Found Around NYC...

Riding Horses in Central Park: No More

Claremont Riding Academy on West 89th has closed.  Still on my to-do list before I move from NYC was to ride around Central Park so I guess I'll need to strike that.  I regret not riding with friends when they came up last winter.  Even though I prefer riding Western, I'm a bit sad.  I'm a huge horse lover and just being around the smell of the stables would have been fun. 

The carriage rides are still here and I've not ever done that, either.  I wonder how much longer they will last.

The most beautiful horses I have found while living in NYC are those I enjoy on a regular basis through the photos of Sally, who lives in North Dakota.  She photographs her horses on a regular basis.  Here is her flickr page and the link to the photo pictured here.  She sells cowgirl/western items and jewelry on her ebay site, salgalnd. 

According to a New Yorker article by Roger Angell, Into the Sunset - Horse Talk on May 17, there were 120,000 horses in residence in New York in 1908.  Angell's article alerted me to the end of horseback riding in NYC.    When I left Houston in 2001 the city still had mounted police officers.  Those were long gone when I moved to NYC two years ago.

Grand Central Station at Rush Hour...

Grand Central Station has been a metaphor for congestion, high traffic, busy people going places with their heads down.  Jackie O. helped save this building and it is a beautiful large interior space full of NYC workers at all times of day. But on this day, a Thursday at 5:00 p.m., it was busy. Suits, suits, suits and people thumbing on blackberries as they walk along, noses to the grindstone of the work in their fingertips. 

Multi-tasking on cell phones, reading something, whatever... no one was just paying attention, it seemed, to just what they were doing as they moved through this space.  Yet no one bumped anyone.  It was like watching ants stream along.

Want to experience a unqiue architectural design feature in NYC?  Go to the space outside the oyster bar on the first level on the south side inbetween the ticket counters.  There is a small domed space.  Have someone stand in one corner, face into the corner, and you go stand in the opposite corner, face into the corner.  You can whisper to one another and  it is as thought the person is just next to you.

The Grass is Always Greener...

I came across an article recently about the statistical increase in young (white) children under 5 in Manhattan.

My children were raised with grass backyards and a stream over the backfence.  They caught grasshoppers, crawdads and ran barefoot and tumbled with the dog down green slopes.

I would think children might feel like caged animals with only this rubber-upon-cement place to play, surrounded by jail-bar fencing. That is just my view from the other side, though.   Hmmmm.  My feet touch dirt and grass rarely now.  I wonder how often city children have their feet hit anything natural.  How does this mold a child?

A (Stained) Tie Left Behind?

Found on 56th Street in Midtown between Fifth Sixth Avenues.  Someone must have stained his tie at dinner and just left it behind. 

NYC...Tribal?

Jay McInerney writes an observant first-person article in New York magazine about the ups and downs and ins and outs of the neighborhoods of Manhattan in The Death of (the Idea of) The Upper East Side.

No place holds traction well over time -- dowagers, houses or neighborhoods.  Empires are always crumbling, borders always shifting.  It is an interesting read on the status of...well...status, habitat-wise.

Rain...

New Yorkers dread rainy days.  Especially when it is cold.  It took me awhile to find the right apparel for getting around the city on rainy days.   It isn't the same here as going from car to house, from car to store, from car (in the parking garage) to work.

I was given good advice early on: learn the art of walking with an open umbrella down the sidewalk.  It is an art; an artistic dance.  Pedestrian sidewalk waltzing. 

Rain in the forecast?  The talk everywhere becomes one of expectation.  Is it raining yet?

Umbrellas were invented in China over a thousand years ago.  What a handy-dandy thing to have.  Especially - most especially - here (along with rain boots and a long rain coat). Brolly, the Brits call it.

Celebrity Sightings...

The New York Post Star Map,  another mashup, tracks celebrity sightings in NYC.  If you have seen a star, you can submit your sighting.

Itty Bitty City Dogs...

Bitty-City Dogs! A dog visiting the Madison Avenue Ralph Lauren store in Manhattan is greeted  by a staff member with dog treats and by name.  Dogs are dressed up for Saturday outings.  Doormen know dogs by name and dogs know which doormen will regularly offer a treat.

Gumballs in machines in stores?  No, dog treats and poop bags (in separate machines). 

Fountains around town -- no problem for thirsty dogs.  While people have a real problem finding restrooms around New York City, the pooches are acculturated to concrete relief.  Dog walkers, doggie sociability and dressed-up-dogs...all to be found in NYC. Dogs in costume here. Big Dog Blog here.  Clothes for dogs? Here, here and here for spring dog dresses.

San Francisco dogs?  SF is experimenting with collecting dog droppings and putting them into a methane digester to create methane to be recycled...  With the 10,000 unpicked up poo droppings/day in NYC, what a great idea.

Is Your Rent too High?

Since real estate is a big deal here, a new mashup site you might enjoy if you wonder if your rent is in line or if you might be paying to much is Rentometer.

Enter an address, apartment size, and rent. It maps nearby units and shows a meter of your price versus min, max and average.

They Miss You...

This is a mass transit ad, seen on a bus in Midtown.  It made me think a lot about what sort of audience this ad is trying to reach.  Are people really lonely in NYC?  Is this mobile culture we've created made people miss their home, their roots, their family?

How many people will get what this ad is saying?  Without the photo to remind me of what the tag line was, it wouldn't have gotten any more action here.  Except media is my background and what I am studying.

If you go to theymissyou.com, you'll be redirected to another site.  It is weird.  Ad guy Greg Monaco from Connecticut wrote on his blog, Left Back, about the ad.  Maybe he'll comment here and 'splain it all because it was as unexplained as the ad. If one googles the .com address, sites for insomnia and ambien come up on topix.  It all makes me curious.  What is being sold and to whom?  It is all loop-backs to me.

The best explanation I found was on the blog Three Minds, on a post, "Ads that Put You to Sleep".  It is for Rozerum, a sleeping aid by a Japanese company.  Bad marketing, imo.  Perhaps the guys who wrote the ad did it after a heavy immersion in understanding the product by not sleeping for days on end. Nothing makes sense.

Bart.  The name for buses?  Go figure.