Seen, on the IRT yesterday. It’s not just boys that like to look out the window. Girls just wanna have fun, too.

Peep this: Sites of Memory.

[Photo Credit: Retro New York]

This is the coolest thing I’ve seen in a minute. Dan Weeks, you rule.

Thanks to Matt B for sending the link.

I’ve used efficient, modern-looking microfilm machines, but not at the main branch of the New York Public Library. The machines there are so temperamental that I half-expect a wise-ass bird poke his head out as if I lived in an episode of “The Flinstones.”

That said, there are few things I enjoy as much as digging through old newspapers and magazines on the hunt for research material. It’s taxing on the eyes, your back gets sore leaning over, you often have to fight threading the damn machine up, and sometimes you don’t get what you came for. Other times,  you find things by accident. Oh, those happy accidents.

Along the way,  a forgotten world comes alive, especially in the newspapers–advertisements, headlines, stories and pictures. And there are so many  writers I’ve never heard of before. Plus, there is the thrill of putting in the time to track things down that you can’t find on-line and there’s so much stuff out there that is not on the web it’s not even funny.

The wife calls me a nerd. Guilty as charged.

Way out in Brooklyn…

Those who come from Brooklyn know just what I’m talkin’…

How to Be a Retronaut. Again and again.

We were originally a Channel 7 Eyewitness News family because the old man occasionally drank with Roger Grimsby. Later on, I distinguished myself by moving to Channel 4 because I liked all things NBC, starting with Bryant Gumbel, and later Bob Costas, at the NFL Today, right on down to Chuck and Sue at 5. My grandmother was down with Jim Jensen on CBS.

Which local news team did you follow?

09 Fall In Love Remix

Here’s a little ditty I made with a friend a few years ago. Thought I’d share it with you.

Overheard on the subway this morning. Two teenage boys.

“The Mets are going to kill the Yankees this weekend.”

“Fuck you.”

“The Mets have more heart. The Yankees are overpriced and old.”

“Yeah, and they’re still better than your wack-ass Mets.”

“Fuck you.”

“Jealous.”

Standing at the bus stop last night I overheard two men in their thirties talking.

“Did you see this yet?”

“Adam Sandler:  Not funny. Not even a little bit.”

“Dude, he makes me laugh.”

“He’s a galloping horse’s ass on parade and so are you.”

“Bet you wish you had his money.”

“Bet you’re right about that.”

They both laughed.

Another killer photo gallery

from How To Be a Retronaut.

You can still find a good egg cream in New York. It was a drink from my father’s childhood and not one that I had with any regularity as a kid. Still, it’s a delicious treat. My cousin, who knows from these things, says there is only one chocolate syrup to use–it’s not just that it is the best, it is the only one to consider: Fox’s u-bet.

Man, I’m thirsty all of a sudden.

[Photo Credit: Seltzer Sisters]

New York City in the 1960s by Ernst Haas over at How to be a Retronaut.

Still humid and hazy out there. Perfect day to be near the water and catch a breeze.

[Photo Credit: The Bowery Boys]

Only time I miss tokens is when I’m running for a train and the damn card doesn’t swipe right.

More Turns series by Bill Sullivan.

Sullivan is a gifted painter.

You must check out the site:

Retro New York

It’s killer diller.

Perhaps in anticipation of a new movie version of “The Great Gatsby” dig this photo gallery over at Gothamist.

I come in the form of the mind-bender bartender…

A short by Cyriak Harris via the Atlantic.

We cut heads. Conversations with barbers over at McSweeney’s.

[Photo Credit: Tomas Andres Donoso]

An Instagram photo gallery via Subway Art blog.

While you are it, check out this week’s gallery too.

Robert Darnton writes a defense of the New York Public Libaray over at the New York Review of Books:

Few buildings in America resonate in the collective imagination as powerfully as the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. The marble palace behind the stone lions is seen by many as the soul of the city. For a century it provided limitless possibilities of gaining knowledge and satisfying curiosity for immigrants just off the boat, and it still opens access to worlds of culture for anyone who walks in from the street. Tamper with that building and you risk offending some powerful sensitivities.

Yet the trustees of the New York Public Library—I write as one of them but only in my capacity as a private individual—have decided to rearrange a great deal of that sacred space. According to a plan given preliminary approval by them last February, they will sell the run-down Mid-Manhattan branch library—just opposite the main public library on Fifth Avenue—and the Science, Industry, and Business Library (SIBL) at Madison Avenue and 34th Street, and they will use the proceeds to expand the interior of the 42nd Street building. They will not touch the famous façade on Fifth Avenue, but they will install a new circulating library on the lower floors to replace the Mid-Manhattan branch, whose collections will be incorporated into the holdings of the main library.

All this shifting about of books will require rebuilding parts of the infrastructure at 42nd Street. The steel stacks now hidden under the great Rose Main Reading Room on the third floor will be replaced by the new branch and business library on the lower floors. Several grand rooms on the second floor will be refurbished for the use of readers and writers, who will be provided with carrels, computer stations, a lounge, and possibly a café. Most of the three million volumes from the old stacks will remain in the building, either in redesigned storage space or in shelving located under Bryant Park. But many—for the most part books that are rarely consulted and journals that are also available online—will be shipped to the library’s storage facility in Princeton, New Jersey, along with some of the holdings from the SIBL.