And behind door number eighteen… Santacon!

Hundreds of Santas overtaking the streets and marching from the Lower East Side to Central Park. Another in-your-face, over-the-top New York holiday tradition.

And I bet this year they were hot as hell!

Pics on Flickr here.

[image by dogseat, from here]

Previous posts in this series:

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10,
Day 11, Day 12, Day 13, Day 14, Day 15, Day 16, Day 17, Day 18

While my summer was languid – I’d stay up all hours and wake up barely in time to get to work by 9 – there’s something about winter that makes me want to get up before dawn.

Although the sudden early nightfall gets to me at first, I enjoy the dark peace of 5 am on a December morning. The streets are quieter; the cold air feels more still. Almost everyone is asleep but me, which makes me feel like I’m part of some dreamworld.

Not every morning is a joy to get up. In fact hardly any are. But once I’m awake and drinking my coffee, that serene feeling returns. My neighbors are quiet; only a few cars pass outside.

The subway population is different too. From 8 to 10, it’s basically office folk crammed together like illegal immigrants in a van, but before 7 it’s construction workers, maintenance men, cadets going to the police academy in Gramercy Park, and me, unshowered and disheveled, on my way to burn off the weekend’s pig out. While there are only occasionally empty seats, the cars are always roomy, and calmer with everyone dozing or in their pre-caffeine zones.

Of course on the weekends I like to sleep in, but waking up when the sun is already shining and my neighbors are walking around, I feel like I’ve missed something. Maybe I should try for the crazy early rising on Saturdays and Sundays as well.

After reading many accounts of the Sean Bell incident, I have come to a few conclusions:

- First off, as usual, people are jumping to conclusions… The blame falls on Al Sharpton, who tends to jump on bandwaggons that will help to get his name in the paper.
- This Guzman fellow apparently announced he had a gun in the car, in front of an undercover officer… That is not only the testimony of the police, but also witnesses who were at the strip club when this all went down.

MORE AFTER JUMP!
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One of my favorite local bars to go to when I lived in Alphabet City was a bar called Korova Milk Bar on Avenue A. The space is great, all dark and weird and full of odd mannequins, chairs, and occasional porn on the tv screens. Even if you weren’t familiar with its namesake from A Clockwork Orange, it was a great place with crazy bartenders (Laurie, tell us where you go to work next, because I will follow you!) and a continuous crowd of varying genres that always seemed to mix well, whether they were looking to lounge or show off their latest self-done piercing.

Sadly (for us), it seems that they’ve decided to sell their space and close their doors. (Upon further research, it appears that they did this at least a month ago, which goes to show you how much I’ve been barhopping lately.) Apparently they’re looking for a new space outside of Manhattan, though, so hopefully they’ll pop up again in Brooklyn or something and I can go enjoy the awesome weirdness again. Until then, I’ll just have to find someplace else and lament the depunkification of Alphabet City with my roommate, who remembers drinking and fighting and punks vs. skins and all that and gets sad when he sees cafes where his old punk rock watering holes were… but that’s a story for another time.

Image from korovamilkbar.com

Behind door number seventeen we have… holiday tips!

New York goes tip crazy this time of year. Sure, holiday tips are the norm all over the place, but nowhere is it quite like here, where everyone from your super to your regular delivery guy to the entire staff of your office building (and everyone in between) seems to have their hand out and that extra little twinkle in their eye.

Not that it should be that way, mind you. We live in a service economy (though the service is often abysmal, but that’s a post for another time) and those services frequently come with understood prices. But if you’re new to the city and this is your first holiday season here, chances are you didn’t budget for the extent to which you’d be expected to pony up.

Thank g for all the online tipping guides that pop up this time of year. Oh wait, they all say pretty different things…

Just don’t be a Scrooge, and you’ll probably be ok.

Previous posts in this series:

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10,
Day 11, Day 12, Day 13, Day 14, Day 15, Day 16, Day 17

With the weather taking a bit of a chill (though still unseasonably warm) it seems like pretty much everyone I know is sick right now. I even felt the tickle of a sore throat last night so I’ve been drinking lots of fluids and taking it easy hoping the fend off the coming ick. But if you find yourself already caught in the throes of an all-out cold it’s probably time to go deal with one of the most annoying experiencess in the world: going to the doctor. For the busy and wealthy among us, a new service called Sick Day just launched last week, where a physician’s assistant will come to your home and evaluate everything “from strep throat to pneumonia”. The flat fee for the service is $250 but they say that is reimbursed by the better insurance companies, so it might be worth a try. I think we can all agree that the most annoying thing about going to the doctor is the seemingly epic length of time you spend in the waiting room, surrounded by sick folks coughing and sneezing and possible making you even sicker. In a city where pretty much everything else is delivered, isn’t it time that house calls from doctors finally made a comeback?

Upon closer examination, Sick Day only visits patients in Manhattan, so all us outer-borough folks are yet again second class citizens. But what’s this? In their article about this new service, the NY Post also mentions another house-call service that was launched a few months ago called New York House Call Physicians. NY House Calls will send an ACTUAL doctor to your house for diagnosis, or just a PA if you simply need lab work, and while the price is twice as high ($500 for the first visit to a new patient) they have a billing department that will handle all of your insurance claims. It sounds like a great deal if you have insurance that will reimburse you, so if anyone is sick and uses either of these services; please let us know what you think. And get well soon!

Here’s a funny little video about the re-zoning (aka death) of Greenpoint and Williamsburg Brooklyn. It’s hysterical to hear them pimp someone’s idea of “affordable housing”–One Bedrooms starting at $465K, Two Bedrooms $1.465 million at and Studios at $399K–no joke! Complete with scary artist’s renditions, prevalent corporate entities and a fantastic “Erratic Salesman”, it’s worth checking out so you can laugh through all those tears.

From NullSetFilms via Brownstoner

Now that we know what you don’t like about NYC at this time of year, let’s find out what you DO like:

[Photo courtesy MDP Creative, New York]

Prying open door number seventeen reveals… holiday vacations!

If you work one of those, you know, job-things that doesn’t allow for holiday breaks, you might just want to skip this entry altogether. But as far as I’m concerned, the holidays just aren’t the holidays without a nice break from work! And luckily, I’ve always worked jobs that shut down for a winter break of sorts, which is perfect.

So pretty much from now until mid-January, the bulk of my water-cooler chat will revolve around trips, travels, vacations, and the like. Whether it’s tales of trips to come or accounts of trips just taken, holiday vacations are definitely a major topic of conversation around these here parts this time of year.

Previous posts in this series:

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10,
Day 11, Day 12, Day 13, Day 14, Day 15, Day 16

I’m sure this has happened to a lot of you. If you go to a specific neighborhood more than once a week, you’ll start seeing the same people. This is a no-brainer but when you first visit a new neighborhood or a new city you feel like everyone is different and how special they are. . . and then the reality of habit & routines settle in.

At first when I joined my new job in midtown I was excited about taking the subway to work daily. I was excited for the ride and the misadventures I might run into. Soon, I realized, I was setting myself up for disappointment. I saw the same people on the subway daily. I saw the same people waiting on the bus daily. I saw the same people listening to their iPods, reading their newspapers, trying to fall asleep standing up.
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