Yesterday, two buildings exploded in East Harlem because of a buildup of natural gas. I’m sure everyone is going to be trying their hardest to shift the blame onto someone else. Whoever winds up on the receiving end of that lawsuit is going to have a really bad day.
I feel bad for the families and friends of those who died and were badly injured in that explosion. I hope it doesn’t happen again, but I heard on NPR that the gas main by the building was installed in the 1880s and that’s not unique or unusual for this city. It’s like we’re sitting on a bomb that could go off at any moment as the infrastructure ages and fails.
Smoke and Fire Coming From an Access Hole at 137 and Hamilton in Manhattan.
When I was leaving City College yesterday evening, I saw smoke and fire coming out of an access hole in the road. The area was cordoned off with yellow tape and there were dozens of firemen and two trucks nearby.
I stopped to watch for a while and took a short video. I can’t help but think it is somehow related to the buildings exploding across town, though I could be wrong. But, if those buildings exploded and burned then maybe the gas in the line caught fire also? The woman standing next to me was telling me that the lights in the school building there, P.S. 192, were flickering, so this fire was damaging the power lines as well.
Everything looked normal when I walked by today, though. I just hope the city does something to address the issue of aging gas pipes and starts taking complaints about smelling gas more seriously after this.
There are quite a few different statues (not sure what else to call them) located in the subway station at 8th Avenue and 14th Street in Manhattan, NYC, but this is one of my favorites. He’s right down on the platform where the uptown A express and C/E local trains stop, pretty close to the elephant feet.
We saw this guy at the A train platform on 14th Street. He wasn’t doing much at first, but when he got going he sounded good. He had the speakers producing a beat track that he was able to tweak using pedals on the ground in front of him. The way he played his trombone reminded me of a saxophone.
I really don’t get why people do this. Do they think it’s cute? Or do they just not care that other people will want to sit on the seats without getting filth from the streets on their clothing? I’m guessing both.
This was one of four times I saw someone do this in a single day. Another time, a guy was standing in front of the seats with his friends, holding the overhead rail when he put his right boot up on the seat. What if he stepped in dog crap? What if that got on the seat and someone else sat on it? How can people be so self-centered?
People scream their conversations at each other in the buses and trains, disrupting everyone around them. They drop their trash on the floor. They purposely put wads of garbage in the train doors to jam them and prevent the trains from moving. People play their music loudly on speakers instead of using earphones or headphones. They spit on the floor in elevators and stand at the top or bottom of stairs blocking the flow of pedestrian traffic.
Apparently no one else matters. Other people are just background noise to the story of their life, props to be ignored except when useful.
Maybe our society preaches individualism too often and needs to shift to promoting social responsibility and being good to one’s neighbors.
About two weeks ago we went to a place called Stage Restaurant, a Ukrainian and Polish restaurant at 128 2nd Ave in Manhattan. I can’t believe it’s been that long already. With classes going, time is flying by.
We wound up in Stage because we were looking for a place to take my mother for a late birthday lunch. She happened to see an article in the paper about Stage potentially closing due to leasing problems and she wanted to spend some money there and support local neighborhood establishments. A lot of other restaurants that had been in the neighborhood for decades have been driven out by rising rent costs, including places that we used to go to often as kids, like the 2nd Avenue Deli. Now the 2nd Avenue Deli is way up town on 75th Street. I haven’t been there since they moved, because it’s so far out of the way. I remember the food being really good. I suppose we could go there before or after visiting the Met one day.
Anyway, we found out later from one of the employees that Stage has a long lease already set up that can’t be broken by the new building owners, so hopefully things work out for them. It seems like a lot of property in the area is getting bought up by NYU for classrooms and dorms. The whole character of the neighborhood has changed since NYU put those dorms up at Union Square. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. The place looks a lot nicer. On the other hand, it runs up prices on everything and the neighborhood was predominantly lower income before. Basically, people were run out of their homes because they could no longer afford to live there. That’s gentrification, I guess.
French toast and apple blintzes.
Stage Restaurant is a hole-in-the-wall sort of place with one long bar for seating directly in front of the cooking area. The latkes (fried potato pancakes) pierogies were recommended in the news article, but I went with the French toast. My wife and I shared a plate of apple blintzes. I can’t remember what she ordered now, but she didn’t have any complaints at the time. My mom went with a plate of pierogies, stuffed cabbage, sausage and sauerkraut. The portions were huge and she had plenty of food to take home for another meal.
Pierogies, sausage, stuffed cabbage and sauerkraut.
Stage Restaurant isn’t fine dining, but it’s fast, comfortable, and the food was good. It was also busy. Every time a seat opened up, someone sat in it. I don’t think the restaurant is going anywhere anytime soon, so I’m glad we found it. We can add it to our list of potential lunch venues when we’re in the neighborhood.
Saturday we attended a synagogue service and ran into an acquaintance of ours who had two tickets for an orchestral performance he wasn’t going to be able to attend. He didn’t want to waste them by throwing them out, so he gave the tickets to me and my wife. I imagine he wasn’t planning on attending because of the cold. We weren’t sure we were going to go either, but we’d never seen a live orchestral performance so we figured this was too good an opportunity to pass up. Bundling up and heading back downtown after warming back up at home was a great decision!
The Announcer introducing the East Coast Chamber Orchestra at Washington Irving Highschool
It was a great experience that we’re both looking forward to repeating in the future. There’s something about hearing classical music performed live that is electrifying in a way that mp3s just can’t convey. I suppose it has something to do with the huge crowd of people all being there for the same reason, seeing the exertion and passion the artists are pouring into their playing on the stage, and experiencing the energy in the room as the crowd claps and cheers after sets.
The chamber orchestra we saw is called the East Coast Chamber Orchestra. They were performing as part of the Arens series of the Peoples’ Symphony Concerts 2013-2014 season. ECCO is a string orchestra that plays without a conductor. The member that introduced the group said they take turns leading. I’m not sure how they do that, but they managed to pull it off extremely well.
The venue itself was odd, I thought, because it was in a high school, but Washington Irving High School’s lobby and performance hall is very attractive. It has an old style of architecture that is very classy. The seats were hard though. By about halfway through I wished I’d brought a cushion. I probably should have just folded my coat and sat on that.
The best part of the concert was when ECCO performed Virtuosity: Five Microconcertos for String Orchestra. The composer, David Ludwig, happened to be in attendance so he gave an introduction to the piece. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the music was very engaging and the artists’ performance was amazing.
The concert was eye opening for me and gave me a new appreciation for classical music. I suppose I had gotten used to the idea that complex and powerful music was something that could only be achieved with computers. We’ve been in New York City for about two years now, and we kept talking about going out to do something like this, something new, but because of our routines and schedules we never quite got around to it. So, we were introduced to an amazing new form of entertaining just by chance, because someone had extra tickets and couldn’t use them. Sometime soon, we’re going to have to go see the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
Animal Rescue: Saving Cheesecake
After the concert, we walked over to Veniero’s Pasticceria on 11th Street and 1st Ave. We figured, why not finish off a great night with a great dessert and some a wine? It was getting late, though, so we got our order to go and got on the train. When we got home, we put the pastries in the fridge and went out with the dog to walk him. That’s when the evening took an unexpected turn.
We were walking past the narrow little alley next to our building where the next building over stores garbage between pick-up days. There was this orange cat sitting there in the snow, crying and pacing back and forth. The opening of the alley is blocked with a steel gate. I can only imagine the cat jumped down into the alley from behind the buildings and couldn’t get out. We couldn’t just leave him stuck there. If we did, he might have frozen to death. He was so pitiful and every time we talked to him he cried even more loudly.
I got on the phone with 911, because I expected them to send animal control. I figured, even if he goes to the shelter and runs the risk of being euthanized, that’s better than the cat dying of a combination of starvation, dehydration and hypothermia.
That call didn’t go quite as planned. I grew up with this idea in my head of firemen with ladders getting cats out of trees. I thought that was probably a little naive but at the last I thought they would send an animal control person with a ladder to get over the gate and get the cat out of the alley. The 911 operator instead transferred me to a “more appropriate agency for this situation” and I was disconnected before the call went through.
So, I called 311. After explaining the situation to the operator, she tried to transfer me back to 911 via a conference call, which ended with the 911 operator asking the 311 operator if she had any sense, since animal control issues are handled by 311. For some reason, the 311 operator was trying to pass off responsibility for doing her job onto 911. I literally had to threaten to report her to a local news station and the ASPCA as letting cats die of exposure because she was too lazy to do her job before she took the call seriously and agreed to submit the report and have police sent over to address the situation.
Keep in mind this was after midnight and I was on the phone for about 30 minutes, standing in the street, with it only being about 23 degrees outside.
Right about the time she finished taking my info and was about to submit the report, the cat made a loud yowling noise and launched himself vertically at the gate and managed to catch hold of the grating and haul himself to the top. He almost fell back in, but he eventually jumped down onto the sidewalk.
Cheesecake spending the night in our travel carrier in the bathroom.
Of course, it didn’t end there. I couldn’t leave the cat in the cold. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep. So, I called to the cat and he followed me upstairs where I put him in the bathroom of our apartment. I dug a big animal carrier we have from our international move with our cats back to the US out of the closet and put the cat in it for the night.
Today we took him to New York City Animal Care and Control. We tried to get him into a few no-kill shelters, but all of the NK shelters in NYC are not accepting cats. So, we’ll keep up with his progress and try to make sure he doesn’t get euthanized, but at least he’s not freezing to death.
Cheesecake in the NYCAC&C during his intake process.Cheesecake in the NYCAC&C during his intake process.
He is a very good cat. Very well behaved. I had my gloves on, but when I picked him up he didn’t even try to fight back. He seemed very happy just to be warm and to have something to eat and drink. According to my wife, he was very behaved at the shelter as well.
When the intake person asked for the cat’s name, my wife called him Cheesecake. So, now Cheesecake is in the shelter, going through a health assessment. I hope this turns out well.
This is just a frozen strawberry and a chunk of ice I found on the sidewalk. It seemed oddly out place.
We went to an interfaith recitation and music event at the Town & Village Synagogue on 14th Street in Manhattan last Thursday. Every year, the event is held at a different venue, and this time it was T&V Synagogue’s turn to host the event. I don’t mean to say the hosting is thought of in a negative way, but rather as an opportunity to contribute to the interfaith dialogue that they’re trying to promote with the event.
According to the announcers (Rabbi Larry Sebert and Anthony Donovan, the co-founder of Local Faith Communities), it was the fourth time they’ve held the event and the groups all seemed to be familiar with each other. In addition to Town & Village’s choir, there were representatives from:
The Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church
Bhakti Center (a Hindu path)
Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection
The Catholic Worker
Medina Masjid Mosque (Muslim)
Iglesia Alianza Cristiana y Misionera (Spanish Evangelical)
Nechung Foundation (Tibetan Buddhist)
St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery (Episcopal)
The Light of Guidance Sufi Center
Middle Collegiate Church (Protestant)
The atmosphere was pretty relaxed and it was interesting seeing people of different faiths all in one house of worship. Another thing that I found interesting was the way Mr. Donovan kept saying that the Torah scrolls, housed in the ark behind the bimah (an alcove behind the raised portion at the front of the synagogue) must be really blessed since so many people from different religions were there praising God, or at least their interpretation of God. Perhaps he was thinking of how Jews call someone up to bless the Torah prior to oral recitation of the text.
There were a few groups that I found particularly interesting. The Russian Orthodox group sang at what felt like a professional level. The harmony and precision of the singers’ voices was amazing! The Tibetan priest was fantastic as well. The 10 foot long horn he played prior to reciting a mantra was very exciting. I took a video of it. The guy seems very humble and pleasant. He works construction during the day, despite his age. Perhaps that’s why he’s in such good health.
The Quran recitation was also interesting. A 16 year old boy who is already a hafiz, a person who has memorized all 600+ pages of the Quran, and the imam both did recitations on the bimah. I bet that’s something you wouldn’t find anywhere in the world but this country. Maybe not even outside New York?
That’s not to say the other groups weren’t good as well. The whole evening was fantastic. Those are just the three that stood out to me the most. The event was a little different from what I expected in that most groups sanitized their music choices. This event was supposed to be about celebrating difference as much as unity in that each group was supposed to present songs or recitations they would normally use in their services. The Russian Orthodox group leader specifically said they chose selections from Psalms because it was more inline with an interfaith type of dialog. The Middle Collegiate group sang a song in which I’m about 98% sure they replaced the word “Jesus” with “freedom” to make it more universal in nature.
There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s probably a testament to the success of what the Local Faith Communities group has been trying to do that even when given the chance to do what they normally do, people went out of their way to make sure they didn’t offend each other. That’s what interfaith dialog is all about, right? Learning to live peacefully with one’s neighbors?
The whole event lasted from 7:00 PM to about 9:30 PM. We had dinner beforehand at Murray’s around the corner on 1st Avenue, which is outstanding by the way, and then had some fruit after the event in the reception hall below the synagogue’s sanctuary. We had a really good time and we are looking forward to seeing next year’s Spiritual Sounds event.
Here are some photos of the different groups on stage which I have, hopefully, labeled appropriately. I wish the quality was better, but even after charging my camera battery and leaving myself reminders, I forgot to bring my camera with me and had to use my iPhone.
Rabbi Larry Sebert blowing a shofar at the commencement of the event.
A portion of the Town & Village Synagogue
The Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church group 1.
The Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church group 2.
Bhakti Center (a Hindu path)
Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection
Iglesia Alianza Cristiana y Misionera (Spanish Evangelical)
The Catholic Worker
Medina Masjid Mosque
Medina Masjid Mosque
Nechung Foundation (Tibetan Buddhist) – instrument
Nechung Foundation (Tibetan Buddhist) – recitation
My wife and I went to Rite Aid earlier to pick up some supplies for the week and while we were pondering the cat food choices this guy walked up to us and said to my wife, “Excuse me miss, do you know where the pad locks are? The locks that spin, that turn, with the combinations. Do you know where those are?”
We looked over at the guy and we both took a step back from him. He looked rough. Homeless maybe. His clothes were really worn out and sort of dirty looking. His speech was slurred and hard to understand. What startled us, however, was the fact that the whites of his eyes weren’t white; they were hot red, like maraschino cherries. He was also gesturing wildly and was leaning towards us in a weird aggressive sort of way, but not like he wanted to rob us. It was more like he believed we knew where the padlocks were and if he wasn’t forceful enough in asking us, we would hide the answer from him.
A lot of things ran through my head: ‘What’s wrong with him and is it communicable?’ being the foremost. I also started forming ideas about how to push him away while coming into the least amount of physical contact with him should he suddenly go nuts. Maybe that was just a reaction from having watched so many sci fi movies (zombies, rage virus, Helix, etc.) but you never know what might happen these days, especially if someone is so sick their eyes are literally red. I’ve never seen anything like that before.
The way people are doing experiments with viruses and DNA and genetic modification, it’s not impossible for something dangerous to get out in the wild (the general population of humans) anyway. I suppose you have to expect that sort of thing to happen these days, the same way we sort of expect the government to always be two steps from having a new lie and scandal uncovered.
The fact that he was disoriented was even more troubling. When my wife told him we didn’t know where the locks were, he walked away and we saw him stalking up and down the aisles asking other people about padlocks. I just hope that whatever he has isn’t contagious. I have better things to do with my time than lose my mind and wander around stores looking for padlocks.
When I lived in Singapore, I used to joke about the misspelled English words I saw everywhere, or the jumbles of random phrases used as shirt slogans. Having English on the shirt made it foreign and cool, I suppose. After working on learning two foreign languages (Arabic and Hebrew), I’m not nearly so critical of spelling mistakes by non-native speakers. Remembering vocabulary is a pain.
However, I can’t help but find it amusing that a person would misspell their own nationality on a manufactured neon sign placed in the window of a restaurant that sells said nationality’s food (or the Americanized version of it anyway).
How do you open a Chinese food restaurant and put up a sign for Chiese Food? Was it really poor business management, or a clever attempt to draw attention? Or did the guy purposefully misspell it because he knew that what he’s selling isn’t truly Chinese food? American Chinese food is nothing like what I ate in Singapore, which in most ways is far superior.
This particular establishment is on Amsterdam Avenue between 169th and 170th.
I was out walking my dog earlier today and right as we were coming to the corner of a block, this cat came strutting around the corner like he owned the place. Maybe he does? Maybe he lives in the building and hangs out there all the time?
Anyway, when he saw my dog, his demeanor changed right away and he walked to this spot by the wall and just sat there, watching carefully. My dog isn’t very big, so I doubt the cat was afraid. It was more as if he was keeping an eye on a visitor to his turf. Sort of like the dudes that hang out on the corners around here all the time.
