Manhattan Hillbilly

Freedom Tower Looking Good

One World Trade Center, now commonly known here as the Freedom Tower, replacement for the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan, continues to leap out of the skyline and has reached its 90th floor. That puts it just 15 floors from completion. The tower will eventually reach 1,776 feet and is scheduled to be completed in late 2013. But it's already gone from being a block of concrete to a true part of the city's skyline.

It's Christmastime in Brooklyn

Yeah, yeah. You've seen the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Pretty impressive. But in the middle of Manhattan, I've been missing some good old fashioned, Southern house decorations. So what do you do if you want to see a house dolled up with a million lights and fake Santas stuck headfirst down chimneys with their animatronic legs flailing? 

You go to Brooklyn.

Yeah, there are other places, but it seems the Dyker Heights section is the place where the people go big when they go home and decorate. Some even hire lighting companies that make a secondary business out of "professional holiday decorating."

So without further ado, enjoy:

 

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Potty-Mouthed Women

I've previously documented Yankees' love of obscenity. What I haven't really delved into is a sociological phenomenon that continues to baffle my cornbread-fed sensibilities.

Women in New York curse worse than the men.

I don't have any hard a fast stats on this. And admittedly, hearing a young woman drop the f-bomb in about every fifth word of a conversation is so foreign to me that I may notice it more than when men do it. But the fact that they do it all is as disconcerting to me as a Justin Bieber concert in a nursing home. 

High school girls here are the worst. They love cursing, and they love doing it walking down the streets and on the subway, because they know cowed New Yorkers will never call them on it. And in those situations, yes, I have counted that the f-to-regular-word ratios for girls is two to three times higher than for boys. 

What's sadder is running into an extremely attractive professional woman, who clearly has her act together, and then suddenly engaging her in a conversation that would make a Merchant Marine blush. 

It reminds me of an old Skip Carey story that may be apocryphal. Supposedly during an Atlanta Braves game, the camera was panning the crowd and stopped on an extremely comely and model-level blond woman smiling and watching the game. Since she was great eye candy, the director stayed on her a little too long, and suddenly she reached up and dug her index finger into her nose and went fishing.

After a long, long pause, as he tried to find something Skip Carey-ish to say, the Skipper finally and dryly intoned, "Well, she was almost perfect."

SantaCon Is Today!

If you haven't experience a SantaCon, then you haven't lived. Imagine an entire city -- in this case, New York -- invaded by 10,000 revelers in Santa suits, all drinking, partying and having a good time. Imagine bars filled to the brim with jolly red men. Imagine entire subway trains packed with elves, Santas and high-skirted "Mrs. Claus's" all shouting "Ho! Ho! Ho!" in the style of British soccer hooligans.

It's all good clean fun for the most part, and the event even ties in with a canned food drive to do some good. I can't wait. Because of another commitment, I can't participate, but I'm hoping the Santas will invade Central Park like they did last year, so I can watch the show.

 

 

More Southern Music to New York, Please

Sadly, I found out about this hot new Southern group's visit to the Brooklyn Bowl too late to get tickets. They performed last night. Gonna have to do a better job of keeping track of when my fellow countrymen travel north of the Mason-Dixon line. Maybe we can put GPS chips in mandalins and banjos?

 

Sneak Peek at Apple's Grand Central Terminal Store

As a now-New Yorker and an Apple fanboy, I was a little worried about how Apple's new store smack in the middle of Grand Central Terminal was going to look. Placing a garish retail store in the middle of such an historic building would be like plopping big billboards atop the peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains. 

Fortunately, as this sneak peek tour from Fortune's website shows, Friday's grand opening will be grand, with Apple respecting and in many cases incorporating the classy architectural features of the century-old structure.

 

 

 

Rock Center is Rocking

It's Christmastime in New York City. Tourists are snapping pictures, Shoppers are shopping. Skaters are skating. Great time to be a New Yorker.