I went by Madison Square Park the other day whilst wandering about (I haven’t used the word ‘whilst’ in a long time and am happy to end that drought).
Two items impressed themselves upon me. First, the Shake Shack was closed for the season.
In an earlier post, I had commented how wildly popular the place is.
Second, I got a nice look and picture of the William H. Seward statue. Alaskans can celebrate the man in English ‘stead o’ someone else in Russian due to the man’s stubborness.
-H
Just a quick post-Christmas post on Christmas crowds. (How’s that for a little double-talk?)
I was at Times Square over the weekend just to check out how the crowds were looking. At first, I thought it was a lot lighter than normal, but I was soon set straight on that.
It was jammed. Not as crowded as I’ve ever seen it, but busy enough.
Probably the only thing that surprised me was that the cops had successfully chased off the street vendors. Usually, they thrive in the crowds, but they wouldn’t have fit here.
The vendors were around, of course. They just weren’t on Broadway. Go five feet off of Times Square and you’d run into them.
-H
It’s Christmas Eve and I’ve spent the day doing my NYC tradition: wandering around wishing people Merry Christmas! And I did wander.
I started by going up to Harlem. It’s been way too long and I wanted to see how Harlem’s streets are set for Christmas. I went this morning and found that Harlem’s streets are mostly deserted at 10am on a Christmas Eve. I’ll be posting pictures over the next few days, but it was pretty devoid of Christmas decorations. I didn’t do any of the backstreets where a lot of the small Churches are, so there may have been more. The most I saw was a Christmas tree outside of the Adam Clayton Powell building. On the other hand, the stores did have a lot of Christmas stuff. I wished a couple of people a Merry Christmas, but I was delighted when someone wished it of me first. That seldom happens and is very welcome.
After a little over an hour, I left Harlem and went to Greenwich Village. The Village had a bit more in terms of public decoration. I wandered on West 10th Street and saw an interesting sight: a lot of the townhouses have put out evergreen decorations. A lot of them also had lights, but it was too early to have them on. Nevertheless, the evergreen branches were a nice touch. I did wish a number of people a Merry Christmas and had roughly half of them respond in kind. I then went over to Union Square and looked for Schleiermacher. The guy running the Unemployed Philosophers Guild confessed they didn’t have his fridge magnet. Woe is me. I looked, just in case, but they actually seemed to be light on the philosopher fridge magnets. They had a lot of historical figures and writers, though.
This evening, I wandered around my part of town and wished the random passers-by a Merry Christmas. Once again, about half responded.
And now I’m at home. I’ll go out in the morning/afternoon and do the same sort of thing. It’s nice to do and it gets me out of my place; and I really enjoy it when somebody beats me to it.
I hope to get a chance to post some of today’s photos and some pics from the weekend when I wandered in Times Square and Gramercy Park.
-H
It’s the time of year that lights are on to celebrate the Christmas season. But for the rest of the year, two of NYC’s great buildings have lights on every night. And they are predictable. The Chrysler Building’s lights are always white. Always. Okay, I’ve never seen them any other color so I guess there’s a pattern.
The Empire State Building always has two colors. Reds, blues, yellows, greens, whatever.
When I was at Macy’s, I took a look up and saw something that I hadn’t really expected.
That’s the Empire State Building all in white. It’s as if it decided to disguise itself as the Chrysler Building for a day.
That shows good taste. The Chrysler is the best.
-H
Last year, Charmin opened up some toilet facilities right next to Times Square. Sometime in January they shut it down…and now it seems to be open again. It’s the only public restroom facility I’ve ever known with people out there trying to get you to use the toilet.
And it’s the only place that I’ve ever known that has people dressed as toilets.
I hope they pay him a lot of money.
So, if you need to use a free bathroom while in Times Square, and if you’re here at the right time of year, make your way to 1540 Broadway and relax.
-H
Famous Ankles 