Subways and Cityscapes

A few observations about New Yorkers: They all watch Law and Order.  They swear A LOT.  I've never cared, but this city is like being inside Quentin Tarantino's head.  And I wouldn't say that they're neurotic, just more neurotic than a Texan.  There are anti-fast food ads here featuring sad, fat little diabetic amputees, and anti-smoking ads that consider the SALE of tobacco to be "cigarette marketing." The goal of these ads is to outlaw tobacco/fast food from the state completely.  Not that I love unhealthy living, but you guys know me well enough.  I believe the ability to make bad choices, fail, and learn is an important part of life. 

Timour and Galina's loft is in a city call "Cliffside", and a cliff it is!  I have hardly walked anywhere quite as steep.  The flowering dogwoods and lawn ornaments of suburbia plummet abruptly into the Hudson, and the city just...ends!  Water, then New York.  The view from the coast looks a bit like this:

 

The vista from the Jersey shore. (snicker)

Non-New Yorkers always find this view impressive, but I must say, Times Square is my least favorite part of the city.  It is shoulder-to-shoulder crowded and full of lost, slow-moving tourists.  Food here is un-authentic and expensive, and it is in every sense of the word, a circus.  I overheard another tourist comparing it to Las Vegas.  In my opinion, it's like living inside a television that's stuck on commercials all day long.

 

Nonetheless, my work at Larry's Band is still primarily couriering, so I trek through these claustrophobic squares daily.

I love this bit of lobby art, found just inside a building that I delivery hard drives to.
Soho isn't much less crowded, but its old buildings and chic shop facades make for nicer scenery.  And this park alone makes Soho worth walking through.

Just enter one unassuming gate...

...And suddenly you are surrounded by flora and fountains!  Mind you, this park is maybe 700 sq ft.  Outside the gate is the screeching tires and snaring horns of taxis, the ubiquitous sewer stench that hangs cloying onto the city's every cement inch, but in here, it's a floral oasis.  Thank God for these parks.  Time just melts away inside these things.  I hope the locals appreciate these respites in their strobing information-overload of a day as much as I do.

Not far from the park, this was scrawled on a wall.  The line between wall mural and graffiti blurs here.  I suppose you would define the difference like this:  A wall mural is a desirable addition to the city, while graffiti is consider defacing of property.

But this piece was HUGE and signed with pride.  That's a mural in my book.

The Canal St Station give one access to Chinatown, Little Italy and Soho.  I have spent my share of time wondering Chinatown, and it is easily the best place to buy food and groceries.  Street venders splay onto the sidewalk hocking everything from jade Buddhas to knock-off bags and shoes.  It gives you the illusion that you are strolling through a real-world version of Ebay.  There also seem to be more aggressive creepers and hustlers in Chinatown.  More than one strange man offered to buy me something when they caught me peering through a window.  Slowing down to read a menu is right out!

Exhausted, but with successfully procured groceries, I snap a photo off my reflection on an empty car.

Per Oguz's suggestion I stopped by the three-story Toys-R-Us in Times Square.

It has an indoor Ferris wheel!

I managed to get a hold of $5 tickets to Carnegie Hall: a few choral requiems and a very traditional venue of white, red and gold.

I live half my life in the subway.

They're brimming with performers, and I have seen accordians, guitars, jazz ensemble, mariachis, blues singers, and dancers.  Every day is "flash mob" day in these things.

I used to have a childhood fear of the subway scene from The Wiz. Every time I'm underground I imagine myself getting chomped to bits by a sentient, man-eating trash can.

Subway graffiti normally consists of mustaches, blacked-out teeth, racial slurs or phalli.  This advice though, I couldn't agree with more.

The setting sun lit up this skyscraper as I walked toward BAM in Brooklyn.

These manhole vents spewing hot sewer-gases are a common site.  For reference, it was a 70 degree day. 

Taxis...

14th-8th St station has these weird, fat little bronze statues scattered through the area.

There's a dark humor to them.  Many of these odd, adorable little things are hobos, Wall Street execs, etc, all pantomiming an eternal satire.

And then some of them just look like this.

Money Bags getting eaten by an alligator.

This is Bushwick, just outside of Morgan Ave Station.

It's the neighborhood Lily lives in.

It's part industrial inner city, part art community.

But the locals have a nickname for hipsters here: ATMs.  This is because mugging hipsters is lucrative and wholesome family fun here.  Terrifying.

Lots of keen graffiti though.  The Occupy movement is big here.

Next time: Job Searching.