Not "The Little Drummer Boy"

It's hard to imagine how this happens, but apparently no one will stop you if you show up on 42nd Street and 6th Avenue with a full drum kit and just start banging away. This guy wasn't a bad drummer, but it sure adds to the noise of the city for him to be beating the skins late at night (9:00PM) without any sign of stopping. For the record, he wasn't playing Christmas songs.

42nd Street Sprinkle

It rained on Friday and everyone in the city had their umbrellas out. Crossing 42nd Street at Madison Avenue is especially treacherous even when it isn't raining.

Traffic Cone Hair

I love colorful hair when it's done correctly and this fashionable New Yorker seems to be doing it right. It's not super ideal when your hair semi-closely matches the traffic cone like things, but what can you do? It kind of intriguing the way the barrel is cut in half so that it fits around the pole from the scaffolding. What's going on there?

I also took notice of her nice colorful flats which fit well with her hair. Maybe she needs a Paul Smith toothbrush or two (see below)?

Sunday Afternoon Stroll

Taking a stroll down 6th Avenue near the New York Public Library.

42nd Street Couple

Standing on the corner of Bryant Park at 42nd and 6th.

Missing Presumed Missing

Does this sign strike you as really strange too? I saw this in the subway at 42nd Street. She's been missing since 1995! Why put up this sign now? Obviously someone thinks these Church of Scientology members didn't do a very good job of taking care of Lisa McPherson because there's a lot more to this story.

Times Square Mural

Times Square Mural is a massive artwork by Roy Lichtenstein that is installed in the 42nd Street Subway. It's 6 feet tall and 53 feet long. If you're a fan of his work, tere's also another enormous Roy Lichtenstein artwork on 7th Avenue around 51st Street installed in the lobby of the AXA - Equitable building. There's actually a lot of public artwork installed all over New York City. You could spend a whole day looking at it all for free. I ought to develop a free artwork tour of New York City. I could charge $20 a person. Of course there are plenty of museums that have great collections and if you know when to go, you can get in for free or next to nothing. Friday night at MoMA and the Whitney are Pay What You Want nights and you can go to the Metropolitan as their admission is a suggested donation at all times. If you don't mind getting a dirty look from the person who sits behind the counter you can give them a nickle or a dime or whatever you think is appropriate. The Guggenheim doesn't offer any sort of discount ever. Some smart corporation that appreciates art ought to sponsor a free Thursday or Friday night at the Guggenheim.

It's really hard to believe that nearly a half a million people come through the 42nd Street subway station every day. That's a lot of people.

Cracks in the City

Earlier this week the German artist Jan Vormann came to the city and plugged all the cracks up with his wonderfully inventive Lego sculptures. But by the time I got there, someone had taken all the art. (You'll need to click this link to understand what I'm talking about) This was very disappointing. However, now that I think about it, this guy in the picture kind of looks quite suspicious, doesn't he? Is it possible that he could have a small cache of Lego art hidden in his bag there?

(On a side note, thanks to Bess for my lone blog comment yesterday. I was expecting to hear from you after my tale of broken elbows. So no thanks goes out to you comment deadbeats in Hawaii, France, Germany and at the University of Washington. You know who you are!)

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.

Two in the Bathroom

I ran into these two hip hop fashion plates in, of all places, the bathroom at the AMC 25 movie theater on 42nd Street and just had to take their picture. It's sort of an 80's Yo! MTV Raps show/De La Soul look they're sporting which is obviously about to make a huge comeback. Notice: the homemade cassette necklace on the one and the old school beeper in the hat on the other (you can see it better if you click the picture for the larger version). Also worth mentioning is that they both, totally unprompted, spontaneously flashed some sort of gang symbols as I was taking their picture.

Remind me to invite these two to my Halloween party. Word up!

Hipster Bicycle

I saw this bicyclist on 42nd Street. I liked his folding bike. It's a Strida 5.0. They're available at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) store. This is the type of bike that I'm seeing a lot more of ever since NYC became so bicycle friendly. I didn't see it at the time, but it looks like he's got on a gold solar powered watch or is that a calculator watch. Either way it's cool. Not to mention perfectly rolled up jeans. So hip.

Full Moon over 42nd Street

The view down 42nd Street looking towards the Chrysler Building. It sort of looks like a street light, but the bright light in the sky is a full moon.