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Evolution Store in SoHo

August 2, 2008

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that I know of at least one more place to buy a good skull. That got me thinking that it’s been a while since I was down in SoHo (South of Houston Street, on the center-to-west side of Manhattan). So, I went.

And, yes you can still buy skulls and bones and whatnot.

Evolution is on Spring Street and it almost defies a simple analysis of what it contains. But that won’t stop me.

It’s kid heaven. Yeah, that’s the simple analysis.

More detail? Okay, it has skulls (human and animal) and bones (human and animal) and bugs and meteorites and weird seeds and more bugs and scorpions and scorpions embedded in candy and fossils and warthog skulls (they deserve their own mention) and weird rocks and metallic rocks and metallic fossils and all of that in a tiny little place maybe 40 feet deep and 15 feet wide. Wow. All of that in one horrid sentence. And I didn’t even mention the crowds that come to take a look.

When I went there today, I was the first one in; but not by much. I had thought it opened earlier (it opens at 11am) and there was a father and two kids already waiting to get in. The girl (maybe 7?) was outside the store with her face just plastered to the window looking in at the treasures. The boy (maybe 3) was a little more placid about a closed door. I moved on and came back just after 11am and the family had gone on and returned before me. The girl was basically just beside herself with excitement.

As the owner/manager came and unlocked the door; the father worked to get his son out of the stroller (it’s the one in the picture, but the skeleton came out after they had entered the store). I’m not sure of the family dynamics, but it looked like the girl’s excitement was a bit tempered by the fact that her dad wasn’t quite ready to go in with her and there was no way she was going to go in there without him. Hey, there’s a lot of dead things in there! Dad’s are needed for that; despite the excitement of it all.

But they did come in and that little girl then seemed to spend her time right up against the counter displays.

It’s kid heaven and she had arrived.

-H

Categories: Manhattan, SoHo, Wanderings

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Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market 2008

August 1, 2008

Every six months to a year, I seem to end up wandering around the Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market. As flea markets go, I gotta give it a 10 out of 10. Lots of old stuff. And really old stuff. And odd stuff…yeah, odd stuff.

And always in the presence of a familiar figure…

It’s located off 9th Avenue somewhere around 38th Street or so. It happens every weekend and its free admission. The most amazing thing about it is how long it is and how little it is populated. There are a ton of weekly street fairs and they are jam packed for blocks and blocks; but the HK flea market is very select in who it lets in to sell…apparently.

And the amusing part of it how downmarket the neighborhood is. It’s close to the bus terminal and sometimes it seems you have to run through an iffy area to get there. But for bargain hunters of old merchandise, it seems to fit the bill.

But notice how much open area there is. And the crowd was sparse. I was there mid-afternoon on a Saturday and the crowds were light. There’s lots of stuff for sale, but there’s one thing I never saw a single trace of. Not a one! The item? Anything new.

There’s old clothes, furniture, books, records, videotapes, jewelry, knickknacks. Just everything.

Think about it. You’re in New York and you need a good animal skull. Where are you going to go?

The problem with my little scenario…this is just one of two places I know where to buy a good skull. That’s NYC for you.

-H

Categories: Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, Mid-town, Wanderings

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Rodale Pleasant Park Community Garden in Spanish Harlem

July 30, 2008

I think that Pleasant Avenue in Spanish Harlem (El Barrio) (and the Pleasant Avenue area is also called “Italian Harlem”) has more community gardens per square foot than any other place I’ve ever seen. At least three. Plus at least one major park abuts it. Very impressive.

This is the third of the gardens that I’ve covered. Like all community gardens, the size isn’t large and the entrance is relatively nondescript.

Entering, the area is mostly unremarkable, except perhaps for the structure. And of course for the very nice shade. It was hot and the shade was pleasant. That was very welcome to me and I should note that saying is was “mostly unremarkable” shouldn’t be taken as “boring” or other negative. It is a very functional community garden.

When I first saw the building, I thought it was just a storage shed. Now that I’ve been introduced to the concept of the “casita”, I wonder if it was so much more.

There was a lot of growing going on. And, despite the lack of people in the pictures, I think that it was this garden that was the most actively tended that I ran into that day. I probably saw eight people working away on their personal plots. Or, at least what I think was their own little garden areas.

-H

Categories: Harlem, Manhattan, Wanderings

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Viewing NYC from the water in the evening

July 29, 2008

I haven’t posted a number of my photos from my June cruise around Manhattan and I think it’s time to make up for some of that. My previous photos were a little more daytime and covered the uptown to midtown west portion of the City. Today’s post will still cover the western side of Manhattan on the Hudson (remember: Hudson on the west side, the East River on the east side).

I was lucky during the cruise to see and photograph a number of other boats. And what better kind of boat to picture than a sailboat against the skyline? In this case, a tiny sailboat against the Empire State Building.

A little further south and we were approaching southern Manhattan where the two rivers converge into the bay.

And on the way there, I took another picture of another cruise ship (like the one I was on) against the skyline. This part of the skyline ain’t that great, but you can see the Empire State building starting to turn on its lights in the far left side of the photo.

And since I was in the Hudson, there wasn’t any reason not to take a picture of New Jersey across the way. I don’t know the name or purpose of the clock, but it is very cool. And catching a nice sailboat in the same picture makes it even better.

But the next is actually the kind of picture I was looking for: a yacht and a great skyline. I suppose it is actually a commercial vessel like the one I was on, but I like to think of it as a yacht.

Other traffic shared the river with us. In this case one of the few barges I saw that day and one of the many cruise boats doing just what the one I was doing: going part of the way around Manhattan.

You just have to love the next picture. Okay, maybe not; but it is a nice reminder of the City and the money in the area. Okay, maybe it’s a reason to not love the place…In any case, I like this one as the ultimate yacht and skyline that I took that day.

Next is a more pedestrian picture of a tugboat pulling a barge…but with that great skyline.

Today’s last picture is a twilight picture of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island way in the distance.

The above picture was taken at about 8:45pm. This pretty much ends my twilight photos. The next set of photographs on this trip are definitely taken at night. I don’t know when I’m actually going to post it, but it will come sometime relatively soon. But not for a little while.

-H

Categories: Hudson and East River Views, Manhattan

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2008 New York City Half-Marathon Part 2

July 28, 2008

In my last posting, I reviewed how I ended up watching the NYC half-marathon while in Times Square. I showed up just after the leaders had passed and started taking pictures at 7:48am. My coverage is somewhat limited by the fact that I took over 500 photos, but am only going to show about 32 of them. (Last year’s posting had a total of two photos. Of course, that was before I got my new camera. My old camera could hold a total of, I believe, eight pictures.)

What I haven’t mentioned is that I was looking for a co-worker (and occasional commentor to this blog – “Jim”). Hey Jim! I didn’t see ya.

But it was crowded. Here’s some of the crowd about 31 minutes into my watching.

They just kept coming and coming. Lots and lots of ’em. The picture below shows a slight break in the grouping at the 38 minute-in mark (I point it out because the woman runner is waving to some friends to my left. Different ones this time, I believe. But I’m amazed at how many people did see friends in that crowd (and the crowd watching spotting them).

They kept ’em coming. Another personality-type showed with this group at the 42 minute point. She’s not saying hello: she’s posing for my picture. Thanks.

And at 46 minutes in, they were still coming. I don’t know where Jim was, but if he was anywhere in the 10 to 15 minutes before and after this grouping, I would have never spotted him.

At the 52 minute point, some of the more odd personalities started to show. This wasn’t a particularly odd person (as far as I know), but he recognized the people to my right and as part of his “hello”, he threw a sponge at them. That was certainly in good humor, but the sponge was dry and only flew about two feet. The people to my left were a little puzzled by the action.

Another not-really-odd personality. Probably a very fine person. He was the only disabled (or at least obviously disabled) person I saw in the race. This is 53 minutes in.

Okay, no excuses on the next guy (at 56 minutes in). He was either very bored from the beginning, made a bet with friends that he could bounce a ball the entire way, or is just an odd exhibitionist. But he bounced that basketball just fine.

At 66 minutes in, the crowding was lessening considerably. I had seen the people across from me with the sign (another way to find friends/family). Run Leens Run.

Another person with something to prove: juggling while running at 69 minutes into my viewing. Five ball juggling from what I could see. Really well done. I was impressed.

Another impressive case, but a bit mystifying. This guy was running while carrying a cane. That’s something, but the lycra-clad leg was also interesting. I don’t understand it at all. But, he was running and that’s what counts.

A few yards to my left was a medical station. At the 75-minutes-in mark, this next woman came up and she was the weariest looking person I saw all morning. The picture below surprised me a bit because it doesn’t begin to capture her state at the time (although she looks like a person that its hard to take a bad picture of), but as she passed me one of the station workers called out to her in concern asking if she was okay, even before she reached the station. She seems to have just asked for water, got a bottle from them, and kept on going. Good for her. I hope she finished.

At the 76 minute mark, I took the following two pictures in quick succession. You can see the sparseness of the runners and of the crowd. I was sharing the block with one other non-aid-station viewer. Here’s looking south to the aid station.

And here’s looking north to the on-coming runner traffic. Which is a long ways away.

At 87 minutes in, the event started to break up. Here was the escort of staff buses. You may be able to tell that I had already started walking down from my previous spot.

One thing I haven’t mentioned is that there was music playing in the distance the whole time. It was apparently a live group and they had a huge teleprompter. I doubt they were trying to get the runners to sing along, but maybe the watching crowd. This was 89 minutes after I started watching.

And, finally, the very last runner I saw. I’m sure there were others further back (I saw some figures in the distance but can’t say for sure whether they were runners). This is 90 minutes into my viewing.

Good for her. She’s another person that I really hope was able to finish.

-H

Categories: Events, Manhattan, Mid-town, Times Square

Comments: 2 Comments

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