From Molly Young and Teddy Blanks, a periodic table of New York street trash.
Category: Gotham
Optimal swiping
“…a speed of 10 to 40 inches per second (i.p.s.) is the valid range for MetroCard acceptance by the Swipe Reader/Writer (SRW) device of our turnstile.”
Get that bunting!
Erik Eckholm chases migrants in New York.
I haven’t driven across two states to see a rare bird, although when that badly lost, gloriously hued painted bunting showed up in Brooklyn in late November, I did make the eternal subway ride from the Upper West Side to the far side of Prospect Park to get a glance and a picture.
Token ring
Glass-enclosed
Corey Kilgannon counts the last four outdoor phone booths in Manhattan.
300,000 relays
James Somers explains something that I should have understood before: why they call it an interlocking.
George Bell, 1942-2014
A sublime (in the older, aesthetic sense of slightly frightening) piece by N. R. Kleinfield on the death and life of George Bell, who died alone in Queens. Memento mori, indeed.
31 July 2015
What’s the fastest way to get to Far Rockaway? (Or at least, the coolest?) Take the A train with Scouting New York.
Now I understand why the “next train” announcement is so echo-y
Juicy views of the model board at NYC’s West Fourth Street control tower.
The spokesmen for the subway system walk that fine line between letting people know that the system is safe, but oh so riddled with technical debt.
Stand clear of the closing doors
Not to be outdone by WAMU’s profile of Randi Miller, the voice of Metro, The New Yorker offers this video video vignette of Charlie Pellett, the voice of NYC’s subway.
The city that never sleeps
Dave Taft offers a splendid 24-hours sampler of the wildlife to be found within New York City, be it animal, vegetable, or fungal; native or alien invasive. He even finds something remarkable about the ickiest species on his list, Macrobdella decora:
Generally an animal no one wants to find, the American medicinal leech is attractive, as far as leeches go. Green or dark brown overall, this native leech has orange spots with a lighter belly.
The color illustrations by Matt McCann, in the online edition of this story, really pop.
Halfway down the block before realizing that you’re headed the wrong way
A simple, analog solution to SOSED (Sudden-Onset Subway Exit Disorientation): low-profile wayfinding signs on the stairway risers, designed by Ryan Murphy and documented by Vicky Gan. Much more useful than smartphone beacons, also discussed in the post: who wants to be staring at a screen when you and 1,000 of your new best friends are trying to get off the platform and into the light?
Wild! Life!
Brandon Keim explores vacant lots and bits of waste ground in New York, and likes what he sees (even the non-natives), ruderal plants bursting with life.
… verdancy is not the result of careful management, but life’s inexorable course, present wherever we don’t suffocate it.
I’ll have another
At Shorpy, a delicious photograph from 1963 of the Bombay Bicycle Club bar in New York’s Essex House.
New York snaps
Every once in a while, I get a look at New York that turns me into a happy-snapping, cornfed tourist. This view of SoHo, Tribeca, and the Financial District, with 1 World Trade Center in the background, taken from the sky level of the New Museum, is one such.
Can’t resist stopping for building-mounted street name signs. Bleecker Street, just down from the intersection with Carmine Street.
I saw dispensers in two buildings encouraging the BYO water bottle idea: at New York Law School (filling stations from Filtrine), and here at the American Museum of Natural History.