Brian in New York

Trouble in the Neighborhood: Drunken, spoiled, adult-children on their way.

Well there goes the neighborhood, Just found out that more than likely MTV's Real World 21: Brooklyn will be in a house around the corner and up the street from my house in Carroll Gardens

Destined to destroy the dinner and after work nightlife of the neighborhood we all greeted the news with a heavy groan. If the prices of bagels and coffee go up (more), or they destroy our local hangouts with there drunken nonsense I'm pretty sure the Tony's, Paulie's, and Sam's of the neighboorhood will take notice. People like their quiet neighborhood here.

Google map showing the madness

Another Stunner of a Day in New York

We've been having a lot of rain so today was especially nice when the weather turned out to be perfect. 72 Degrees, low humidity, and light breezes. So after waking up late (I was out until 4am) I went up to 6th avenue to wander around the the street fair and then down to Bryant Park to sit around and enjoy the day. I wish it would stay this way all summer. Here are some pictures:

Court Street Fair

Well the weather cleared up on Sunday and it was a georgious day. Just in time for the Court St. Spring Fair. Court street is the main street in my Neighborhood and it was a blast to see all the negihborhood turned out to enjoy the food, booths, games, etc. It was a foodie paradise: Funnel cakes, home made sausages on the grill, breads, even a whole BBQ pig. Everyone was out enjoying the weather and Carroll Gardens. It also kicks off a few months of some street fair happening in some neighborhood every Saturday and Sunday. Spring is amazing in NYC!

Prospect Park

Two weeks ago Sunday I decided to spend the day in the park. The weather was good all the previous week and I was stuck inside being sick so I wanted to get outside. I really haven't explored Brooklyn that much, just my little corner really, so I decided to check out Prospect Park. Prospect Park is a huge park in the middle of Brooklyn designed by the same team who designed Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. Overall it was really pleasant. Grand Army Plaza was great and I walked past the huge Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, although I didn't go in. I spent the day shooting photos and decided to shoot the whole day in black and white. I've posted my pictures on my flickr account, take a look. I still need to do some post production work on the photos though.

Utah follows me to NYC

Image my surprise when I come walking down the street to work and see a pioneer sculpture. It seems Utah is following me to New York. It's a pretty fun scuplture though made my a pretty well known artist, Tom Otterness. DUMBO is big on putting up art all over.

Other notes are that spring is rolling in and the city is starting to be really gorgeous, such a great time to be in the city. Lucky I was able to miss all the Pope hoopla this weekend being that I was sick for almost a week and then yesterday I spent the day in Prospect Park. I'll post some pics from the park tomorrow.

Clergy, Crosses, and a Cadence

Hey everyone sorry it's been awhile I'll catch you up in a few posts. Suffice to say it's been busy and I've been traveling.

Last night I had another unique experience. It was good Friday and here in the north east it's a big deal. I also live in an almost exclusively Italian American neighborhood, which means heavy Roman Catholic following. In fact I can see about 5 Churches/Cathedrals when I walk about the area.

I don't have much experience with the Catholic faith so I don't know the rituals and holidays but I was surprised to see a bunch of processions going around the neighborhood last night. All the processions involved the clergy of the church carrying a cross followed by parishioners and a marching band playing dirges. They went up and down the streets before going to the cathedral.

It was a fun thing to see and yet another unique experience living here.

I also rearranged my apartment today and it's sooo much better, I actually feel like I have room and could have people over. What I didn't realize I missed though was the NYC Pillow Fight, dang I had wanted to go and forgot.

A Half a Trillion Dollar View

New York Magazine pegged the real estate value of New York's Central Park at $528,793,552,000.

Personally, I don't think that comes close. I wouldn't want to see New York if there wasn't an opportunity for New Yorkers to relax on the great lawn now and then.

Still, not a bad investment on $15M in 1880s.

The picture is taken on December 28th, on a chilly but clear day from the Top of the Rock.

Mad about Manhatten

My coworkers are starting to tease me because it seems like every time they ask me what I did over the weekend the answer is usually the same. I walked around Manhattan.

I don't know what it is but walking around fr me is a contradiction in emotions. On one hand it's energizing; seeing all the huge buildings, all the different types of people, something new almost every time. On the other, it's calming; just concentrating on nothing walking around with iPod headphones on (an essential part of the dress code for NYC).

When its late at night or I'm taking the subway home after dark I love to throw on "Manhattan" by Ella Fitzgerald so much fun. Here's the song, I recommend listening late at night:

Ella Fitzgerald-Manhattan (4484.6K)

Cold enough to freeze your winnebago

First off, if you don't get the title you never watched this

Storm hit and packed quite a wallup last night. The picture to the left is a few blocks over at 3am. I was coming home from a party and was raining ice. I think freezing rain is slushy, right? but this was like small bit of hail. It felt like it was raining mini ice-cubes. I was awakened at 4am by the sounds of people trashcans being thrown down the street in the wind and crashing into cars. Crazy!

Today was Christmas shopping in midtown and downtown. Stopped by Rockefeller center to snap a few touristy shots. This year the tree is completely lit by LEDs, (I thought you would like that Dad).  I'm sure not a lot of people were on the observation deck today as you can see in the photo you can only see about halfway up Rockefeller.

It didn't start to pour until my trip back so I got home cold and drenched but overall better than I was expecting. I felt bad for the tourists.

Day at the Met

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This is a Flickr badge showing photos in a set called Met Museum. Make your own badge here.

Spent yesterday at the Met Museum which is quite possibly my favorite place in New York. Under one roof you can see a majority of the interesting and historically pivotal pieces of history from around the world! I do feel a little guilty that we have most of the most valuable painting is the world. I saw an amazing special gallery of about twenty Rembrandt's and they were incredible, it was as if you were staring at photos. The portraits loomed out of their black backgrounds with eyes so detailed it felt like they were looking right at you.

The Gates of Paradise was another exhibit whose website doesn't begin to give it justice, amazing, here's a better site to show you the detail but you don't get the luster of the restored gold..

I took a lot of other photos that you can look at through my flickr widget (left). Which include:

1) View of the front of the museum (obligatory touristy thing),
2) Temple of Dendur (yes an actual Ancient Egyption temple shipped from Egypt in the 1970s
3) Annual Christmas tree being readied in front of the 600 year old medieval choir screen, and covered in medieval carved angels. Hey it's the medieval museum gotta do it in style.
4) Pics from the open air European sculpture gallery, very impressive
5) For my dad, a 2000 year old whetstone in the shape of a deer, I think from the Babylonians
6) Lion from Nebuchadnezzar II's Ishtar Gates. I kid you not the real thing. The gates are in Berlin (because why would Iran have one of it's most important national treasures after-all" but we've got a lion.
7) The Assryrian Palace Reliefs, one of the most impressive things in the library, it tough to get the scale, my photos are blurry because its dark, but here are some cool pages on it, one (click to see images remember each like 10 feet tall), two, what it probably looked like a few thousand years ago. Amazing!!
8) One of my favorite paintings, The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David. They have a few of his.
9) The Hall of Arms and Armor
10) and Henry VIII's last suit of armor when he was huge! Armor of Henry II of France was cool too, really detailed.

A ton of fun, I spent all day there and still missed about half the collections, and I was cruising. I'm going to be a donor so I'll be back many times. If you are in NYC for a spare half a day let me know and I'll be glad to introduce you to Rembrandt.