A ceiling light burnt out the other day. The light is much brighter with two bulbs and no cover than with three bulbs and a translucent plastic dome. Looks kind of ugly though, so maybe I need to find a clear, crystal-like cover.
Look! An invisible car!
Here's a couple of new Barack Obama sightings in Harlem. The mural is toward the northern end of Frederick Douglass Blvd. I first saw it on Flickr a few weeks ago and had to get a picture for myself. I forget what the fried chicken place on St. Nicholas just south of 116th St. used to be called, but I noticed yesterday that it has been renamed Obama Fried Chicken, joining the other presidential fried chicken emporia.
There's another place Barack Obama stayed, however briefly, while he was a student at Columbia. Obama wrote in Dreams of My Father that when he arrived at the building on 109th Street there was nobody there to give him a key to the apartment. He waited on the steps for a while before heading off to find somewhere to sleep. Michael Daly of the Daily News believes Obama slept in this alley that runs between 108th and 109th streets just west of Amsterdam Ave. In the morning the future president joined a homeless man to wash up at this fire hydrant.
142 West 109th Street
339 East 94th Street
622 West 114th Street
When Barack Obama transferred to Columbia, the university had no space for him to live so he had to find an off-campus apartment. He first lived at 142 W. 109th as recently recalled by his roommate at the time. Because of the apartment's lack of heat, Obama moved to 339 W. 94th St. for his senior year.
The New York Times determined the 94th St. address from telephone directories of the time. There is an AP article floating around that incorrectly says the address was 334 E. 94th. That article also says Obama lived at 622 W. 114th St. I have my doubts as it is a rather upscale building today. Maybe it wasn't quite so expensive 1983. Even if the future president didn't live there, the building did have at least one celebrity resident: Movie director Cecille B. DeMille lived there from 1906 to 1913.
It would be so nice if these were put to use tomorrow.
In past elections it has taken only a few minutes to vote at my local polling place. Yesterday it took three hours. It was a good time. The weather was nice and the mood was festive, if not electric.
Thinking the vote was going to take a few minutes I had skipped breakfast. For that reason the Dunkin' Donuts donut I ate on the walk home was about the most satisfying Dunkin' Donuts donut I've ever eaten.
Standing on line for three hours put a damper on wanting to go for a long walk. I still went for a walk, and had a conversation with a charming cheesemonger, but my energy was rapidly fading and I could tell I was coming down with a cold. I mostly slept through the election returns last night and spent today on the couch sleeping, reading the paper, and watching Cocoa Tea.
Steubenville, Ohio
Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania
I hope everyone votes tomorrow. Election day is a Columbia holiday. The weather looks good so I will do my usual election day routine: Vote early and go for a long walk around town.
There's nothing like a patriotic art van to bring a smile to one's face. I saw this awe-inspiring HillMobile turned BarryMobile in downtown Marietta.
Unlike what I saw in Ohio and Pennsylvania there's not much in the way of election signs in New York. One that popped up all over Harlem last week was this Charlie Rangel sign. I like how the design makes it look like Obama is the congressman's running mate.
There's at least one Texas Longhorns fan in the city.
The hole in the ground is the future Fulton St. Transit Center, an attempt to rationalize and connect the maze of subway stations in lower Manhattan. The center was supposed to be completed last year. The current estimate is for 2010. The project is running at least 50% over budget and that includes all the design simplifications taken to reduce costs.
Seen in a field on Rt. 212 west of Saugerties, New York. Panorama of all the flags on Flickr.
The Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge was crowded yesterday afternoon. I guess most tourists only go to the first tower then turn back.
Some guy tried to sell me the bridge for a hundred dollars. It's a nice bridge so I offered him two hundred. He didn't have a credit card reader though.
In over four years I've kept politics almost entirely out of this blog. Senator Clinton's stupid gas tax idea has so disgusted me that I need to vent.
Working class people of Indiana and North Carolina, Senator Clinton's gas tax holiday proposal is a joke and you are the punchline. She hints that Senator Obama is an elitist, but of the two who is taking you for a sucker and who is trusting you to make an intelligent choice?
The gas tax holiday has no chance of passing the Senate and House in the next three weeks. If a miracle occurred and it did pass, President Bush would never agree to a tax increase on oil companies. If a second miracle occurred and Bush signed the legislation, prices would not come down at the pump. There are no miracles in the law of supply and demand. A lower price for gas will increase demand. Oil companies can't meet an increased demand because their refineries run at full capacity during the summer. When demand exceeds supply prices go up. Poof, the gas tax holiday vanishes. If you are lucky and put ten gallons of gas in your car on Memorial Day, you'll save $1.84!
Here's the thing: Clinton knows the tax holiday has no chance of becoming law and knows that it wouldn't work even if it did become law. She is so cynical, though, that she assumes the working class is not savvy enough to figure this out. A Wellesley and Yale graduate, former WalMart corporate board member, a person who has not done her own shopping or cooking or housekeeping since moving into the Arkansas Governor's mansion thirty years ago, a millionaire many times over since leaving the White House, is not a member of the working class. The working class is a demographic she is cynically befriending only as long as she needs their votes. Once that vote is over the working class will be left at the side of the road (until she needs their vote again).
To me the choice is clear, a vote for Hillary is a vote for a third Bush term. She may have different positions on the issues but she will bring four more years of lies, cynicism, polarization and a complete disregard for the American people.
Sort of related, John McCain also supports a gas tax holiday. Unlike Hillary his support seems to be clueless rather than cynical. But, that's just my awkward transition to thank Frank Rich for finally asking why Barack Obama has gotten heat even though he has renounced Jeremiah Wright while John McCain gets almost no criticism for seeking out the support of the absolutely despicable John Hagee.
Okay, that's enough politics for a while. Tomorrow: a very special, non-political abandoned bike.
What happened to last night's post? I knew I should have given up. There were connection problems, but I uploaded a picture along with accompanying text and thought it got published. I guess we will try again tomorrow.
Orange bikes like this one in front of an Apple store began appearing in town a couple of days ago. It is fashion week and DKNY is using the bikes to bring attention to themselves and their "Explore the City" campaign, which has something to do with bicycling.
While that is all well and good, chaining painted bikes to poles around town is misguided at best. Since 2005, Visualize Resistance has installed Ghost Bikes, bicycles painted white, as memorials to bicyclists that have died in traffic accidents on the city's streets. Since it's start the Ghost Bike Project has grown to a couple dozen locations in the United States and several other countries.
Regretfully, there are way too many Ghost Bikes in the city. Forty-two are listed on the Ghost Bike website. Some of the Ghost Bikes are in neighborhoods where designers from DKNY would frequent. There are also two Ghost Bikes within a couple blocks of the DKNY offices. Given this you have to assume they didn't come up with the orange bike idea in a vacuum. Someone clearly saw the white bicycles and decided orange would make a great ad campaign.
Adding to their cluelessness is the photo on their web page about riding in the city. They mention safe bicycling and the city's free helmet program. The accompanying photo shows a woman sitting on the handlebars while a guy in long pants rides a bike across a bumpy Belgian block street. Neither rider is wearing a helmet. What is the message we are supposed to take away? Beautiful people do not need helmets? Helmets are not necessary for models because they can't suffer brain injuries?
Although the NYPD usually turns a blind eye to it, it is illegal to chain bicycles to trees, and the police have been removing the DKNY bikes.
Yesterday, for the first time in several years, Groundhog Day fell on a Saturday. That meant I could see Staten Island Chuck make his annual prediction. I wanted to take the ferry but the train-ferry-bus trip timing was not in my favor. So, I brought my car home Friday night and very early the next morning I picked up Gothamist editor Jen Chung and we headed under the East River and over the Verrazano Narrows to the Staten Island Zoo.
The ceremony was a blast! It was a good mix of silliness and pomposity. The Tottenville High School chorus entertained with popular tunes re-worded to be more groundhog friendly. A member of a local brownie troop had the honor of knocking on Chuck's door. Chuck came out, ate a few peanuts, and told the City Council Speaker Christine Quinn his prediction. He didn't see his shadow. Spring is on the way! Pay no attention to those Applebee coupons for free dessert if he didn't see his shadow.
More details and photos are on Gothamist.
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