Elevators That Force You To Take the Stairs

A feature in last week's New York Magazine called Step It Up by Alex Pasternack is filled with interesting trivia about our city's 54,806 elevators, the new health initiative to convince people to take the stairs, the theory behind the architectural trick that forces you to do just that (as seen in the Cooper Union's new building), and this byte to chew on:  "...Stair-climbing is a more efficient form of exercise than walking: Two additional minutes of stair-climbing per day (approximately three floors) can burn more than enough calories to eliminate the average adult’s annual weight gain."

Today in New York History

Today is Tuesday, Aug. 18, the 230th day of 2009. There are 135 days left in the year.

On Aug. 18, 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, N.Y., which had fallen behind schedule, finally wound to a close after three nights with a midmorning set performed by Jimi Hendrix.

If you want something more current:

Actor-comedian Andy Samberg (TV: "Saturday Night Live") celebrates his 31st birthday.

 

Yes, that makes him younger than BOTH of us, Robert!

This has been a terse Tuesday tidbyte from Cayce.

Robert Indiana: Hope in Times Square

This past week, Robert Indiana, who gave us the famous LOVE statue...

...has given HOPE to Times Square (which has lost much of its energy since Memorial Day weekend). 

 

I LOVE how HOPE plays with the other signs in Times Square.

 

An Interim Video

Our newest video will be up next Monday. Please enjoy this earnest substitute in the meantime:

Jerome Kern and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Today we celebrate the birth of 2 great musical talents:

Jerome Kern

Mr. Kern died at the young age of 60 collapsing in front of 450 Park Avenue, in his birthplace of New York City. His best known theater success is the musical "Showboat". Some of his great songs are: "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A Fine Romance", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "All the Things You Are", "The Way You Look Tonight", and one song particularly suited for today's economic times, "Pick Yourself Up."

Our other birthday boy is

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Download Marriage of Figaro, K. 492, Overture

Mozart dies at the incredibly young age of 35. There isn't room to go into all of his fabulous music, however his NYC connection is that a wonderful play depicting his life (more or less) was produced on Broadway. The play, entitled Amadeus, premiered on Broadway in 1980 with Ian McKellen as Salieri and Tim Curry as Mozart. It ran for 1,181 performances and was nominated for seven Tony Awards (best actor for both McKellen and Curry, best director for Peter Hall, best play, best costume design, lighting, and set design for John Bury), of which it won five (including a best actor Tony for McKellen).

The lights on Broadway burn a little brighter thanks to these talented gentlemen.

20 Million Visitors, How Many Crimes?

The annual stats for reported crimes broken down by precinct are in for 2008.  When we shot this video, the number of crimes committed in Central Park for the previous year (2006) was 101.  In 2007, the total rose to 103.  And 2008?  Drumroll please..........97!!!  For details on the kind of crimes committed, see the Central Park pdf.

Obama Gets the Full Peal

This afternoon, to celebrate the swearing-in of Barack Obama as the nation's forty-fourth president, twelve men and women in the belfry of Trinity Church will strike a full peal for over three hours.    

From Newsday:

"The exact sound cannot be heard anywhere else in the country: Trinity has the only change-ringing tower - in which each bell is rung individually - with 12 bells, two more than the National Cathedral in Washington.

"A full peal of Trinity's bells consists of 5,000 changes. A "change" occurs when each bell is rung individually in a sequence, without duplication. The ringers, who are about 20 feet below, yank ropes to swing the bells and cause the bells' clappers to strike."

For a video demonstration and more specific details, visit the Newsday feature.

A few interesting bytes of significance:

 

Washington took the oath of office down the street from the second Trinity Church.  The first had been burned in 1776; the second was under construction when Washington took his oath.  In the scene above, painted for the centennial of the first inauguration, the third and present Trinity Church is depicted mistakenly.

 

Trinity Church will be giving the full peal at the end of Wall Street, whose troubles this fall very much contributed to the outcome of the 2008 election.

 

Columbia College began in the basement of Trinity Church (the first structure) in 1754.  The college has since graduated many illustrious public figures, but it has never been able to boast a president until today.  Another nice Trinity/Columbia twist is that buried in the church's cemetery is arguably its most important graduate--Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, who helped create the financial system now teetering and which Columbia's more recent graduate inherits this afternoon.

Little Bytes Recommends...State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America

Inspired by the remarkable guide books of the Federal Writers' Project published during the Great Depression, the editors of State by State asked fifty of our country's greatest authors to bring their talents, memories and observations to this brand new anthology.  The remarkable roster includes Jhumpa Lahiri on Rhode Island; Jonathan Franzen on New York; William T. Vollman on California; Louise Erdrich on North Dakota; S.E. Hinton on Oklahoma; Ann Patchett on Tennessee; John Hodgman on Massachusetts; Anthony Bourdain on New Jersey; David Rakoff on Utah; and Alison Bechdel on Vermont.

Every state is covered and a conversation with Pulitzer Prize winner, Edward P. Jones, ensures that Washington, D.C. is not left out.  And just think:  if you read one essay a week, you will have gone on a virtual road trip of the entire country by the end of 2009.

Each entry is prefaced by facts and figures about the state in question, and there are, in the center of the book, fifty photos submitted by the authors.

BUT WAIT!  THERE'S MORE!

Included in an appendix are thirty tables where states are ranked according to various criteria ranging from population, incarceration rates, obesity and toothlessness to violent crime, unemployment, voter participation and roller coasters per capita.  Where does your state rank?

At a New Year's party last week, I used these tables to create a trivia competition (with an overly complicated scoring system) gauging how well players knew the states they were assigned.  Jason won handily while representing Florida, although Katie from Rhode Island staged a major comeback in the last three rounds.

For today's trivia bytes, the state of New York ranks first or last in four of the thirty tables.

It turns out that Empire State has the lowest suicide rate in the nation (only 6.2 out of 100,000 residents) even though it also has the longest mean travel time to work (30.9 minutes).

New York pays $14,119 per pupil, which is the highest expenditure for public education.

But the most surprising byte:  New York has the lowest percentage of population born elsewhere in the United States--only 17.7% of its residents were born in another state.  (21.6% were born in another country--second only to California--but that's another table.)

For more information on the book, to see a list of all the writers and their respective states, or just to browse inside, visit the State by State page at HarperCollins.com.

And now I'm off to visit Colorado with Benjamin Kunkel.  Peace!

This Week's Quiz: Names, Opera, and Skyscrapers

Santa recently brought me the Almanac of New York City which is filled with facts that I find FASCINATING and which I will be flinging at all incoming groups and plastering all over this blog.  For today, a potluck quiz of miscelleny:

--What is clearly the most popular name for boy babies in New York City?  (The Almanac gives the years 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, and 1997-2005 and this name ranks first every single time.)

--What is the most frequently performed work at the Metropolitan Opera?

--What are the three best attended cultural institutions in the five boroughs?  Hint:  These were the only institutions with more than 1 million attendees in the year 2003.  (2003?  This almanac came out this year and the most recent records are from 2003?)

--Of the many skyscrapers we have in the city, which are the only four taller than 1000 feet?

Bytes of Trivia: The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

--The first parade took place in 1924.  It began at 145th and Convent Avenue and marched over 5 miles south to Herald Square.  The participants were immigrant employees of Macy's who wanted to recreate the parades they had in Europe.  The first parade included animals that they borrowed from the Central Park Zoo--elephants, camels, and goats. 

--The second parade, in 1925, featured lions, tigers and bears.  (Oh, my!)  Because children were a bit frightened by these parades, balloons were introduced in 1927.  That was also the year that the parade was renamed the Thanksgiving Day Parade (instead of the Christmas Parade which you see in the original advertisement).

--The balloons in 1928 were filled with helium and released at the end of the parade.  They almost immediately exploded.

--Safety valves were introduced the following year and subsequent balloon releases were accompanied by a contest--whoever returned a balloon would win a reward from Macy's.  1933 was the last year they held that contest--a pilot's engine stalled while going after one of these balloons and two tugboats in the East River crashed racing each other for the dachshund balloon.

----The second-largest Thanksgiving parade in the United States takes place in Stamford, Connecticut on the Sunday before Thanksgiving and features retired balloons from the Macy's parade in New York.

--After the U.S. government, Macy's is the second biggest helium consumer in the country.

--The balloons and floats are designed at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey.

--The most dangerous parade was in 1997 when winds almost reached 40mph.  The Cat in the Hat crashed into a lamppost, which fell into the crowd, leaving one of the four injured with permanent brain damaged.  To prevent further calamities, both the Pink Panther and Barney (who were threatening the crowds) were slashed and stomped to death in front of crying children and cheering New Yorkers.