what about the plastic animals?

J. Hood Wright Park

This retaining wall collapse and subsequent landslide has received much less attention than the one further uptown.

3000 A.D.

3000 A.D.

The pole is a sculpture that is made of bolted plates of magnesium and aluminum.  Terry Fugate-Wilcox, the sculptor, estimates the plates will fuse together in 3000 A.D.  Hence the name.  If you're coming into town on the GWB you can see sculpture sitting between the four tall apartments to the right and the smaller Haven Ave. buildings on the left.

If you can see the sculpture from the bridge you can see the bridge from the sculpture.  If you walk to the east side of the park you can see this mini-GWB.

Omnipresence:  Starts and Fits has a very funny saga about a parked van.  Just wait until Aaron finds out that I'm also omnipotent!  I was called omnipresent once before.  It happened on a very fine day in May, 1993 right here, on Lehman Ave. just east of the railroad tracks. 

Spring Flowers

Spring arrives artificially at Columbia and naturally in Morningside Park.  The daffodils, not pictured here, have been in bloom in the park since February 21st.

Williamsburg Street Art

More sights from Saturday.  These are mostly along Kent and Flushing Aves.  The corrugated metal fence of the second photo is falling down.  Bring home a panel today!  My favorite is the Swoon in the bottom picture that is slowly disappearing.

For all your street art needs don't forget to check out Streetsy.

More from Greenpoint

Franklin St.

Bakery Rzeszowska, Manhattan Ave.

God Bless Deli, Manhattan Ave.

Java St.

West St.

A few more images from Greenpoint.  After a filling lunch at Lomzynianka, a constitutional was needed to work off some of that kielbasa.  Greenpoint to Dumbo is further than I thought.   I am told that Bakery Rzeszowska on Manhattan Ave. is the place to go for babka.  The cheese babka I tried was very good.

If you look closely, or if you were there on Saturday, you will notice an anachronism in these photos.  While it was cloudy at times on Saturday it didn't rain until Sunday.  Expert photographer that I am I cut off the top of the tall bike in my Saturday picture.  And, yes, I do use the LCD screen to frame my pictures.  I had to go back on Sunday to get a photo of the tall bike before it disappeared.

Rockin':  Sister Rosetta Tharpe playing guitar and singing "Down By the Riverside" (via WFMU)

Lomzynianka, Shake Shack and Unmentionables

Lomzynianka

White and Red Borscht

Boiled farmer's cheese pierogies

Kielbasa

Menu

Saturday afternoon I had a delicious Polish lunch at Lomzynianka in Greenpoint.  Lomzynianka means "girl from Lomza" and refers to the restaurant's owner.  Everything you see above was tasty.  The standouts were the borschts.  The red borscht was sweet and filled with dumplings.  The white borscht was a meal unto itself --potatoes, kielbasa, dill and hard boiled egg.  The too dry potatoes were the only slight disappointment.  Artificial flowers, tinsel hanging from the ceiling and a deer head on the wall gave Lomzynianka a homey feeling.

Other reviews of Lomzynianka:

NYCNosh - 24 January 2006
NY Times - 27 February 2006

This was a good food weekend.  On Sunday I made my first Shake Shack visit of the year.  Did I mention how inexpensive Lomzynianka was?  Lunch for two there was only two dollars more than lunch for one at the Shake Shack. 

However, I had an unexpected lagniappe at the Shack.  I ordered a double shack burger, fries and a chocolate shake.  When my order was ready a Shack guy handed me my bag.  After drying off a chair, it had rained earlier, I sat down, opened up the bag and saw the fries, shake and two double shack burgers.  What to do?  The burger would have been tossed if I brought it back, and I couldn't see letting it go to waste so...  I would have felt guilty about not paying but one time last summer I ordered a shake and got a soda and didn't complain about it.  I now consider us even, Shake Shack.

I did not see a mouse.

The bargains continued a short while later at the Gap.  They had underwear "on sale" two pair for $20.  I don't know why they keep up the pretense of having them on sale since underwear has been 2 for $20, or 1 for $12.50 for several years.  I grab a gray pair and a green pair and head to the counter.  The gray pair is marked-down to $6.99.  The cashier looks disappointed in me that I refused to take the cheaper pair back so I could get the two for $20 bargain.  I mentioned that I was getting a two for $19.49 bargain but that didn't seem to register.  Had I not wanted two different colors I would have gone for the two for $13.98 deal.

Office View and Recipe

View out of my office late yesterday afternoon.

Previous office views:

11 January 2005
29 October 2004
3 May 2004
31 December 2003

My Gmail account has an RSS-feed called a web clip at the top of the page.  I've set it up so that most links are to news items, but a few other links also show up.  Every once in a while I've noticed a link to a recipe for food that includes Spam.  For a long time this had me puzzled until I realized yesterday that I only notice the Spam recipes when I'm cleaning out my accounts spam folder.  The links are context-sensitive ads from recipesource.com. 

In honor of the light finally going on here is the recipe that came up yesterday:

SAVORY SPAM CRESCENTS
 
 Recipe By     : 
 Serving Size  : 16   Preparation Time :0:00
 Categories    : Sandwiches
 
   Amount  Measure       Ingredient -- Preparation Method
 --------  ------------  --------------------------------
   10       sl           Bacon, cut in small pieces
     1/4     c           Finely chopped onion
   12 oz    cn           SPAM Luncheon Meat, cubed
    1                    Egg, beaten
    3       tb           Grated Parmesan cheese
    2       tb           Chopped fresh parsley
    2       tb           Dijon-style mustard
     1/8    t            Pepper
    2       pk           Refrigerated crescent roll dough (8 oz)
 
Heat oven to 375'F. In skillet, cook bacon and onion until bacon is
crisp; drain. Stir in remaining ingredients except crescent roll
dough. Separate each package of crescent dough into 8 triangles.
Spread top half of each triangle with SPAM mixture; roll up. Place on
baking sheets. Bake 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

On a tastier note, Uptown Flavor has is a newish blog that finds all sorts of good things to do and places to eat in Harlem.  Check them out!

Peeling Paint

I have nothing to talk about today.  Enjoy the peeling paint!

On the Block

There is quite a variety of looks to the buildings on my block.  The Renaissance, above, where I live is a modern brick building.  Not too exciting, not too offensive.  Last fall I mentioned the very busy Kalahari that is being built across 116th Street.  In the photos of the Kalahari construction site you can see the colorful Malcolm Shabazz Harlem's Market.  Mid-block are two huge churches and one small church.  At the 5th Avenue end of the block is a 1960s-70s era tawny brick building and the new 1400 on 5th.  Across the street from one of the huge churches is this guy:

The crane has been there for many months as the building has slowly risen from the ground.  Last Saturday I noticed that the building is being clad in a very shiny metal, no doubt to better reflect the Kalahari! 

Pizza party update: A video of Michael Ayoub's mozzarella making demonstration is now on YouTube. I make a cameo appearance toward the end!  (Video by Matty.  via Slice)

Gothamist/Slice Pizza Party

Last night was the Gothamist/Slice pizza party at Fornino in Williamsburg.  There was good company, beer, wine, a plethora of delicious pizza, including black truffle pizza, and spumoni.  Above, chef/owner Michael Ayoub is showing us how to make mozzarella.   Mmmm, fresh mozzarella.  All in all an excellent evening.  Thanks Fornino, Slice and Gothamist!

More on the Slice/Gothamist pizza party from Gothamist, Slice, Youngna, and Tien.

Dollars to Donuts

The Donut Pub, 14th Street and 7th Avenue

99 cents for a boston cream to be exact.  I had a tough time deciding between the boston cream and an old-fashioned sugar donut.  I think by "old-fashioned" they mean cake donut.  We have Tien's nighttime photo to thank for my daytime visit yesterday.   

It has not been a good couple of weeks for old-time donut shops.  The great Old Fashioned Donuts at 86th and Lexington recently closed.  I rarely visit the Upper East Side, but when I got off the subway at 86th Street I made a point of getting a glazed donut at Old Fashioned.  No more.  I also noticed that the donut place at 116th and Lexington has also closed within the past couple of weeks.  They never seemed too busy.  The one time I got a donut there it was stale.  I wonder if anyone would mind if their Hershey's Ice Cream sign were to be liberated?

Oh, take a closer look at the window above "The":

I never noticed it before processing the picture but that's a nice stained-glass window.  I wonder if it is from the original construction?