Thank you thank you dear readers and commenters. Your kind words and support of my photography has been so inspiring. I’m always emailable (word?) if you’re interested in any of the photos you see on my blog, but recently I’ve put some up for sale on the site Etsy.com.
Looking at Manhattan from this angle you’d swear cars never honk.
Sweet Revenge: A Real Man's Cupcake Joint
Let me just say that the sangria was seriously strong, ok? Like, taking a shot of Jack and doing push ups while watching the training scene in Rocky IV kind of strong. Oh, who am I kidding? The sangria was perfectly fine and the cupcakes were on the verge of to die for. Wait, did I say cupcakes? Cupcakes and sangria? Please, don’t take my man card away! I was only at Sweet Revenge, a West Village cupcake, artisan sandwich, savory cake and wine/beer bar with a few women from my writing class. I mean, a few dudes I trade motorcycle accident stories with.
Sweet Revenge is a hip place and I really respect the owner, Marlo Scott, who I only later learned was the woman working behind the bar and serving tables. (Click here for her story) I’d never experienced anything like this place before — cupcakes paired with wines or beers. You can order separately, but I was so curious as to how one pairs a peanut butter and chocolate ganashe cupcake with booze that I had to try it. You should too. So good.
Sweet Revenge: 62 Carmine St. between Bedford and 7th Ave.
The Door to Nowhere.
I took this shot while standing on the High Line track at 14th street. Most sites will show you shots of the tracks and overgrowth and tourists strolling along the elevaded promenade. It’s a beautiful project and I think everyone should go see it, but I thought this was interesting too.
Clayton Willams Community Garden Members (Loretta on the right)
“Hello daahlins!” was the first thing Loretta said to our group of New York Cares volunteers on Saturday morning. “It’s so good to see you again!” she said, recognizing the leader of our group and some other return volunteers, as we entered the gates of the Clayton Williams Community Garden in Harlem. As an organizer and garden member, this is Loretta’s domain.
Two weeks prior, I was sitting at the New York Cares orientation with nearly fifty other new sign ups, learning about the wide array of possibilities provided through the New York Cares network. In a city where the asphalt sometimes feels a little too hot, the buildings a little too tall, it was the parks projects that had the greatest pull for me.
Within minutes of arriving at the Community Garden, our group set out to build a brick patio for a grill, paint the shed and benches, and I began rebuilding and painting a beastly old picnic table. As I took the table apart board by board and hammered out the ill-fitting nails, the entire city of New York slowed down. For that hour or so I was simply in a garden hitting a nail with a hammer, enjoying the conversation with a group of likeminded volunteers. The sweat poured out, and the dirt stained, but no one cared. By two o’clock, when the work was completed, I had to force myself to leave. Click here to see photos of the day.
While our group of six that day in Harlem, or the 50 in my orientation can only do so much, 50,000 can get BIG things done. And that’s just what New York Cares is trying to do in the next year — mobilize 50,000 volunteers to help make a collective impact.
If you’re interested in volunteering in your community and improving your city and yourself in the process, visit NewYorkCares.org or call 212-228-5000 to learn what you can do.
It’s not news that there are scams on Craigslist. But the types of scams are ever evolving. I recently checked out an apartment ad, emailed the link, and received this letter in response:
$1320 WEST VILLAGE
Hello Marc Cappelletti,
In an unbelievable location, on “Main Street, Greenwich Village,” 350 Bleecker is the only full service,laundry, elevator building in the townhouse quadrant of the West Village.
A large bedroom, great closets throughout, new bathroom, through-the-wall A/Cs and low maintenance complete luxury living in this home.Also the newly renovated lobby serves as an art gallery.The price for this Classic 1 bedroom apartment still remains $1320.
Moreso, I am sure ready to lease out the apartment for a long term at a monthly fee of $1320
My husband and i are in search for a responsible and God fearing Tenants.This apartment is solely owned by my husband and i .However,if you are a single parent or married,you should not accomodate more than three children as this will not be acceptable to us. Do bear with us on this issue…
You should be informed that we are a bit careful about who we are leasing out our apartment to.Inotherwords,we could be quite selective but we apologize if it seems to be rather strict. The apartment is in excellent condition as you can see from the pictures attached herein.
If indeed you want to take this place then you have the responsibility of making us understand that you are suitable and the perfect tenant for the place.
The furniture,fitting and indeed the entire apartment will be your full responsibility to take proper care of, an agreement to this regard will be done by our lawyers.We cleared the apartment for renovation in February and have not been in New York due to business engagements here in UK which by all indications will keep us tied down here for about 7years as our business is on contract basis.
Let us also know some personal details about you like if you have or like pets, if you are single, your hobbies and why you want to take the apartment?
It is therefore your responsibility to prove to us that you are the right person to whom we should hand over our property.
Upon your next reponse, we shall proceed with other modalities.
Be Good and Thank you.
Ashley Wilcox
If you can get past the fact that there simply are NO $1,320 1BR apartments in the West Village then the “God fearing” bit should send up a big red flag. Not to mention I don’t know anyone who would actually use the word “modalities” in a sentence and tell me to ”be good” and makes mention of lawyers after one email. There were just too many things to list with this response that make it absolutely bunk.
A quick call to the building manager and this was officially deemed a scam.
When you live in New York City’s Gramercy Park/East Village area (or anywhere but Central Park) it can be hard to find nature on an everyday basis. I’ve recently started a morning procedure involving a grande Starbucks coffee and a walk through the housing mecca of Stuyvesant Town. As I step off the First Ave. curb into the freshly landscaped development I can imagine it’s similar to the steps that John Muir took his first morning in Yosemite. Chickadees chirp, squirrels scamper about and pigeons feed off of smashed McDonalds french fries. Just like Yosemite.
Stuyvesant Fountain
They’ve done a tremendous amount of landscaping in the last few months. Trees that were once peppered throughout the area are now growing among a veritable forest of flowers and ferns.
The Beautification of Stuyvesant Town
And the constant flow of water in the fountains brings a certain European plaza flair to the whole scene. A full block in all directions from the streets, the sounds of rusty breaks is replaced by the persistant rush of water.
Almost Niagara.
If you’re in search of a little nature and can’t make it up to Central Park, maybe a walk through this college campus-like landscape will do it. It’s not perfect, but it’s something. Add it to the list of compromises that we New Yorkers are so used to.
If you can make out here, you can make out anywhere! Yes, just south of Central Park I spied this couple making out while a costumed Batman and Superman (I guess they’re always costumed) pirouetted and sashayed in front of the Plaza Hotel on 5th Avenue. They flapped their arms and pranced and leaped around the couple Swan Lake style. A true image of beauty.
Holy Make-Out Batman!
Isn't it romantic...?
This.
Camo Skater
I’ve seen these little robot alien-type guys all over Manahattan streets lately. What the hell are they? Who’s putting them there? Aliens?
Robot Alien Guy on NYC Streets
This guy ran around the rink at South Street Seaport like 12 times before stopping. It was one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen on a hockey rink besides that lion mauling.
And I thought my gym bag felt heavy! I noticed this slight girl this morning stepping off the Path train with this, a cello or something huge and instrumental, strapped to her back like the weight of the world. For the amount of musical venues and shows going on daily in NYC, it’s something to think about all of the musicians who have to bring their gear on public transportation.
Have you ever been on a train where someone’s amp or drum kit is blocking the doors? It’s not fun for you to step around, but just think how annoying it is for the musician. This is all why I play the harmonica.
Instrumental Burden
I just thought this was hilarious. Found on Christopher Street but, it’s terrible of me, I forget the name of the place. Anyone help me out?
Those Irish Peruvians!
I see this stuff all the time and finally decided to by some today, go figure. The packaging alone is stand out. But it’s the certificate of Award Uniformity of Granulation that gets me. I hate when my oatmeal is in all sorts of crazy shapes and sizes. Thank you McCann’s and Happy St. Patrick’s Day.
As of today, I am proclaiming a boycott of the salty snack Combos due to it’s naming of New York City in last place on a list of the manliest cities in the country. For those of you scoring at home, this is now my fifth boycott, added to Abercrombie & Fitch, Dunkin’ Donuts, Eden Farm Grocery on 20th and 3rd, and the ten dollar bill (Alexander Hamilton was a dueling madman).
Combos’ new website is called The Combos Man Zone: Home of the Combivore (are you kidding me?). It features tools for becoming a Combivore and a sweepstakes called “The Ultimate Mancation.” And here I thought the cheese was only inside the snack.
The criteria for determining manliness is an interesting one: “using criteria such as number of professional major league sports teams, popularity of tools and hardware and frequency of monster truck rallies. Cities also lose ranking points for emasculating characteristics like the abundance of home furnishing stores, high minivan sales and subscription rates to beauty magazines.”
I’m going to throw out a wild guess here and say that the beauty magazine subscriptions are probably going to, oh, I don’t know, women. It’s just a guess though, I’m not the manliness expert.
Who came out on top of this rock-solid search for manliness? Nashville, Tennessee. Yes, Nashville, music city, home to uber-manly guys like these:
Rascal Flatts. They mow their own lawns.
Commonly perceived manly cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh didn’t even crack the top 25. And is Orlando, Florida really ranked 14th? Really guys? Were you counting all the tourists that come from Philly and Pittsburgh to see Disney World and then get the heck out of there?
Oklahoma City came in third thanks to it’s country-topping purchasers of salty snacks (like Combos). In an unrelated contest, Oklahoma City was recently named the Best City to Have Heart Failure In.
What really gets me, and I know will steam all New Yorkers, is that Los Angeles actually finished ahead of us on the manly meter. Los Angeles.
For New York itself, we might not have the abundance of Home Depots and no, there is no NASCAR track nearby, but you go to Harlem and tell a few guys that they live in the least manly city in the country. Tell the thousands of men not doing simple home repair, but working their asses off in the toxic subways and up on skyscrapers, doing things men in other cities wouldn’t dare dream, and see what you come back with. Tell the tens of thousands of men who may not have the “manliest” of jobs, but have to endure all hardships that this city throws at them.
Every summer I see tourists from the so-called “manly cities” losing their shit in 110-degree subway heat, their wives yelling at them because they can’t figure out how to get to F.A.O Schwartz. Every Christmas they get run over by cars, yelled at by cabbies, bums and psychotic over-caffeinated Wall Street types. Get up close to one and you can literally see the fear in their eyes.
So, my former friends at Combos, nice try. But I think New York deserves it’s own place in your rankings of Manly Cities. It’s a different beast. One that eats spit-fired lamb (the guy said it was lamb) from a street cart, pastrami sandwiches the size of your arm, and a half a pepperoni pizza at 4 in the morning. And that’s just our women!
You can keep your pretzels Combos. We know what we have here, even if no one else understands.
Read the full Combos article here.
