The New York Times building right across Port Authority (take the subway A, C, or E to 42nd street) has an amazing display which randomizes the day’s news, obituaries, wedding announcements, and numbers as they appear in the TIMES.

The screens have a Bose surround sound system on the bottom and cool sounds/effects are created. There are even digital waves of information that shoot across and around the room. It’s pretty magnificent. See the video below for more info.

We are living in interesting times for sure. Who would have thought a few years ago that we would be entering an election cycle with better than even odds of electing either the first black or the first female president or potentially a combined ticket of the two? That we have gotten to this point indicates that we truly have come a long way as a country and marks the final transformation of a Democratic party that was for generations dominated by racists and violently defended both slavery and terror in the south.

A third and perhaps more transformative winner would be Ron Paul who could still show up as a third party candidate. We are now in the very sad situation, in which the only person likely to have been recognized by the founders as a true liberal and the only one who seriously seems interested in obeying the constitution is now a fringe candidate. This also seems to mark the tragic end of the Republican Party as a major defender of human liberty. They now defend waterboarding.
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As we walked down 42nd street from 8th avenue till 7th, a huge swarm of cars carrying the American flag and what looked initially to me like the Spider-Man logo drove down the block honking their horns and waving the flag about incessantly.

As we walked a bit further down we noticed that as far as the eye could see, this was the scene all over Times Square.

Kosovo has gained its independence with huge support from the U.S.A. And to be quite honest, I’ve never seen a bunch of people be so patriotic and have so much gratitude for the U.S. ever in my life. It was quite spectacular and the excitement was palpable.

photo courtesy: abcnews
news updated: John Morris – thanks

Photo from Stdymphnas.com

I went out for a friend’s birthday at St. Dymphna’s in the East Village. The establishment is named after the patron saint of the insane, a beautiful daughter of an Irish king whose refusal to marry her father led to her beheading. She is said to be buried in a cave where the mentally ill can be miraculously cured.

A cozy spot, this pub serves a variety Irish foods, including a full Irish breakfast. Naturally the vegetarian options are rather limited, so I managed to eat a meal of three different potato dishes: French fries, potato skins, and mashed potatoes. Not exactly a balanced meal, but still tasty. Our server, possibly someone who could benefit from Dymphna’s blessing, gave us the wrong food at least three times. At one point she came to our table with three dishes (2 wrong, 1 right) and walked away with them all to find our correct order. One bold friend just went up to the counter and took the right dish back to the table, only to be yelled at by the server for doing so a few minutes later.

Anyway, despite the food confusion, it proved a fun place for a hearty meal. There’s also a courtyard in the back, which should be awesome in Spring.

OK, any of you guys who tried to skimp past vallentine’s day with a $5 teddy bear and some sweethearts are gonna suffer soon. I learned about the emerging movement for a really great holiday designed just for us called–Steak and BJ day from the L.A. Metroblog. There’s also a website to get info– or at least there was untill they crashed the server!!!!

Callifornia has nearly destroyed the planet and given the world a lot of crap but if this catches on–ALL WILL BE FORGIVEN.

A few of the major advocates of congestion pricing have authored a little report with suggestions on how to make the concept more politically popular. Previously, road tolling and congestion pricing has been implemented in areas, like London, Singapore and Stockholm, in which drivers are a minority or on entirely new toll funded highways. Tolling existing “free” roads in the car dependent, United States is another story.

I liked the fact that they started things off with a quote from Niccolo Macciavelli which grasps the heart of the issue which is that any system, no matter how bad creates a constituency of people who have adapted to it and have learned to benefit from it while the proponent of change stands alone offering hypothetical benefits in an imagined future.. The authors advocate the idea of splitting any cash gained from congestion pricing and road tolling directly with the communities through which the roads go through to use as they please. These pots of money may well attract support. They also make a powerful social justice argument that the areas which bear the high negative social and health affects of major highways cutting through them should receive something back. They also point out the negative potential results of just plowing all the money from road tolling back into a “highway slush fund” which might very well result in the construction of even more roads in low density areas and compound the traffic/sprawl problem.

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old order of things, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.

NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI
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Hey Kids the UFT has another lesson in Hypocrisy for you.

“Hypocrisy (or being a hypocrite) is the act of pretending to oppose a belief or behaviour while holding the same beliefs or behaviours at the same time.”

If you want to get expelled use this example which I found on Streetsblog.

Resolution on Protecting the Environment — Reducing Dependence on Fossil Fuels

Whereas, it is a well established scientific fact that greenhouse gas emissions cause global warming, resulting in great dangers to our environment; and…
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It seems like the MTA has finally woken up to the potential value of the land it is selling at the Hudson Yards site, the last substantial piece of undeveloped land in Midtown Manhattan. It’s now interested in holding some kind of equity stake in the property and a cut of future profits from its development. This is highly logical, since a large chunk of the land’s value will come from the transit improvements the agency will be building such as the westward extension of the 7 line. The developers point out the potentially weakening property market and the billions they will have to be putting out as reasons for opposing such an idea.

Chanel Thirteen recently showed the American Experience documentary on the construction of Grand Central, a huge project largely funded through land development by the New York Central Railroad. A core problem at work here is that a government agency neither has the skills or more importantly the financial incentive (it’s not their money) to run the numbers properly and think about these projects in a business like way. Hong Kong’s awesome transit infrastructure is funded by a private company that also acts as a land developer.

Though I bought an apartment a little over a year ago, I still check out the Manhattan rental market report every couple of months or so, just to see what’s going on. According to the January update, average rents in Manhattan are down overall due to economic factors, though some neighborhoods are bucking that trend, notably TriBeCa (I blame you, Bobby DeNiro). Notable neighborhoods to find “bargains”: midtown (both east and west), Greenwich Village, the east village, and the LES all had rent drops, but are still averaging ridonkulously high rents. Harlem remains the cheapest in the city. Looking to spend more? Head to the aforementioned TriBeCa, Gramercy Park, Chelsea, and Battery Park City.

I’m interested to see what happens in the upcoming months – economic downturns that start with giant screw-ups in the financial industry usually affect NYC earlier, longer, and harder than most other parts of the country (see economic downturn, 1989-1992, where the city lost 1/10 of its jobs and the median home price in Manhattan dropped by a quarter). Not that rental prices are necessarily the only bellwether of the city’s economic downturn, but the nationwide real estate mess is going to affect everyone, especially when the axes start falling more in the financial industry.

Kind of scary.

Bitter singles might enjoy the dark twist a local boy from Gowanus and his friends put on Valentines day. I will celebrate the occasion by brutally killing some chocolate bunnies.