Here's something you don't see very often. This afternoon one of those crazy window washing devices that ferry men up and down skyscrapers came loose off the Hearst Tower located on 57th Street and 8th Avenue. According to various news reports, two window washers are currently trapped way up there on broken scaffolding near the very top of the building.
This is way scarier than the singing garbageman I saw a few months ago.
There's nothing quite like a delicious bag of fries from McDonalds, but these three have an extremely valuable lesson to learn. Sure, it's nice to share, but it's no fun to share your french fries from McDonalds. You need your own bag. Also, no wonder the youth of America have so many back problems because it looks as if these kids are wearing 60 pound backpacks filled with 30 days of rations and ammunition that are more fitting for soldiers stationed in Afghanistan. Of course, if they filled them up with french fries that would be cool too.
Also the woman in the background (their mom?) has a pretty serious early summer tan.
It's only once a year, but it is one of those events that is always sure to create some sort of chaos or at least a lot of loud noise all day long in Midtown. I'm talking about the Puerto Rican Day Parade. The yearly parade is a huge source of pride for the island, one of only six inhabited unincorporated territories of the United States. In case you were wondering, the others are American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Wake Island. I've never heard of Wake Island and neither have you unless you play the game Battlefield.
Invariably, at one of these large parades rolling down 5th Avenue, you will find a couple of what I call "the snake charmers." These are always virile young men who think it is exceptionally cool to walk around with a slithering legless reptile strapped around their neck. I am not entirely sure, but there must be a group of women who find this really appealing. To the people that aren't repulsed by these creatures (the snakes, not the young men), they are endlessly fascinating. I'm not sure it's healthy to bring your snake to a loud outdoor event, but since most people think snakes are deaf anyway, I'm sure it doesn't matter much to these snake charmers.
Did you notice that this kid is wearing an enormous watch? Location: Somewhere in the 40s on 6th Avenue.
Did you ever notice that the sun always falls just right on Cameron Diaz? Spotted on 41st Street and 5th Avenue at 3PM today.
In just a few short years, there will no longer be street vendors selling newspapers on the streets of New York City. They used to be all over the place hawking the papers and shouting the headlines out loud, but this is one of the only remaining ones I see selling papers on the street. I sure would have enjoyed hearing him bellow out, "SEX GAVE ME CANCER" this morning, but mostly this vendor sits quietly and waits for someone to intermittently buy a paper.
This should be no surprise to anyone as it's been a long time coming since there are only really three viable newspapers in Manhattan right now: The New York Times, and the two tabloids, The New York Post and the New York Daily News. I guess you could also include The Wall Street Journal, but to me that is more of a nationally-focused newspaper though they do have an excellent local section. The tabloids always have the best headlines and today's editions focus on the 25 shootings that happened in the city over the weekend and Michael Douglas' surprising revelation that he caught cancer from having oral sex (presumably with his wife). That seems so unlikely to me and my best guess is that Douglas is an investor in some dental dam company and this is a great way to boost their stock. Who knows!
This street vendor is located on the NE corner of Madison Avenue at 47th Street and does a reasonable decent business to various commuters and businessmen (and women) who are mostly on their way to or from Grand Central Station. There is an entrance to Grand Central Station and the the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad on this corner as well. Of course, there are still plenty of what you might call "newsstands" in the city, but they mostly sell magazines, candy/gum, lottery tickets and cigarettes, but they are disappearing rapidly too.
Bruce Willis was in Midtown Manhattn on Wednesday night at the Zeigfeld Theater for the premiere of the mostly unwatchable and supposedly Scientology-inspired new Will Smith movie, "After Earth." I caught the always jovial Mr. Willis as he was headed to his awaiting SUV with his beautiful girlfriend Emma Heming. Of course it was a spur of the moment picture-taking opportunity so I didn't realize that my camera was on the wrong setting. I noticed a few minutes later as their car zoomed away that just about all my pictures were super blurry and out of focus. This is the best of the lot, but sometimes you take what you can get.
When I told him that he was cheating by sitting in the driver's seat he replied, "New York State law requires a driver in the car." I am sure Google's presumably trying to get this law changed. Some guy walking by told me that it was the "first test drive," but you can't believe everything a random stranger in New York City tells you or next thing you know you'll be driving off the Brooklyn Bridge.
Also no idea if the car parked itself or not or how it performs U-turns, illegal right hand turns, navigating potholes, running red lights, hitting bicyclists, or brushing up against pedestrians at crosswalks in the city, but judging from the scrapes on the side of car it will do just fine in our fair city.
This painting is entitled "Eyes and Eggs" and is from 1983 when he was producing lots of great art. This enormous painting is nearly 10' x 8' in size and is acrylic, oil paint stick and paper collage on cotton drop cloth. Since Basquiat often painted on the floor, you can see his dirty sneaker prints directly on the canvas. The show runs until April 6th and is completely free so you have plenty of time to get over there.