Movin' on Up!--Construction Update #1

Across the street, construction of the 35-story condominium building continues.  (Earlier blog post,11/17/2015.)

While progress is occurring, it is hard to see and seems slow.  Of course, Rome wasn't built in a day and who wants to live in a hastily constructed high-rise?

The new building will have retail at street level and underground.  Plus, building systems require a subbasement.  What that means is you have to dig deep before you can build skyward.  To dig deep requires reinforcing the foundations of the two adjoining buildings, one of which is about a century old.  Plus, the ground under the adjacent sidewalks and streets needs a stronger foundation.  

The first photo below shows the construction site in November 2015, shortly after the last buildings on the site were demolished.  In the photo, a lone excavator starts digging downward.

200 East 59th Street, NYC (11/2/2015)

After 6 weeks of excavating and pouring concrete foundations, the site has descended about one story (photo below).

200 East 59th Street, NYC (12/11/2015)

After two additional months (photo below), the site has descended two more stories.  If you look closely, you can see that excavation has reached bedrock.  The bedrock is Manhattan Schist.  In many places on the island, bedrock is at the surface or not far below.  Manhattan Schist is what makes all the NYC skyscrapers possible--a strong foundation for buildings that ascend hundreds of feet skyward.

At this point, the excavation equipment is hammering into bedrock, which makes for some noise and dust and excellent spectating, if you like that sort of thing.

200 East 59th Street, NYC (2/18/2016)

P.S.  How are they going to get the excavation equipment out of the hole?

A Happy Twist of Fate

Life's twists and turns are many, constant and surprising.  Some are happy.  Other not so much.

One recent happy turn of events reunited Susan (for one hour) with the Episcopal rector she knew in Atlanta thirty years ago.  While living in Atlanta in the 1980's, Susan was urged by co-workers to attend a downtown church, St. Luke's Episcopal Church on Peachtree Street.  Susan was a bit reluctant, partly because she had been raised in the Lutheran tradition.  The church was a vibrant part of the Atlanta community because of its energetic congregation, its exceptional community outreach, and its committed staff led by a charismatic rector, Rev. Dan Matthews.  After visiting the church a few times, Susan felt inspired and decided to join, in large part because of "Father Dan", an inspiring leader and a truly gifted speaker.   

St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Atlanta, Georgia

You might have heard of Rev. Dan Matthews.  Following his time in Atlanta, he served as the rector of the venerable Trinity Episcopal Church located on Broadway at Wall Street in Lower Manhattan.  The location is important.  The church is situated a few blocks from the World Trade Center.  Rev. Matthews was the rector at Trinity on September 11, 2001.  At one of the worst times in New York's and the country's history, "Father Dan" was one of the many New Yorkers who helped others cope and endure. 

Trinity Church, exterior (9/11/2001)

Trinity Church, interior (February 2016)

Fast forward to the present.  Rev. Matthews has since retired.  From time to time, he will travel from his North Carolina home to give a sermon.  Not long ago, he visited our church, St. Bart's in Manhattan.  We made sure to attend.  Rev. Matthews' sermon was moving and memorable.  He spoke about gratitude and generosity and challenged us to think about who packs our parachute.  (For more about that topic, click here.) 

After the service ended, Susan stopped to say hello to Father Dan.  The first photo below is the moment when Susan reintroduced herself and told Father Dan that he is the reason why she is Episcopalian.  The second photo is a very happy Father Dan not wanting to let Susan go.    

Museums: The New-York Historical Society

The New-York Historical Society is one of those less well-known gems in NYC that merits visiting.  Founded in 1804, the oldest museum in NYC examines American history through a New York lens.  When we visited recently, we saw exhibits on:

• the origin of modern comic books in NYC (a direct response to anti-semitism in the publishing world in the 1930's) (think Superman, Spider Man, Wonder Woman and Bat Man, plus a genuine Batmobile in the museum's lobby)
• NYC's role in the development of the modern computer (think IBM)
• the largest Picasso painting anywhere (a painted tapestry created as a stage curtain for the Metropolitan Opera)
• a model train collection like no other

A steam powered locomotive

Plus, the museum has some authentic NYC history, such as the marble marker that commemorates the Hamilton/Burr duel, which actually occurred in Hackensack, since dueling was outlawed in New York but not in New Jersey.  We also saw exact replicas of the dueling pistols used by Hamilton and Burr.  The originals are locked away in the vault of the their owner, the Chase Manhattan Bank.  We learned that because Aaron Burr did not shoot wide and instead aimed at Hamilton, killing him, he was disgraced and was rarely seen in public following the incident.  Hamilton, of course, shot wide, as a gentleman should.  For that, he is American icon and now the subject of a hit Broadway musical.  Who knew?

We also learned about New York's role in the lives of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass:

          "The life-size bronze figures of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) and Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)
          that stand at either entrance to the New-York Historical Society bring to life the story of freedom
          that is deeply embedded in American history . . . .  Although Lincoln’s home state was Illinois, it was 
          New York politicians, journalists, and imagemakers who engineered his rise to the top of the
          Republican ticket in the 1860 election." 

          "Abolitionist Frederick Douglass, born a slave in 1818 on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, became a free
          man in New York in 1838 after boarding a train for the north with the borrowed identity papers of a
          free black man. In his autobiography, Douglass vividly described his first experience of freedom:  “After 
          an anxious and most perilous but safe journey, I found myself in the big city of New York, a free man—one 
          more added to the mighty throng which, like the confused waves of the troubled sea, surged to and fro 
          between the lofty walls of Broadway.”

Touring NYC: The Central Park TV & Movie Sites Tour

Of the many tours you can find in NYC, there are several entertainment-themed tours.  One is the Central Park TV & Movie Sites Tour, a walking tour through the lower half of the park.

Central Park is very large and is the most filmed location in NYC.  (Perhaps, it is the most filmed park in the world.)  The Internet Movie Database lists more than 400 films and shows with scenes shot in Central Park (imdb.com). 

The tour wound through the park, with our knowledgeable guide recalling scene after scene from scores of popular films and television shows, from Breakfast at Tiffany's to Home Alone 2 to Date Night to Seinfeld to Gossip Girl.  

Of course, the greatest film ever shot in Central Park is . . . that's right, from 1970, Hercules in New York, starring the Governator in the title role.  Hercules comes to Earth "where he finds true love and starts a promising career in the bodybuilder business".  Only in America could an immigrant find love (and later screw it up) and be immensely successful in business and politics. 

The Ghostbusters Building (55 Central Park West)

I ❤ NY (Cue the music)

Are we having a good time in New York?  No.  We are having a great time in New York.  

We hope that this blog is fun to read and lets you know just how much fun we are having.  

Susan especially loves NYC.  While her favorite city is Paris, what she has found is that NYC also offers many of the things that make Paris her favorite place--art museums, walking everywhere, fashion, theater, shoes, fascinating people, great food, music, amazing architecture and so on.  New York even has plenty of authentic French cafes.  We recently discovered one near our building.

Mon Petit Cafe, Lexington Avenue at 62nd Street, New York City

Not long ago, Susan received a thoughtful gift from New York friend Suzanne--an I Love NY coffee mug.  The mug sums up how Susan feels about NYC.

For the more seasoned readers of this blog, you might remember the I ❤ NY marketing campaign for New York City that started in the late 70's.  The campaign was critical in restoring New York's image after the city hit bottom in the mid-70's.  And let's not forget the catchy I ❤ NY song.  In case you need a reminder, click here for a Youtube video.

More Park Art

One of our recent travels revealed a new sculpture.  The gleaming statue soars 33 feet in the middle of Park Avenue at 52nd Street.  Below are some photos.

The figure is a person with its head leaning backward, while looking skyward and to the right.  Since the statue is on Park Avenue in the 50's, there are plenty of skyscrapers that draw attention upward.  So, the statue is well placed.  

Before looking at what the artist named the statue, we guessed at some possible names.  Please feel free to add your own guesses.  The actual name appears at the end.  Our suggestions:

"Living Dangerously, or Looking Up in a City Full of Pigeons"

"The Tallest Human Ever Arrives in New York.  The NY Knicks' Prayers are Finally Answered."

"Hey You, Don't Jump."

"Is That a Bird, a Plane?  No, it's Superman!"

Some dude trying to see what the statue sees.

Touring NYC: The Gossip Girl Sites Tour

There are all sorts of tours of New York City.  Depending on your interests, you can probably find an interesting tour.  As noted in our blog a week ago, we recently took Kramer's Reality Tour.  Since we are Seinfeld fans, we had a very good time.  The Real Kramer is very entertaining.

During Sally's visit not too long ago, Susan and Sally took the Gossip Girl Sites Tour, seeing all the sites and filming locations featured in the TV series.  The show was filmed in a New York studio (Silvercup Studios in Queens) and on location in NYC, mainly on the Upper East Side.  In fact, a couple of the locations are near our apartment.  So, if you are a Gossip Girl fan, you would enjoy the tour. (Susan was clueless but still enjoyed it,)

Sally at the fictional prep school in Gossip Girl, actually the Museum of the City of New York

Susan and Sally on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, sitting where Gossip Girl characters sat

Photo of the lounge in the Empire Hotel, featured in Gossip Girl

Photo of some random hottie in front of the Palace Hotel featured in Gossip Girl

At Henri Bendel (5th Avenue), Sally's hair is styled like Blair's when she (Blair, not Sally) was married in Central Park.

Blair's hairstyle showing a fashionable tiara.  "Blair called and wants her hairstyle back."

P.S.  The guide on the tour, Kelsey Wang, a recent Duke graduate, mentioned that all the guides are also actors.  Coincidentally, about a month after the Gossip Girl tour, Susan and Greg were happily surprised to see Kelsey in a lead role in an off-off-Broadway play adapted from the Chinese classic "A Dream of Red Pavilions".  The play was enjoyable and Kelsey was convincing in her role. 

Holiday Photos (Last Gasp)

Well, the holiday season is over, but we want to share a few more photos that we think are blog-worthy.  Here you go.  Enjoy!

230 Park Avenue lit for Hannukah and Christmas

The Empire State Building with the mooring mast lit like a candy cane

Tree and fireplace blazing at night

More Street Art--Lady Liberty Again

Wherever we travel in New York, a surprise awaits.  Not too long ago, we were were walking along East 104th Street near Park Avenue, headed to a museum.  We saw the mural photographed below.  Lady Liberty seems to be keeping a watchful eye on the surrounding neighborhood. 

The neighborhood, like many neighborhoods in Manhattan has been improving over time. In the 70's and 80's, it was a very dangerous place to live.  Our cousin told us about visiting the area in the early 80's and what he saw caused him to keep his visit brief.  We also met a long-time neighborhood resident who described a depressed neighborhood three decades ago, with no local businesses to speak of and with rampant violent crime.  Today, the neighborhood is on an upward swing, with safer streets and plenty of businesses.  The upward swing is a mixed blessing for residents.  One problem is rising rents in an area where a studio apartment in a five story walk up already costs over $1,000 per month.  Another problem will be the northward creep of the Upper East Side and the overall gentrification of Harlem, as developers of high priced condos and apartment buildings move into the area, forcing out the current residents.

Madison and 104th Street, NYC, "Freedom and Emancipation of the Natural World", by Mexican muralist Sego

In the meantime, Lady Liberty keeps a watchful eye on the neighborhood.

“Give me your tired, your poor, 
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: 
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

                                                                    --Emma Lazarus, as quoted on the Statue of Liberty

Skyscraper Museum, plus "Where do you live in New York?" (Part 6)

In case you did not already know, New York City has a LOT of museums.  The app NYC Museum catalogs nearly 150 museums in NYC.  Surely, there are more.  (Don't call me Shirley.)

Obviously, there are museums of all sorts, from art to history to science to culture to the absurd.  We doubt we will visit all of the museums in NYC, but we are having a wonderful time visiting many of them. 

One museum that we found fascinating was the Skyscraper Museum in lower Manhattan.  While it might be a relatively small museum, it covers a mighty subject very well.  We learned about skyscrapers throughout history and how they are measured (there are several competing methods).  Displays showed the tallest  structures that exist today and those that are still under construction, as well. 

One exhibit catalogs "supertall" buildings around the globe, buildings that are taller than the Empire State Building (1,250 feet).  Can you guess how many supertalls are completed or in process?  If you guessed 50+, you are correct. 

The tallest of the supertalls is the 2717 foot Burj Khalifa in Dubai.  The building is a half mile tall.  Now, that's a skyscraper.

Burj Khalifa, 160 stories, 2717 feet, Dubai

Another exhibit was especially interesting.  A model maker from Arizona thought it would be a good to carve scale wooden models of Midtown Manhattan and Lower Manhattan, showing all the skyscrapers and other buildings in those sections.  Amazingly, he did this without ever having visited NYC.  He used photos and other resources to create the models.  He then drove from Arizona to NYC to present the models to the museum.  The scale models are accurate and detailed.  We even located our building in the Midtown model.

Photo of scale model of Midtown Manhattan (North is to right).  The green space near the center is Bryant Park, behind the New York Public Library main branch.  Madison Square Garden is the circular building near bottom right corner.

Photo of Midtown model.  Bloomingdale's is in the bottom right corner and the Bloomberg Building is the very tall building next to Bloomie's along the right side of the photo.  Our building is the small building in the bottom center of the photo.

Photo of Midtown model, looking down Third Avenue.  Where we live is the somewhat circular building in the foreground (with the box on top).

P.S.  In case you want to learn more about NYC skyscrapers, a recent National Geographic article is worth reading.  Some of the photos and graphics might take your breath away.  Seeing the buildings in person certainly does.  Thanks to our friend Mark Chmielarksi for sharing the article with us. 

Winter in NYC, How Bad Could It Be?--More

Like we said, people questioned the sanity of our decision to endure a NYC Winter.  It seems we should have listened. 

Not only did we pick the Winter with the greatest single day snowfall in recorded history, we picked the Winter with the lowest Valentine's Day temperature in recorded history.

On Valentine's Day last weekend, the mercury dropped and dropped and then dropped some more until it stopped at -1°F during the early morning. 

No matter how you cut it, that's cold.  

Fortunately, our apartment stayed warm despite the cold outside and some drafty windows.  For some reason, we bundled up with every warm piece of clothing we have and ventured out into the early morning cold.  We can verify it was cold, cold, cold.  The wind, of course, made it worse.  We kept our time outdoors very brief, either by descending into the subway or ducking into a store.  We didn't need anything from TJ Maxx, but the good people at TJ Maxx know how to heat their store.  Thanks, TJ Maxx! 

All we have to say is that we are so happy we selected NYC for Year 1 of the 10 Year Plan, instead of Watertown, NY.  That would have been unbearable.

Our Little Friend

Say hello to our little friend.

The day after the snowstorm in January, Susan built a little snowperson on our terrace, complete with candy cane arms, a stylish tiara and the obligatory I Love NY mug.  There was plenty of snow but it was so powdery that building our snowperson was a challenge.  The snow was better for skiing and shredding than for snow creature construction.  Still, persistence and patience paid off and the end result was a well-groomed, smartly outfitted snow being.  If you look closely, you can even detect a smile. 

Of course, unless you live at the North or South Pole or in a freezer, even a well constructed snow creature has numbered days.  Our little friend disappeared but left behind some mementos for reuse when our friend returns after the next snowstorm. 

We hope to see our little friend in future travels.  In the meantime, perhaps our little friend will visit you.  If so, please share a photo.

P.S.  About the little friend comment, apologies to Tony Montana. 

Winter in NYC, How Bad Could It Be?

People said we were crazy:  "Why are you starting the 10 Year Plan in New York City just before Winter begins?"

We thought:  "How bad could it be?  A little snow and some cold temperatures.  We'll be fine."

Now we know why New Yorkers go to Florida during Winter.  

On January 23, New York City experienced its greatest one-day snowfall, 26.inches recorded in Central Park.  That's a single-day record since records have been kept.  We live near the Park and saw the snow pile up and up and up.  The snow fell so rapidly, more than 1 inch per hour, that the street plows could not keep up with it even though they plowed every couple of hours or so.  To put the snowfall in perspective, an average Winter in NYC has about 25 inches of snowfall.  

We "hunkered down" in our apartment for the duration of the storm.  We were stocked with supplies and the fireplace kept us toasty warm.  We hunkered well. 

The day after the storm, we unhunkered and ventured over the Central Park, along with thousands of other New Yorkers.  A thick blanket of snow covered everything in the Park -- a veritable Winter Wonderland.

Here are some photos taken during the snowstorm and the day after. 

59th Street as seen from our apartment.  Snow covered the street and sidewalks, while cars and pedestrians were scarce.

The construction site across the street

The Queensboro Bridge as seen from our apartment

Whiteout!  The Queensboro Bridge as not seen from our apartment

The day after.  The bridge is still standing but the normally crowded is nearly empty.

The day after.  Two feet of snow cover Central Park like a think blanket.

Some dude trying to say warm and upright on the slick walkways

Some random hottie out for a brisk walk, styling in her faux fur coat and hat.

Winter scene in Central Park

Winter scene in Central Park

Two random hotties standing tall despite the big snow