what about the plastic animals?

Wingin' It

A little over a year ago I wrote about the mini-boom (or is that boomlet?) in chicken wing places in Harlem.  For a short time there were three within a few blocks of each other.  Currently there is only one - Atomic Wings on Frederick Douglass Blvd.

They most mysterious of the three wing places was Just Wingin' It at 118th and Frederick Douglass.  They kept really inconsistent hours until finally they didn't open at all.  A few months ago Construction Intervention, some TV show I've never heard of, filmed an episode (episodes?) of their intervention at Just Wingin' It.  HarlemCondoLife says that show is going to air on April 13th.  Despite the show the wing place still hasn't opened.  With their awning removed and the recent addition of scaffolding the place looks worse than ever.

In happier neighborhood eatery news I was wrong about Settepani.  It finally re-opened yesterday, reborn as a restaurant and wine bar.  Welcome back!

The Biggest Little Nipper

I'm continuing to scour the vaults, looking for old pictures.  Little Nipper of RCA Victor fame sits atop a warehouse on the north side of Albany.  This is the biggest of the Little Nippers!  It is twenty-five feet high and weighs four tons.  The dog was put up there when the warehouse belonged to an RCA Victor electronics distributor.  The distributor has long since departed but the owner of the moving and storage company that now owns the building has been taking care of Nipper.

When looking for information about Nipper I noticed several websites that claimed he was put on top of the building back in 1954 "on the [then] tallest building in Albany."  That's such a weird claim as there are plenty of taller, much older, buildings in Albany.  More correctly, a couple of sites mention that Little Nipper is just a couple of blocks from the classic Miss Albany Diner.  This claim is true!  I can highly recommend the Miss Albany for lunch (and probably breakfast, although I haven't eaten breakfast there).

Unrelated but not to be missed:  GQ interview with William Shatner. 

Intersecting

Over the weekend I watched The Bourne Ultimatum.  It was very entertaining with the non-stop action covering up the lack of a plot.  There's a chase scene in the movie where Bourne appropriates a cop car and drives from the Port Authority garage on West 42nd Street to get to East 71st St.  There's lots of action as cars careen through Midtown.  The chase comes to an end when Bourne crashes heading downtown near the Brooklyn Bridge.  If you're familiar with Manhattan geography this makes no sense, because he's driven several miles away from where he needed to go. I'll grant them poetic license, however.

There are several "making of" shorts on the DVD, one of which was about filming the chase scene.  It was entertaining as well, not least of which was watching Matt Damon smile like a little kid when they had him learn how to drive like a maniac.

While watching that short I had a recovered memory.  Appropriate for the movie.  It occurred to me that I saw them filming that chase scene.  It was a cold winter's day and I had gone for a walk along the East River.  As I walked toward the Manhattan Bridge I watched a police car being filmed as it raced toward the Brooklyn Bridge on the other side of South Street.  I never did bother to look up what was being filmed, but now I know.

Catskill Game Farm

We went up to the late Catskill Game Farm once when I was a kid.  It was about the most miserable day ever.  It was so hot and humid.  Unrelenting, miserable muggy heat is all I remember.  When my father sees this photo he says "That was a hot day" then he shudders.  At least I got a rubber-tipped spear out of the visit!

Crossing the Bridge

Ooh, this promises to be the funnest 55 seconds ever!  Click through to watch in its full-screen, high-definition goodness.

Kuti and Flo

Well, I'm a little slow here.  I took these pictures more than a month ago intending to write about them.  While I dithered Harlem Bespoke wrote.  Little did they know that it was all in my plan to get them to do the work!

Kuti's opened last week.  It is a sandwich shop on 116th near Morningside Park that specializes in West African French-style sandwiches.  When I first moved to the neighborhood long ago that little space was a video game parlor called The Playhouse.

Florence's hasn't been open in a long time.  I can't remember if it was open when I moved here in 2001 or not.  That space is being combined with the vacant store next door to become Bier International, the first beer hall/garden in Harlem in a very long time.

Shirts Laundered

Ahh, the static cling sign found in the windows of dry cleaners and hair salons everywhere; one of the great mysteries of modern life.  Where do they come from?  Is there just one manufacturer and supplier?  Why do they all have the same 1987 clip art style?  Why is this guy radiating body odor?  Does the dry cleaners guild require all shops to have at least one sign?  Is there one dry cleaner somewhere that uses a different art style for their sign?  So many questions for such an inconsequential matter!

Scary Kid

The current me finds the younger me in this picture to be a bit too intense.

The Corn Exchange Bank Stub

20 June 2004

29 December 2007

21 March 2010

The Streetscapes column in today's New York Times was a depressing story about the disappearing Corn Exchange Bank building at 125th and Park Ave.  The 1883 building was abandoned in the 1970s and was declared a landmark in 1993.  Despite a couple of attempts at renovation the building slowly decayed until the upper floors were declared unsafe a couple of years ago. Here it is circa 1895.

A smaller version of the top photo appeared here in 2004.  All my 2004 pictures are now on Flickr.  By coincidence I happened take another picture when I walked by the building yesterday.

Where Everybody is Somebody

The town that dares not put its name on the welcome sign.  The town where everybody is somebody and no events are scheduled.  That town is Lawyersville, New York.  Town may be an exaggeration.  Lawyersville is little more than a few houses, a church, and a New England-style village green a couple miles north of Cobleskill.

These pictures are from last fall.  The photography muse has not been whispering in my ear lately.  Well, that and the five inches of rain last weekend put a damper on taking photos.