Explore Our Features

I will be travelling overseas for the next few weeks, so this is the PERFECT time to take one of our five video tours (74 videos in all), or read through our past and ongoing features by clicking on the category title.

We recommend:  NYC DECADE BY DECADE, which chronicles the city's history in 40 ten-year increments; LAYERS OF NYC, a trivia series that tests how well you know the city THEN and NOW; and our newest feature, LITTLE BYTES OF..., which gives readers a brief tour of such sites as the Apple Store on Fifth, the St. Regis Hotel, and the New York Public Library.  ENJOY!

Little Bytes Recommends: The New Stretch of the High Line

The new stretch of the High Line, which extends the park from 20th to 30th streets, opened last week.  Now twice as long, you can enter at 30th (elevator access); 28th, 26th, 23rd (elevator access coming soon), 20th, 18th, 16th (elevator access), 14th (elevator access), or Gansevoort Streets.

More photos after the jump.

The Starling and Central Park

In Act 1, Scene 3 of the First Part of King Henry IV, Hotspur fumes:

"(The king) said he would not ransom Mortimer,/Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer,/But I will find him when he lies asleep,/And in his ear I'll holler 'Mortimer!'/Nay, I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak/Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him/To keep his anger still in motion."

I would wager anything that Shakespeare had no idea that by writing one of these words he would be altering a continent's ecosystem.  How could he know that one of his future fans, a pharmaceutical magnate named Eugene Schiffelin, would decide to pay tribute to the bard by introducing to North America all of the birds mentioned in Shakespeare.  Shakespeare wrote the word "starling" only once, but in 1890 Schiffelin would import 60 European starlings and release them in Central Park where they would nest in the eaves of the American Museum of Natural History.

Those 60 birds (and another few dozen he released the following year) have multiplied.  There are now over 200 million starlings in North America, from Alaska to Mexico, competing with other bird populations for food and nest space.  When the indigenous birds who migrate south return to New York, the starlings, who share no migrational impulse, are there to cackle at the homeless birds' misfortune. 

Schiffelin is also responsible for introducing the house sparrow (to Brooklyn, in 1851), another pest species now widespread across the continent.  This bird appears in four of Shakespeare's plays.  

NYC and the 3-way Street

As more people take to the bicycle, intersections and crossings become more and more complicated.  Here's a bird's eye video created by Ron Gabriel of close calls at one midtown intersection.

For more information click here.

 

3-Way Street from ronconcocacola on Vimeo.

Have a Beautiful Weekend!

From a stroll through the Conservatory Gardens back in May.

 

 

Little Bytes of...the Boroughs: Population Figures from the 2010 Census

According to the last census, whose dubious findings are currently being challenged by the city, here are the numbers for our five boroughs:

1--BROOKLYN--2,504,700 (71 square miles)  With approximately the population of Chicago, Brooklyn alone would be America's fourth largest city.

2--QUEENS--2,230,722 (109 square miles)  Queens, more populous than Houston, could also rank as America's fourth largest city.

3--MANHATTAN--1,585,873 (23 square miles)  Manhattan, by far the most densely populated, is half the size of its closest rival, San Francisco, but nearly twice its population.

4--BRONX--1,385,108 (42 square miles)  The Bronx has a slightly larger population than both #7 San Antonio (1,327,407) and #8 San Diego (1,307,402).

5--STATEN ISLAND--468,730 (58 square miles)  Staten Island's growing population ranks between #34 Fresno and #35 Sacramento.

TOTAL:  8,175,133 (This is only 400,000 less than the combined populations of the next three largest cities--Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston.)

Comparing NYC to state populations, the city as a whole would be the 12th most populous state between New Jersey and Virginia.  (1 out of every 38 Americans is a New Yorker.)

Brooklyn and Queens would rank #36 and #37 between Nevada and New Mexico.

Manhattan (with only 23 square miles) is twice as populous as Alaska (with 663,268 square miles).  The tiny island of Manhattan is home to more people than twelve states (Idaho, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming). 

Ditto for the Bronx (with the exception of Idaho).

Staten Island is the only borough whose residents do not outnumber those of a state...but with a 10% growth rate, just you wait, Wyoming.

Paul Roosevelt: The Americans Are Coming!!!

Standing in front of the American Museum of Natural History with the statue of Theodore Roosevelt sitting astride a steed:

8TH GRADER FROM TEXAS:  Theodore Roosevelt was a PRESIDENT?!

ROBERT:  Yes!  He was one of the most important.  He was a two-term, almost three...he's on Mount Rushmore!

8TH GRADER FROM TEXAS:  Oh, I thought he was just the guy on the horse.

ROBERT:  A Rough Rider?

8TH GRADER FROM TEXAS:  I thought he was the one who rode the horse to warn the British.

ROBERT:  Do you mean Paul Revere?

8TH GRADER FROM TEXAS:  Oh, yeah.

ROBERT:  And he didn't warn the British...he warned...never mind, I don't know where to start.

The funniest (or most terrifying) thing is that this group met Sarah Palin on Liberty Island and Sarah Palin also just went on record in Boston saying (or blundering) that Paul Revere warned the British too.

 

"These Are Fancy Coffee Stirrers"

 

 

 

Chopsticks, actually.

The Dome at the United Nations

Do you see that dome sticking out of the top of the General Assembly Building?  It was not in the original plans for the Le Corbusier/Harrison complex.  According to New York, the companion book for the documentary by Ric Burns:  "Late in the design process, a dome was added to the low, swooping roof of the General Assembly...at the suggestion of Senator Warren Austin of Vermont, who argued that the U.S. Congress would never approve funds for a government building without a dome."

I've never liked that dome.  When looking through my pictures of the U.N. for this blog, I realized almost all of them were taken to eliminate the dome.  I guess I'm drawn more towards the other lines and curves.  For example:

Four from Seth, a Sixth-Grader from Alabama

The group takes a flight from Montgomery to Memphis and then boards another plane for New York.

TEACHER:  Is this your first time on a plane, Seth?

SETH:  Naw.

SETH'S DAD:  What are you talking about?  You've never been on a plane before.

SETH:  I just flew from Montgomery to Memphis.

*****

ROBERT:  So I heard today was your first time flying?

SETH:  It's my first time on a plane, it's my first time on a subway, it's my first time above the Mason Dixon Line. 

*****

11:00 at night.  Crews are busy paving Seventh Avenue.  Horns are honking, there are shouts and all kinds of noise.

SETH:  Is this why they call it the city that never sleeps?  Because it's too loud?

*****

ROBERT:  Why are you tossing your peanuts in the grass?

SETH:  I'm feedin' the soil.  It's nitrates. 

ROBERT:  Hm.

SETH:  George Washington Carver didn't invent the peanut.

ROBERT:  Didn't think so.

SETH:  But he found three hundred things you could do with a peanut.

ROBERT:  Such as?

SETH:  Well, you can feed the soil.

ROBERT:  That's one.

SETH:  Um.

ROBERT:  What else?

SETH:  You can make peanut butter.

ROBERT:  Hm.

SETH:  And a whole bunch more.