Manhattan | Famous Ankles

Archive for the ‘Manhattan’ category

The 9th Precinct

February 3, 2008

When I was a kid, I enjoyed the old TV show “Kojak” with Telly Savalas. Recently, I was down in the East Village and ran across the old precinct house that he was supposedly based out of: the 9th Precinct.

It’s located on 5th Street between 1st Avenue and 2nd Avenue. In the bad-old-days, this area was one of the toughest and most crime ridden places in Manhattan, being right next to Alphabet City.

I always find it interesting that the police cars are typically parked in the streets instead of a discreet parking lot someplace near. Of course, a “discrete parking lot” would cost the city about a bazillion dollars, but they don’t even risk parking tickets by just pulling up front.

Below is the entire station house, or at least the front of it.

The old exterior was also used for the “NYPD Blue” TV show, so it does have even more “history”. (The Blues was actually supposedly set in the 15th Precinct, but I understand that was a ficticious precinct number.)

It just went through a lot of recent renovations. It looks sharp.

-H

Categories: Celebrity Points, LES, Manhattan, Wanderings

Comments: 3 Comments

Stimson House in Murray Hill

February 2, 2008

Henry Stimson is one of those names that I’ve heard about for much of my life, but I really haven’t known anything about him. But since I’ve moved to NYC, I’ve occasionally passed by a building called “Stimson House” and a plaque caught my eye (I’m a sucker for historical plaques).

The plaque reads “New York, Home of Distinguished Americans; Henry Lewis Stimson; September 21, 1867 – October 20, 1950; Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President Herbert C. Hoover, 1929-33; Secretary of War, 1911-13 and 1940-43; Governor General of the Philippines 1927-29; lived in a house on this site from 1921 to 1927; The New York Community Trust”

As the Wikipedia link, and the plaque note, Stimson served two presidents: Hoover and Roosevelt, each from a differert political party. As I understand it, his organizational acumen was such that he could appeal to two such different presidents and do excellent work for each. This is the man who helped the US gear up and enter into the Second World War (and almost did the same in WWI).

It’s just a little building on 36th Street in Murray Hill between Lexington and Park. I don’t know if it is an office building or a residence. There are a couple of clues, though.

The awning is atypical and I’ve seen it only on residential apartment buildings. The individual air conditioners are typical in residential places, too (they do exist in business buildings, but I’m making a guess here).

I could stop by again…

-H

Categories: Manhattan, Mid-town, Wanderings

Comments: 4 Comments

Lower East Side Ecology Center Garden in Alphabet City

February 1, 2008

On 7th Street between Ave B and Ave C is a garden unlike any other I’ve seen in NYC. The LES Ecology Center Garden is all about recycling.

Yeah, it really is a garden and they do grow stuff there (it’s winter now so there’s a bit of a hold on “growing stuff”), but it’s all about composting for them.

Like all NYC community gardens, it’s pretty small, but so are a lot of things in NYC, like stores and parking spots. It ain’t worth complaining about. Instead, we just make more and more of them.

I guess these community gardens are the one thing I can’t forget about in Alphabet City. There are so many of them and they are all so small. One person told me it was an outgrowth of how bad stuff was before Guiliani: places would go down, perhaps they might be burned down or made completely uninhabitable. Later, some people with vision would have the City condemn them and then take it over with the City’s blessing and funding. They then would just put in some of these tiny plots of green that make life a little more livable.

-H

Categories: Greenwich Village, LES, Manhattan, Wanderings

Comments: 2 Comments

Open Road Park in Alphabet City

January 30, 2008

I’ve been going through Alphabet City recently. In other posts, I’ll describe it a little better, but it’s part of the East Village. I’ve recently been informed that the old timers reject the “East Village” appellation and prefer to remember it as the Lower East Side (which generally is used nowadays as the same general area, but only below Houston).

Anyway, I kept running into small community gardens in the area. Calling them “gardens” isn’t quite right as they don’t let you grow your own stuff, but are set aside as greenery areas in the midst of a lot of four and five story buildings.

On Avenue A and 11th Street, I ran into the Open Road Park garden area…although it’s not much of a park nor much of a garden (at least not right now). Note the sophisticated signage.

This one’s quite a bit bigger than the normal community garden in other parts of the area, but it really does fall into the general type of garden in most ways. Look at the plantings (it’s winter and all is dormant, of course).

In fact, it is very deep and even has a greenhouse area.

Amazingly, and I mean that with a lot of feeling, they even have a tiny pond!

It isn’t much, but it’s real.

The area itself is so mixed. Alphabet City has areas of great beauty and significant poverty. But it does have a lot of places like this and, although not unique by any means in NYC, it made me very pleased with how NYC has shaped up.

-H

Categories: Greenwich Village, LES, Manhattan, Wanderings

Comments: Be the first to comment

The Site of Richard Adan’s Murder

January 29, 2008

I know virtually nothing about who Richard Adan was other than an aspiring actor and a waiter at a small restaurant called the Binibon. I remember hearing about the circumstances of his murder back in July 1981 and the huge uproar regarding his death.

I lead this section talking about him simply as a matter of citing the victim rather than the perpetrator. You don’t want to celebrate Jack Abbott too much; he already has a Wikipedia entry and probably a hundred books cite him in some way. Anyway, Abbott committed suicide in 2002.

Richard Adan was trying to be helpful to Abbott when Abbott asked to use the restroom and was informed it was for employees only. Apparently he said Abbott should “take it outside” which might have been meant as use an alley or building side for a urinal (NYC was that kind of place back then); but Abbott apparently took as an invitation to fight. When Adan led him outside, Abbott knifed him to death.

Most people probably don’t know who Jack Abbott was, despite the extremely brief celebrity of the man. He was a lifelong criminal apparently with high intelligence and a gift for language. He wrote a book called “In the Belly of the Beast” in which he put forth his anger and frustration with great talent and fanfare. The New York Times published a glowing review of his book the morning after he murdered Richard Adan.

And the lifelong criminal would have been behind bars during the time of the murder if not for one of 2007’s most celebrated celebrities hadn’t made every possible effort to get Abbott released: Norman Mailer (who died in 2007).

Maybe Richard Adan’s life would have made him someone that Mailer would have enjoyed. He was also an author, but one cut short. I have no knowledge of Adan, but am weary at the idea that both Abbott and Mailer have Wikipedia articles, but Adan doesn’t.

Enough of the ennui. I’ve spent a couple of weekends touring the Lower East Side/East Village and the below was pointed out to me as the site of the murder. The Binibon is gone, but I’m told is where the “Join or Die” sign is now on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 5th Street.

-H

Categories: Celebrity Points, Greenwich Village, LES, Manhattan, Wanderings

Comments: 7 Comments

Famous Ankles