Whadda ya want from me?

The Wife on 34th street last night. (It’s gotta be the shoes.)

Playing around. Picture by Leonard Freed, 1978.

A moment in time, captured by Gordon Parks (1952).

Brilliant in the warm sun, cool in the shadows. This picture by our man Bags speaks to what it’s like in New York today.

New York stories…from these two pictures by one of my favorite photographers: Elliott Erwitt.

Only Baseball Matters this morning on the 1 train.

Time after time.

NYC Time Lapse July 4th, 2009 from Possum Den Productions on Vimeo.

[Photo Via: Think Different]

Taking in the spring at Bryant Park.

Couple of weeks ago I was on the train and looked around and noticed that were only a few white faces. It wasn’t an unusual sight. It was common. I just happened to make a note of it and then moved on to whatever else was on my mind.

It’s one of the things you take for granted when you live in New York–and can be painfully aware of when you leave: diversity.

[Photo Via: Think Different]

Let’s Get Lost:

Lost in Manhattan from Gunther Gheeraert on Vimeo.

[Photo Via: mOrtality]

Heppy Boifdaze,

[Photo Credit:  Bron Stadheim]

Here’s our pal Mark Lamster on the Seagram building:

Though it now seems an implacable and timeless monument, a bronzed monolith standing resolutely behind its well-proportioned plaza, the tower’s existence was by no means ordained. In June 1953 Ms. Lambert was a 26-year-old recently divorced sculptor living in Paris, a self-imposed exile from her native Montreal and from her domineering father.

It was then that she reeled off a missive to her father, a response to his own letter outlining plans for a New York skyscraper. She was not impressed with the undistinguished modern box his architects proposed and let him know: “This letter starts with one word repeated very emphatically,” she wrote, “NO NO NO NO NO.”

Seven more pages followed, in which Ms. Lambert alternately scolded, cajoled and lectured her father on architectural history and civic responsibility. There was “nothing whatsoever commendable” in the proposed design, she wrote. “You must put up a building which expresses the best of the society in which you live, and at the same time your hopes for the betterment of this society.”

[Photo Credit: IPhoneography]

Street Photography by Matt Weber.

A real New York story by Corey Kilgannon in the Times:

Eli Miller, 79, New York City’s senior seltzer man, hoisted crate after crate of seltzer — weighing 70 pounds apiece — into his van and then draped himself over them.

“I’m running on fumes — the reason I work is, I just can’t stay home,” said Mr. Miller, who has been delivering seltzer in Brooklyn for more than a half-century.

He can afford to retire, but that would mean his customers, many of whom have been with him for decades, might have to resort to store-bought seltzer.

“I don’t want them to have to drink that dreck you buy in the supermarket,” he said, using the Yiddish term for dirt. “So I guess I’ll retire when Gabriel blows his horn.”

Seen. Sticker on a muni-meter on Bleecker Street, two nights ago.

Nick Gerber has a great tumblr site stuffed with beautiful pictures of our city. Bookmark it.

Gothamist salutes the Woolworth Building.

I love this. I wonder how much spaghetti you got for a quarter? A bowl, a plate? And how much for seconds?

[Photograph by Ida Wyman]

I went couch shopping with The Wife a few weeks ago and came away with this–I would never want to be a furniture salesman. Especially the guys up on the ninth floor at Macy’s. Man, it was depressing. But I’d sell couches any day before washing windows high in the sky. Now, there’s a tough job.

[Photo Via: Inge Morath  and Eye Heart New York]

Get to the uptown platform of the IRT last night and there is a train in the station. Looks like it has been there for a while. I find an opening and slide in. There’s an announcement overhead that because of a sick passenger at our station the local trains are going express from 42nd to 72nd. Now I’m at a local stop between those stations but I figure I’d wait it out. Then, the train goes out of service so everybody empties out on the platform. We’re standing there, close together, and I still figure to wait it out when I see three EMT workers move their way through the crowd. This could take some time so I walk away, up to the street, where it is now raining, cross Broadway and enter the downtown station. Almost slip twice–damn weak ass shoes.

Figure I’ll go one stop to Times Square and then transfer for the uptown train running express.

Now, I don’t think I should have to pay again but there is no booth clerk on the downtown platform anymore.  I consider jumping the turnstiles and feel righteous about it. Hey, if a cop stops me, I’ve got a story. But I don’t do it. Why? Cause I figure I’m going to bust my ass in the process. So I pay again and I’m on the platform when I look across the station and the uptown platform is cleared out. Local is running again and an announcement says the next local train will arrive in one minute.

Cue the Benny Hill music.

Dammit, so I exit, walk back across Broadway in the rain and then into  to the uptown station agian. Now, I really don’t see paying again, but there is a long line at the clerk’s booth and I want to make this train more than anything, so screw it, I pay again. That’s $7.50 for one ride and you know what? I wanted to get home so I didn’t spend any energy being pissed off about it.

Fug it.  And the point is, sure I got screwed but at least I didn’t bust my ass.

Picture by Bags.