New York City
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Yes, I’ll admit that yesterday’s sunset through the cross-streets of Manhattan, affectionately known as Manhanhattanhenge, was pretty amazing, tonight’s event made for an even more picturesque sunset.
At about 7:00, a passing thunderstorm came through the region and soaked everything, but it left behind a great cloud cover. Once the sun went down, the skies turned an amazing set of mostly purple colors. It made going back for a second consecutive day worthwhile.
Is tonight’s evening show more spectacular than the sunset on Independence Day?
After nearly ten years of living in this city, I finally made it to the east side and saw the sunset through the Manhattan grid, along 42nd St. Actually, I went past the East River and perched myself on the waterfront at Gantry State Park in Long Island City.
I first heard about it about seven years ago, and read the obligatory introduction, written by Neil deGrasse Tyson, the head of the Hayden Planetarium. It only happens twice a year, in late May and again in mid July, around my birthday.
And today, I biked over to the pier and snapped about 150 photos. I’ll post the choice ones on the photo gallery shortly.
Man, I love summer! And, of course, the crazy sunsets that the clouds and city pollution create each warm season.
This photo was from earlier today, Independence Day 2011, in Riverside Park. We were waiting to see the annual fireworks show begin after sundown.
Congratulations to my friend Steve who staged his first NYC Runs race on Wednesday. The Lousy T-Shirt Race was a 5K in Riverside Park where about 100 runners came on a Wednesday night and raced around the park. The runners were a mix of pretty experienced and skilled runners, weekend warriors, and a handful casual runners for whom this was their first race. The premise behind the run was to poke a little fun at the t-shirts that one collects from doing races such as these. The shirts even read, “NYC Runs Put On Its First Ever And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt!“
Despite the name, the t-shirt was anything but lousy. I should know because I was responsible for procuring and printing these lousy t-shirts, which were gender-specific American Apparel t-shirts in their own proprietary dark blue color called “Lapis.” Sarah and I printed the shirts over the weekend, and we delivered them yesterday a few hours before the race. The key was having a simple one color design on each side, and also having that one-color press I bought from some guy on Craigslist. Way to go!
NYC Runs plans to stage these races on a biweekly basis, and given that this was the first ever race, it went pretty well.
I was invited by a friend at NYU to use the rooftop batting cage at Coles. Yes, that’s right, there’s a batting cage in the middle of the Greenwich Village-SoHo neighborhoods. One of everyone’s biggest complaints is the distance you have to travel to get to one or how expensive it is. This solves both problems since I’m at NYU at least three times a week.
I might have to come here again. And by that I mean every workday!
Thanks, friend…. This is not a bad way to spend St. Patrick’s Day.
While running between my two work sites at NYU, a frozen fire hydrant on Washington Square East made me wonder, “what are we to do in case of a fire?” Also how deep is that freeze?
Anyway, certainly looking forward to spring.
One of my favorite parts of living in NYC has been having this radio station always on the dial (and, yes, online, too). It reminds me of the halcyon days at KCSB-FM. Ahhh…
Pledge generously and support this extraordinary stalwart of freeform radio. We need more of these autonomous, listener-supported radio stations.
Hurry up, though. The marathon ends on Sunday.
So, as you may have heard, it’s been snowing around here, and last night, it really came down in earnest. No foolin’.
Well, I had felt a little guilty about canceling last night’s Media Criticism class, but once I went outside and saw how much snow had fallen, I felt vindicated. It also helped that Fordham University, Queens College, and NYU—not too mention all NYC public schools—had all canceled classes today, too.
Here are some of the pictures that I took late last night to get a glimpse of the peaceful scene on Vernon Blvd.
The LIC:Space held an optical illusion show at their gallery and at a neighboring taxi garage.
Follow the duct tape arrows to the other space….
The fine folks at Dogfish Head Brewery will be staging its fifth-annual Novemberfest on Thursday, November 5, starting at 6:00 pm at Standing’s (43 E. 7th St). Five brews will be on tap plus free pizza. Also, there’s a fairly decent chance that the bar’s sporty side will shine with a possible Game Seven of the mid-autumn classic on the many flat panels.
