August 01, 2007
New York Minuet
Dianna has been polluting the discourse on Cementhorizon lately with her tales of sunny Pacific Northwest friendliness. In an effort to clean up the fetid, cheerful mess she has left behind, the bloggy equivalent of a Superfund site littered with good-nature and high-spirits, I present the following tale of an encounter I had this morning in New York City:
It's my last week on the job at The Firm. I'm wrapping up one last project before I leave, writing a chapter for a book The Firm is publishing. This morning I attended an informal meeting with the other interns working on the book. After a brief chat I headed back down the stairs to my office. On the way down I started talking to one of my fellow interns who was at the meeting. I'd never seen her around before, but I'm not super-social so I didn't think too much of it.
She got off on the same floor as me. There aren't a lot of interns on my floor, so this was somewhat unusual. We kept walking.
She works in the office immediately next to mine.
We were still engaged in conversation when we reached our offices. I asked where she goes to school. "Columbia." We had the same professors, took the same classes, and didn't know each other.
The conversation next turned, as it inevitably does in New York City, to housing. "Where do you live?" she asked.
"116th."
"Oh, I'm on 113th! What's the cross-street?"
"About halfway between Lexington and Lennox."
"Really? That's where I am. I'm in 685."
"...I live in 685 too."
"Get out! What floor are you on?"
"The fifth floor."
"Really?! What apartment number?"
"56."
"I'm in 55! We live next door to each other!"
We've been living next door to each other for two years, attend the same school, went to the same classes, and worked for the same law firm in offices that are right next to each other, and I didn't even know who she was until today.
And on top of that, I still don't actually know what her name is. And hopefully she doesn't know mine; there's only so far you can trust people, even co-workers/classmates/buildingmates. In fact, especially co-workers/classmates/buildingmates.
Note: I've changed all the numbers and names above related to my address. Thus, why it won't make sense if you try plugging it into Google Maps.
Posted by Zach at 06:41 PM | Comments (0)
June 18, 2007
This Damn City...
New York reached a new low this morning. I arrived around 10 at the 116th St./Columbia University station. I was running way late, but didn't really care. We wrapped up trial last week and, if my attorney was running to form, it would be a while before I got another assignment. As it happened, I was right; noone noticed me slinking in an hour and a half late, and noone got around to giving me work to do today. This is, however beside the point. The point is that I was at the 116th St./Columbia University station around 10 AM, long after the rush hour crowd had passed through.
I arrived shortly after a downtown train had passed, which meant I wouldn't be able to catch another downtown train for at least a few minutes. As is my habit when I've got time to spare on a subway platform, I made my way to the far end of the platform so I could board a less crowded car when the train arrived.
That's when I saw it, around a car-length and a half from the end of the platform. A small pile of poop. Real, honest-to-goodness poop. It was sitting perched about a foot from the edge of the platform, in around the place people stand when waiting for the train, as though it was patiently awaiting the next train's arrival so that it could hop on and take a trip to South Ferry. There were no footprints in it, so either everyone had managed to avoid it during the rush hour or some harried commuter had decided that he couldn't wait until he got to the office and relieved himself on the platform.
So I ask: At long last, New York City, have you no sense of decency? I've tolerated the vague urine smell that permeates the city, the unfortunate byproduct of a populace that treats every upright structure south of the Cloisters like a urinal, but poop? On a subway platform? Really? Have we sunk so low?
Posted by Zach at 09:33 PM | Comments (0)
June 03, 2007
Your Dog Will Love Our Beautiful Pet-Free Apartment!
The headline for a condo listing currently on Craig's List:
"$349000 Purrfect PIED a TERRE!-Reno'd STUDIO!"
"Oh!" I thought to myself, "A place that'll let me have a cat! Intriguing!"
The first line of the listing:
"Sorry to say: Pets can’t live in this Pristine, Pre-War, elevator building, two blocks from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade."
Wait, what? This strikes me as real estate listing malpractice; you can't use an onomatopoeiac animal noise to advertise a condo with a no-pets policy.
Some other headlines the lister might try in the future:
"Whatcha got cookin' in our beautiful 500 sq. ft studio apartment?"
"You'll love our gorgeous studio apartment in an up-and-coming neighborhood with one bathroom, no kitchen."
"The convenience of downtown Manhattan in the comfort of Queens!"
"This lovely house is only a quick 45 minute walk and 3 hour train ride from midtown Manhattan!"
"Finally! An Upper-East Side apartment you can afford!"
"Rent starts at $24,000/month."
This strikes me as a really poor marketing strategy. Signalling Pet Friendly in your headline attracts people who want an apartment that allows pets and repulses people who want a pet-free environment. The people who want to live in a no-pets condo won't read your listing, and the people who want pets will read your listing, get annoyed, and write disgruntled blog posts.
This is silly. It's like naming a street Park Avenue that never touches any parks. OH WAIT.
Posted by Zach at 03:36 PM | Comments (0)
July 09, 2006
"Wunderbar" is German for "Wonder Bar"
I am about to leave Lake Tahoe to fly back to New York City early tomorrow morning. And what should I find as I briefly check the local news before shutting down the laptop? <a href="http://ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=60798">Somebody attacked a passenger on the subway with a pair of portable power saws</a>. I should clarify: The attack did not just occur on the subway; the attack occured at the 110th Street/Cathedral Parkway station. That would be the closest subway station to my home, the station where I board the train every morning to go to work and where I get off each evening on the way home. Granted, the attack happened at 3:30 in the morning. I seldom commute that early. Still, it looks like the attacker just snagged some power saws from a nearby trackwork crew and went to town on an elderly postal employee as the stunned construction workers looked on. It looks, in fact, as though nobody did a thing to stop him and he would have gotten away had he not gotten punchy a few hours later up on the street.
I submit that this is not a welcoming news story to hear as you are about to return home.
Posted by Zach at 12:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 10, 2006
Architectural Malpractice
Let me start by describing my building, broadly. The floor plan of my building is like a big H shape. The horizontal line in the middle of the H is the hallway. Each floor has five apartments, one shooting off on each prong of the H's vertical legs, plus one small one in the middle of the horizontal line. The elevator shaft and stairwell face the small apartment. Anyhow, my apartment, like the other big ones, is long and narrow. We're on the bottom-left prong of the H, for reference. We have windows on both sides. On the north side the windows face into the hole at the bottom of the H, on the south side they face the apperture between the buildings on our street and the backs of the buildings on 112th St.
So this is all to say: No matter where you go in my apartment, there's a window facing out on a wall of more windows. Half the rooms face toward the backs of the 112th St. apartments, the other half face the the apartments on the bottom-right prong of the H.
Let me re-emphasize a point: Every room here has a window. Every room. That includes, but is not limited to, the bathroom, which has a nice big window placed conveniently right over the bathtub/shower. The glass is fogged, but when the weather gets hot in the summer you've a choice between being muggy and hot in the bathroom or allowing airflow at the cost of your shame.
Lately I've noticed that at least one of the girls who lives in the apartment on the bottom-right of the H one floor up likes to take showers at night. With the window open. The window opening directly on the shower that looks straight down into my kitchen.
This puts me in a bit of a spot. I like to use my kitchen. At the same time, I don't want her to glance out the window and see me there staring, looking as though I've staked out a watchpost to oggle.
I blame whoever designed the building, or at least whoever did the interior layout. Why would you put huge windows right over the long end of a bath in an apartment facing a wall of other apartments? Especially, as in the case of my shower, where, given a choice between a half of the wall hanging over nothing and a half hanging over the shower, they elected to put the window over the shower (or the shower under the window, whatever).
I suppose, though, the whole thing is another incentive to get in shape for the summer.
Posted by Zach at 09:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 19, 2006
Nighthawks
Yeesh. Power failures left the Roosevelt Island Trams, along with all of their passengers, dangling over the East River last night. The trams weren't started again; the passengers had to be rescued via gondola. This is another very good reason not to take the Roosevelt Island Tram. The other major reason not to take it is because if you do, you end up on Roosevelt Island.
Posted by Zach at 12:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 05, 2006
It's Snowing! It's Snowing! God, I Hate This Weather!
Well, not really, but nonetheless: It's snowing, on April 5, which is well past the Statute of Limitations for Snow, particularly in light of last week's consistent mid-to-high 60s weather. This lends further evidence to my theory that the weather is determined by my suit-wearing schedule. The weather always takes a turn for the worse just when I need to go out in nice clothes, as tonight when I'll be making Moot Court oral arguments. My theory is that this will stop as soon as I buy a trenchcoat to protect my suit from unauthorized aquatic intrusion.
Anyhow, Moot Court orals tonight. Wheeeee. Oral Arguments entale presenting the case I made in my various moot court briefs before a panel of three Celebrity Guest Judges (Columbia Law alumni). The trick is that it's not just a speech; it's a back-and-forth with the judges. You talk and they can interrupt at any time to ask questions. It is, I have heard, a fifteen minute grilling in which you are judged on how well you respond to their questions and how much of your actual argument you can squeeze in between interruptions. Moreover, there is the master-servant social dichotomy; judges are permitted to interrupt you at any time, to talk over you, whatever. You are required to listen quietly until the judge is done. You're expected to treat the judges with respect and decorum. Judges are under no such obligation with respect to you, and in fact see it as part of the game of Moot Court to try to anger you into a misstep, be it through giving you a hard time, justified or not, about your arguments or through a more generalized disrespect.
I don't mind this per se; the social dichotomy is a reproduction of actual dealings with judges. What's annoying is that Moot Court judges apparently feel a positive obligation to take this to the extreme. One frequent Columbia Moot Court judge introduces himself by saying, "Hello, my name is _______, and I'm here to make your life hell for the next fifteen minutes."
So that's what I'll be doing this evening. Being berated by judges in my soggy suit. I have to say that, at this point, taking certain people's suggestion of interpreting this as Mute Court and delivering my oral arguments in mime is highly tempting. But how do you mime "Authorization to access a wireless network?"
Posted by Zach at 02:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 24, 2006
My God! It's From the Central Bureaucracy!
I got a letter today from the New York State DMV informing me that there had been a mistake in the fee they charged for my Non-Driver's ID. Apparently the DMV misinterpreted a fee increase to apply to me when it didn't, so they charged me $10 when they should have charged $5.
The letter, from, I stress, the DMV, was to inform me of this error and to tell me that I would shortly be receiving another letter from the DMV containing my $5 refund.
I'm glad they did this. Getting a $5 check in the mail might have been too much for me. It's nice that they provided this buffer. "Okay, just so there are no surprises, there's going to be a check coming from us. It'll be for $5. Just don't wig our or anything when it arrives."
I'm a bit disappointed, though, to have gotten the shocking news of the refund all at once. I think it might have been best to start with an e-mail. "This is the New York State DMV. This is to inform you that there is some business we need to transact. Further bulletins are forth-coming." That way, you know, I wouldn't be shocked to get a letter from the DMV. As it stands, there's no telling how I could have reacted to seeing that envelope. I did fine this time, but in the future, who knows?
They might also have softened me up with some further letters. "This is to let you know that an error has occurred. Further correspondence will detail the substance and nature of this error." "The error alluded to in the prior letter concerns your non-driver's ID. Further information about this error will be sent promptly." "The error with your non-driver's ID concerns the matter of payment. We will keep you informed as events develop." "The error in payment for your non-driver's ID involved your over-paying. The amount of over-pay will be detailed in the next letter." Only then would I be prepared for the shocking revelations that awaited me in my mailbox today.
So, let this be a warning to fellow New Yorkers: If you have a heart condition, or are otherwise easily frightened, beware letters from the DMV! There's no telling what they might tell you, without a moment's concern for whether you have received adequate warning!
Posted by Zach at 01:41 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 01, 2006
Ice
The forecast picture on the Google homepage for tomorrow is a picture of a branch with icicles on it. Huh? I went to Weather Underground to see what was up. Tomorrow's weather is predicted to reach highs of 30 F, with a 100% chance of ice pellets.
Ice pellets?
Posted by Zach at 03:52 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
February 18, 2006
Schizophrenia
Yesterday's High Temperature: 65 F.
Today's High Temperature: 30 F.
I don't want to alarm anybody, but this is the kind of rapid temperature change that may cause Great Molasses Floods.
Posted by Zach at 11:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 12, 2006
When it Rains, it Pours (And When it Snows, it ... Blizzes?)
Blizzard warning remains in effect until 4 PM this afternoon. Apparently a second snow belt built up over Central New Jersey and attacked New York City just as the first storm was moving on to Connecticut and Massachusetts. Lousy Jersey! Anyhow, the Weather Service now expects accumulation up to 30 inches by the time the snow's done. They're saying that this will likely be the biggest snowstorm in the history of New York City.
This winter has been quite unusual, apparently. We didn't get snow here until pretty late, and then it was a sudden storm that coated the city in 4-5 inches overnight. That slowly melted out, and we've had fairly warm weather since then, in the high-40s, low-50s, until this last week. Now we get the biggest snowstorm ever (for the city). And by Wednesday, the temperature's supposed to be back in the 50s again.
On the plus side, I'm spending the day inside, warm and toasty and working on my Moot Court brief. Plus now I can tell people about living through the Great Snowstorm of Aught-Six. I should make myself some hot chocolate...
Here are a couple of pictures. First, the view of the window from the living room...
And a view taken hanging out the kitchen window (which has no screen) getting a picture of the accumulation in one of the holes my apartment faces. I took it from outside the window because the various screens and reflective surfaces were screwing up photos taken from the inside of other windows.
UPDATE: More photos. Here's my street:
This is the view from the stoop of my apartment building. Note the large mounds of snow where cars once stood.
Looking northward on Amsterdam Avenue. Note, on the right, the small path cut through the snow by, I'm guessing, someone with a snow shovel; the city hasn't gotten people out to clear out the sidewalks there yet:
Our local community playground:
North on Broadway. Not a mobile car in sight:
South on Broadway. The buses continue to run, though. And a smattering of people trudge through the snow. Most of the people I saw outside seemed to be outside because they had no other option; there weren't a lot of people out enjoying the snow.
Having said that, I've just noticed the little snowman on the left side of that picture, just under the No Parking sign. So somebody's having a good time, at least. Now for that hot chocolate...
Posted by Zach at 01:43 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
February 04, 2006
A Cautionary Note to Those of My Friends Considering Moving to New York City
A few folks out there have mentioned the possibility of moving to New York City, for the glamour, the youth scene, to find a job, or whatever. I would strongly advise you to think carefully before doing so. When I decided to move to New York I was in a situation where I would be taking out an incredible amount of student loans no matter where I went, and New York was only marginally more expensive than elsewhere. Moreover, Columbia has an office of institutional real estate that handled my housing for me. So I had finances taken care of (to the degree that taking out tons of loans is handling finances) as well as housing.
Along those lines, I direct you to this article in the New York Times about a group of architecture students who built a rig in their transom and stuffed a mattress in it while drunk. As a joke, they posted an ad on Craig's List offering to rent the right to sleep on the mattress for $35 a month. They got a dozen responses, and at least half of them were serious about it and wanted to go through with it after finding out what the set up was.
There's more anecdotal evidence in that story about people putting up curtains to create new bedrooms to rent, people sleeping in tents, on couches, in corners, etc. New York is a tough market to find housing in, and if you do find a place it'll be expensive. Moreover, if you're not coming in with a job already lined up don't even think about finding a place in Manhattan. Most apartments here require you to be able to show proof of income before they'll let you sign a lease. They want to know how much you make, to ensure that you can reasonably pay the rent every month. Moreover, a lot will want to see your bank statements; they want to make sure you have enough money stockpiled that, if you get fired, you can pay the rent for a few months while they find someone to replace you. To find a place on Manhattan you'll also need a broker. Most buildings won't talk to lone renters; they'll only offer places indirectly through brokers. The brokers, in exchange, will charge you a fee equal to 1-3 months rent on the place you get. So you can only get a place through the broker, and the broker has a vested interest in getting you into the most expensive apartment possible.
And there a dozen other things you might not like or be prepared for in New York City. I don't want to scare people off or anything, but I do think it's important to have a realistic idea of what you're getting into when you move here. Housing is hard to find, the city's expensive, and, while the jobs tend to pay somewhat more proportionately than the same jobs in other cities, they don't pay enough more to make up for how expensive it is. If you're going to move to New York, have a lot of money saved up, be prepared to live someplace cheap and squalid while you find a job and get into a secure financial position, and then get ready to go through a nasty hunt for a more permanent apartment.
Posted by Zach at 07:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 20, 2005
The Roads Must Roll
Transit Strike! Transit Strike!
The whole city's public transportation system is shut down! It's chaos! It's the jungle! Car's are backed up bumper to bumper ON MY LITTLE SIDE STREET! To give you an idea, most people think Manhattan is all-traffic, all the time. Not so. Sure, it gets crazy in Midtown and Downtown, but here on the more residential Upper West Side and Morningside Heights it's pretty quiet most of the time. Not now! People aren't even obeying traffic lights anymore; it's like highway gridlock with everyone moving forward when they can, nudging in when someone lets them, etc.
For some reason, big momentous things happen every time I have an in-class final, so far. First big snowfall the day of my Civil Procedure final, transit strike for the Contracts final. What do Spring finals hold? Tsunami?
As for the workers, I don't know. It's a hassle that there's the strike, but I tend to support workers in these things. My understanding is that the dispute's over the retirement age to get a pension; the Union wants it to stay at 55, the MTA wants to raise it to 60. It sounds like they're agreed on every other point, but they've been bargaining till 2-3 AM every night for the last week over this last point. I can see why it's important to the workers. The city says it can't afford to keep paying pensions at the current rate. I'd really have to look into things more to have an informed opinion, though. I'm not really blaming either side for now.
But whee! I have to get to Newark airport for a 9 o'clock flight tomorrow! I've got a shuttle coming to pick me up at 6 AM; hopefully 3 hours is enough time to get there.
Posted by Zach at 09:14 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
December 18, 2005
A Sign I've Been Living in New York Too Long
I checked the temperature on Weather Underground before heading out today. When I saw that it was 39 degrees out (36 with windchill), my immediate thought was "Oo! Warm! I only need one layer today!"
Posted by Zach at 03:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 06, 2005
New Album
I just posted a new album. This one's a bunch of shots I took today around Columbia University and Morningside Heights. I'm planning to expand this one as I take more pictures around the neighborhood, so check back periodically if you're interested. Not, like, every day, but occasionally. I'm too tired right now to give these pictures titles and captions, so for now you'll have to be content with the systematic name my digital camera gave them. But titles and captions are forthcoming, right after my nap.
Posted by Zach at 04:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 22, 2005
Turnstiles That Don't Quite Work
New Yorkers, as a general rule, are very busy. They get angry and impatient at having to stand in line (or on line). I saw an example of this today when I was downtown and witnessed a pile-up of cars. Somebody got on their horn and just leaned on it, one continuous blast for three minutes straight. He let up for about thirty seconds, then started in again. This lead to others around him doing the same thing, so it was a horrible minor chord of car horns, honking in long, sustained tones. This despite the fact that they were honking at a red light. No amount of honking was going to change that light, but damned if they weren't going to let the surrounding two blocks know that they were not at all happy about the fact that they weren't moving.
As such, the Metropolitan Transit Authority has installed turnstiles in all of its subways designed to accomodate this on-the-go lifestyle. Every turnstile in the city has a little card reader to the right in front of it. You position your Metrocard right-side-up, print side facing you, and slide it through the card reader (a small slot protruding from the top of the console, similar to credit card readers at stores) as you walk through. The upshot of this is that, if you get your metrocard out and position it as you're approaching the turnstile, you can slide it through and walk straight into the station without breaking your stride. There's almost never a time when you're sitting and waiting for someone to process. Full-speed all the way.
Unless, as happens maybe one time in twenty, the card doesn't read, requiring you to swipe it again. It makes a tone when this happens that is slightly longer than the "all clear" tone, but this doesn't matter. Because your goal is to go through as quickly as possible, so as not to anger the people behind you, by the time you notice the card didn't scan you have already reached the turnstile. And since you're used to just being able to walk straight through, you have probably reached the turnstile at full speed, and have already made contact with it, expecting it to yield. Since the card did not scan, the turnstile has no such intention.
It probably bears noting here that, at my height,five-foot-nine, the turnstile is at roughly crotch height.
Thus last night, when boarding the uptown 9 at 86th street, I had the unpleasant experience of whanging my crotch into an unyielding turnstile and coping with this pain while a crowd of exasperated New Yorkers threw up their hands and yelled at me for holding up the line. Can't you see the train's coming?!
It's no fifteen pound cat hanging from my leg, but there's my story of pain and suffering for the day.
Posted by Zach at 07:54 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
All the Lonely People, or Captive Audiences
Apropos the fellow who was in GameStop talking the counter clerk's ear off, I've noticed that New York has a large number of a peculiar breed of lonely person. Many lonely people (I can't use a more quantitative quantifier because I'm speculating without data) just keep their unsatisfied desire for meaningful human contact buried down deep in a tight little ball. Sometimes this all gets released when they start secretly killing strangers off the street, but I imagine most people just go through life feeling alienated and unsatisfied. To some degree, I find myself in this group.
On the other hand, some lonely people, and there seem to be a lot of them in New York, go out and grab their human contact come Hell or high water. Because they're not very good at the whole socializing thing (or else why would they be lonely?) there aren't many people who will willingly converse with them. To surmount this obstacle, they seek out people who have no choice but to stand there and listen to them, generally people in customer service. Hence, the socially maladapted fellow spouting about video games to the bored GameStop clerk. Or the woman at Morton Williams today who held up a massive line while she tried to find exact change (Despite having a twenty in her wallet that would have taken care of everything) and used the opportunity to chat with the annoyed check-out person.
One subset of this group that are particularly sad are the old people. I would imagine these are people who actually are, or were, good at socializing, grew accustomed to human contact throughout their lives, but who have now been discarded by their family and society, and seek conversation whereever they can find it. A few weeks ago I was mailing a package at the post office, and the line was held up for about 15 minutes by one old man. I was getting mad, but it changed to pity when I found out that his only transaction was buying stamps. He was taking so long because he had come into the post office to ask the counter attendant's advice on which stamps to buy (The American Authors series? Great African-Americans? Whatever the latest pop culture stamp? The bird-of-the-month?). It's really hard to get angry at a person who's so starved for human attention that he goes to the post office to start a conversation with a postal worker about stamps.
It's hard to get too mad at any of these people, really. Sure, they hold up lines and can be painful to listen to, but it's not really their fault that they're lonely, and at least they're trying to do something about it. Maybe I should start a public interest foundation of people who'll visit with lonely people.
Posted by Zach at 07:35 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 14, 2005
Y'know what I hate?
Whiny west coasters who won't shut up about a little rain. Or about how cold it is here. You don't like cold and rain? Transfer to a school in California, because I'm sick of hearing about it.
Maybe I'm too stoic about the weather, but it irked me even more when I was at Berkeley and Southern California people would bitch non-stop about how cold and wet it was in the Bay Area. Cold and wet my eye! They went from a place where it rains maybe 20 days a year to a place where it rains perhaps 30-35 days per year. I had to sit through lunch at the dinning commons once with a suitemate who was honest-to-God worried that she was getting SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder, when you get depressed for whole seasons because of the weather) because it rained twice in one week. She started hyperventilating about how the weather was going to cause her to flunk out of school.
Anyhow, it's great that you love the weather where you came from. But you're not there anymore, and complaining won't make it better. You knew full well when you moved to New York that there are seasons here, so don't act shocked and outraged when the season changes.
Posted by Zach at 04:16 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
September 19, 2005
Better Living through Hot Dogs
There's a curious type of store in New York City that you don't see anywhere else: The combination fruit smoothie and hot dog stand. For reasons that shall become clear, these stores all have "Papaya" in their name, e.g. Gray's Papaya, Papaya King, Papaya Dog, Chelsea Papaya, etc.
From what I can piece together from websites and the various clippings they post on their walls, the first of these was Gray's Papaya. Apparently one Mr. Gray decided to open up a tropical fruit juice stand, centered around the Papaya, then believed to be Nature's Wonderfruit, a veritable fountain of youth. So he opened what was ostensibly a health-food juice bar, think Jamba Juice for the 1920s. And, of course, what healthier complement is there to fruit juice than hot dogs? Gray's was apparently popular enough to inspire a competitor, Papaya King, in the 1930s. It's also in the 30s, in order to help fight against the competition, that Gray's started running its Recession Special, which it continues to run to this day: Now it's two hot dogs and a small fruit drink for $2.75. Now you have these restaurants all throughout the city, selling cheap hot dogs and tropical fruit smoothies, and all with "Papaya" somewhere in their name.
The interesting thing about it all is that not only do these places survive, they thrive, based on the number of them that the market supports, despite the fact that they're not actually very good. I've sampled the hot dogs at Papaya King and Gray's Papaya, and the veggie dogs at Papaya Dog, and they're all pretty universally blah, not much better than the dogs you can get from the street vendors all over town. As for the fruit drinks... Let's just say that Jamba Juice didn't need to worry about too much competition from the Papayas when they moved in. They're gritty and not at all tasty; I suspect they're just the fruit pureed and then watered down and chilled. And the signature papaya drink is disgusting because, as all good-hearted people know , papayas suck.
I think it's a tribute to the power of inertia. One guy struck it rich riding the papaya fad in the 1920s. He sells a product that's popular enough to weather the wintery economic climate when papayas are no longer the favored fruit they once were. Soon every hot dog store in the city is an imitator of his store. So when New Yorkers go to get hot dogs, they take for granted that they get tropical fruit smoothies with them. Nobody particularly likes them, but eh. That's what you get with a hot dog. That's how all the places do it. Any new hot dog stand here has to sell fruit juice, because that's how things are done here. It's now how they do it anywhere else, because lord knows there's no rational reason for it. But dagnabbit, that's how hot dog stands work here, and that's how they'll always work here! We did it this way before, so we need to keep doing it now.
I'm intimately familiar with this line of irrational reasoning, because it is the primary justification for 90% of all court rulings in the United States.
Posted by Zach at 09:27 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
September 09, 2005
St. John the Divine and his Creepy Statue
I had a couple of free hours this morning and finally got around to taking pictures of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, out on Amsterdam Avenue. I've posted the photos, and you'll find a link to the album at the top of the sidebar. St. John is the world's largest gothic cathedral. As you'll note from the photos, it's not finished yet. They're apparently building it using traditional medieval construction methods, which means that it takes well over a hundred years to finish. It seems relatively close to finished, but who can say?
I'm generally not a religious person, but I'm quite drawn to religious art, and particularly medieval (or in this case, faux-medieval) architecture and sculpture. You'll find a lot of pictures in their from the face of the cathedral. There are so many nobly bits and statues and details that I ended up taking pictures of everything I could find. You will excuse me, however; it's been 6 years since I took art history, and I've completely forgotten the technical names for the bits of the cathedral. Particularly vexing are the statutes of people on the outside of the archways, where they're sort of carved into the columns. I'm certain there's a technical term for them, but I can't remember what it is, and can't figure out what to google to find out.
The other thing I took a lot of pictures of is the Peace Fountain. It's a sculpture in St. John's garden, and it is probably one of the creepiest pieces of art I've ever seen, particularly given its setting in the garden of an Episcopal church. It appears to involve an angel snapping the neck of a giraffe while holding a sword. Said giraffe is simultaneously being copulated upon by another giraffe. A lion and lamb lie nearby. They all stand atop a creepily smiling globe. The whole tableau sits on a giant crab, which has a human hand sticking out of it at one part and holds in its claws a decapitated human head. The whole deal is atop a spiraling column with four demons at the base. Apparently, when activated, water pours down the column in four shafts and the demons shoot flames from their mouths. There is a plaque attempting to explain the statue, but I don't quite buy the explanation.
Finally, I should point out that I didn't take any pictures inside, though it is amazing, because I didn't want to be disrespectful to worshippers.
Posted by Zach at 12:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 04, 2005
MTA: Malthusian Temblor Apples
Since I've already maligned New York by comparing it to my old home in terms of food, it seems only fair to balance things out by complaining about the Bay Area's public transportation in comparison to New York.
Now, I should begin by saying that the Bay Area probably has the best public transportation system on the West Coast. It's certainly better than anything in southern California, and, since my only real point of reference for my years in Berkeley was the desolation of suburban San Diego, I really enjoyed the Bay Area's public transportation while I was there.
But now I've lived for a month in New York City and I fear I've already been spoiled. The system here, while not perfect, run about as well as you could realistically hope. The trains are largely on time, and most lines run every five minutes. Further, the subway runs twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Stops are plentiful, and there's a well-managed system of local and express trains (Express and local trains run on parallel tracks. Local trains make all the stops, while express trains make just the major stops, roughly every fifth or sixth station. It's very easy to transfer between express and local trains, so you can hop on a local, transfer to an express, then get back on the local to whereever you need to get off, and save a good amount of time in the process. Or, if you prefer to sit and read, you can just stay on the local).
Coverage is great, you can get all over Manhattan easily, Brooklyn somewhat less easily, and, well, you can get out to Queens and the Bronx, though they're somewhat less well-covered. There are some oversights and inconveniences in the layout (It would be really nice to have more cross-town lines in northern Manhattan, for instance under Central Park. As it is, to get from the Upper East Side to the Upper West Side by subway you have to go all the way down to Time's Square, south of Central Park, transfer, then go all the way back up the other side). But generally it's very easy to get around by subway. The lines generally run North-South, there's a stop roughly every 6 blocks, and you're never more than a block or two east or west of a line.
And then there's the cost. You pay for entry, not by the distance. You buy cards at electronic kiosks. Fare is $2 generally, but there's a 20% discount for purchases of $10 or more at a time (so you pay $10 and get a $12 card, or put another way, you get 6 rides for $10). Or, if you use the subway frequently, they have time-based passes. It's $7 for a one-day unlimited ride pass, $24 for a 7-day pass, or $76 for a 30-day pass. You swipe as you enter to get through the turnstile, a little display shows how much money is left on your Metrocard, and you can go through and put your card away. No need to fiddle around looking for it when you leave.
But here's the thing that really amazed me coming from the Bay Area, even though it shouldn't have. New York City has one public transportation agency, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, or MTA. One. They also run Metro North, the southern New York train system, and have deals to share tracks and stations and sell tickets with New Jersey's and Connecticut's rail systems, so you're dealing with the same people there. The upshot of this: you use the same card to ride the buses that you use to ride the subway, on the same fare schedule. No searching for change, you just walk on a bus and swipe your card. If you don't have a card, fare is an even $2 and they will accept your bills and change, but most people just use the Metrocard. Further: Transfers are electronically coordinated. When you swipe onto a bus, you can swipe onto any bus or subway for the next two hours and get on without a fare being deducted. Similarly, when you swipe into the subway, you can then use your card to get on a bus free of charge for the next two hours (Subway-to-subway transfers are much more complex and don't work the same way). That's the nice thing about not having half a dozen public transportation organizations running half a dozen transit systems with half a dozen fare schedules.
Now, things aren't perfect. As mentioned, it could cover more. It's also a somewhat complex system, as I alluded to above (they use colors and numbers and letters to refer to lines, many times in combination, as in, "Take the downtown NQRW to 42nd Street then transfer to an uptown 2-3 up to 96th, then go local to 116th."). The complexity is aggravated by weekend track maintenance, which causes all sorts of crazy changes in how the lines run. Notices are posted at the entrances to subway stations about how things will be altered (e.g. the 1 will stop at Chambers Street and not go all the way to South Ferry, or the 4 will go express between 60th and 112th streets), but nobody actually pays attention to these signs, leading you, the confused rider, to watch your stop go wizzing by as the train goes express, or find yourself unceremoniously ejected from the subway half a mile from your intended destination. It should also be pointed out that the New York subway is not very clean. The cars are old and decrepit, everything's bathed in a sickly yellow light, there's graffiti on the cars, etchings on the windows, and you don't want to know what's on the floor and seats. It's crowded (though, of course, a well-running public transportation should be; it shows it's popular) and there is distinctly an every-man-for-himself attitude, particularly when it comes to scrambling to snatch seats from the elderly, infirm, and children. I haven't felt especially unsafe on the subway, but I also haven't ridden it after midnight without a group of friends.
Still, though, I'd rather have a well-functioning but unsightly transit system than a neat, clean, orderly system that fails at its basic task of getting me where I want to go quickly and cheaply.
Posted by Zach at 10:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 24, 2005
Cheap Food
Originally posted 8/24/05:
I've been bitching to all who'll listen about the high price of food in New York. This isn't so much a comment on the restaurants as it is on grocery stores. Everything costs more than it should, even the discount grocery stores charge about what Safeway would charge for non-sale food. Although it's not universal, for some reason; I really enjoy soy milk/rice milk/etc., but, being, as I am, very cheap, I had a tough time justifying it in Berkeley because Soy Milk is more expensive by the ounce than skim milk. Here, however, regular milk is notably more expensive, while the various milk-likes are about the same price as elsewhere. This means that, if you buy the low-end soy milk, like WestSoy, it's actually cheaper to buy soy milk here than real milk. Which is why there are several boxes of soy milk in my fridge right now, but no regular milk.
But I digress: In Berkeley I got spoiled by Berkeley Bowl. For my first two years there I avoided it because I thought it was a bowling alley (I know others who thought the same; it really is an unfortunate choice of name). For the next year I avoided it because the crowds there are deadly and evil. Then I discovered that it is probably the best supermarket ever, barring the unpleasant experience of actually shopping there when it's crowded. The produce is fresh and delicious, in addition to being cheaper than anywhere else, they sell bulk grains, which are a fantastic way to eat well cheaply, and in general they offer a great selection at a low price. Now I can't understand why people shop at Safeway (Bad food at a low price) or Andronico's or Whole Foods (Good food at a high price). Of course, then I remember that I spent three years shopping there.
Here supermarkets are small and cramped and have no selection, the produce is meally and overpriced, and nobody's even heard of Quinoa. I'm lead to understand that what I'm looking for in order to get a Berkeley Bowl-like experience is a Food Co-Op. There's one on the Lower East Side and two in Brooklyn, all neccessitating subway rides there and back, and they all require you to be an actual member of the co-op, paying dues and working shifts. Nonetheless, I would submit that it's worth it. Hopefully I'll be able to get down to one or two of them this weekend and check them out.
Posted by Zach at 10:21 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
A few thoughts on New York
Originally posted 8/23/05:
It's a bit tricky adapting to life in The Big City, although it's made somewhat easier by the fact that the neighborhood I live in, Morningside Heights, is in some ways analagous to Berkeley. It's a community where the centerpiece of the neighborhood is a large university. This contrasts with, for instance, NYU down in the Village, where NYU is a big part of the community, but nobody would say it's the dominant feature. It's relatively quiet up here, and very neighborly. After living here for three weeks I've already talked to my postman and the UPS guy more than I talked to either of their counterparts living for 3 1/2 years in my Berkeley apartment. I live half-way between Broadway and Amsterdam, which is neat because the two streets are vastly different in character. Broadway by the University is very student oriented, as you'd imagine. As it goes north into Harlem and south into the Upper East Side it gets somewhat seedier, but still basically contains your standard commercial stores, restaurants, hardware shops, electronic shops, etc. It's sort of what you'd call a gentrified street. Amsterdam, on the other hand, has not yet gentrified. It's a lot of tiny, crowded bodegas. It's noisy and raucous and dirty, but also much more lively than Broadway.
Amsterdam is also home to the huge ediface I pass every day on my way to the law school, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. I still haven't gone inside, but desperately want to. It's the largest gothic cathedral in the world, and it still isn't finished. It has an amazing and eclectic mix of statuary in its yard, and is constantly and slowly under construction, with scaffolding reaching up the side of its face. It's amazing and beautiful and I'm astounded every morning that I live half a block away from it.
The other thing that takes getting used to is the bigness of New York. My old building in Berkeley was four stories, and was the tallest building on my street. My current building is 8 stories and it's on the short side for my street. The tallest stretches, I believe, 18 stories. And Morningside Heights is kind of on the short side for Manhattan, compared to how tall things get in Midtown and Downtown.
I'll definitely have more to say later, but for now I should probably get back to work and stop posting.
Interesting side-note: It REALLY FREAKS ME OUT when I hear jets flying above. Don't they know there's a huge-ass city here? There are buildings that are, like, a thousand miles tall! They'll crash their planes!
Posted by Zach at 10:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack