We Buy Gold - 2

They want your gold. Unfortunately, I don't have any.

We Buy Gold - 1

47th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue is the place to go if you want diamonds, gold jewelry and other shiny objects to wear. Prices are a lot cheaper than Tiffany & Co. that's for sure.

Lunchtime Delivery

Everyone in NYC seems to love it when lunch gets delivered. I prefer to get out of the office. At any rate, here's a typical delivery of about 20 lunch bags en route to some midtown Manhattan office tower. Looks like it's going to be sushi for lunch.

Park and Lock

Anyone who's ever come into the city from New Jersey and driven through the Midtown Tunnel Lincoln Tunnel knows exactly where this is located.

UPDATE: I was thinking about how I mistakenly calling the Lincoln Tunnel the Midtown Tunnel (it's actually called the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, I looked it up) and I got to thinking, for a city as large and historic and important as New York we really don't have very good names for our bridges and tunnels. Just consider this. Of all the many passageways into and out of the city, the best names we could come up with, to name just a few, are the Lincoln Tunnel and George Washington Bridge and the Holland Tunnel? That's pretty weak in my estimation.

Did you know that the Holland Tunnel is named after Clifford Milburn Holland (1883-1924), Chief Engineer on the project, who died before it was even completed. Who's even heard of him? Furthermore, there are plenty of things already named after Lincoln and Washington. They have the penny and the $1 bill to call their own, so I've decided to rename all of the bridges and tunnels. It seems like there are some huge opportunities here.

First things first, I hate how you have to be dead to have something significant named after you. Why do they always have this dumb rule? Don't you think it makes a lot more sense to still be alive to enjoy the honor while you're still here? After all, The Simpsons had their own stamp and they're not technically dead. Thus, my only criteria is that you have to be alive to have a bridge or tunnel named after you. You don't even have to be a New Yorker since obviously Lincoln wasn't from New York. OK, so here are my totally unscientific off-the-top-of-my-head recommendations for how we should rename all of the bridges and tunnels:

The Queensboro Bridge/59th Street Bridge will now be known as The Whit Stillman Bridge. It sounds right and has a nice ring to it. It might just prompt him to make another movie since he hasn't directed anything since 1998. He's only made three movies: Metropolitan, Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco. In case you're keeping score at home, I rejected both The Woody Allen Bridge and The Vincent Gallo Bridge though I did like Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Buffalo 66.

The Williamsburg Bridge is hereby renamed The Drew Barrymore Bridge. She's done lots of pretty good acting stuff and even though no one saw her directorial debut Whip It, I am sure the hipsters in Brooklyn won't mind the name change one bit.

The Queens-Midtown Tunnel will be henceforth called The Paris Hilton Tunnel. I jut like saying that and she'll work her ass off to promote it. It's an extremely well-used tunnel that really doesn't get enough credit.

The Lincoln Tunnel will now be called The Ashley Youmans Tunnel. Calling it the Ashley Dupre tunnel didn't really sound dignified enough and that's not even her real name so we're going with Youmans. She's originally from New Jersey so it seems semi-appropriate and after having sex with former Governor Spitzer all she got was an weekly advice column in the New York Post. Surely she deserves more than that.

The Holland Tunnel doesn't even go to Holland and no one knows or cares about the Chief Engineer back in the 1920s so this one is begging to be renamed. From now on this one is going to be known as the Anne Hathaway/Bruce Springsteen Tunnel. They're both from New Jersey and some people think Springsteen is the Boss. I don't share their sentiment, but I'm trying to keep the voters happy. I just like Anne Hathaway and since I'm renaming things I can call it whatever I want.

I'm still working on the George Washington Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, Triboro Bridge and all the rest of them. Get your votes in now.

Peep Show

Neon Peep Show on 8th Avenue.

What Do You Want To Do?

You better think of something before it's too late. No time like the present. Opportunity awaits, etc.

Abraham Lincoln on the Upper West Side

I wonder if Abraham Lincoln would drive a gold Mercedes?

Lincoln and New York is the current exhibition at the New-York Historical Society on 76th Street and Central Park West examines Abraham Lincoln's relationship with New York and features original artifacts, iconic images, and documents, many in Lincoln’s own hand. In 1860 Lincoln came to New York City and gave a historic speech to 1,500 people who paid .25 each for the privilege of hearing him speak at Cooper Union.

Not surprisingly, Mrs. Lincoln went shopping. 150 years later and nothing's changed much.

East Village Cheese

If you are in desperate need of some cheese then East Village Cheese is the place to go.

Brooklyn Diner

The Brooklyn Diner is conveniently located on 57th Street right near Carnegie Hall, but like any great diner it isn't open 24 hours. The food is usually quite good, but it's kinda cramped in there and it is priced just a bit too high to be a place you'd ever consider going except in rare circumstances.

The best thing about the Brooklyn Diner is that the taxi cabs float by in front. It's just like The Jetsons.

Gold-Digging With Pride

A pile of books stacked near the Strand. Presumably this is a pile that couldn't be resold. However, I'm happy to see they do some things in Texas with a sense of pride. It's really hard to know what goes on with those girls from Dallas, but I'm generally OK as long as they're totally upfront about it. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Descent into Times Square

I'm starting to like these entering Times Square pictures. Though it's such a non-place that you're never sure you're there until you're not there anymore.

Mouth to Mouth

I went to the MoMA museum branch PS1 in Queens last weekend. There was an exhibition featuring 45 years (since 1965) of performance video and it was comprised of many, many art works made specifically for video. I expected that the TVs would be higher quality, but it sort of fit in with the video since many of these were probably shot on VHS. I had seen a lot of the videos before, but there was also some incredibly captivating works that I had only read about before that were definitely worth seeing.

One of the works I liked was by the Glasgow based artist duo Smith/Stewart. I wasn't previously familiar with their work, but typically use their own bodies as the source for their video installations and single-screen works which allow them to explore gender interaction, and the works often have a threatening sense of imminent violence. In Mouth to MouthStewart lies in a bathtub fully clothed and completely submerged in water while Smith kneels at the tub's edge. Each time he signals that he is out of breath, she bends down and exhales into his mouth.

A Load of Pork

Not really sure what would possess someone to graffiti a mailbox with "Pussy Ham," but it sort of works nicely in the lower left hand corner.

Lunchtime

Somewhere downtown.

I just realized that I haven't been posting so much lately which is odd because I seem to be taking a lot of pictures. I used to post at least once a day which doesn't seem like that much, but it actually takes a lot of effort to find worthwhile things to shoot or talk about. Also, it seems like a few of my regular viewers fell off the face of the map too. Not sure what happens to people, but it appears they might be out shopping for shoes or otherwise busy with whatever preoccupies them. I suppose if the right shoe fits, might as well wear it until a better one comes along.

Saturday Breakfast

Pancakes at the diner.

The Shoes

Yves Saint Laurent window.

Amazingly Enough

Typical New York sentiment seen on 53rd Street. Is it like this in the rest of the country?

What Goes Up

Must come down. Taking down the Christmas decorations at Tiffany on 57th Street and 5th Avenue. They were taking them down at Burberry across the street too.

It's back to no business as usual.

Wildlife

Even city squirrels need to find food when it's 20 degrees out.

Hopefully this guy has some nuts socked away for frigid days like today when the only excitement is a pair of Japanese tourists who stop to take your picture.

Strategically Plated

A plate gets in the way at PTS America located on 5th Avenue at 26th Street.