The
Night Heron (SL NYTimes), an invitation-only club held in an abandoned water tower in Chelsea for 8 weekends in March, April and May.
posted by dabug
on May 23, 2013 -
102 comments
Photographer
Arne Svenson has
sparked a bit of
controversy with his recent show "
The Neighbors," about which he says, "I turned to the residents of a glass-walled apartment building across the street from my NYC studio. The Neighbors don’t know they are being photographed; I carefully shoot from the shadows of my home into theirs. I am not unlike the birder, quietly waiting for hours, watching for the flutter of a hand or the movement of a curtain as an indication that there is life within."
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posted by taz
on May 17, 2013 -
323 comments
Bostonians Tyler Balliet and Morgan First love wine. Drinking it, talking about it, introducing other people to it. But wine, unfortunately, is often perceived to have an attitude, a culture of snottiness and pretension that puts people off before they even get close to a wine glass. Why swirl it? What's with that obnoxious sucking sound? What the hell is the deal with spitting it out? What about the
confusing vocabulary and snooty descriptors? When did wine become "sassy" or "understated", instead of "delicious"?
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posted by MissySedai
on Apr 30, 2013 -
127 comments
"Them and Them." "Rockland County, New York's East Ramapo school district is a taxpayer-funded system fighting financial insolvency. It is also bitterly divided between the mostly black and Hispanic children and families who use the schools and the Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox Jewish majority who run the Board of Education and send their children to private, religious schools." Also see:
A District Divided.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Apr 24, 2013 -
168 comments
Inequality and the New York subway. An infographic
from the New Yorker:
The United States has a problem with income inequality. And it’s particularly bad in New York City—according to recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau, if the borough of Manhattan were a country, the income gap between the richest twenty per cent and the poorest twenty per cent would be on par with countries like Sierra Leone, Namibia, and Lesotho.
posted by nickyskye
on Apr 16, 2013 -
69 comments
"
Two years ago, I wrote a post about Rockland County Psychiatric Center, an abandoned insane asylum complex that is easily one of the most haunting places I’ve ever scouted. To my amazement, more than 250 comments have since been left by former patients, doctors and nurses, and residents ... I wanted to
share a selection of these with you, to allow those who knew Rockland Psych firsthand to tell its story."
(Scouting NY, previously)
posted by griphus
on Apr 15, 2013 -
20 comments
Each year on March 25, the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, Ruth Sergel and a team of volunteers have installed "Chalk," a public art project commemorating the lives lost that day in 1911. Sergel, who also founded the
Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition has made a publicly available data map that records "
the name, home address, likely age, country of origin, and final resting place of all known Triangle Fire victims." Says Sergel, "The chalk will wash away but the following year we return, insisting on the memory of these lost young workers."
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posted by liketitanic
on Mar 26, 2013 -
7 comments
William Blake has been held in solitary confinement at Elmira Correctional Facility in New York State for nearly 26 years, after he murdered a Sheriff's Deputy and wounded another in a failed escape attempt back in 1987. Sentenced to 77 years to life, he will be eligible for parole in 2064. But Blake has no chance of ever leaving prison alive, and almost no chance of ever leaving solitary — a fate he considers "
a sentence worse than death."
(Via) [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Mar 16, 2013 -
79 comments
Historically the United States (on a state by state basis) has given almost complete freedom to parents to name their children, both first name and surname, with results like "Fly-fornication," "Mahershalalhashbaz," "Encyclopedia Britannia," "States Rights" (who was killed in battle as an officer for the confederacy), "Trailing Arbutus Vines" and many more. (
Naming Baby: The Constitutional Dimensions of Parental Naming Rights, Carlton F.W. Larson, 2011 [
SSRN/
PDF]). In October 2012, however, New York courts made two interesting rulings that reflect limitations on renaming, if not naming, rights, for both adults and children.
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posted by Salamandrous
on Feb 27, 2013 -
54 comments
Once the home of the
Weckquaesgeek tribe, and more recently,
William Shatner, Hastings-on-Hudson might sound like the next village over from Downton Abbey, but according to the New York Times, it's "
a village, in a Wittgensteinian sort of way" seeing an influx of ex-Brooklynites fleeing to the suburbs in the face of creeping real estate prices. Sure, these new hipsturbanites may miss the creative density of urban New York, but at least the river setting matches their
Filson/woolrich heritage-brand aesthetic.
Read on if you set your cultural compass to the Brooklyn Flea, or your NYT Style section appreciation to ironic twee.
posted by deludingmyself
on Feb 18, 2013 -
28 comments
Recently, in a candlelit room in Tribeca, a 24-year-old named Zack made a confession. “I’m very open about this, but I’ve been in recovery for the past two years,” he said from a podium, facing a room of two dozen people who looked up at him with approval, acceptance, and even a generosity of spirit. He wore a trucker’s hat over curly blond hair and explained that he was from Florida, an actor and hip-hop dancer (“Woo hoo!” “All right!”). Then he kicked on the music and began pedaling his bike. Inside The Carefully Cultivated Soul of SoulCycle [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue
on Jan 25, 2013 -
59 comments
The Bronx Zoo is managed by the Wildlife Conservation Society, which boasts of running more than 500 projects in sixty-five countries through global field offices whose employees work to advance sustainable development; address issues of global climate change, health and well-being, and natural-resource use; and pursue other noble-sounding objectives that attest to the totality of man’s dominion over the lesser beasts.
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posted by latkes
on Jan 20, 2013 -
30 comments
In 1992,
Lynn Brooks founded the non-profit
Big Apple Greeter program, to help make a visit to New York City seem less intimidating and dangerous to first-time visitors: Pick a date, time and neighborhood, and the organization will match you up with a local who will spend several hours with you, helping you find your way around, teaching you the ins and outs of subways and buses, the cool shops, the great places to eat. (Their site also has some outstanding
neighborhood profiles and
cultural attraction guides that should be of just as much interest to local residents.) The idea spread, leading to the formation of the
Global Greeter Network, which now has greeter programs in
cities all over the world.
posted by jbickers
on Jan 18, 2013 -
13 comments
High maintenance: a nameless cannabis delivery guy delivers his much-needed medication to stressed-out New Yorkers in this character-driven web series.
posted by matthewr
on Jan 13, 2013 -
46 comments
"On a good day, the street maintenance team tasked by the New York City Department of Transportation with roadway repair might fill 4,000 potholes in eight hours. In an average week, they could resurface 100,000 square yards of road. After Hurricane Sandy, their crews removed 2,500 tons of debris. And every day, on a Tumblr called
The Daily Pothole, New Yorkers can take a peek inside the workings of a city system few have likely thought about." Storyboard:
A Day with New York City’s Pothole Repair Crew. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jan 2, 2013 -
8 comments
Lets Swim To Work! "Centuries of boat traffic, heavy industry, sewage runoff and toxic dumping have ingrained in us the idea that urban waterways are not places for people. Even as cities have rushed to the water’s edge over the past couple of decades, building elaborate waterfront parks and esplanades, few have taken the next logical step: encouraging residents to dive in."
[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns
on Nov 23, 2012 -
42 comments
No one expected the force of the tempest that hit the New York Public Library in late 2011—not its new president, Anthony Marx, and maybe not even the literary lions up in arms over plans for an ambitious, $300 million renovation. Will the “palace of culture” on Fifth Avenue become a glorified Starbucks, as some fear? Interviewing all sides, Paul Goldberger walks the controversy back to its flash point: the nature of the library’s 21st-century mission and the values at the center of the Norman Foster–designed project. -
Paul Goldberger, Firestorm on Fifth Avenue
posted by beisny
on Nov 17, 2012 -
23 comments
