Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced he has handed his powers over to his vice president but he refused to step down outright or leave the country, retaining his title of president and ensuring regime control over the reform process. Stunned protesters in central Cairo who demand his ouster waved their shoes in contempt and shouted, “Leave, leave, leave.”
— The Associated Press
According to the Chinese lunisolar calendar, 2011 is the Year of the Rabbit.
Damn. I was really hoping 2011 would be
Maybe next year.
I recently visited my brother’s office, overlooking Church Street in lower Manhattan, and had a great view of the World Trade Center complex. My bro is one of thousands of people working on the reconstruction of the World Trade Center.
It’s hard to appreciate the scale of this massive construction project from ground level … seeing it from above really drove home how much work has already been done below the surface. Foundational work included clearing the debris down to the bedrock, replacing huge retaining walls, and then rebuilding several stories of commuter train lines and subway lines … all below ground level.
Now the buildings are starting to rise above the surface, most notably Tower One, which will be the complex’s main tower and at 1,776 feet will be slightly taller than the original Twin Towers. (Yes, the 1776 figure was deliberately chosen.) One World Trade Center is going up at a rate of a floor per week, and is already past the halfway point and should be finished by this time next year. It will include 3 million square feet of office space, 104 floors, an observation deck, two skyline restaurants, and a ton of shopping.
Here is the site plan to the World Trade Center, courtesy of the Port Authority of NY/NJ’s World Trade Center Web site. (Click around the site, as there is a lot of cool information about the revitalized World Trade Center complex.) My vantage point is from the building colored yellow and marked with a purple star.
Here is the shot I took out from my brother’s office window in mid-January, 2011.
1. Tower 1 – One World Trade Center
2. One of the world’s tallest cranes!
3. Footprint of South Tower (to become memorial pool)
4. Footprint of North Tower (to become memorial pool)
5. Performing Arts Center
6. Transportation Hub (PATH terminal)
7. Tower 4
8. Visitors’ Center
9. WTC Memorial
As one who grew up seeing the New York skyline with the Twin Towers marking the southern end of Manhattan, I am extremely stoked that this sad, gaping hole in the city’s skyline will soon be filled.
Sometimes the tourists get it right. Case in point: the historic Lombardi’s Original Pizza of New York. Billed as “America’s first pizzeria,” it occupies a top spot in the pizza-snobbish Big Apple, its praises sung by Zagat’s and every tourist rag from Travel + Leisure to Lonely Planet . As a result, it’s crawling with out-of-towners, which normally would make me flee, flee, flee. If you share that instinct, though, ignore it and brave the tourist hordes for a damn good pizza pie.
The secret is Lombardi’s thin hand-tossed crust, baked to crispy perfection in white-tiled charcoal ovens. These antiquated ovens are no longer allowed in NYC — one great excuse to visit this throwback to 1905. The crust is a testament to the difference a pizza oven can make: thin enough to render a satisfying crunch, strong enough to support fresh mozzarella, juicy tomatoes, charred pepperoni rounds cupping hot little pools of oil, or whatever other classic toppings you pick. The outer rim is crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside, and just dense enough to soak up all the pizza’s juices and oils. Get the original “margherita” (mozzarella, tomato sauce, fresh basil and romano), add your toppings, and wash it down with a pitcher of cold Brooklyn Lager.
Large margherita with tomatoes, spinach & wild mushrooms
At the edge of Little Italy in the fun Nolita neighborhood, Lombardi’s has an old-school Italian ambiance with checkered tablecloths, vintage Italian movie posters, and Sinatra crooning over the speakers. The restaurant is a labyrinth of small dining rooms upstairs and down, some of which require a trip through the busy kitchen to get to your table. Expect to drop between $25 and $35 per person if you order beer or wine.
Leave room for dessert, because when you stagger through the front doors of Lombardi’s and across narrow Spring Street, you’ll run into Rice to Riches, a flamboyant rice-pudding bar with a 1960s futuristic go-go flair and unapologetic pro-dessert stance. With at least a dozen daily flavors of rice pudding (try Butterscotch Boulevard, Almond Shmalmond, or Panna Cotta) and toppings (like espresso crumble, toasted coconut, or jelly), it’s classic comfort food disguised as an über-hip dish. This is the treat that appeals to my inner 6-year-old: sweet, creamy, compellingly lumpy and able to be eaten at the Jetsons’ kitchen table. Portions range from $6.50 per solo portion to $35 for the Moby (serves 10).
Long counter for puddings and toppings to the right,
futuristic seating all around.
Hee!
Click below for more reviews of Lombardi’s Pizza and Rice to Riches:
The last of my holiday 2010 snaps from New York City. The photos from this last installment were all taken Christmas night. The holidays may be over, but the decorations are still up. Which is nice, since the Big Apple is currently a giant dirty slush puddle from the blizzard that dumped two feet of snow onto the city the day after I took these shots.
Happy New Year, y’all!
Here are a few more snaps taken in New York City on Christmas Eve and Christmas, 2010.
I’ve heard some horrid travel stories before, and have had my share of them, and here’s one that makes the All-Time Worst category: a Brooklyn couple, along with 400 other people, are trapped overnight on the New York City Subway’s A Train during the post-Christmas blizzard that hit the Northeast. Wet and cold and underdressed, they were unable to get off the train for hours. And then — because they were coming from the airport — to add insult to injury, they had to lug their frigging bags three blocks through deep snow to their house.
The writer refers to some of the other people stuck in the subway: the mom with kids, the people who wanted water, the people who needed to use the bathroom. Eventually they all got to get out and use a train station bathroom, which — because it was heated — became a popular spot for everyone to linger. A subway station bathroom was the most comfortable place to be, y’all. Ew. Ew.
My nightmare travel scenarios have generally involved hot temperatures, a packed and broken-down bus/train/boat/whatever, and third-world conditions. The “crammed into a broke-down public vehicle” and “third world conditions” definitely apply here, though these poor bastards had to deal with extreme cold instead of extreme heat. Not to mention, they were only a few miles away from home the entire time — that had to have been maddening. My hat is off to them. Hope they got warm and dry and some hot toddies in them, pronto, and they won’t let this stop them from traveling.
Anyway, here is a reminder of what the lovely NYC subway is like …
Taking the A Train: Sometimes not a jaunty jazz standard
NYC subway trains don't exactly have sleeper cars. Or bathrooms.
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Love the photos in this cool video of Christmas images from around the world. (Not too happy with the transitions and Kenny G-esque music BUT HEY.)
Bon Nadal! Vrolijk Kerstfeest! Joyeux Noël! ¡Feliz Navidad! Buon Natale! Merii Kurisumasu! Frohe Weihnachten! Mele Kalikimaka! God Jul! Mừng Chúa Giáng Sinh! Kala Xristougenna! Maligayang Pasko! Feliz Natal! Sretan Božić! Heri la Krismasi! สุขสันต์วันคริสตร์มาส! Merry Christmas!
The Big Apple decked out for the holidays is always thrilling. There is a mixture of over-the-top showmanship, tasteful glamour and gritty neighborhood festivity that permeates the streets and sidewalks, along with the intoxicating warm smell of roasted chestnuts combined with steam pouring up from the street grates; the noise: horns honking, voices, music, people rushing past, Salvation Army Santas ringing bells, the bite in the air as the wind whips your scarf around. Christmastime is the essence of Manhattan: bold, loud, energetic, breathtaking, overwhelming and a giant rush to all the senses.
One of my favorite people-I-don’t-know-in-real-life, Stephen Colbert, has issued a challenge to remaster his portrait and thus turn it into ART.
Here is my entry, “The Joy of Painting Stephen.”
A merging of two great men.
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I must give props where they are due: to my friends Robyn and Vicki who, in the past, have used this setting for fabulous creative endeavors of their own, and my friend Rich, who is obsessed with Bob Ross.
For permission to reprint part or whole of any of the copyrighted material on this site, please contact Eileen at eileenploh@gmail.com.
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