NYC

"New York City has very little land that is not covered with buildings, forcing New Yorkers to find innovative solutions if they want to keep their agricultural production truly local. But while some people grow a few herbs on their fire escapes, Ben Flanner is transforming an entire industrial rooftop into a living garden. Atop a defunct bagel factory in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood—a Polish enclave more known for its pierogies than its organic tomatoes—Flanner dropped 200,000 pounds of dirt on 6,000 square feet of rooftop (by crane), and in so doing brought new life into a mostly concrete neighborhood.Flanner used to work at E-Trade, but decided he had had enough of the corporate life: “About a year ago I came to the conclusion that I’d learned what I needed to learn from the jobs that I’d had,” he says. “And I decided that it was time to put together a plan to move on and continue my learning in a new realm.” He had always had an interest in farming, but the recent wave of... more... - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

there's a growing number of them being built in nyc and brooklyn. i think it's great - Cee Bee

"There are many things that puzzle Stuyvesant Town residents these days. Why do voicemail boxes outnumber employees at the management office? Why are my elderly neighbors continually being mugged if Stuy Town has security? How are six washing machines expected to service a building with over 100 apartments? Today Stuy Town residents have another question: Why can't I take photos in Stuyvesant Town anymore? Stuyvesant Town residents are contacting Lux living about a new "rule" that prevents residents from taking photos on the college dorm. Last week a resident was sitting by the fountain in the Oval which he was about to take a photo of when security showed up and told the resident he needed a permit from the management office to take photos on the property." - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

"The steady rain has delayed countless city rituals: barbecues, baseball games, rooftop cocktail parties. Add to the list a funeral, rescheduled twice this week as mourners awaited an outlet for their collective grief. The deceased: Pretty Boy, the Mayor of East Seventh Street, a dignified white cat who had a confident swagger — and a distaste for rainy weather. Thus the long-delayed memorial service to sprinkle his cremated remains along the path he once strutted. Pretty Boy, believed to have been about 22 years old, was a local fixture for over a decade, making his rounds on the south side of the block between First Avenue and Avenue A, as shops opened and closed and renters moved in and out. His death last month, of natural causes, unleashed a storm of emotion. A business owner broke into tears at his mention. One young resident wept through a rehearsal for her kindergarten graduation. And Herbie, a disheveled supermodel of a cat who used to live with Pretty Boy at Mikey’s Pet Shop, has retreated behind bags of cat litter to grieve privately." - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

"Five French tourists were taken on a hair-raising, seven-mile "ride from hell" yesterday when an illegal van picked up the unsuspecting passengers at JFK Airport and raced through two boroughs to try to shake cops, authorities said. "We screamed and prayed the whole time we were in the van. God heard us. It was a miracle that we survived," Esther-Ethy Mamane, 26, of Paris, said in French. "I am shocked. The whole thing was quite bizarre. We were very frightened," the still-shaken woman added. "It was like something from a film." Gwen Dulugat, 27, also from Paris, said the van -- unauthorized to pick up passengers at the airport -- took off with a "vroom" when Port Authority cops tried to prevent it from leaving. "It went very, very fast. We're going zoom, zoom, zoom," she said, zigzagging her hand through the air. One officer described the horrifying tour of Queens and Brooklyn as "the ride from hell."" - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

"THERE were hives to inspect and honeycombs to drain, but before all that Patrick Gannon sat on a cinder block in his backyard on City Island with his 9-year-old son, Julian, and just watched the bees. I can’t think of anything more relaxing than sitting in front of my beehive, drinking a beer, smoking a cigar, letting the bees fly,” Mr. Gannon said on a recent Saturday afternoon. “And the smell. It’s the most beautiful smell.” Mr. Gannon moved to City Island from Manhattan in 2003, lured by the opportunity of sailing. But after trading a sixth-story walk-up apartment for a house, Mr. Gannon decided to return to beekeeping, a hobby he had discovered as a young man in rural England. His pastime, however, means breaking the law. His hives, like all those in New York City, are illegal, and Mr. Gannon could face thousands of dollars in fines if someone complained and the authorities took action. Though it’s almost impossible to keep a bee colony a secret, the number of New Yorkers taking... more... - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

"A young boxer was shot dead outside a Bronx bodega at 3:30 a.m. on a Saturday last August. Weeks later, a 59-year-old woman was beaten to death on a Saturday night on the side of a Queens highway. On the last Sunday in September, violence exploded as five men were killed in a spate of shootings and stabbings between midnight and 6 a.m. Seven homicides in New York City. None connected in any way but this: They happened during the summer months, when the temperatures rise, people hit the streets, and New York becomes a more lethal place. There were more homicides in September than in any other month last year: 52. Next highest was August, with 51. Variations, of course, exist. There were 48 homicides last March, for instance. Still, the prime time for murder is clea Still, the prime time for murder is clear: summertime. Indeed, it is close to a constant, one hammered home painfully from June to September across the de decades. And the breakdown of deadly brutality can get even more specific. September Saturdays around 10 p.m. were the most likely moments for a murder in the city." - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

"Washington Square Park tokers, beware! A group of "wealthy, high-level" Greenwich Village residents plans to hire a security force of off-duty NYPD cops to keep the refurbished bohemian playpen from returning to its bad old days as an open-air drug market, The Post has learned. "The Coalition for a Better Washington Square Park" -- which is made up of area co-op boards and NYU -- says it wants to protect the great strides made there, including a multimillion-dollar face lift paid for, in part, by the Tisch family. "There are wealthy New Yorkers that are public-minded," said coalition founder Dr. Gil Horowitz, a longtime parkgoer and resident of lower Fifth Avenue. "We have brought together some very high-level people in order to get this done."" - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

The end of the High Line which has been recently opened to the public (but it was so beautiful when it was empty and totally abandoned), New York. Photo Olivier Zahm - alexxandra via Bookmarklet

"The phrase "wind power" conjures up images of sweeping plains and large, open spaces. But according to new research from Caldeira and Christina Archer at California State University, Chico, the North American Eastern Seaboard and the Chinese coastline have the best potential for high-altitude wind power. While lower-altitude wind power usually works best in areas with open spaces, high-altitude wind power harvesting requires minimal space to produce maximum energy. Since jet streams traveling in atmospheric currents move much faster than wind on the ground, areas with ideal positions below polar jet streams have the highest potential for wind power. And according to CSU Chico's new research, New York City has enough energy potential in a square meter to provide for the average American's energy needs. Even before CSU Chico's study, a host of start-ups with names like KiteGen, Sky Windpower, Makani, and Magenn popped up to work on high-altitude wind power. Most of these companies are... more... - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

"Remember playing your favorite games at the local arcade, bowling alley, summer camp, or bungalow colony as a kid or teenager? They seemed larger than life and still do! Remember hearing your favorite tunes on the jukebox when songs were songs and you had to change sides in the middle of the record? Now you can relive the fun and share it with your friends and family at the Retro Arcade Museum. We’re a fully operational "free play" arcade open exclusively to private events, having recreated the era down to the lighting & clocksl Scores of classic handheld games are on display by companies like Bandai, Coleco, Entex, Epoch, Mattel, Tandy, etc. The world’s very first video games, including examples of virtually all Atari, Magnavox Odyssey, Mattel Intellivision, Telstar, Vectrex and more are on display….some available to play! You can even choose from our enormous music library and vintage TV shows like Welcome Back Kotter, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, S.W.A.T., and dozens more –... more... - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

One summer night in 1986, I saw Sonic Youth play at CBGB. The club was oppressively hot. Thurston Moore, six feet six and sandy-haired, originally from Bethel, Connecticut, looked slightly distracted at first, like a surfer who’d wandered indoors. He opened the set by pressing a button on a large boom box; Madonna’s “Into the Groove” began to play while he fiddled, slowly, with his gear. I loved Madonna, and I was a little afraid that the band was making fun of her. But they let her song finish without comment, and then launched into “Tom Violence,” a dirgelike piece that drones and whines. If the bright, square notes of “Into the Groove” came from a world of easy round numbers, Sonic Youth’s music was made of intricate fractions. Each song was crammed with information. Moore swayed as if the stage were heaving, and he sang as though he were trying to calm himself down. Lee Ranaldo, a rugged kid from Long Island with a shaggy hair style, stood stage right, whipping his guitar through... more... - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

"New York City imports $1 billion in vegetables every year to feed the city's constantly growing population. In the future, the majority of the city's produce might be grown a little closer to home if Gotham Greens gets its way.The start-up, which recently won the grand prize in New York's Green Business Competition, is building NYC's first hydroponic rooftop farm on top of a church in Jamaica, Queens. Gotham Greens' $1.4 million, 12,000 square foot hydroponic rooftop farm will produce 30 tons of fruits and vegetables every year using a water-based, soil-free method of farming. The farm will be powered by 2,000 square feet of solar panels located on a neighboring roof, and the operation will use rainwater gathered from a giant sistern. Gotham Greens plans on delivering its produce in a biodiesel van, cutting out middle men who often charge farmers a 10% to 15% markup. Construction of the Gotham Greens farm will begin in the fall, with the first harvest expected early next year. The... more... - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

"It’s amazing how much shit is run on Windows. This jumbotron—of infamous ‘Bush Monkey’ fame—located on the corner of Hudson and Canal Street near the entrance of the Holland Tunnel was suffering a major defect this weekend, giving a very public and embarrassing demonstration of the operating system’s perpetual failures, only a week after the debut of Windows 7." - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

"IT was Friday evening at V.F.W. Post 4591 in Hasbrouck Heights, N.J., and the scene was a vegetarian’s nightmare. About 350 men, seated shoulder to shoulder at long tables, were devouring slices of beef tenderloin and washing them down with pitchers of beer. As waiters brought trays of meat, the guests reached over and harvested the pink slices with their bare hands, popping them down the hatch. Each slice was perched on a round of Italian bread, but most of the men ate only the meat and stacked the bread slices in front of them, tallying their gluttony like poker players amassing chips. Laughter and uproarious conversation were in abundance; subtlety was not. As anyone in northern New Jersey could tell you, this was a beefsteak. The term refers not to a cut of meat but to a raucous all-you-can-eat-and-drink banquet with a rich history in Bergen and Passaic Counties. " - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

The events, which typically attract crowds of 150 or more, with a ticket price of about $40, are popular as political meet-and-greets, annual dinners for businesses and civic groups, and charity fundraisers. Caterers said they put on about 1,000 of them in the region last year. “Once you start going to beefsteaks, it’s an addiction,” said Al Baker, a Hasbrouck Heights policeman who had... more... - Cee Bee

...my mouth is watering reading this. i'm conflicted, it seems so wrong, fattening and unhealthy, but it would probably be a really great experience. - .LAG liked that

"A MAN walks into a bar. He’s carrying a carpet under his arm. He wraps himself in the carpet, lies on the floor, covers his face and waits for people to step on him. A sign taped to the bar reads: “Step on carpet.” People step on the carpet — dozens, in fact. The more people who step on the carpet, particularly if they are women in heels, the happier the man is. Some are timid, others are audacious. Some dance on the man. Some step on him while ordering their drinks, completely unaware that a live body is underfoot. Some just stand there, frozen, looking totally freaked out. Four hours later, the man slips out from beneath his carpet, folds it up, tucks it under his arm and heads home. “It was a nice party,” he says cheerily, as if he were talking about something far more ordinary, like, say, a backyard barbecue. That man (and none of this is a joke) is Georgio T., a 48-year-old immigrant from Malta, who calls himself the Human Carpet. He has become an occasional sight around New York’s bar and club scene and a fixture at sexual fetish parties." - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

And I thought I was weird. Phew. - Mona Nomura

"Every now and then in New York City, you will come across a thing so perfectly useless it reminds you of an old idea you managed to forget: Superfluous things are often beautiful, and beautiful things are generally superfluous in the end. A good example being the discovery of the century-old bowling alley in the basement of the Frick Collection, the mansion/museum on Fifth Avenue that houses an amazing array of European art. “It’s one of those hidden places in New York, now isn’t it?” says Colin Bailey, the museum’s chief curator. After welcoming you in, Mr. Bailey will go on to say that the vaulted ceilings are of plaster, the red-tiled floors are Moorish i aulted ceilings are of plaster, the red-tiled floors are Moorish in design, and the mahogany-paneled walls look back on the English tradition in a “vaguely Jacobean way.” Built in 1914 by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company, the alley cost its owner, the steel tycoon Henry Clay Frick, $850 — a princely sum that did not include... more... - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

I've visited Boldt Castle a few times when I was a kid on sailing trips. I don't remember much of the story though, except that his wife died. Is there much more to it? - Cristo the Troll™

Our tour of The New York Times Co.’s research and development lab, which concludes with today’s video, represents the first time many of their projects have been seen in the wild. But before we got in there, similar tours had been given to more than 150 advertisers. The company, of course, has a huge stake in the next generation of marketing, which appears as uncertain as the future of news. Some of the R&D group’s advertising innovations include: RFID chips that connect print ads to more dynamic content on the web, ads that can shift from one screen to another, ads that are linked to what friends are chatting about online, and targeted advertising of all sorts. They also developed the new, more-prominent, advertising units that have been adopted by members of the Online Publishers Association. Those ads are scheduled to roll out in June on major sites like the Times, ESPN, and CBS. If the news industry’s paradox is declining revenues amid unprecedented popularity of its content,... more... - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

Nick Bilton, Alexis Lloyd, Michael Young, and Ted Roden are members of the Research and Development Group at The New York Times. This video was recorded on May 4, 2009. More information here: niemanlab.org/2009/05/in-the-times-rd-lab-the-future-of-news-is-the-future-of-advertising/ - Cee Bee

it's interesting what this dept at the ny times has going on. they're really at the forefront of technology. here's ted roden's ff account: http://friendfeed.com/tedroden - Cee Bee

"A word of warning to vegan graffiti writers: don’t get caught in New York City. Graffiti bomber turned designer CLAW paid a friendly visit to UTAH, who is recently incarcerated on Riker’s Island, and twitters: “She said it’s not so bad, like a ghetto sleepaway camp. Suave shamps. She is starving b/c she is vegan. No tempeh on the island apparently.” According to the Department of Corrections, inmates with special dietary needs have to go to the clinic and get the nutrionist to issue a special id card. Apparently that’s easier said than done. Over instant message, CLAW tells us it took a lawsuit-threatening letter before “they finally got her soy milk and peanut butter.” The other option is finding a chaplain, like Rabbi Leib Glanz, to illegally hook up Goodfellas-style prison feasts." - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

Cee Bee, this is the coolest thing I've seen today. Thanks for this. - Iain Baker

do kids even do this anymore, hanging out at the shop? we used to hang out at the skate shop, Rey's arcade and the 7/11 when I was a kid. I guess there's shopping and the mall and starbucks now... - Anna Lynn M.

"Three rare white spotted snow leopards have just become the hottest cats in town. The felines caused a stir yesterday when they were officially unveiled as the newest residents of the Central Park Zoo. The cats -- which are native to the troubled mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan -- are the first snow leopards to take up residence in Manhattan, and theirs is the first new display at the 145-year-old zoo since it was renovated in 1988. "Only about 5,000 to 7,000 are in the wild," zoo spokeswoman Mary Dixon said. "And there are about 700 in captivity. The new cats include a male who was named Bo by zookeepers. The two females were dubbed Chocolate and Zoey yesterday after schoolchildren submitted suggestions and picked those names as the most popular. "They are young," Dixon said of the new attractions. "They came from other zoos." The cats will be housed in a new zoo area called the Allison Maher Stern Snow Leopard Exhibit. "" - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

Silly zoo, Apple just said it's a September release on Monday! Duh! - Adam Turetzky

With little fanfare the MTA has upped the hours that robo-trains ride the city’s rails. On the L line where they started, the computer controlled cars now run at all hours with little interference by the on board motorman. Transit advocates have raised concerns over the safety and security of the system, but are hopeful that the robo-trains will deliver the increased service they promise - Cee Bee via Bookmarklet

;-) - alexxandra via Bookmarklet