A few Manhattan’s peculiarities

• Pedestrian crossing traffic lights – once there were inscriptions: green “walk” and red “don’t walk”. In the eighties they changed it – what I recognize as one more prognostication that one day English will not be anymore the one official language here. Nowadays there is the sign of the red hand for “stop!” and … the white walking gay for “go!”. And there is anything special about it until you don’t tray to say that some one has “white” light for… and fall in to the political correctness trap.
• Beside the blind persons, it’s really rare to meet on the streets, in the parks or in the other public places the people with disabilities. Same with the people in very advanced age. You can of course notice a lot of seniors in good shape walking around, dealing smoothly with daily needs. But not the ones in the wheelchairs, or those who have troubles with finding their way, or with whatever else. Sure, Manhattan isn’t the easiest place to get old and it can be much more convenient and cheaper down in Florida. Just the commonness of this exodus seems a bit frightening.
• Double plastic bags – The most often at the checkout in a supermarket or a bigger grocery store there is a person who is supposed to put your shopping in to the bags while you are dealing with the cashier. I know that sometimes single bag isn’t enough. That some of them are weak and you need to double it. However when you are buying five items and you get them in two doubled bags isn’t it a bit too much? You can of course try to convince the packers to do it your way – in only one bag or in one you’ve brought with you – and they will do it. There is just this uneasy feeling of breaking their routine and asking for special attention that makes it so easy to give up and bring another four plastic bags home.

L.

Walks in the city

River side

There are several ways to get to the Lincoln Center – the main work place for L. The fastest one is to take the subway, but it’s boring. The most popular one is to get lost on the Central Park paths, and after one hour or so of wandering finally find the 66th street and walk west to the Lincoln Square. There is also an urban possibility to walk along one of the avenues: Broadway is best for window shopping and busy feeling , Columbus for social observation of the neighborhood’s life with its playgrounds, schools and supermarkets while Amsterdam gives a mixture of both.
Although the L’s favorite way is of course the longest one and the most exciting – River Side Park. To get there he must first cross whole West Side. He climbs the Morning Side Park, passes the Cathedral and the Columbia University area, and then descends to the park on the shore of the Hudson River. The park has two levels cut by the highway which circuits the island. On the level of the West Side streets there is an endless large plane-trees alley, several dog-parks, playgrounds, baseball and football fields. Yet the best is the part on the lower level of the park. Below drive, just on the river shore there is the cherry walk – a long biking and jogging path named for the cherry trees along. Despite the drive above, it’s one of the quietest places on Manhattan. Maybe it’s just because of the great river’s closeness and its noises which cover all the city life. It’s also the most coastal place, with fishy smell, salt breeze and impressive view to the river populated by numerous ships and barges. In addition, walking south you have all the time Midtown’s sky towers in front of you.
Around 72nd street the park reaches the northern end of the old Manhattan harbor. Today in this area the harbor is limited to one terminal on 59th street, the rest of it was changed in to the recreation area. It’s one of the places L prefers. The old, used, partly destroyed harbor constructions were incorporated in to the contemporary park structure. The park architects composed these odd, scary metal monsters with the idyllic littoral landscape, with wooden paths, grass fields and sunbeds’ terraces. It creates a strange hermitage in between the abandoned dockyard and a view to the river traffic from one side, the drive overpass and cityscape from the other side. There are also piers falling far in to the river and a lot of tiny design attractions. In brief, it’s not easy for L to get quickly to his chair in the library. Alas…

L.

Walks in the city

Central Park

We thought Spring had come on one Sunday afternoon after Christmas. The sun was shining and the park was populated. Here are some pics from there.






But the winter didn't stop that early. L. still got to have his snowbath.



And finally, this is how it looks like in front of one of our closest supermarkets. Columbia University is almost behind the cathedral.


The winter still continues here, although without snow. So do our walks continue.

E.

More pics

Philadelphia

Our travel in the U.S. continued to Philadelphia. Philadelphia turned out to be a more lively city than Washington D.C., which seemed more like a big open-air museum. Philadelphia has a nice old town and something very characteristics about it are the mural paintings everywhere.




Did you know that one of the first settlers in Philly were Swedes (and Finns) in the 1600's? Philadeplhia is historically an important city, because the United States Declaration of Independence was signed there on July 4th, 1776. The city was the capital of the States from 1790 until 1800, when it lost this position to Washington D.C. We visited the Hall of Independence and captured the Liberty Bell (a prominent symbol of the American Revolutionary War 1775-1783 which was a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and 13 former British colonies).




We also found a really nice hostel in the old town, it's a part of a hostel group called the Apple hostels. The personnel there gave good tips about finding bars, restaurants and the Philly cheese steaks - that is a sandwich with a lot of beef and lots of orange cheese...

E.

Pics of 2009 (continued)

Conference trip to Washington D.C.

The beginning of December was a really hectic time: I had to finish my duties at the university before leaving to Washington D.C. for a mid-year conference (like for example prepare the students for doing their digital stories - S2 pedagogs I'll tell you more if you like :). The one really nice thing was that I was going to meet up with my other countrywomen and -man!

When I got to D.C. it was quite a lecture marathon but also nice to see the other teaching assistants of the world. Here are some pics from the conference, introduction to oriental dance and to a dance they do in Thailand (try to put your fingers like!):

And then the group photo of our final dinner with some friends.


After the conference we stayed in town to see all the museums and monuments of the presidents. And how many presidents has there already been in the States..?


Well I give you this. He is the 44th president:


Washington has really nice museums and before Christmas they were even empty. We had some nice moments in the museums, first in the National Gallery of Art, then in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. We also went to National Portrait gallery which had an interesting collection of contemporary American art.



We walked around the town and it was visible, that Christmas was approaching.

E.

Picture collection of the last days of 2009

Here's a collection of some moments from the past two months. Since moving to our new home in South Harlem we've been to Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Brooklyn and - Central Park, our precious park for Sunday walks! I'll introduce our moments in a cronological order and try to memorise some glimpses of how it REALLY was..;)

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is to us a neighborhood of industrial buildings changed into new fancy apartments and great places to organise a party as well as the area where the most interesting cultural things happen. We went there to the Halloween ball in October and after that we've been there to see Quartet (with L.'s favorite, Isabelle Huppert) in BAM, Brooklyn's Academy of Music, and just day before yesterday Shakespeare's As you like it, directed by Sam Mendes. It was a hilarious show, watched from the seats placed extremely high. I can't wait to go see the other show of the project, The Tempest.

But there are also events done on a very small budget. In the beginning of December we heard about this group called The Aunts. Someone told us they organise a soirée of dance performances - at somebody's place! We went to the address given in Timeout, our necks reaching far, so curious we were. First we noticed the building, once more of these old industrial buildings taken into new use:


Inside we discovered that there are no tickets sold: one must only come with something to give, like old clothes, books, drinks or food. So we went back to the street to find a store and get some beer to give.:)

Back inside, we saw a man dressed in silver clothes rolling on the floor and holding a can phone in his hand. I also got to speak with him, although the audibility was even worse than normarly in New York when you call someone while on the street. After the guy I saw two girls dressed in foil.


And a performance of voice.


But the funniest was a show given by a group of Frenches, pretending to be a group of robust men and frogs and film personalities... And doing their thing in a very nonchalant way!


I was really glad to see this place because it gave me for the first time the feeling that New York doesn't offer only expensive and touristic Broadway shows but it has a lot of creative people that are eager to show what they can and make it a celebration together. One just has to know where to search for this kind of events. And of course have long ears!

The summary of the year 2009 continues in the next posting.

E.

A plunge in Harlem Meer (Central Park)