is the most intensively used park in NYC's system; I wouldn't believe it today.

Much of the weekend was like that: expecting the familiar and being grabbed by what we didnt' expect. Somehow we totally forgot that it was the West Indian Day parade until we tried biking across Eastern Parkway and got caught up for blocks in grills, coolers, jerk seasoning, steel drum bands and a surprising trail of paraders in fuchsia.

And L&B Spu moni Gardens has a mouth-watering Sicilian slice that we were sorry to arrive too full to try more of. We stopped in as we passed by en route home. I assumed I'd just be crossing another good slice off of my list of pizza to try in NYC, and I almost wept instead at the idiocy of showing up to a place like this after a big lunch at Gambrinus in Brighton. It seems silly to worry over it, but the true pizza aficionados in the audience will appreciate exactly what I mean by this.

A day later I'm still grinning at the fond memories of happening into Sunset Park for the first time. It's a wonderful feeling to find the new in the familiar; we should all have more if it in our lives.

Day 25 - La Guardia Landing Lights

2007-08-28T12:52:00.000-04:00

If you find yourself wending your way through northern Queens on the M60 bus to La Guardia Airport, and you're not lost in a book or frantically trying to balance your suitcase and knapsack on the jerky bus while fumbling for your boarding pass and checking your watch, and you look up and out the window on the right side of the bus at the exact time that it is turning through the intersection of Astoria Blvd and 82nd St, you might catch a glimpse of it: the familiar looking Parks sign with the best logo of any city agency--the Parks Leaf. Except that this sign designates a park with one of the most peculiar, at least one of my favorite names: La Guardia Landing Lights. Look a little closer and you find the eponymous structures--a series of lightpoles spaced a few hundred feet apart that lead landing airplanes to Runway 4 at the airport.

And if you're unencumbered by luggage, not rushing for a flight and happen to get off here, and if the planes are landing on Runway 4 that day, you'll be right in the laning path of big jets floating down to the end of the runway barely a quarter-mile away.

The edges of airports can be strange places to find oneself. They have a Lilliputian feel; by the very nature of where it's located, things are low-slung. Streetlights are half-sized. Buildings don't usually go above a single story. And there is a surprising number of folks who, equally enamored of planes passing barely 50 feet above their heads at better than 100 mph, skulk around the ends of runways just sitting and watching. Several for hours. On a recent visit, at least two families pitched a sheet and were picnicking while planes roared overhead. It seemed quintessentially urban. I loved it. And I'll be back here a lot over the next few weeks.

Day 24 - A Horse of a Certain Color

2007-08-27T20:53:00.001-04:00

How many times have you wandered around the City--probably in a park--and seen a statue of some war hero or colonist or constitutionalist? Occasionally, an animal is included. Very rarely, it's something odd that makes most people stop and wonder a bit, like Balto. More often it's merely the stead that one of the above rode in on. But it's not everyday that one wanders past these monuments and finds it mounted not just by its warrior, but by a worker--a civil servant. Specifically, a member of the Citywide Monuments Conservation Program staff of the Department of Parks & Recreation. (Which, I guess, in the context of conserving art in NYC is a warrior of a different sort, too.) Those following the link will learn more but, in short, the program "monitors the condition of, and performs conservation treatments and maintenance on, the extensive and irreplaceable public art collection in New York City's parks."

There are more than 1200 monuments in City parks, 300 or so of which are sculptures. They're listed here.

Day 24 - Out & About Around Town

2007-08-27T13:16:00.000-04:00

Most of the best observations are not the ones we set out to find, but the ones we notice along the way to somewhere else. Imagine my giddy surprise when, on my way back from a midtown lunch waiting for an uptown 1 train at Columbus Circle, I noticed a couple guys in hardhats exposing the gem pictured above as they were ripping off a couple of decades of nondescript glazed tile from on top of it. It was unclear when I was taking this picture if the tile was to remain as part of the current reconstruction project!

Columbus Circle is the latest major subway hub to undergo reconstruction & modernization. The IRT line running through it is on the original subway line inaugurated in October 1904 that ran from City Hall up the east side, across 42nd Street, and then up Broadway to W. 145th Street. The handsome ceramic plaque above indicates that some of the ceramic tile in the station was compliments of the American Encaustic Tiling Co. from Zanesville, Ohio. Encaustic tiling was a decorative form of tiling regaining popularity at the turn of the 20th century due, in some part, to the renewed interest in aesthetic flourishes in municipal and public structures known as the City Beautiful movement and, itself, an outgrown of the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. It instigated and celebrated other such wonderful public works as the ornate whimsical entrances of the Paris Metro but is known locally to most people through the thoughtful tile mosaics in subway stations--both in the original and updated--and the birth of the Municipal Art Society.

Day 22 - This Place Used To Be A Dump!

2007-08-25T20:13:00.000-04:00

Literally.

The Fresh Kills Landfill operated for more than 50 years, much to the chagrin of every single Staten Islander except, perhaps, for DSNY guys who worked there and also lived on the Island. For much of that time, it received every shred of household garbage disposed by New York's 7 or 8 million residents. It was originally devised in the late 1940s as a place to dump fill from a variety of Moses-era projects on the Island and slated for closure in fewer than 5 years. But over time, our society's disposable approach to the world required more space to stick the increasing residue of a consumer economy--of 7 or 8 million people. Over time Fresh Kills grew to over 2000 acres--more than 3 square miles--of stinking trash piled high on the former tidal mud flats of Staten Island's western shore. Some spots are now more than 10 stories high.

I grew up about 10 blocks away. It didn't always stink, but it did quite often. People in the neighborhood would joke that we were just used to it always smelling. Folks who didn't live nearby asked if the stench was unbearable in the summer. In fact, I remember fall and winter as being the smelliest times. Maybe the heavy, humid air did a better job at tamping down the odors than the crisp, fresh breezes in cooler weather. And it seemed to only ever smell at night. Stories, many apocryphal I'm sure, circulated as to why this was. My favorite, told by the elders on the block with a conviction that recalled their stories about being in wars, was that the tractors turned the garbage over at night when the sea gulls that infested the landfill would be less likely to swoop in and carry away chicken carcasses or apple cores or dirty diapers. I've seen the gulls at the dump. Nightfall would not have stopped them from a meal.

Another story shared, perhaps a bit more plausible since it was relayed (or maybe just repeated) by our teachers at school, was that Fresh Kills was one of only two human-made structures visible from space; the other being the Great Wall. What is undeniable is that by the end of its life, Fresh Kills was receiving 12,000 tons of waste a day. That 24,000,000 pounds of shit in one form or another. Every day of the week.

In 1999 The Dump, as it was uniformly called, was finally closed to the cheers and psychic relief of everyone on Staten Island. In September 2001 a portion was pressed into service again, temporarily, to take in a good deal of the debris from the World Trade Center. Here the solemn, macabre task of sifting through fine dust and debris for a variety of objects of human significance--papers, ID cards, family photos that used to be propped up on desktops, wedding bands which were not pulverized by the pancaking floors, and, yes, bone fragments--was conducted around the clock by a specially trained group of forensic investigators. Much of what was too fine to be identified, but which almost undoubtedly contained traces of mementos of the lives of more than 3000 people, remains in on a hallowed hilltop poking up from this ignoble expanse.

Over the past 5 or 6 years, several City agencies have been working on a plan to transfer this site--three times the size of Central Park--from the Department of Sanitation to the Parks Department, and to develop it over the next 20 years into recreation and and reclaimed natural areas. Now if that's not turning the term "reclamation" on its head (mud flats and the like are typically "reclaimed" from nature by filling them in and building subdivisions or Home Depots on them, praise God), then you've me. The NYC Urban Park Rangers are giving tours of The Dump from time to time. So this weekend, my girlfriend and I hopped on our bikes and joined an intrepid and sometimes quizzical dozen other folks to see how the last few years of inactivity at Fresh Kills have begun to transform the natural landscape. The results follow below. It was a hazy day, but it made the bucolic wetlands feel of the place even more apparent. Nevermind the subdivisions and Home Depots in the distance.

You'll also see a few other pictures from our bike trip which included a trip to the German-style beer hall Kilmeyer's near where Joseph Mitchell wrote about the freed slave community of Sandy Ground in the Charleston section of Staten Island. And then there are the bricks from the Kreischer Brick Works (scroll down about 1/4 of the way) which was about one-quarter mile away from Kilmeyer's and, at one point, responsible for quite a bit of the fireproof brick construction in NYC. The sidewalks are still paved with them out there. Enjoy!

Day 21 - Ellis Island

2007-08-24T19:29:00.000-04:00

It's embarrassing, but I hadn't been here, yet... in a City that is 36% foreign-born.

As probably everyone else already knows, this spit of land played perhaps the central role in one of the largest migrations in all of human history. In the course of about 60 years beginning in 1892, more than 12 million poor people moved through the vaulted, Gustavino-tiled Great Hall here in their quests--real or imagined--to take part in the grandeur that was America. The Great Hall was the dynamo of a human factory. In a single year, 1907, over 1,000,000 souls move into and out of this chamber. The single busiest day saw a staggering 11,000 waddling, huddled men, women and children funneled in from ferries and steamships, circulated through various veins of bureaucracy and cavalier clinical reviews radiating from the hall, and then disgorged again. On a typical day, more than 98% would move further on toward their dreams. The rest remanded or returned for a variety of reasons, some capricious. Despite the room's heft, the strength conveyed by the smoothly hewn stone columns and tiled walls, it's not hard to imagine groaning sounds coming not from the masses inside, but from the building itself under the strain--of shear numbers, of weariness and of hope.

For those coming to this country in steerage (first- and second-class passengers moved through customs and immigration dockside in Manhattan), this was the third and perhaps only the penultimate leg of their journeys. Most started in small, destitute rural hinterlands in Europe, traveling on foot, by wagon or railroad to a port; booked passage on a steamer to New York that might take a week or a month depending on the storms of the North Atlantic, arriving at a passenger terminal on the Hudson River; were moved out of steerage and onto ferries for Ellis Island and then back onto those same ferries to return to the rail terminals along the Hudson if they were traveling further west (a surprising number were). Or, if they were making a go of it in NYC, they were dropped off at the Battery where they might finally be greeted by eagerly anticipating friends or loved ones. Or not.

The museum on Ellis Island has an impressive collection of paper, ephemera and photographs of what they call The Immigrant Experience. And it is extensive. One item which I was transfixed by is a mural-like collage of scenes of folk artist Ralph Fasanella's memories of his childhood as part of an immigrant family in Family Supper. It reminds me of Faith Ringgold's quilts and paintings. And the building itself was impressively restored in the mid-1980s, in time for the Statue of Liberty's centennial.

Ellis Island is an impressive monument to what the human will can undertake--traveling half-way around the world for weeks with little more than their family and a suitcase (sometimes empty and carried just for appearance) in wretchedly degrading conditions that surely must have been worse than what they were leaving behind for something better than they had. All of my family was on Staten Island by the time Ellis Island opened in 1892 so I can't trace an of my ancestry through it, and I'm a little sad about it.

Days 13 & 14 - Saratoga Sojurn

2007-08-16T23:41:00.000-04:00

For a bunch of years, now, I've been intrigued by horse racing--and the folks that go to see horses race. There's an old school feel to the whole affair: racecourses that date from the late 1800s, even if some of their accouterments are updated to a more modern, and less grand, 1950s sensibility; a mix of the haughty with the hardscrabble, the horsemen with the hawkers, racers with bettors, each trying to make a buck with their own tools and in their respective ways; standing in line, shoulder to shoulder, for decidedly human transactions--verbal bets with their own jargon and process of race number, bet type, amount and horse number. And then, well, there's the whole medieval feel of horses chasing one another. I sometimes wonder if the jockeys shouldn't be draped in chain mail and suited in armor.

Before this summer, I had only ever bet--as most novices do--on big stakes races: the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. And I had only over been to Belmont's track and only for Belmont Stake Days--the third leg in the Triple Crown each June. But this past July, I went there for the first time not on a Stakes day. It's a beautiful place in its own right. For a mere dollar (one-third of Saratoga's usurious $3 entry fee) it's not a bad place to spend a balmy afternoon. And with a couple of thousand fellow racing fans instead of the 100,000 plus on Stakes day, it was positively relaxing. I bet on a few races and, as always, won nothing.

So when Carl suggested we head up to Saratoga for a few days to see the ponies--and do a little camping in between--I jumped at the chance to see another and much more historic track. I budgeted $100 to lose over a couple of days on fantasical bets of infinitesimal odds with obscene payoffs. It's not unlike playing the lottery.

We arrived in Saratoga on Wednesday, rushed to the track, and picked ourselves up a copy of the Post Parade which contained the day's racing program. Carl gave me a few tips on how to read the past performance records of the horses and then we plunked down a bunch of bets. We won nothing, but left the track amused and looking forward to a night in the woods at a nearby state park in the intervening evening, followed by what would surely be a winning day at the track on Thursday.

We checked in, bought a bushel of firewood, found our way to the tentsite and unpacked the car. It was a great site--flat and level with a minimum of pebbles in the soil. There were no tents nearby, so we looked forward to a quiet night without the yahoos I'm used to bunking down next to at campgrounds. We positioned the tarp and unloaded the firewood. All we needed was the tent.

Well, that and the tent poles to hold the tent up. Which, of course, I left at home, 2oo miles away.

I couldn't have felt more dejected. My job was to bring the tent. And the tentpoles. And now we couldn't camp. I pondered this for a moment and decided to crack open my fifth of bourbon to help me contemplate it a little better. Finally, with the sun setting we realized we'd either need to sleep outside without a tent or get a hotel room nearby.

NEWS FLASH: During racing season in Saratoga there are NO HOTEL ROOMS NEARBY. So we got on our phones and Blackberries and managed to find a room for $160 (upfuckingstate!) for the night about 30 miles away near Lake George. Suddenly, our day's losses were seeming steeper than when we left the track. All the more reason, we determined for ourselves, that we absolutely had to win big on Day 2 at the track. I had some more bourbon.

The next day I modified my approach, remembering a snippet from a book I thumbed through a few years back on racing and betting: real bettors focus on winning horses with marginal payoffs instead of long-shots that pay out thousands. Repeated over time, it's a winning strategy--the Warren Buffet approach to betting. So over the course of the second day--nine races--I bet a series of favored horses and managed to win back enough money in several races to cover my day's bets and the losses at the track from the day before. Not enough for our beds the night before, but enough to leave the track happy.

Day 9 - The Feast of the Giglio

2007-08-12T16:47:00.003-04:00

For years in many of the Italian neighborhoods in and around New York, each July, communities come together for several days to celebrate their beloved saints in what are known as Festa del Gigli, or Feasts of the Lily. The celebration consists of lifting and dancing a 5-story, 5-ton wood and plaster obelisk--an outsize lily--around the streets in front of the parish church in the neighborhood. On the shoulders of 125 or so guys. With a brass band on top. And an opera singer. And sometimes a priest.

Depending on which celebration you're considering, sometimes the giglio (pronounced JEEL-yo) is made anew each year in the months leading up to the feast. Other communities build a giglio that lasts several years. The lifters--known as paranza--pile beneath platform of the giglio, put their shoulders to the undersides of the criss-cross of rafters holding it up, and lift on the command of a leader--the capo paranza.

The tradition was carried to America by immigrants from the region Campania. There, in the 5th century, in the town of Nola, about 20 miles east of Naples, the inhabitants celebrated the storied brave act of their beloved Bishop Paulinus. At the time, many of the Nolani were being carried off into African slavery by Vandals. It is said that a widow, whose only son was among a group about to be wrenched away from the Neopolitan suburb, begged Paulinus to intervene in some way. He prevailed upon the Vandals to allow them to substitute himself that the widow's son might stay. Two years later in Africa, Paulinus apparently foretold the death of of his master in a dream eerily similar to one his master also had. Unsettled by the coincidence and not wanting to upset fate, the master granted Paulinus and his Nolani brethren their freedom. Their return was celebrated by the village of Nola with many lilies--gigli--being thrown at the bishop's feet. It is this event that is commemorated by the dance of the giglio in and around Nola--and still in several of the Neopolitan Italian communities in and around New York City.

Today was the East Harlem feast honoring St. Anthony from a neighboring town, Brusciana. It takes place in the erstwhile Italian enclave of East Harlem, on Pleasant Avenue, just east of First Avenue. Some pictures appear below, along with some from the Williamsburg feast a few weeks before honoring St. Paulinus. One of the best moments from this weekend's feast in East Harlem was the "Lifting of the Ford Explorer." Some poor schlep didn't notice the "No Parking This Sunday" sign on the block of the church. The giglio was not able to pass by with the SUV parked there. So before lifting the giglio the paranza all decamped, headed around the corner, and lifted the Explorer onto the sidewalk to make room. I'm a crestfallen that my camera didn't successfully capture it as a movie, as I had hoped.

Day 4 - Gowanus Canal Paddle

2007-08-07T11:06:00.000-04:00

I'm not spending as many hours lallygagging and poking around as I had hoped. At least not yet. But today was a great example of what I hope to get to do more of with during-the-day hours free.

Ellie Hanlon, Captain of the Gowanus Dredgers, took me on a canoe tour of the Gowanus Canal. It's not the first time I had been on the canal, but it's the first time in a couple of years. Some pictures from the water appear below.

There's a good deal of contention on and around the canal right now around land use and how to best make the canal part of the community. But putting all of that aside, at least for the moment, there are few places as intriguing to see as Gowanus from the water. It's stinky and smelly in parts and you have to be careful not to splash any water on your face. But it's cleaner than it's been in years and is worth a trip with the Dredgers one weekend soon.