Buried Teasure

Although Canal Street has been in flux, it remains the discount mecca for New York City. Here you can find a myriad of consumer items at tremendous discounts. The streets are lined with shopping stalls packed with merchandise.
Unfortunately for manufacturers of top branded items, this area of Chinatown around Canal Street and Broadway is also the mecca for fakes and knockoffs. Trinkets, baubles, tourist T-Shirts and tacky NYC memorabilia are mixed with fake designer watches and designer bags. This is where Prada, Gucci or Coach bags can be found for a small fraction of their normal retail price. Or Rolex watches for a few dollars. There are stories of back rooms and underground chasms where serious customers are led for counterfeit treasures - read an article about this here. Crackdowns and large scale arrests are made regularly - particularly targeting the importers and larger operations. But, the pirates are tenacious and the cat and mouse game continues.
I can't speak to the quality of these fakes. I have never really partaken in these goods - my purchases have been confined to discounted legitimate products like Casio watches, durians or shopping in a places like Pearl River Mart, Pearl Paint, Space Surplus Metals or Canal Rubber.
Legitimate bargains abound on Canal Street - if that is your interest there are plenty of discounts to be had without supporting pirates ...

Small Gestures

Many cite the popular minimalist refrain - less is more. And what better example than the small gesture.
These colorful origami boats in a puddle in yesterday's rain were the small gesture of an unknown hand. They garnered quite a bit of attention, as many of us circumnavigated their small ocean and observed them from many vantage points.
I don't like a rainy day. Until I have surrendered to the rain. Then I find it quite relaxing. When the mind is in the spirit of surrender and no longer rebels against the elements, you can fully embrace the rainy day. The sunny day is a distant memory and you can enjoy the impressions that a rainy day brings. Like a child who does not need to go to school on a snowy day, a rainy day gives permission to play and indulge in the small things we often miss or forget. This opportunity can be for a pause for reflection - a welcome moment of respite for the weary New Yorker.
I photographed in the rain with a friend until we were quite wet - few will make the effort at times like this when the weather is so dreadful. But this is when one can capture some very unique images.
New York city in the rain becomes transformed with everything cast in a different light. New opportunities abound for photos - a second city is created and with the wetness and everything familiar becomes new and unfamiliar in some way. But do not be so blinded by the great and spectacular things in New York that you miss the small gesture ...

That's Quite a Briefcase

In January I did a story on a red car and my impressions of those who embrace red. In the posting I also wrote a brief synopsis of the symbolisms regarding red in different times and places - you can see the posting here. I am intrigued by individuals who make a statement using red attire or possessions - it certainly is not the color of the shy and withdrawn. And personally I like the color - I have a few articles of clothing in bright red, but wear them infrequently and quite judiciously.
There are other colors, like purple, that also send messages. I am reminded of a period of time where I was carrying papers to and from my office in a slim, translucent, plastic PURPLE, briefcase. This is rather unusual for a male business owner, but I have that privilege. And NYC is quite accepting of creative types and the unconventional. However, one day I had a salesman who called on me. He stepped into my office, noticed my purple case and remarked in a sarcastic tone of voice - "that's quite a briefcase." I was actually quite insulted and found his remark very inappropriate, but I let it go. After he left, it occurred to me I could have retorted: "but that's why your on that side of the desk, and I'm on this side." But that would have just been nasty :)

Cuts One Way

The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the most important and recognizable NYC landmarks - an edifice literally in stone and one its finest icons. I have done numerous postings where the bridge is a key element, but none on the bridge itself. See the list of related postings below. There is also a series of photos associated with this article - you can see them here.
The bridge, completed in 1883 and connecting lower Manhattan with Brooklyn, has a walkway which is open to pedestrians and bicycles. I highly recommend this to any visitor (or resident) - it's a must do. It's free and the vistas are great.
There is no room and it makes no sense for me to synopsize here the history of the bridge or supply technical information - tomes have been written. The Wikipedia article is a good start and has a myriad of links - see here.
The Brooklyn Bridge is quite special to me. I find the stonework so much more attractive than the steelwork of the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges, although I have warmed up to these over the years. Traveling around the city, particularly by car, the Brooklyn Bridge is omnipresent and with its image comes a plethora of feelings and impressions. Especially for a New Yorker. This is the bridge of book, film and fable, known throughout the world.
Visitors are frequently astonished that anyone would go through what we do just get through basic everyday life. And many do leave after trying their hand at living here. Our town is a great one, but the knife that is New York City has two edges and cuts both ways. I, like many New Yorkers, have a love/hate relationship with many aspects of life here - it comes with the territory and every one of us living here knows it. But for the Brooklyn Bridge, the knife cuts only one way - I love that bridge :)

Related posts: One Front Street, Loaded, The River Cafe, Gallery View, Sink or Swim, Dumbo, Bridge Cafe, Belle de Jour, Jet Ski, Twist and Shout, The Watchtower.

Hookah

The hookah is a social instrument, so it is not surprising that it would be adopted by students. Hookahs are now common in colleges around the country as are hookah bars (this site gives a national hookah bar directory by state). Smoking bans in the city have made smoking all but impossible indoors. There are certain exemptions for cigar bars - hookah bars have been battling over this for some time. There are a number of hookah bars all over New York City - an area of Astoria (in Queens), known as Little Egypt, has a quite a number of them.
The hookah originated in India and as most know is ubiquitous* all over the Arab world, particularly in Turkey - read more here. In the last few years, the trend has been adopted by students as seen in the photo, taken in Washington Square Park.
There can be a certain naivete, however, when things become trendy - all of a sudden, the reinvention and new adoption with perhaps some minor tweaks, somehow leads participants to believe the old rules don't apply. Hookahs are a good example. A variety of hookah tobaccos are used, called Shisha, including varieties that are flower and fruit flavored. But no matter - the evidence still indicates that although the water filtration makes the tobacco less harsh, the exposure to dangers of nicotine are actually as great or even greater than cigarette smoking. I read that there are non-tobacco herbal alternatives, but websites have maasel on this list including wikipedia - my reading indicates that maasel is a fruit flavored tobacco ...

*A note about ubiquitous. Doesn't this word now seem predominantly used in a gratuitous manner by those trying to impress with their vocabulary? I saw it on a Top Ten Catchwords of the Literati, along with juxtaposition and iconoclasm.
However, I also saw the word described as one used by pseudointellectuals and a number of other articles that found it overused.

Photo note: For those of you who are wondering what it says on the bottom of that girls T-Shirt, see here.

Have a Heart

The university has historically been a place for protest, liberalism and a forum for current events and activism. So, it came as no big surprise as I went by the New York Univesity campus yesterday and saw an Earth Day celebration. What did surprise me though was a 180 foot vegetarian sandwich made by Top of the Square Catering. I'm not sure of the tie-in to the day - the sandwich appeared as more of an indulgence rather that a statement of restraint. But, I suppose everyone has to eat and a vegetarian sandwich is a better choice than foie gras or veal for Earth Day.
NYU has a number activities (graduation ceremonies and other annual events) that are held in the streets around the university buildings, owing to the fact that they do not actually have a private campus - the streets of NYC and Washington Square Park essentially function as their campus. I have blogged a number of these these NYU events - see the links below.
I will end this posting with a popular quote which is apropos, attributed to Winston Churchill. Some say it is falsely attributed to him - I have not been able to substantiate this one way or another. You will also see many slight variations on the quote itself.
''If you're not a liberal at 20, you have no heart, and if you're not a conservative at 40 you have no head.'' I keep this in mind whenever I am witness to student activism, passions and idealism ...

Related Postings of Interest: Grad Alley, Light on Bobst, La Rentrée, Obama, Danger and Caution.

Silent Rave Part 2

This is Part 2 of the Silent Rave I attended on Friday night. This type of event can also be described as a silent disco, silent party or mobile clubbing. The concept of silent discos goes back to the 1990s. Some of these may take place as a flash mob - see my posting on the recent Pillow fight in Union Square for more about flash mobs.
Friday's silent rave was organized by Jonnie Wesson, an 18 year old exchange student from Britain, attending the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn. Silent raves are popular in London and Europe - large scale silent discos with thousands of participants have taken place in the U.K.
“The basic premise is that a hundred or a thousand or a few thousand people all turn up in a public place, turn on their own headphones and dance" says Wesson. “It’s always fantastic and weird to see thousands of people dancing silently. It’s always in a public space, but it’s not meant to cause disruption, but only because it’s the last place you’d expect that sort of thing."
The rave at Union Square was organized by Wesson through a Facebook site. It was scheduled to start at 6:17 PM. “It’s a random time that fits in with the ethos of the flash mob.”