Millions of Magazines

I love this magazine store. They carry pretty much everything you could ever want. It's not the most organized store which doesn't really bother me very much. They have stacks and stacks of foreign and domestic magazines from floor to ceiling. All of the international fashion magazines are available in the back room. You only find great magazine stores like this in New York City. They have this one magazine called Free Style Magazine that comes packaged inside of a Frisbee. It came out a couple months ago and I keep wanting to buy, but it's kind of expensive and I keep passing it up. Pretty soon it will be gone and I'll regret not having purchased it. This store is located right near Bryant Park.

Italian Food

The extensive menu at Bravo Pizza on 5th Avenue and 19th Street.

Winter in Central Park

The view from Gapstow Bridge in Central Park on a wintry Tuesday evening.

5th Avenue Ticket

Just a second, sir. I know it's in here somewhere.

In a minute...

I'm texting the kids. Possibly taking a break from sightseeing and shopping in front of Henri Bendel on 5th Avenue.

Hot Dogs for Lunch

It's a quick lunch on the go. You aren't a real New Yorker if you haven't mastered the art of eating a hot dog on a crowded sidewalk

Cookie Monster at FAO Schwartz

Everyone likes the Cookie Monster.

Pretzels & Chestnuts

I've never ever had chestnuts on the street before, but they are available at all of the hot dog and pretzel carts in Midtown.

Nails & Spa

Cold days out there. Advertising marches on.

Harry Winston Jewelers

It looks like the luxury jewelry salon Harry Winston needs to give their New York lettering a good polishing.

A Typical Night in Midtown - 3

Another partygoer at the Patricia Field party at the Hudson Hotel.

A Typical Night in Midtown - 2

The Patricia Field party at the Hudson Hotel on Thursday night. Everyone was so serious and fashionable. It was sorta Mardi Gras-esque.

A Typical Night in Midtown - 1

Partygoer. Hudson Hotel. Midnight.

Christina Ricci's Graffiti Truck

Spotted on Union Square recently: Christina Ricci parking this rad graffiti truck. She sure gets around in style.

Going Sledding

Walking up Madison Avenue on the way to go sledding in Central Park. There was plenty of snow in the city and every surface was covered in the park.


Here's a video I shot riding my bicycle down 5th Avenue in the snow today.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I went to a great New York multimedia stage production of Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in Soho at the Ohio Theater recently. As you can see, it was completely sold out and very well done. It is based on a book that is a cult favorite around the world. If you haven't read it, you probably should.

Nice and Spicey

Don't you hate it when you spell the neon sign wrong and you're stuck with it?

Pizza Price War

Only 99¢. Has anyone else noticed that there are all sorts of pizza joints springing up charging less than a dollar a slice?

This is great news and very welcome for all the price conscious pizza lovers out there. In fact, I know quite a few. Pizza is the perfect thing to eat for busy New Yorkers and, if you're like me and you don't work on Wall Street, the price is insanely awesome. It's great to finally see some downward food pricing that absolutely everyone can enjoy.

Table for Two

A place to sit in the cold.

Flannel Shirts

Did you ever wonder where aging Brooklyn hipsters go to get their retro/grunge/vintage flannel shirts? 10 Ft. Single in Williamsburg, of course! There are possibly enough flannel shirts here to outfit an army of Strokes fans from here to Hoboken.

No, I Want to Take Your Picture

A young gentleman out for a stroll on a cold winter day in Queens, NY.

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.

Checks Cashed

When you either don't have a bank account or you don't want the government to track you down, there are plenty of these check cashing joints scattered around the city.

Buy The Books, Please

You are apparently supposed to buy the books and not just copy or photograph them. I've done this before, but certainly not at St. Marks. Sometimes you don't really need the whole book, you just want some information contained inside. Wouldn't it be a waste of paper if you bought the book for just one page? As I see it, you're saving the environment. Photograph away, just don't do it at St. Marks Bookshop.

Christmas Entrance

The entrance to Van Cleef & Arpels on 5th Avenue decked out for the holidays.

Black Santa

Midtown Manhattan was inundated with what seemed like a couple dozen black Santa Clauses standing on every available street corner around 5pm tonight. No joke. Here's one on the corner of 57th and 7th, right in front of Carnegie Hall.

It almost could have been a terrific scene out of a Christmas-themed "Reservoir Dogs." Unfortunately there was no multi-million dollar jewel heist in progress. Next year here's what they should do. Move the lot of them 10 blocks south to 47th Street (Diamond District) and provide them with a couple of graffiti trucks and a cache of sub-machine guns and we will have the makings of a great Chris Rock, Chris Tucker and Ice Cube caper flick.

See you at the movies!

Always Open

I was looking at this "Open" sign and I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't figure out what it was. I thought to stop and take a picture and then it came to me. How can a cart on the street really be open or closed? It's not like they ever leave their street food carts unattended so they are never closed.

It basically works like this. Early in the day, they drive or pull their beat up metal stove contraptions through midtown, set it up in their designated spot, make a bunch of grubby food and sell it to hungry people all day. When they are done they pack things up and off they go.

A much more effective sign would say: "Always open! We sell food that is a lot cheaper than the guy down the street and you won't get food poisoning."

Pizza Delivery

Pizza delivery vehicle on 3rd Avenue. It might get there just a little bit on the cold side, but it gets there.