Notes from a pants-less Wednesday.
The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak or just plain tired. I really wanted to get out yesterday but my body told me to stay put. To start, my legs would not cooperate. They just refused to go where I wanted them to. I wanted them to go to the PS 1 museum but they decided to spend the day chillin’ on the couch. They just hung out there all day with friends the feet who brought along their toes, all ten of them. They just stayed on that couch looking at the T.V.
My back, seeing what was going on with my legs, followed suit by not allowing me to bend more than a couple of inches. Eventually my back convinced my legs that lying in a prone position would be beneficial for all. My feet and toes could not have been happier and quickly joined them.
So there I was yesterday, on the couch nodding in and out of consciousness a rivulet of drool emerging from the side of my mouth. I had succumbed to my body’s wishes.
Fortunately I had some extra photos I took the other day tucked away for just such an occasion.
Lunch with a view. From the restaurant upstairs at the Whole
Foods Market you can get a view of Union Square and the park.
Check out the young lady in the lower right. Her thoughts seem
to be miles away…..
The basement of this building
is apparently on the top floor.
Uptown around 33rd Street you come across one of those NYC
parks that occupy those triangular islands of land where two streets
converge. Horace Greeley once said “Go west young man, go west”.
However it appears that Mr.Greeley went north to 33rd St. and found
a seat.
Whether you’ve got a political statement to make or you just
“love NY” this is a cheap place to buy those T-shirts to bring
back to the relatives.
Well, it appears that I’m not the only guy who doesn’t
wear pants on Wednesday.
I did actually take one photo yesterday. This photo was taken
from my bedroom window about an hour before sunset. There was
a short cloudburst which left the surface of Queens Blvd. just wet
enough to reflect the headlights of the rush hour traffic. The rain
also produced this magnificent display of color.
I have to get my butt moving today even if it’s just to move my car. We’ll see where we go from there.
Posted at 07:09 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Jun. 18th, 2008
Union and Madison Square parks
In a hot busy city…
A couple of places to chill out.
New Yorkers just love their parks. It doesn’t matter if the park is grand like Central Park or Prospect Park in Brooklyn or just one of those little neighborhood patches of green where you can take the kids for a couple of hours, we just love to be able to chill out. This year it seems that New Yorkers have been using these parks in record numbers. Maybe it’s because the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation under the direction of its commissioner, Adrian Benepe, has been doing an outstanding job in keeping the parks not only clean safe and usable but also beautiful. Whoever is responsible for some of the flowers and plants, even in the small parks, really knows their stuff. I’ve never seen such a variety of unusual plants and flowers as I have seen this year. This spring the city was awash in yellow daffodils and every variety of tulip not to mention those terrific African Violet floral arrangements in those planters around town. Even the parks that have traditionally been known as virtual supermarkets for drug sales, prostitution and other abhorrent behavior, such as Tompkins Square Park, are now not only free of dealers and hookers but have seen the return of moms and kids and even some tourists.
Yesterday, having really no theme walk in mind, I decided to see what was doing in two of New York’s urban parks.Union square Park on 14th Street and Madison Square Park on 23rd Street. These parks are only about ten blocks apart but are worlds apart as to who patronizes them.
Union Square park is a place where people go to see and be seen. It’s a place where people go to sell stuff (legally) and to look for deals on arts and crafts. It’s a place where you go to rest your tootsies after a hard day of bargain hunting at one of Union Square’s mega stores or to grab a snack at the very trendy Snack Shack.
The park at Madison Square (23rd Street) is for people who need a place to take their kids, walk their dogs, eat their lunch or just sit on the grass and listen to a concert. It’s also a place ,that for some reason, manufacturers like to hand out free samples of whatever they are trying to promote. Something to watch out for. In the past few weeks I have obtained samples of Snapple, a low cal chocolate something and an over the counter pain reliever. It’s a bonanza!
Union Square is a great place to start a walking tour of midtown.
get off the subway at the Union Square station and head south to
Greenwich Village and lower Manhattan.
With all the restaurants in the neighborhood you would think
that the Snack Shack in Madison Sq. park would not be this
busy. The line actually was a block long.
If you’ve got the time they’ve got the game. These guys in
Madison Square park are enjoying a beverage and some chess.
I was waiting for one of these kids to fall in to the pond at the
north end of Madison Square but it didn’t happen. Mom was just
a foot away.
Getting in some practice time. Who needs a rehearsal studio
when you’ve got a whole park to play in.
The Italians may have bought the Flatiron building but it’s
still part of the view in Madison Square.
I don’t know what this guy was doing but his coach was
giving him very specific directions on how to do it. Maybe he was trying
out for a part as a hood ornament.
I continued my walk uptown and got as far as 47th Street before the old legs gave out. I guess 35 blocks ain’t bad for an old dude.
I think I’ll take it easy today. Maybe I’ll visit the PS1 museum in Long Island city. It’s close and cheap.
Posted at 07:45 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Jun. 17th, 2008
Egg rolls and egg cream…
On the Lower East Side..
A street for all cultures.
This past Sunday afternoon, on a street on the Lower East Side Of Manhattan, not far from where the giant, noisy Manhattan bridge looms over a neighborhood of small restaurants and open air vegetable stands, a coming together of sorts, of two diversely different cultures in front of a restored synagogue.
Eldridge Street, just off Canal Street, in the heart of what once was the center for the Jewish immigrant community, was the host to a uniquely New York cultural event. The first annual (maybe) Egg Roll and Egg Cream* festival. It wasn’t one of those giant street festivals that take up blocks and blocks of city streets this time of year. Instead this very modest affair took up only about a half a block of a street shared by Chinese and Jews alike.
The festival was organized by the people who run the recently restored Eldridge Street synagogue, a building that was left to ruin before private benefactors stepped in to bring the place back to its original glory. The synagogue was once the cultural and religious center for Jews who came from the ghettos and schtetles** of an increasingly hostile (at least for Jews) Europe.
Today the street is made up of businesses that cater to a predominately Chinese community who’s residents take pride in their culture as the Jews did almost a hundred years before.
The Egg Roll and Egg Cream festival was meant to recognize the very natural melding of two cultures that, for some reason, have aways been linked via food. There is not any group of people in this country that has embraced Chinese food more than the Jews, a fact not left unnoticed by anybody opening a Chinese restaurant. Go to any Jewish neighborhood in New York and you will find a plethera of oriental cuisine. Jews are the Chinese restaurant’s best customers. Open up a Chinese restaurant in a Jewish neighborhod and your success is assured.
Thus we have this event that sort of puts an official stamp on this Sino-Jewish relationship. I’d like to see this continue and expand with maybe some other dishes in addition to the egg rolls and egg creams.
The restored Eldridge Street Synagogue in front of which
the Egg Cream and Egg Roll festival was held.
Eldridge Street. The Jews on one side the Chinese on the other.
Learning the ancient Chinese game of Mah Jong. The only people
I know of in this country who still play this game are old Chinese
ladies and old Jewish ladies in Florida. And maybe these two.
Hand made yarmulke’s (skull caps). I’ll bet you don’t have
one.
How about a nice glass tea?. Who knew there was a ceremony
that goes with it.
Egg Cream fixins’. Sort of.
Here’s a guy drinking an egg cream and looking at an egg roll.
A Chinese string orchestra. I was waiting for them to do a
rendition of “By mir bist du shoen” but it never happend. Where
was the klezmer band?
The monks in front of the Buddhist temple,
which is right next door to the synagogue,
seemed amused at the whole thing. Maybe
they were trying to find the ZEN in egg creams.
The first meal I ever ate in a restaurant when I was only four or five was at the Seven Eleven Chinese restaurant on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. In fact it was the only restaurant I remember from my childhood. The Chinese restaurant was our McDonald’s. You could get the lunch special, which usually included an egg roll, chow mein, rice, tea and desert for 75 cents per person. You left a 25 cent tip which meant that lunch for two cost $1.75.*** Take that Wendy’s.
*The Egg Cream: From what I could see nobody at the festival knew how to make an egg cream. At least not the way I know how to make one. I have the only official method of egg cream preparation as practiced by the “candy store” owners of Brooklyn. A method that I spent many a day observing in front of the counter of my local luncheonette on Bedford and Clarkson avenues. While there may be many so called official egg cream recipes only this one is the true official one as set forth by the Society for the Preservation and Perpetuation of the Egg Cream.
1. Start with a clean glass. The glass should have the shape of a Coca-Cola glass.In fact it should be a Coca-Cola glass. You know the one.
2. In to the glass pump two squirts (or two fingers if you are not at a fountain) of Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup. Not Bosco or Nestle’s, only Fox’s U-Bet.
3. Fill the rest of the glass half way with cold milk. Do not stir.
4. This is the critical step. This is what makes an egg cream an egg cream. From a siphon or bottle pour seltzer water (not club soda) into the glass while letting the seltzer flow over the back of a metal spoon while at the same time vigorously stirring the U-Bet, milk and seltzer mixture. This is what gives the drink its creamy head (like Guinness). If done right the whole thing should overflow over the rim of the glass.
The drink should not be allowed to go flat. Drink immediately. The foam should coat the upper lip forming an off white mustache.
That’s the official recipe. I don’t care what recipe you have, it ain’t the real one. So it is written, so it is done.
Please note. There is no egg in an egg cream.
** Schtetle: A name given to small Jewish settlements in eastern Europe.
*** $1.75: Sorry, that was the price back in 1952.
Questions or comments? thebeecee@hotmail.com
Tags: egg cream, egg roll, lower east side, seltzer, u-bet
Posted at 07:12 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Jun. 16th, 2008
Woodstock, NY
A town where the “Hippies” run free…
…and there’s not a traffic light in sight.
Last Friday, in a fit of wanderlust, I decided to hang the cost of gas and get out of town. I needed to see some farms and cows or at the very least someplace without a traffic light. My personal opinion regarding traffic lights in an age where waisting gas is downright unpatriotic is to do away with all of them. Just think how much gas we would save if we didn’t have to sit idling waiting for the light to change. “But there would be utter chaos with no lights” ,you say. For a while maybe, but soon you would just get used to it and settle down and become courteous well mannered drivers willing to let the other guy cross the road while you wait for a second or two. O.K., maybe not. So before they come to take me to the home, let me tell you about a place that does not have a traffic light or traffic jams for that matter. That place is the magical upstate New York town of Woodstock New York. Woodstock was a sleepy obscure little village tucked up there in the beautiful Catskill hills until that one summer when the famous or infamous music festival named after the town, took place a few miles away in a farmers field in Bethel. They were originally supposed to hold the festival near Woodstock but the venue fell through at the last minute. By the time they finally secured the Bethel location the tickets and posters and advertising had already been printed and distributed and it was too late to change them. As it turned out this was the best thing that could have happened to Woodstock. The town received all the fame without the hassle.
Today, Woodstock is pretty much as it has always been, a quiet immaculate little village that takes up only about a half mile of route 212. The town thrives off of its namesake notoriety and has done its best to perpetuate the image of peace and love.
The town is just chock full of galleries, antique shops and artist studios and best of all genuine circa 1969 tye died in the wool hippies. Oh yes. There’s not a traffic light to be seen.
The closest thing to an intersection in Woodstock is this one
at the town square.
Not far from the free municipal parking lot (there are no parking
meters here) is the tourist info office. Just in case you can’t afford
a frame to place your memories in, Woodstock has provided one for
you.
The 18th century Dutch Reformed Church dominates (in a
quiet way) the town square.
Scattered around town you’ll notice a slight Buddhist influence.
The natives never let you forget who really runs this town.
There are no real “stores” in this town. They all seem to be a
combination of houses with store fronts. Many of the stores
are not restricted to one kind of merchandise. This place sells
antiques and chocolates. I guarantee Grandmere is an old hippie.
No hippie would be complete without his hippie bus.Notice the
speakers on top. Did someone say Jimi Hendrix.
The Landau Grill, one of the eateries along route 212. The guy
in the hat kind of looked at me funny like he was still hiding from
hs draft board.
Take a break. Buy a rug. I love that giant tree and the barn.
I’ll bet the owner lives upstairs.
Yearning to find your inner hippie? Got the urge for something
tye dyed? You might just find it at this store. Notice the
Woodstock poster on the sign out front.
Does your public library have a white picket fence around it?
It’s a house. It’s a store. It’s another hippie shop. Browse
the Legends of Woodstock store to get a feel for the history
of the area.
This historical marker has words we should remember today.
If this town had a motto, this should be it.
True to the hippie tradition. Why have a bunch of little
ornaments when you can have one big one.
It’s a little Pennsylvania Dutch’y but somehow in this town,
it works.
IF YOU GO: From NYC. The round trip will cost you a tank of gas plus tolls. The fast way to get there is via the N.Y. State Thruway. It’s not far from the Kingston Exit. I took the slow way. I traveled across the G.W. Bridge to New Jersey. Filled up with that nice cheap NJ gas on route 9 near the bridge. I then took the Palisades Pkwy. to the Thruway. I got off the thruway in Suffern before the toll booth and continued on route 17 to Wurtsboro NY, then Route 109 north to 28 to 212 and on to Woodstock. It’s slow but very relaxing. You might even get to see a cow or two.
Posted at 07:57 am | Link | Leave a comment | 1 comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Jun. 13th, 2008
A walk around the loop….
A walking tour with a literary start…
From Bryant park to the river, and then some….
Over the past few months, in an effort to make my walks more interesting and to actually give them some purpose or goal, I have developed these little self guided walking tours. Although they are unstructured they all have a set beggining and an end which may or may not be set. As any good walker will tell you, one should be flexible.
Yesterday I started at the subway station at 6th Ave. and 42nd St., Bryant park behind the library, and walked down 42nd St. past the Chinese mission, past the Tibetan protesters and down to the river. I walked along the river’s edge past the tow impound lot and the heliport to Chelsea Piers. I took a brief rest at the marina and continued on to Chelsea Market on 15th St and eventually cross town to the 8th Ave. “E” train subway station and home. I’m not sure of the exact mileage but it has to be four or five miles anyway. I usually don’t count miles or time. When my legs start to hurt I stop. I figuer my body knows when to call it a day.
Here are some pics from yesterday……
Bryant park. What a great place to sit and relax. There are plenty
of chairs and tables and the library even has an outdoor reading area
complete with books and magazines that you can read while there.
This is another one of Bruce’s Best Things You Can Do Free in NYC.
If you like the movies but don’t like the price or the venue try
this. After 5pm you can sit on the lawn, bring some food and
drink and enjoy a flick. For free.
Head west from the park and you find yourself at
the crossroads of the world. 42nd St and 7th Ave.
They call it “New 42nd St.” because a few years ago
they decided to make the area family friendly. The hookers
and the hawkers and the peep shows are gone. I guess
it’s for the better. I guess.
I decided just to stand on the corner and observe the scene
for a while.
This lady gets my “Most difficult Job
in NYC” award. I watched as she expertly
directed traffic and pedestrians through
this very busy intersection.
In the past the only vendors on this
corner were those selling dope or
three card monty. Now the only street
hawkers here are the guys selling bus
tours to tourists.
If you take one of these tours you not only get a bus ride but
a tour guide with his hat on backwards.
Once you get past the shouting Tibetan protesters you come
across this bike rental place in Hudson River park. The bikes
all looked brand new and user friendly.
If you like helicopters and want to get close, I mean really close,
take a walk past the heliport near 34th st. You can also take
a ride in one if you got the bucks.
You can take that bike you rented, or just walk, down this bike
path along the Hudson to Chelsea piers. The pier is billed as
a sports and entertainment complex. Open to the public are
various sporting activities and restaurants. Not open to the public
is the studio where Law and Order is filmed. Most important
of all there are public restrooms available. Whew!
At Chelsea Piers Surfside 3 marina you can relax for free on
on of the benches or enjoy lunch at the Brewery restaurant.
At this point on the tour you can decide whether to head back inland or continue along the shore. If you head inland you will eventually reach the Chelsea section of Manhattan. There are loads of good restaurants there as well as subways and buses. If you want to stay on the rivers edge you can continue down the path to Greenwich Village and more New York stuff.
It’s the weekend. The countdown to the Coney Island Mermaid parade on the 21st has begun. A happy Father’s Day to all of you so blessed.
Posted at 07:02 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Joining an army…
A Baby Boomers Legacy
.
Yesterday I joined an army of sorts. It’s an army made up of mostly gray haired old dudes and dudettes like me. No special talent is required to join these ranks although there certainly is a heck of a large amount of talent in this group. All you need to join this “army” is to be an American Citizen, have worked all your life and to have had the fortune to be born before 1947. I say “fortune” because having arrived in this world during that post WW2 period means that you have been witness to just about everything that is good and bad about this world.
Without going into geat detail about the dramatic events that us old geezers have had a front row seat to I will just mention a few of what I like to call Baby Boomer* Hits and Misses:
1. The atomic bomb. Dropped by the only president we’ve ever had with the guts to do it. Harry S. Truman
2. The cold war. Brought on in part by FDR and perpetuated by, once again, Harry S. Truman.
3. Television as home entertainment. Things have never been the same since Howdy, Hoppy and Winky Dink graced our black and white 12 inch DuMonts.
4. The Dodgers leaving Brooklyn. A rude awakening to the fact that baseball was a business and to hell with the fans.
5. Computers. We saw it start as a room size punch card spitting light bulb blinking giant called a Sperry Univac and reduce in size to something they call an I-pod
6. The end of polio as a killer of thousands of children.
There are other occurrances that we have witnessed including a couple of devastating wars, one of which affected many of my generation directly. Commercial jet liners cutting travel time in half and opening air travel to millions. Hi-Fi Stereo and FM stereo radio. Audio tape, video tape, 8 track and cassette tapes and CD’s and DVD’s. We’ve also witnessed assassinations, the civil rights act and the world brought to the brink by the Cuban missile crisis. And of course we old codgers have had the fortune to be witness to the landing of man on the moon and the dawn of the space age. We went to college and got degrees in record numbers. We raised families and brought children into this world also in record numbers. We moved from the crowded cities and created a new world called the suburbs. We began and spread the American Dream to the rest of the world, something that appears to have backfired on us as developing nations now want what we have.
Yes, I have been privy to all of these events and more. Many of them personal events like my parents and brother and close friends passing into history. A marriage and a divorce , fortunes made and lost and jobs come and gone. These are all of the things, milestones if you will, that bring us to certain points in our lives. Yesterday I began the process that would bring me to one of the last of these milestones. Yesterday I started the application for Social Security Benefits. It was simple but not painless. The simple part was being able to do it on line. All you do is just answer a few simple questions about your life. The pain part comes when you realize why you are doing this in the first place. You always thought that you could hold out until you were really old. There was good reason to think that way. You had a job that brought in good money. You had a 401K and an IRA that showed steady, if not dramatic gains. You even had some money left at the end of the month to buy a car and take it on a long drive or two. And then suddenly, through no fault of your own, it all began to come to an end.
The company that you worked for the past 14 years decided to “go in another direction” and they eliminate your job and move out of state. The stock market that you have most of your money invested in decides also to go in another direction, down. You suddenly find yourself with a lot of free time which would not usually be a bad thing, but the astronomical rise in gasoline prices keeps you close to home.The U.S. dollar, once the benchmark of the worlds monetary system, has become the Charmin of currency. It seems the American dream has become the national nightmare. And worst of all we find that we have elected a government that does not have a clue on how to fix it. You find yourself digging in to what’s left of your savings. It’s time to get back some of that money that the government “stole” from you and your employer all those years. So I signed up. It won’t be enough to take care of all my needs but it will take the edge off until I too pass into history. I just hope that this milestone won’t turn out to be a speed bump.
*Baby Boomers. Refers to a group of people who were born right after the second world war between 1945 to approximately 1955. It appears that the dads of these “boomers” had only one thing in mind upon separating from the armed forces.
Questions and comments: thebeecee@hotmail.com
Posted at 06:59 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Jun. 12th, 2008
The next to last big milestone….
Joining an army…
A Baby Boomers Legacy
.
Yesterday I joined an army of sorts. It’s an army made up of mostly gray haired old dudes and dudettes like me. No special talent is required to join these ranks although there certainly is a heck of a large amount of talent in this group. All you need to join this “army” is to be an American Citizen, have worked all your life and to have had the fortune to be born before 1947. I say “fortune” because having arrived in this world during that post WW2 period means that you have been witness to just about everything that is good and bad about this world.
Without going into geat detail about the dramatic events that us old geezers have had a front row seat to I will just mention a few of what I like to call Baby Boomer* Hits and Misses:
1. The atomic bomb. Dropped by the only president we’ve ever had with the guts to do it. Harry S. Truman
2. The cold war. Brought on in part by FDR and perpetuated by, once again, Harry S. Truman.
3. Television as home entertainment. Things have never been the same since Howdy, Hoppy and Winky Dink graced our black and white 12 inch DuMonts.
4. The Dodgers leaving Brooklyn. A rude awakening to the fact that baseball was a business and to hell with the fans.
5. Computers. We saw it start as a room size punch card spitting light bulb blinking giant called a Sperry Univac and reduce in size to something they call an I-pod
6. The end of polio as a killer of thousands of children.
There are other occurrances that we have witnessed including a couple of devastating wars, one of which affected many of my generation directly. Commercial jet liners cutting travel time in half and opening air travel to millions. Hi-Fi Stereo and FM stereo radio. Audio tape, video tape, 8 track and cassette tapes and CD’s and DVD’s. We’ve also witnessed assassinations, the civil rights act and the world brought to the brink by the Cuban missile crisis. And of course we old codgers have had the fortune to be witness to the landing of man on the moon and the dawn of the space age. We went to college and got degrees in record numbers. We raised families and brought children into this world also in record numbers. We moved from the crowded cities and created a new world called the suburbs. We began and spread the American Dream to the rest of the world, something that appears to have backfired on us as developing nations now want what we have.
Yes, I have been privy to all of these events and more. Many of them personal events like my parents and brother and close friends passing into history. A marriage and a divorce , fortunes made and lost and jobs come and gone. These are all of the things, milestones if you will, that bring us to certain points in our lives. Yesterday I began the process that would bring me to one of the last of these milestones. Yesterday I started the application for Social Security Benefits. It was simple but not painless. The simple part was being able to do it on line. All you do is just answer a few simple questions about your life. The pain part comes when you realize why you are doing this in the first place. You always thought that you could hold out until you were really old. There was good reason to think that way. You had a job that brought in good money. You had a 401K and an IRA that showed steady, if not dramatic gains. You even had some money left at the end of the month to buy a car and take it on a long drive or two. And then suddenly, through no fault of your own, it all began to come to an end.
The company that you worked for the past 14 years decided to “go in another direction” and they eliminate your job and move out of state. The stock market that you have most of your money invested in decides also to go in another direction, down. You suddenly find yourself with a lot of free time which would not usually be a bad thing, but the astronomical rise in gasoline prices keeps you close to home.The U.S. dollar, once the benchmark of the worlds monetary system, has become the Charmin of currency. It seems the American dream has become the national nightmare. And worst of all we find that we have elected a government that does not have a clue on how to fix it. You find yourself digging in to what’s left of your savings. It’s time to get back some of that money that the government “stole” from you and your employer all those years. So I signed up. It won’t be enough to take care of all my needs but it will take the edge off until I too pass into history. I just hope that this milestone won’t turn out to be a speed bump.
*Baby Boomers. Refers to a group of people who were born right after the second world war between 1945 to approximately 1955. It appears that the dads of these “boomers” had only one thing in mind upon separating from the armed forces.
Questions and comments: thebeecee@hotmail.com
Tags: baby boomers, social security. milestones
Posted at 06:51 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Jun. 11th, 2008
Reporting from the concrete jungle
On the streets of the hot hot city…
Not a creature was stirring.
Not even a horse.
To say it was just hot out yesterday would be doing a disservice to the word hot. It was dangerous hot. If you live in a climate where it’s usually hot like Texas, Florida or Newark New Jersey you know how to adapt to the heat. You simply don’t go outside.You live in an air conditioned world. But us city dwellers here in the northeast aren’t used to this sustained heat. We don’t respect it. In fact we rather enjoy it. For a while anyway. But soon the reality begins to set in. It begins with sweat. First just beads of it. Then rivulets begin to run down your forehead. Sweat begins to form in places it never has before like your back and neck. And then it happens. That expensive underarm deodorant that you spent five bucks for because it says that it would stop odor and wetness for 12 hours falls pitifully short of its mark, by eleven hours and forty five minutes. You seek shelter in a Starbucks and order what has become America’s drink de jour, iced latte with whipped cream on top, merci.
As dangerous as it was for us two legged citizens it becomes even more so for the animals that cohabitate with us here in the baked apple. A couple of days ago we received some information from a reader informing us of the rules governing the use of horse drawn carriages in New York. Simply put, you can’t work a horse if the temperatures are over 90 degrees. The reader also explained that there is difficulty in enforcing these regs because of the lack of ASPCA officers and the unwillingness of the carriage operators to comply. With this in mind I ventured back to Central Park yesterday armed with the Nikon to see if any four or even two legged folks were working. I waited for the time-temperature sign on one of the tall midtown buildings to hit 90 and headed for the entrance to the park at 5th Ave. and 59th Street, the place where all of the carriages wait to pick up fares. I am pleased to report that although there were plenty of tourists there was not a horse to be found.
There were no horses at Grand Army Plaza. Not too many cabs
either.
Along 59th street where carriages and
their drivers usually wait for customers
there were no horses.
This bridal path, usually nose to tail with carriages, was devoid
of traffic.
The only thing that I can conclude from all this is that either all of the horses and drivers were at Starbucks enjoying a bucket of iced lattes and oats or there actually is some sort of self regulation that is being complied with.
Finding no animal cruely going on I decided to see how the humans were doing in the heat.
I realize that it’s tough to make a living these days and New
York is an expensive city to live in, but there is something very
disturbing about this form of transportation. It’s very third world.
“Another turn around the park mimsab?”.
The word of the day was hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. It was good
to see that most folks were going for straight water rather than
soft drinks.
More than a birdbath and more like a bird pool, the fountain
near Columbus Circle was like spa for this feathered New
York resident. Looks like he believes in total immersion. “Does
any body have a towel, anybody?”
A proper picnic. In these days of fast food and brown bag
lunches it was nice to see that this couple was doing it right.
The whole scene was very Victorian from the wicker picnic basket
to the prim and proper dress of the picnickers. You can’t see it
here, but he was actually wearing a tie. “Pass me another finger
sandwich Zelda”.
One the other hand not all of us can find the time to spread
out on the grass in Central Park. It’s nice to know that we can
rely on the mobile food vendor to provide us with some hot weather
alternatives. “I’ll have a mango guava and canteloupe shake please”.
It looks cool and I guess it was actually cooler than some parts
of the city but even these folks on 5h Ave were feeling the heat.
It’s supposed to be cooler today so I’m going to stay in a take it easy. I’ll give the camera a rest too. Sometimes you have to stop looking at life thru a lens.
All photos (c) 2008 Bruce Cooper
comments and questions? thebeecee@hotmal.com
Tags: aspca, heat wave, pedi cabs, picnic, pidgeons
Posted at 07:42 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Jun. 10th, 2008
A trip up north and a carriage horse controversy…
In search of cooler temps.
No relief in them northern woods.
As New York melts into its third day of record breaking temperatures it’s getting to feel more and more Florida-like. In fact all we are missing are the palm trees the knobby knee’d old guys with the white plastic belts and an early bird special or two. In fact if it doesn’t start getting cooler around here we can expect to see stone crab restaurants and a Publix supermarket popping up on every corner.
Being a man of unlimited time but limited means my choices for heat beating diversions are few. I could go to the beach but that means trading one hot location with dust (my apartment) for another with sand. Instead I decided I would head for the cool north woods. The call of the wild was strong my friends. My primal need to commune with nature called to me. Hang the gasoline, hang the tolls, come on up. And up I went. I decided to point the Civic in the general direction of the mountains. I would go as far as a half a tank of Saudi’s finest would take me saving the other half a tank to get me home. I got as far as Bear Mountain. All I can say is I hope the bears were keeping cool, I wasn’t. Despite the trees and the rivers and the lack of concrete there was no hiding from the heat. I stayed about an hour before I took shelter in the air conditioned heaven of my Honda. The lack of photos is reflected in my haste to leave.
This is the visitor center at Ft. Montgomery in the town of
Hastings, NY. This is one of those off the beaten path historic
areas that abound upstate. You can see that the parking lot
was packed. In fact the last people that came to this place in
any great numbers were the British in 1777. To the best of my
knowledge they haven’t been back.
The nearest highway,route 9W, is way up there. If you blink
you’ll miss the entrance to the fort and the next stop is West
Point.
The wreck of a nineteenth century schooner lies in the shallows
of this Hudson River estuary. The Bear Mountain Bridge looms in
the background. Despite the cool appearance of this scene there
was not a breeze to be had.
The woods were cool and dark and I had many miles to go
before I sleep. Dark yes, cool no. This footbridge to the wooded
trail on the other side offered no relief from the heat.
Don’t get me wrong. This is a great place to visit. Just visit when it’s cool. I’ve been there in the fall and it’s spectacular. Bring water and maybe some food. There are few services around. The trails are steep and although I’m used to walking, my knees told me that I probably won’t be doing these vertical treks much longer.
In response to a comment on yesterday’s blog.
The following is a reprint of a comment added to yesterdays blog from someone who obviously has some very strong opinions regarding carriage horses in Central Park.
horse-drawn carriages in NYC
NYC law requires that carriage horses be taken off the streets if the weather hits 90 degrees. Unfortunately the law was crafted by lobbyists for the carriage industry, so the the ASPCA officer (there’s only one assigned to the 68 carriages) has to personally ask the carriage driver to take his/her horse off the street. It means that the ASPCA has to find every carriage in a very big park, which can take hours, to make the request. The pavement can be up 40 degrees hotter than the air, so it means these animals are standing on scorching asphalt. This was cited in the NYC Comptroller’s audit of the carriage horse industry last year, which was critical of industry.
The bottom line is that horse-drawn carriages don’t belong in a major city with extreme conditions–including weather, traffic, noise, exhaust fumes–and must finally be ended. This is the 21st century after all!
Working the park. A New York institution who’s days may
be numbered.
The above comment was, for what ever reason, sent anonymously. Let me say that I do not affirm or condemn the use of carriage horses in urban parks. I certainly don’t condone the mistreatment of any animal under any circumstances. If indeed there are laws broken here they should be vigorously enforced. The photos I took Saturday were taken early in the day when the temperature was below 90 degrees. I exited the park way uptown on 79th street where most horse drawn carriages don’t go so I don’t know if any action was taken by the ASPCA officer to have the horses removed from service. I’m not a horse expert but the animals I saw earlier in the day did not appear to be under any distress.
I realize that there is an ongoing controversy on whether or not we should continue to have horse drawn carriages in Central park but we have to remember that there are peoples livelihoods at steak here.
With that being said I plan to revisit Central Park today to see if I can detect any signs of abuse. The temperature should be well over 90 degrees by the time I get there.
questions or comments? thebeecee@hotmail.com
Tags: bear mountain, florida, horse drawn carriages
Posted at 06:01 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Jun. 9th, 2008
Don’t complain about the heat.
Lets face it…
It’s June. What did you expect?
Sometime today, probably around one or two this afternoon, New York will officially be in a heatwave. That’s three consecutive days of 90 degree temps. Yes, my wilted friends, that’s hot. But what did you expect in June, two inches of frozen slush? We have such short memories. It was just a couple of months ago that we were complaining about freezing temps and the high cost of heating our homes. Now we just can’t wait to complain about the heat. Personally I would rather have hot than cold any day. Maybe it’s an age thing. For some reason as you get older the body craves warmth. As proof I give you Florida. How many senior citizens run to New Hampshire when they retire? There aren’t too many octogenarians that can’t wait to dig their Caddy’s out of a snow drift as they see the 6pm early bird special cut off time come and go. Or maybe the age-heat thing is in preparation for something else. Maybe it’s meant to “ease” us into another dimension where it’s always warm, or hot. Nothing personal, I’m just saying.
O.K. So it’s hot. What can we do about it. We can go with the flow. Enjoy the heat and the sun. Do all of those things you can’t do when it’s cold. Going to the park comes to mind. So does running around naked. I think that when you reach a certain age, say 55 or 60, clothing should be an option. I figure I’ve worn clothes all my life and I’ve had enough. In fact as I sit here writing this blog I’m stark naked with the AC blowing on my fat Jewish body. It’s a blessing. Well, for me anyway.
This weekend I tried to do as little as possible. I did actually go to Central Park to see how my fellow New Yorker’s were coping with the heat. Most seemed to be doing quite well.
While there were a lot of people hanging around Bethesda fountain
in Central Park this weekend, not too many actually went into the
fountain. This fellow decided that there might be a dual benefit to
be derived from this aquatic adventure. Not only would he cool off
but there was a chance he could pick up some of the coins tossed into
the fountain by tourists.He did.
These folks may have found the best place in Central Park.
It never fails to amaze me. No matter how many times I’ve
been here I always find something new. Although this cool
cove has always been here the path from which I took this
photo is new.
In this heat it’s important that we look out for our multi-
legged friends. In response to allegations of possible abuse, the
ASPCA* has posted an agent near where the carriage horses are
fed and watered. They all looked like they were in good condition
and not affected by the weather. But then again I’m not the one
pulling the carriage.
* ASPCA. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. While many communities have SPCA’s or humane societies, only NYC has an ASPCA. This is a one hundred year old organization. The first in the world as it turns out, dedicated to animals and their well being. The ASPCA was the forerunner of all others to come. In fact the ASPCA prompted the formation of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
Questions or comments? E-Mail me at thebeecee@hotmail.com
All photos on this and all previoius blog entries are (c) 2008 Bruce Cooper.
Tags: aspca, heat wave
Posted at 07:19 am | Link | Leave a comment | 1 comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
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