Tagged: NYC

The most uptowniest Starbucks in Manhattan is not on the island of Manhattan

I thought I was so edgy, I checked in at the Starbucks on 181st street in Washington Heights and noted that I was at the northernmost Starbucks in the borough of Manhattan. How wrong I was, by two coffee shops and an interesting carto-historical technicality.

Like many Manhattanites, I was guilty of conflating the island of Manhattan, the borough of Manhattan, and the civilized world. Understandable, I’m sure you’ll agree.  But what gives about the most uptowniest Starbucks? Well, it turns out there are two Starbucks establishments in Marble Hill, a chunk of political Manhattan physically embedded in the Bronx thanks to the motion of history and the Harlem river.

If you look at maps closely, you’ll see the border line. Marble Hill has a Bronx zip code and Bronx school district, but Manhattan representation. It used to be part of the island of Manhattan but was made an island by a canal and later joined to the Bronx by the infilling of the original course of the Harlem river. The more you know.

For extra credit, check out the excellently named Spuyten Duyvil Creek, anagrammed subway station maps (Damn Tyck Trees!), and Vanshnookenraggen’s excellent subway map poster showing the Marble Hill stop on the 1.

November Redemption

A casual Yankees fan at best – I fail all tests of fanaticism for sports – I watched the 2009 World Series with more than passing interest, and it delivered the bookend I had hoped for, closing a chapter opened at the 2001 series.

In 2001, the world series was delayed – but not canceled – by the September 11 attacks. The series started late on October 27, and finished with game seven on November 4.  The ninth inning opened with the Yankees ahead of the Diamondbacks 2-1 and seemingly untouchable closer Mariano Rivera on the mound.  Arizona scored two more runs and won the series.

The Yankees made it to the World series just one more time for the rest of the Bush administration, and lost that one four games to two.

In 2009, the series started on October 28 and finished with game six on November 4.  The ninth inning opened with the Yankees ahead of the Phillies 7-3 and all too human closer Mariano Rivera on the mound.  And close the game he did, and the Yankees won their 29th title.

Sure, an eight-year drought is nothing compared to what other teams have gone through.  But I felt that New York (the city, not the team) needed a win in 2001 more than just any year, and I’m hopeful that this win in the first post-Bush series indicates a positive reversal of fortune for the city, the country and maybe even the world.

High and low, old and new lines on the West side

Last week I spent some time in NYC, almost all of it on the West side, upper, middle and lower.  As usual, I took the subway, and along the way I noted two ends of the lifecycle of transportation: the birth of a new station on the 7 line, and the rebirth as a park of a section of an old elevated freight line.

The 7 line extension

The 7 train connects Times Square and Flushing via 42nd street, Grand Central Station, Queensboro Plaza, Jackson Heights, and Shea Stadium, to name just a few of the stations and neighborhoods.  But anybody who’s ever had the misfortune to attend a convention at the Javits Center can tell you where the 7 does not go.  But this will change.  Sometime in the next ten years or so, the 7 train will have a new Western terminus at 34th street and 11th avenue.  You can see a bit of the area in question here, via google maps:

7extmap

What’s even more interesting to me are two additional factoids about the 7 extension, gleaned from the estimable Transitblogger and the ever-turgid wikipedia.

  • It *might* eventually get extended to 23rd street and 11th avenue, further revitalizing Chelsea.  More on Chelsea in a bit.
  • A planned station at 41st street and 10th avenue (“Hell’s Kitchen”) has been canceled or postponed.  I for one would be totally excited to have a station called “Hell’s Kitchen” but it appears that the plan would label it “10th Avenue.”

The high line

Way out at the other end of the transit lifecycle is the High Line, a new park created from the skeleton of a long-abandoned 1930′s elevated freight rail line near 10th avenue.  The first section of the High Line, which opened on June 9, runs from Gansevoort street in the appetizingly-named meatpacking district up to 20th street.  Eventually the park will run all the way to 30th street, then West around the rail yards, ending up pretty close to the Javtis Center and the new 7 line terminus.  You can see the tracks more clearly in Google’s map view, and the satellite view doesn’t yet show the High Line’s current state.

highlinemap

I’m very much in favor of walkable urban space, urban green space and imaginative recycling or urban relics, but I found the High Line a little unfinished.  Actually, it is unfinished, not just because not all the old track has been opened as a park, but also because as a park, it has yet to grow and develop.  The plantings are young, the wooden parts have yet to weather, and yes, the taggers haven’t made their mark yet.

The High Line

The High Line has some great beats making imaginative use of the materials at hand, such as the chaise lounges on wheels set into the old tracks and a sunken ampetheater that ends in glass windows looking up 10th avenue.  It also passes under or through some buildings along the way, notably the Standard Hotel, which straddles it between Little West 12th and 13th streets.  The vistas are impresive and there’s a good amount of green for the space available, which is maybe 20 feet wide in most parts.  There’s an elevator at 16th street (also the location of the only restrooms), so the line is pretty acessible.

What’s missing for me – and I hope this is just temporary – is shelter.  None of the plants are tall enough for shade yet, and there seems hardly anything to break the wind that comes off the river and down the avenues.  I wonder what the park will be like in the winer.  But these are small nits, and I’m very happy to see such an interesting new space come up.  And of course, some of the gritty side is still visible from the line, if not at yet on it.

The High Line

Stand on the spot where Stieglitz stood

flatirony

The Flatiron Building is an iconic landmark in New York City.  When I chanced to walk by this week, I saw many people taking pictures of the building, some tourists snapping themselves next to it, some more serious looking photographers looking for a new angle on the building.

I called up Stieglitz’s classic 1903 image of the building and tried to find the vantage point from which he took it, probably somewhere in Madison Square Park.  I thought I could find the great Y-shaped tree and work from there.  The difference in camera equipment would make it impossible to really get the “same” shot even if I could find the tree, but I looked around.

How much does a tree grow in 100 years?  None of the living trees looked right, but of course they had leaves which made things tough.  There was a huge section of a dead tree still standing for some reason, and I decided that it was Stieglitz’s tree, preserved as a landmark of some sort, so I took this admittedly poor approximation.

Not exactly a unique contribution to the canon.  And I still put the tree too far toward the center.  You can compare Stieglitz’s image with mine and with a 1904 Flatiron Building picture by Edward Steichen in this bit from Slate magazine.

Gastronavistalgia in New York City

Where’s my flux capacitor when I need it? We all live in the past to some extent, but a recent episode of dining in New York City with Professor N reaffirmed that we sometimes eat in the past too.

First, we decided on the basis of a review in New York Magazine to dine at Mainland, a Chinese place on the upper east side. Knowing that the NYC restaurant scene can be turbulent, I called for a reservation. A woman with a thick accent in a noisy room picked up the phone and took my details. When we showed up at the address, there was no sign of Mainland. Instead of a hot and loud chinese place, there was a cool and louder Italian one, Accademia di Vino. Same address, same phone number. Oops.

Consulting our mobile internets, we decided to check out a nearby sushi place called Sushihatsu. We arrived there and proceeded to read the New York Times review by Eric Asimov posted in the window, which began,

LIKE traffic at rush hour, decent sushi is no surprise. It’s there and you accept it. Great sushi is another matter, as rare as a memorable turkey on Thanksgiving. When you find it you treasure it, which is why I was so sad to learn earlier this year that Sushihatsu had closed.

Closed?? But we’re right here reading the review! Despite the fact that Asimov devotes easily 30% of his review to the former establishment, the place is now in fact Sushi Seki and is declared a worthy successor. We entered, dined and enjoyed ourselves, especially the horse mackerel and seared salmon.  Also pictured, soft shell crab maki and pickle maki.

Sushi Seki

Later on in the week, we have a craving for thin-crust pizza and get a tip to try Company in Chelsea. Despite the trendy overlay, the place is said to have a 900-degree oven, and that bodes well for thin-crust pizza.

True to its hip Chelsea vibe, we were assigned a pretty waiter who is bored with our existence and petty ordering. After three tries, we got a nice housemade lemon soda and eventually a classic Margherita and something called the Popeye which is a bianco style pizza with generous spinach on it. As advertised, the crusts are ultra-thin and very crisp.

So crisp, in fact, that a diner at a neighboring table sent back part of her pizza because it was burnt. Sensing the eyes of fellow diners upon her, she protested a bit too loudly, “what? It’s carcinogenic!” which does little to impress our waiter. The customer is always right, but honestly, I think the charred bits are part of the fun with thin crust pizza, especially in a wood-fired oven. (and, I’m pretty sure the cancer risk is very low for meat char (see myth #4) and zero for vegetarian char)

When Prof. N returned home and regales his sister with the story of our rude waiter, she replies with, “oh, you should have gone to Accademia di Vino, they have great pizza.”