April 2-3, 2011

Saturday we took the 7 train out to Corona . . .

. . . to the New York Hall of Science, which I had never been to. I love the quirky architecture of the Great Hall, which was originally built as a pavilion for the 1964-65 World’s Fair and which was designed by Wallace K. Harrison (who also designed the Rockefeller Apartments on 54th Street, the Time-Life Building on Sixth Avenue and the master plan for Lincoln Center, and was the lead architect for the United Nations complex):

This is one of the blocks up close:

The Mathematica exhibit (background here) is vintage 1960s — and as quirky and retro as the dioramas at the Museum of Natural History. A really cool treasure:

We also played miniature golf at the Rocket Park Mini Golf course, next to the Mercury-Atlas and Gemini-Titan rockets that were also from the ’64-’65 Fair:

At least one of us loved the cow eye dissection demonstration:

Took the train back via the 103 Street-Corona Plaza Station (with a pit stop for a Mama’s Special).

Sunday we went to Williamsburg to visit the Brooklyn Flea:

Here are some new pages for Bushwick Inlet Park (“inlet” is a horrible sounding word), the Citistorage Records Center (which will have to move if plans for the waterfront move forward), and the Williamsburg Edge (which doesn’t actually have any pictures of the buildings themselves . . . whoops!).

On the way back, we walked by the furrier on Manhattan Avenue, which we had read is going to close soon:

And back over the Pulaski Bridge:

I Wish We Were On A Plane Now . . .

. . . but short of that, here are some pictures of the Blizzard of December 2010:

The DVD line at the Duane Reade:

People abandoned cars all over because the City hadn’t plowed the streets in a timely fashion:

The City not plowing had potentially dangerous implications:

Bloomberg should be on the hook for this . . . I’d love to hear what went wrong.

August 2010

A going-away dinner for a friend at Old Shanghai Deluxe in Manhattan’s Chinatown (by request — she was going to miss Chinese food like that).

New Long Island City items: Hook and Ladder 66, The Foundry, Metropolitan Building (funny story — I attended an art opening many years back and assumed for all this time that the people lived there and that this wasn’t actually an event space), Taxidepot (combines LIC’s two biggest industries — taxis and the film industry), Tom Cat Bakery (that’s where your bread comes from) and Z Hotel.

A page for the Queens-Midtown Tunnel compiles the ever-evolving billboards along Vernon Boulevard that are visible from the Manhattan-bound tunnel entrance (more to come as I get to them):

We already went over Washington, D.C.

Lucy the Elephant in Margate, New Jersey:

Laziza and Kabab Cafe in Astoria, Queens:

Tagging along with Jen on a work-related function at La Plaza Cultural in the East Village; never been inside there so I was excited about that:

Also, an aborted outing to the Prospect Park Bandshell.