what about the plastic animals?

Harriet Tubman

There's a new Harriet Tubman statue at the intersection of 122nd St., St. Nicholas Ave, and Frederick Douglass Blvd.  In looking up information about the sculpture I've seen that intersection referred to as Harriet Tubman Square, Harriet Tubman Triangle and Harriet Tubman Plaza.  I've yet to hear anyone actually call it any of those names.  What was just a concrete triangle earlier this year is now an attractive, landscaped triangle of stone, granite and a sculpture.  I believe the sculpture is part of the mayor's plaNYC program to wrest more green space from the city's streets.  It's a well-done sculpture.  The several people that walked by while I was taking these photos mentioned how much the liked it.

I don't have a clever transition to this next item.  As I usually do on Wednesday mornings on the walk to the bus, I bought the paper from the woman at the "news stand", that is stack of newspapers on milk crates, across the street.  Unlike most mornings there was a guy aggressively panhandling.  He waved an empty coffee cup in my face and asked for change.  He had a really nice haircut.  Really nice.  Like a hundred dollars every few weeks kind of nice.  I did not know what to make of that but he did not get any change.

Beginning and End

Pupin Physics Laboratory, Columbia University

Shinran Shonin, New York Buddhist Church

This was an odd coincidence.  While on the Columbia campus on Sunday I took a picture of the Pupin Physics Laboratory.  It is home to the physics department and one of the more historically important buildings on campus.  Some early advances in electronic computing were done there, the laser was invented there, the heat-resistant tiles used on the space shuttle were developed in this building, and, probably most importantly, this is where the Manhattan Project began.

I guess the Manhattan Project was in the aether as William Broad had a great article in today's paper about "Why They Called it the Manhattan Project".  It was in the basement of Pupin that physicists Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard and others demonstrated in early 1939 that nuclear fission, the splitting of the uranium atom, takes place when uranium is bombarded with neutrons.  It is also where Fermi began to work out how a chain reaction might occur and how that chain reaction might be controlled.

A few blocks away from the Columbia campus is the New York Buddhist Church.  Shinran Shonin, a monk and the founder of the Jodu Shinsu Sect of Buddhism, is depicted in the statue.  The statue was about a mile from where the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima.  Having survived the blast the statue was brought to New York in 1955 as "a testimonial to the atomic bomb devastation and a symbol of lasting hope for world peace."

Sunrise to Sunset

Fungus in Morningside Park

Mt. Sinai reflecting the sunset

Either I'm working longer hours or the days are getting shorter.  I left my apartment a few minutes after sunrise this morning and was walking home a few minutes before sunset this evening.

Hustler Barber Shop

The Hustler Barber Shop was such a hit on Flickr that I thought I should share it here.  Or, I'm just being lazy.

Guthrie Theater

Guthrie Theater and Gold Medal Flour elevator.

Inside the cantilever.

Collapsed I-35 bridge.

Looking out the window toward the Gold Medal Flour grain elevator.

The rotated building on the previous post is the cantilevered part of the new Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.  The building sits on the bank of the Mississippi and opened last year.  There are great views up and down the river from the edge of the cantilever. 

Quiz Time

What is wrong with this picture from Minneapolis?  Jeff can't answer until Friday.

Lots of Chopping

Two frying peppers and one medium onion

Four pounds of San Marzano tomatoes

I hope this was the last batch of tomato sauce for 2007.  Fry up a pepper and onion or two, and 3-4 pounds of tomatoes (eviscerated), for 10-15 minutes.  Add a few basil and oregano leaves, a pinch of salt and pepper, and a smashed up clove of garlic.  Cook for another minute or two.  Run through a food mill, not a blender.  Cook the sauce until it reaches the desired thickness.  The fresh San Marzano tomatoes are so meaty that the sauce doesn't need to cook down, which means the sauce doesn't get overly sweet.

Pumpkins

Mini-pumpkins and gourds

Medium pumpkins

Mega pumpkin

Blue seedless grapes in a pumpkin-colored bin

The weather has yet to cooperate but it is fall.  Evidence of the season can be found at the Union Square Greenmarket, where the harvest of apples, squashes of all kinds, root vegetables and members of the cabbage family are in full display.  The grape growers are very serious about the "no self-serve" rule.  That's okay, as the grapes are delicious.

But you can find more than produce at the park.  At night you can catch nifty light saber action.

Kiku at the New York Botanical Garden

Kengai, or cascading, mums

Bamboo sculpture by Tetsunori Kawana

Ozukuri, or "thousand blossom" mum

Shamisen performance by Masayo Ishigure

Just a big pot of lavender mums

Kiku, The Art of the Japanese Chrysanthemum opened this weekend at the New York Botanical Garden.  It was such a nice day, people, it's 74 degrees in late-October, that I rode my bike up to the Bronx to check it out. The ride is only seven miles, which is about the same as a lap around Central Park.

Chrysanthemum cultivation, kiku in Japanese, is a traditional art in Japan.  The making of this exhibit has been a five year collaboration with the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden in Tokyo.  For the first time, horticulturalists from outside of Japan were trained on how to cultivate the mums. 

The cultivation is quite a task.  See that middle photo with the yellow mums lined up in neat rows?  That's a single plant that's been grown and pinched to produce 229 flowers in simultaneous bloom.  Not pictured, because my photos were lousy, are the exact opposite --a series of mums which only had one bloom per plant and that flower was a ball about six inches in diameter.

 

In addition to the kiku, there was the very cool giant bamboo sculpture, a number of bonsai displays, the shamisen performance, a tea ceremony, and a plants of Japan in books and prints exhibit.  Be sure to visit them all as admission is pricey.  The exhibit continues until November 18th.  Then it's time for the train!

Moonlight Madness

On the same evening we saw the amazing moonrise, Jeff and I also saw this ad in the Ashland, Wisconsin newspaper.