Morons!

Nothing says Washington Square Park like two guys (boys, really) dry-humping each other on an abutment (or two t's?) while across the way a man walking his dog tilts over garbage cans to release swarms of rats for fido to maim before the man puts them out of their misery...
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MTA Museum & WTC PATH

Here are some pictures I took on Saturday. Jason and I went to the MTA Museum in Brooklyn before he was meeting a dude from Connecticut for dinner and to see Rockapella. Seriously, Rockapella. At least I wasn't jealous. MTA is the public corporation that runs the NYC subway, buses,...
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Christmas means model cities and trains

Went on an excursion to Manhattan with my family today. They wanted to see the Rockefeller tree, some museums, and the new temporary World Trade Center PATH station (opened Nov 23). So we took the PATH from Newark. I'm not sure how or why we decided on that versus...
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Giving T's

The NY Times has a fancy little article and slideshow with audio from the World Trade Center PATH station re-opening. I haven't used the new station yet but I'm sure I will eventually. Maybe next week since tomorrow at the crack of dawn I'm off to Waverly, Iowa because, literally,...
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Screw the Holodeck

I did this cell phone walking tour of the lower east side a few days ago. Basically you find the starting point, which is acually a tiny hole-in-the-wall tourist office of some sort (weird!). Call an 800 number and enter your stop number. Then Jerry Stiller, who proudly grew up...
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Don't turn around

Overheard on the NYC Subway, referring to eBay, an adolescent boy, repeatedly: "It's a black Mercedes. 23 grand, son. But the reverse isn't met."...
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The High Line

Man, Williamsburg Brooklyn is a confusing place. Or perhaps it just overloads my typical Manhattan direction-finding instincts with streets that seem to be an ordered grid but, in fact, are not. At least I know in downtown Manhattan and the West Village, for example, never to trust anything or anyone,...
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Run for your life if you can, little girl

I didn't realize the NY Marathon went through all five boroughs. That's kind of cute, and kind of forced. Getting Staten Island in there is a stretch but it is a good bridge. (btw why is the Manhattan bridge missing) What did they do before '64, run on the ferry?...
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Jawohl

Oh shit, the Yahoo sign's gone! No longer, along Houston Street by the place they sell all the leftovers from the subways, does Yahoo pull a Holiday Inn and claim to be a "Nice place to stay on the internet". It's been there as long as I can remember --...
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Renewable Brooklyn

On short notice yesterday, I discovered and decided to attend the Renewable Brooklyn event in Prospect Park. Feeling I would be exposed in a public place, I also opted to have my bodyguard, Jason, along on the excursion. More than the promise of raising money for some unknown and brand-new...
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IM as Concept Art

Once again technology saves the day, solving a problem of its own devising. What do you do when you have a tale interesting enough to talk about once. But not so intriguing to relate twice? And you just finished IMming it hurriedly in stream-of-consciousness form? Throw it in your blog...
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See the world, meet new people

12:30 at night and I'm just back from the 2 hour drive from Atlantic City. Just another stop on the Jason and Paul Let's-Visit-Locations-Each-More-Unlikely-Than-The-Last continuing tour. But backing up, one might wonder why Jason was even deserving of my chauffering services again after nearly ruining last night's trip to The...
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The Center of the World

There was a really good documentary on PBS tonight about the World Trade Center from its first conception in the '50s to its destruction. I don't have much to say about it except wondering whether to actually buy the episode on DVD since I'd definitely like to have it, to...
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Lovely Rita

Unsurprisingly the web site to pay NYC parking tickets online does not work properly. Consequently there will probably be an APB placed on myself or my dad sometime this week. If anyone wants to try paying it for me, my ticket number is 383657089-0....
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The Agony and the Ecstacy

True to its namesake, here is my novel-length take on Thursday's blackout. Somehow I had front-row tickets. Many pictures and movies....
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My esteemed colleage David Woo has also written in detail about our Blackout adventure. Don't miss it.

So today was my other day-off this week. My "Sunday", to Thursday's "Saturday" if you'll permit the analogy. I don't even know if that makes sense. But I didn't do much today. Some banking, got a new router (we go through routers like they're kleenex), took it easy like you should do on a Sunday.

"Saturday", on Thursday though, that was wild. I figured I should enjoy my day off and what better way than wandering around New York City? My friend Dave wanted to photograph counterfeit designer handbags in Chinatown for some reason. So we headed in even when lunch with another friend of ours fell through. For the sake of variety I parked at this mall in Newport, Jersey City. We got to Chinatown without incident and for lunch I had my old favorite, meat-on-a-stick. It would be my last food for quite a while but I didn't know that yet.

Here's a picture of the black gay bar next to the Christopher Street PATH station. At night the entire street swarms with black guys who, it now seems clear, must all be gay. DL. Likewise, the PATH entrance swarms with cops. At least 5 to 10 each night I've seen. Talk about profiling (gone wrong?)

I'm normally only in Chinatown to pass through so it also was more Down Low than I remembered. All the merchandise is under drop cloths or easily shuttered behind roll-down metal doors set into Blimpies franchises...weird. Dave didn't have much luck photographing the goods and the merchants. Then he just started angering people, asking random women if he could photograph their bag and whether it was real or not. I decided it was time for a Green Tea Smoothie at Tea & Tea on Mott Street.

Damn, what a fine beverage! Although if you're not Asian you might get better service at the 2nd Ave location. They're about to open a fourth store in Times Square so now is definitely the time to invest. (third store is somewhere in Brooklyn)

We wandered downtown towards what I now call the Demilitarized Zone around Police HQ, the federal prison, federal courts, and all that stuff. There is a crosstown street through the area that goes in a tunnel under City Hall and is now completely barricaded off with police and US Marshall Service checkpoints. Just walking around taking pictures with a frosty drink we were ordered that there could be "no pictures of any US government installations". That's not America. That's not even Mexico!

The last time we were here two weeks ago with some midwesterners, several of the officers didn't even know what "USMS SDNY" fully stood for. I know one thing they won't stand for, though, and that's slacking off. So I tried to convince Dave that we should set up shop in this apparently abandoned kiosk next to a Catholic Church. But he felt the eyes of Johnny FBI upon him from the many surveillance cameras so we kept moving.

Some day either an Al Qaeda terrorist or an Ohio electrician will end up in this court to face the music for the events of the 14th.

After seeing a large number of people in strange uniforms (which turned out to be Police Academy cadets...later that night they showed up directing traffic. Very badly!) we hopped a subway uptown to Union Square where I took this picture. There are two details in it that don't belong. Can you guess which? Here's a hint: one is green and round, the other is white and shaped like a little man.

After an expensive pint in the Heartland Brewery which we planned to return to for a take-home jug of something interesting (the second major goal of our trip), Dave and I decided we had to get full value out of our day-long unlimited subway pass, so off to Williamsburg for some sights and a cheaper pint before heading home. We got on the L train and rode toward the East River. It was almost 4:00.

The Union Square station lies below the (somewhat imaginary) 4th Avenue. Past the 1st Avenue station our train slowed to a rather quiet halt and the main lights went out. I thought this happens sometimes, especially on crosstown trains for some reason so I didn't think much of it. Normally the lights don't go out at the same time the train stops, though. This time it did get rather dark. There are battery-powered fluorescent lights along the sides of the train but it turns out probably 65% of these are burnt out.

After ten minutes a woman got on the PA and said something unintelligible in a heavy accent. She must have been ordered to give it another try because in another minute she back on and said "The train's power is out. Please be patient and we'll get moving again shortly." Or something like that but worded worse; I can't even get it right.

I passed time by remarking on the surprising amount of "Chromium" in whatever pink vitamin water I had been handed a free sample of in Union Square. 40% of your RDA. Is that good?

As the power remained out I remembered to start my stopwatch so I could really have something to complain about later. 30 minutes after the train stopped it had become a sweatbox and I figured as soon as it started again I'd have to head back home to be in time for dinner in NJ with a family friend.

Dave and I befriended a whimsical old man from Williamsburg. He had been making commentary to no one in particular for quite a while. Finally I started responding. Time to start building alliances.

Our friend -- whose name I never learned, unfortunately -- thought something else, and something big, must be going on above ground; otherwise we'd certainly have been visited by some transit cops or electricians or something by now. I thought he was nuts, but it was becoming unbearably hot and difficult to breathe so maybe my judgment was off. We started talking about making a break for it when a guy in an MTA uniform came through saying if the power didn't come on soon we'd evacuate the train, and he showed us how to open the car's four windows about an inch each which helped a lot -- oh wait, no it didn't.

Even after about an hour of waiting, we three were about the only people talking in the car. Everyone kept pretty quiet except for occasional jokes. A couple rowdy black guys in the back had already split for points unknown (the next car down I guess). Only after they shouted at the PA to at least "put on some Hot 97 in here!"

Here are two movies. The first is more interesting.

Finally well over an hour after the train stopped, we sweat-drenched passengers heard the call over the intercom. "Move to the front of the train and begin exiting onto the catwalk". Screw that, we said, thinking the walk under the river to Brooklyn didn't compare very well with a trek back to 1st Ave, and headed toward the rear of the train two cars over.

With everyone from other cars crowding into the last car, it was somehow hotter still. Hotter than a PATH station on an August night. Hotter than a Manhattan dance club. Fucking hot as fucking hell, you can't imagine it.

You can't fan yourself or spread out to feel better. You just try not to move and pretend if you don't notice it, it won't be so hellish anymore

Now people were getting upset. Two guys tried their damndest to force some doors open, but no dice. People screamed at those in front to hurry up and get out of the train. A woman just shouted "Fire" and was met with cries of "Hey shut up" and "We don't need that shit. That's the worst thing you could say". On the personal front my camera told me its battery was dead so I put it away (I would later coax out a few more pics). Dave took these pictures when he finally got out onto the narrow "catwalk" next to the train:

We got separated so I began the blind walk towards freedom with a skittish old asian woman in front of me and our Brooklyn friend and another old black man behind me. It was the cast of a made-for-tv movie. I would absorb their life's experiences and emerge a changed man when I had to leave their broken bodies behind in the caverns of the earth.

The "catwalk" is more of a concrete ledge. It's maybe three feet wide and runs along the tracks about five feet above the tracks. Mostly it was pitch black except when a random firefighter would occasionally shine his light over to help us out. They said it was still better up there than down on the ground with rail ties, gravel, and broken glass. I remembered Ghostbusters 2 and the river of slime. It was surely around here somewhere.

It was then I first heard from a fireman that the whole city's power was out. I believed it, sure, but I didn't want to. In the train I hadn't worried much, just set my mind to waiting it out, hoping for nothing more than a breath of cool air. Now, groping along a subway tunnel in the dark with an unpowered city of ten million doing god knows what above my head, I began feeling a mix of fear and dread that I haven't known since watching Sept 11 unfold on television in Ohio two years ago. My teeth chattered a bit in the same way. I tried not to think about it.

It wasn't even a fear for my own safety. I even remember reprimanding myself that I should be more concerned with just making it home than worrying about whatever terrorism or shit was happening again to this fine city.

When I finally broke through to daylight and reunited with Dave, my hands were jet black from gripping the dirty railing and even dirtier wall where there was no railing. Dave had used his camera as a flashlight but I bet he regretted that later when his battery died.

I called home on my cell before even thinking whether it would work or not. I got my mom after two rings and said I might not make it for dinner. I tried calling Maggie, Jesse, Peter (Gorvits), and Bridget but couldn't get through anymore. I couldn't hear above all the honking and sirens anyway.

After standing around in awe of the vast swaths of people and the chaotic (but not as bad as it could have been) traffic, I came up with a plan.

We'd hike up to Times Square just to see what it would be like since I figured it would be nuts. And then over to the 38th street ferry pier since surely the PATH train wouldn't be running.

So, back to Union Square and up Park Ave we trekked. And with throngs of people. There were still cars trying to get through intersections but pedestrians were all over the streets as if we thought the cars too only ran on electricity and couldn't possibly compete with us now. Take back the streets!

Actually it hardly felt unusual at all. Except for the no traffic lights and people marching down the center lanes of a major avenue, this is pretty much how Manhattan is anyway. At the very least it felt more like a second fourth of july than a disaster area.

Union Square is at 14th street and Times Square is roughly 42nd to 47th street. We got there at about 6:20. I know this because after gaping at the vast expanses of ... black ... billboards and tv screens, I saw a guy with a camera crew across from the ABC studios. He looked vaguely familiar but since I'm a CBS News man I had to hear his name from someone else. Television legend John Stossel! (heh)

Dave, as always, was critical and seemed antsy to get to the ferry. But I noticed it was time for the evening news and wanted to stick around for Stossel to get on the air. Good thing I did because as I was on the phone with my dad trying to convince him to turn on ABC, Maggie called in astonishment that I actually was on TV, staring back at her. We enjoyed a nice little videoconference and compared stories. She said the ferries were a nightmare of people which of course makes sense but hadn't even occured to me. And everyone else had a head start, not being trapped underground for an hour and a half like me.

Dave and I pounded the pavement over from 7th to the river at 12th, stopping for an urban postcard:

And another:

and to remark on the number of helicopters in the air. I could see four just in one direction.

The ferry was obviously ridiculous:

We figured we could either stand in what I personally measured as at least a ten block line (with no back end in sight), or spend the same time wandering around Gotham as it's truly meant to be seen -- with no lights.

The pink sky turned to purple. But at midtown where night is usually brighter than day, nothing was picking up the slack. I felt like I was in the wilderness, camping. Day fades to night and your world collapses to the small illumination of a camp fire.

My stomach reminded me I had eaten only five chunks of rat meat and a piece of bread all day. But everything was closed. I could find nothing to buy but random cakes that I couldn't even see by the light of passing cars. Lines for hot dog carts stretched half a block. Everyone else was only selling beer. Well, I bought a Corona for $2. That's a great price for Manhattan.

This is a picture outside the Hotel Pennslyvania, by Penn Station, where Jesse and I had our H2K2 Hacker Conference last summer:

And so we walked, Dave and I. We didn't know where to go. Midtown with the ferries and ad-hoc busses forming around the Port Authority was probably the place to be if you wanted to get to New Jersey. But now we were committed to staying in the asylum. What would happen? What is a Manhattan illuminated solely by headlights like? What is proper looting etiquette anyway? These were lessons we hoped to learn as we walked.

Here is a map of our walking journey. It is painstakingly accurate to the street level so I hope you scrutinize it well.

Red dots show points of interesting including: Where we emerged from the Subway on 14th and 1st. Times Square where we were on TV. 38th and 12th where the ridiculous ferry line began. The abandoned downtown where upon seeing the downtown ferries were no longer running, we took a cab back to the PATH station which had re-opened.

If you can't tell from the scale, we covered a lot of ground. So many neighborhoods, all dark except for the blinding light of oncoming cars. Many cross-streets had no traffic and were entirely unilluminated. Here I am posing as an amputee with my Corona.

And here with some quickly-warming sushi and a tallie MGD can in the bag in Chelsea.

The street behind is pitch black. To my left is the deli that sold Dave his sushi and me a six-pack of Becks later on. They were gouging on prices but they had a jeep shining its headlights into the store so you could have some light to shop. I actually got the beer and sushi pictured here at another deli up the street with less illumination but a much kinder owner who was discounting his sales. I told him I'd remember the name of his store and recommend it to others but, of course, I have forgotten it. It's on the west side of 5th Ave at about 14th street and has an Italian name but Asian proprietors.

As he left the deli, a black man shouted out "Party at Union Square, y'all" and I thought, ah, of course! So one block over we made our third visit to Union Square that day. Bridget would be so proud.

Sitting on a fence in the park, Dave and I munched Pirate Booty, drank warm beers, and looked at the stars in the sky over Manhattan for the first and last time. On the grass unknowable numbers of people gathered around candles and made happy conversation. On the pavement and steps people danced to tribal drumming in the orange glow of flares, emergency flashers, and the moon. Twenty people rode by on bikes and began shouting and cheering. Everyone in the park cheered at once. It was incredible and it was perfect.

After a while we continued on toward the village. The goal was either a PATH station or the downtown ferries. Washington Square had more or less the same thing going on as Union Square, so must have every park in the entire city. We pushed on through Greenwich Village, past the PATH station that had amazingly resumed service and to the Hudson River Park. The bright lights of Jersey City across the river seemed like a bizarre twist of fortune to those gazing from a Manhattan lit only by noisy and blinding generator lights. In this park the blinding fluoresence dulled any exuberance and left only quiet people gazing into the river wondering when it would all be over. I didn't like this atmosphere.

I called my friend Ting in Battery Park City and learned she had tired of walking up and down from her apartment so she was now really drunk. Or at least that was her story.

I pushed us farther. Farther than reason dictated. We ignored the PATH and made for the Battery Park ferry terminal an improbable distance away. We saw the WTC site, already yesterday's memory, abandoned but still fully lit. Downtown actually seemed the same as it always is. All the buildings are new so most have generators that drown the street in noise and exhaust blast. And the streets at night were as deserted as they always are. The magic was over and it was time to go home. Turns out the Battery Park ferries had stopped so we had to catch a cab back up to the PATH at Christopher street. (when will the WTC PATH station be finished!!!)

Since my car was stuck in a Mall parking garage in Jersey City that closed at 1, and we got in to Hoboken at 1, getting home was hours more adventure of its own, but it fades to irrelevancy at this point.

All night I drank openly on the street along with many other New Yorkers and that was actually the only crime I ever saw committed. (aside from many a whiff of ganja) The NYTimes wrote a couple dozen articles about the resilient, wry spirit of modern-day New Yorkers faced with the blackout, so you can read all that shit if you like. I'll tell ya, though, it's actually true, every word of it.

I can't wait to do it all over again next year.

On the catwalk...

Still haven't had time to even look at my pictures from yesterday. But for my loyal fans, here's a movie from our stranded, underground subway car. Time index: blackout + 1 hour. Estimated temperature: well over 100 degrees, I'm sure....
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Happy Blackout Day!

I am too extremely tired to write much. Suffice to say I left for New York at noon, expecting to get back home by five. Fifteen hours later, my journey has come to an end in a town with working street lights, refrigeration, even internet! It all seems very...
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"The next train will arrive in approximately three months"

Damn and blast the Park Place subway station for advertising a connection to the PATH. I knew it was too good to be true, but I couldn't resist getting off the train just to make sure. Plus the hour was late and the BAC was getting up there. So we...
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Img Src

Photo-blogging is already cliché, having been written about in the evil mainstream media. But I'm finding many cool sites via NYCBloggers, including this one. I saw and wrote off NYCBloggers a year or more ago and now I wonder why. Also: is it me or are New Yorkers way more...
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Visit Historic Williamsburg

My legs are still recovering from Friday when Jason and I agreed that at last the time was ripe for an old-fashioned exploration of western Brooklyn. The grand expanse of King's County is home to 2.46 million people and would be the fourth most populous city in America all by...
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Wave 'im through, Lou

I don't see the evening news when I work at the stupid wine store until 9PM so I was astonished to read in the paper, during lunch, about the shootings at New York's City Hall yesterday. It sounds more like the season finale of a ratings desperate TV drama...
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Film's back from the lab

I almost forgot about my 4th of July pictures! I downloaded them to my PowerBook but then erased the whole machine to install Panther. Rowrrr. Well they're safe at last so enjoy them while you still can. Oooh. Aaah. As an added bonus, find pictures of the Harrison PATH station...
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Girl! I wanna take you to a Dive Bar!

Here's a quick update. Over the weekend (actually on July 4, at about 6PM) Maggie, Bridget, Colleen, and Sean* and I went back to an endearing NYC bar and this time I managed to remember its name. This is quite a feat since we'd all had 3 margaritas beforehand, across...
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Surrender to Mango

Sweet glop in a bowl, my hipster snacking woes are at an end! Next time you're in New York and crave a carbohydrate rush without the deleterious effects of alcohol, well some extra-sugary, slightly chilled rice pudding, with a name as sassy and sweet as the product is just the...
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Just found: astonishing and painful

Just found: astonishing and painful pictures taken of several NY subway stations immediately after 9/11, some actually the next day. This is just a sampling of some more striking ones. But see the whole site at NYCRail.com...
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Maybe I'll become a trainspotter

I found two totally engrossing subway-related web sites today: MetroPlanet has plans, pictures, and history on just about every subway system in the world. And subway is defined pretty loosely so as to snag everything similar, sadly except small C-list American cities like Newark, Buffalo, Pittsburgh whose systems are so...
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My own private Zagaterie

I have a favorite bar in northern New Jersey because it's out of the way, small, local, low-key, often full of people who are actually from Ireland (or are otherwise cool and genuine). It is, as often, nearly empty but the bartenders are friendly, talkative, and generous. It has a...
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The first Cornell is in Iowa

I've been driving around the NJ/NY area for years so I think I have some basis for my comments here. I'm not a Sunday driver. I pick my parents up from the airport and they scream for their lives on the Parkway. I only reluctantly take my dad's Ford...
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So long, suckers!

Ironically, in view of my last post, the old Twin Towers helped me the most as a navigational tool. I am constantly getting lost below 1st 14th street in Manhattan at night, now that I can't look around and see two huge towers which I know are due south....
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Kiss the sky . . . goodbye

So the Libeskind plan, to be modified, was chosen to fill up the WTC site. My reaction: Meh... It's very hard to imagine these fanciful designs by looking at shiny pictures online. Touring the models at the World Financial Center two months ago helped a bit, though I don't...
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I think one of the

I think one of the things I like most about being in the NYC area is the immensely and endlessly complex highway system that surrounds the city and not just extends into, but fills NJ upwards of 50 miles beyond the Hudson River. Sunday afternoon, just before the blizzard, I...
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