Took a 4 down to City Hall Park today, in search of some historical zoning maps I need for a project on gentrification. My first stop was the Municipal Library, followed by a trip across the hall to the records room. Neither of these places had what I was looking for, so I walked a block to the Department of City Planning at Reade and Elk. I asked for the incremental updates to map 8B, and I had photocopies in my hands after mere moments!

This is a shout out to the DoCP. Keep rockin.

Here’s a photo from yesterday’s free concert at the World Financial Center Plaza. The Eels (pictured) and Smoosh performed as part of the 2006 River to River Festival. Here’s a full schedule of upcoming festival events.

It was a beautiful night for an outdoor rock show, and a nice reminder that sometimes free shows are just as much fun as the ones that involve huge Ticketmaster fees. Yay!

UPDATE: While poking around on Flickr, I noticed that eatsdirt posted some photos from the show that are much better than mine.

I never really had an appreciation for Ukulele playing until I saw this video of a guy in Central Park (specifically in Strawberry Fields) doing his rendition of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. This guy is an amazing player–I had no idea you could rock out on a ukulele that hard! Also, his version of this tune is great. Pic above is a still image from the video. Check out the whole thing here!

Tonight, I made last minute plans to go to this modern dance thing at the McCarren Pool that Josh mentioned a few weeks ago. It was $25 (kinda pricey for a last minute plan), and I had to stand the whole time, and it was outside and therefore kind of cold. Was it worth it? WITHOUT A DOUBT.

I like swimming pools a lot, and the McCarren Pool is probably the biggest one I’ve ever seen. I’d love to see what it looked like full of water, but I Googled for a few minutes and only found photos of its empty, graffitied, current state. It’s sad that such a giant pool is no longer used for swimming, but this performance was a rockin’ way to repurpose the space. At one point, two guys did backflips into an inflatable kiddie pool that had been filled with water during the performance. I haven’t seen much modern dance, so I can’t compare this show with others, but to me it felt like some kind of urban circus — one that involves, among other things, a guy watching TV, a disco ball that looks like it’s suspended in mid-air, modified skateboards attached to people’s backs, hula hoops, and lots of amazing choreography.

I was about to advise anyone who hasn’t seen this to get over to McCarren Pool as fast as possible, because it closes October 1st, but then it hit me — that was today. If you missed it, don’t despair, because according to the program, the creators of this project are hoping to use the pool as a performance space again in the future.

Unless you have been living blissfully under a rock, you probably know that yesterday was the start of a six week long campaign to save CBGB, the seminal east village punk club that is in danger of losing their lease at the end of August. The campaign consists of almost-daily benefit concerts to try to raise money, mostly to pay for the legal fees involved in renegotiating their lease. Tons of punk and rock bands, new and old, are crawling out of the woodwork show their solidarity; you can find the full listing here. I personally know a few people coming in from out of town to see The Dead Boys play at the end of the month, so that promises to be a rockin

Fun! The city just issued a water boiling advisory for today, citing high levels of “particles” in the drinking water supply. Evidently these “particles” can interfere with the water chlorination process and cause all sorts of issues in people with less than stellar immune systems. Rockin’!

Also, evidently the Health Department asked doctors to increase testing for parasitic illnesses and immediately report any diseases, as well as any increase in gastrointestinal symptoms.

I found four articles referencing this advisory, but no one mentions what these “particles” are. Any guesses on what we might be dealing with? Good thing I only drink bourbon…

Great music seems to have made its way in NYC in the last few weeks and there is plenty more to come. In the past few weeks I have had the pleasure of seeing three fantastic live performances, all at Bowery Ballroom which has definitely rocketed to the top of my list of the best NYC venues.

Three Wednesdays ago, Hot Hot Heat played with Louis XIV at Bowery Ballroom. While I was defnitely there to see HHH, I had heard San Diego based Louis XIV first single

Voting in Brooklyn provided no celebrity sitings, no long lines, and no drama but it did help me feel like a real member of this country and that was a nice, grown-up, responsible feeling. I was pleased to see the sizable crowd spilling out onto the sidewalk was an accurate sampling of my South Williamsburg neighborhood-young, scruffy, artso types (”Hey! There’s the singer for Les Savy Fav.”) and Puerto Rican moms and pops. The volunteers spoke English and Spanish and dispatched everyone to their respective district booths fairly efficiently. Because I knew one of the volunteers, she’s done a great job with my taxes for the past two years at the local HR Block and I wish I could remember her name, she sent me to my booth without checking my ID. That made me feel like a real member of this crazy little community. There was an old guy in a wheelchair ahead of me in the booth and a volunteer was in there helping him. Eventually he came out all smiles, like, “Hey, I did it!” I have a soft spot for old guys so I gave him a smile and a thumbs up. Once I got into the booth I couldn’t believe the weird, Jetson’s-like lever box that I had to do my voting with. “What is this, the Fifties?” I can’t imagine that it even worked, but I hope to Hell it did. It’s sort of bad, but I didn’t know anything about any of them except Kerry and Bush so I blindly voted for all the Senators and such. I hope that doesn’t backfire on me. Since then, I’ve been anticipating the count. I know Kerry’s going to win this state, but I hope, whoever wins, that my vote does really get counted. It’s nice to actually participate in this moment and I’d hate to think that that weird contraption might have broken down or something weird like that. But you know, it’s as if day-to-day, I can read the papers and form my opinions, and I certainly laugh at all of Will Ferrell’s Dubya impersonations, but until I got that 5 minutes in the lever booth, this country’s problems and potential didn’t actually, physically, touch me. I rocked it.