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.
Did you know you can camp in Central Park? How cool is that?
Apparently the City Parks Department each year holds a lottery for families who want to camp overnight in Central Park and seven other parks in the city. They limit it to 30 groups and hold a lottery, so if you want to spend the night sleeping under the stars on June 10 you need to get in the drawing to be held June 1.
Now, let's be clear: You're bidding to camp in Central Park legally. I can't tell you how many mornings I've come out with the dogs and discovered unofficial "urban campers" sleeping atop rocks or in wooded areas of the park. All have been harmless, and most just want to be left alone (i.e. don't let your dogs pee on me, please). Still, the first time you stumble onto one of them, it can be pretty startling.
OK New Yorkers, sure its hard to get around in and cold and uncomfortable.
But dang it, it's pretty. For my Southern friends who think they've seen snow, here it is. All 19+ inches of it from last night:
Another 4 inches of snow across the street in Central Park this morning. The beagles enjoyed romping in the powder. They're becoming snow snobs, preferring powdery snow to a more icy and sharp pelletized mix. New York City normally gets 20 inches of snow a year -- to date we've already enjoyed 32.
New York is always prettiest right after a snowfall. This one ended at dawn, which made things perfect. By this afternoon, it will no doubt be gray, slushy and ugly.
Times Square almost completely clear of snow. Roads passable. Most transit starting to return to normal. Airlines trying to catch up.
It was New York City's sixth-largest blizzard ever, and it was a blast. For all those who feared my Southern butt was toast, rest assured I handled it fine. In fact, managed to get to the office while most of my Yankee co-workers couldn't make it. Rest assured I gloated about that for a while.
A day after the storm, after everyone here had time to enjoy an extra day home from work, New Yorkers got down to what they do best -- complaining. You'd think Mayor Bloomberg had executed puppies and had them served to him for breakfast the way they're ripping into the city for handling the blizzard.
The most fascinating part of the whole weather event: ThunderSnow! With snow dropping out of the sky Sunday night at 2-3 inches an hour, and winds whipping around 60 miles an hour, there were flashes of light and booms of thunder overhead. Frikkin' bizarre!
Final snowfall tally at our place was 20 inches, although the wind drifted snow over two feet against the front of our building. Figure if I can handle this, I can handle anything Northern weather can throw at me. Bring on winter, you Northern wimps!
The final count was 13 inches of snow. In front of our building, the snow is much deeper, since the 60 miler-per-hour winds blew huge drifts up against our building. My first snow in New York City, and the first time I've seen this much snow since my childhood in the hills of Tennessee.
Irony warning: I made it into work this morning. Was the first one in, and 95 percent of the Yankees in my office aren't here. Feeling pretty smug right now, needless to say.
Winds were pretty fierce last night, and you can read on the news of motorists being stranded, people being stuck on train cars for eight hours, etc. As for this hillbilly, got to stomp through theigh-deep snow last night and this morning. Pretty amazing. I'm not in Kansas Georgia anymore.
Here's a few photos of the snow in Central Park this morning, and one of the beagles despertately trying to find a drift where they can go to the bathroom. Major canine confusion, needless to say.
First dusting of snow of the year in NYC. Dogs romping in snow. Couldn't find squirrels, though. They had the good sense to be indoors.
New York City was invaded Saturday by Santas. Lots of them. Tens of thousands of them.
It was the annual Santacon event, and informally organized flashmob where everyone shows up dressed in Santa suits and proceeds to waunder and drink their way around Manhattan for an entire day until they either pass out or score with an elf.
We encountered the Santas as we walked through Central Park on our way to the Wohlman skating rink. We literally crossed paths with thousands of them, slowly milling their way up the hill as they prepared to catch a subway train downtown to the Villages and whatever the next stop their Twitter masters had Tweeted to them.
Some of the rules of Santacon (aside from the always enjoyable "we don't talk about Santacon") from the official website:
"What to expect: Santacon is an annual convention for Santa and his holiday brethren. Expect holiday cheer, unconventional gifts, naughty carols and general mayhem. Do not expect to be entertained: Santa IS the entertainment!
"How to be Santa: Santa doesn’t just wear a cool suit and invade your dad’s liquor cabinet: he also brings gifts! A gift can be a reindeer game, a song, a dance or a joke to entertain Santa and tourists alike."
"How NOT to be Santa: Santa never endangers his reindeer with violence, vandalism, inappropriate groping or theft. Santa never gets SO jolly he needs babysitting. Santa never expects to get away with behavior that an ordinary citizen wouldn’t. It’s not a bar crawl! Every time you call Santacon a bar crawl, a sugarplum fairy dies."
Were the Santas unruly? None that we saw. Most were just plain fun. Many posted for photos with kids and stunned tourists. Groups chanted "HO! HO! HO! HO!" loudly and robustly. Want to get a taste of the mayhem? Enjoy:
Where were you 30 years ago tonight?
If you're over the age of 40, you remember. While I was too young to remember where I was the day JFK was shot, I know exactly where I was the night the world learned that a deranged nothing snuffed out the life of my generation's most strident poet.
Since I live across the street from The Dakota, the famed apartment building where John Lennon lived -- and at whose front gate he was killed -- it's going to be a sad day in the neighborhood. The TV crews were already staking out positions last night at the 72nd Street Gate to Central Park -- positioned right between the front gates to The Dakota and Strawberry Fields, the peace park created just across the way to commemorate John and the goal of world peace he always wished for.
Rather than focus too much on his death, I'm going to try to remember his life. John was, like me, a transplanted New Yorker, not a native. But he grew quickly to love this city, just as I'm quickly growing to love it. He loved its grittiness, its energy. He loved the anonymity that the streets afforded him. I love these things too, but also the city is a much friendlier place than its reputation affords it.
Peace? Not always. But you can find peace here if you search hard enough.
This should make you feel better about raking your yard. Imagine having to rake the leaves of 24,000 trees.
"We're in full leaf-raking mode right now," says Russell Fredericks, chief of operations for the Central Park Conservancy. "And raking will actually continue all the way through New Year's."
Central Park is overseen not by the city, but by a nonprofit group called the Central Park Conservancy. It utilizes a mix of paid staffers and volunteers to take care of the 843-acre park. They do an excellent job of balancing the needs of all 35 million of the walkers, tourists, bikers, joggers, pet-owners and picnickers who use the park every year. The fact that so many peolpe use this park and it doesn't turn into a giant pile of dirt is testament to the CPC's efforts.
So when the 40 staffers are done raking, mowing, vacuuming or hauling the leaves, where do they go?
According to the Conservancy's web page, some actually aren't raked at all. Those in a wonderful, mountainous woodland area called The Ramble, for example, remain a part of the rustic landscape. Those that fall atop certain lawns are mulch mowed, chopped into tiny bits and deposited back into the turf.
The balance of leaves – more than 3,000 cubic yards – are raked or vacuumed, then transported to the Conservancy's composting operation. The rich compost it creates is put to good use year-round in all planting and horticultural projects, essentially blended back into the Park landscape.
So as you get your rake or leaf blower out this week, feel better than you don't have 843 acres of land to clean up. Want some perspective on how big that is? Central Park is larger than the principality of Monaco!
Photo credit: isardasorensen
Supposedly Central Park is closed from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. In reality, it never really closes. I've walked the dogs through there once or twice after the 1 a.m. curfew, and the NYPD and Central Park Conservancy officers have just driven right by me with nary a word.
They also don't run out homeless people, although they swear they do. Our first week here, Magnolia the beagle walked over behind a rock and discovered a rather disheveled man and his scant collection of clothes and belongings curled up sleeping on a rather large boulder. Unfortunately, she picked up the scent of bum-stank on her and I had to give her a shower when we got back to the apartment.
So it comes as no surprise that the New York Times found these guys, who not only sleep in the park, but sleep in the trees. I haven't run across them yet, but given my beagles ability to tree squirrels, I have no doubt they could do the same with these guys.
Released the hounds in Central Park today. And guess what they cornered? A pack of bears!
Everywhere I in New York, this hillbilly is a trendsetter. First New Yorkers were discovering the joys of moonshine. Then they started putting racoons in Central Park to make me feel welcome.
Now I discover that my beagle Marshall, and my two backup beagles, Maisy and Magnolia, are celebrities.
A walk in Central Park doesn't go by where we don't get pointed at, marveled at, and even admired. Apparently one beagle isn't a big deal here. Lots of people have them. Two is unusual, but not spectacularly so. But a pack of three beagles for some reason achieves a canine critical mass that drives New Yorkers -- and the tourists that visit New York -- into a hound dog frenzy.
I have people almost every day stop to pet them. Children warily inch forward and I have to tell them the only danger they face from my dogs is that they might get licked to death. I've had tourists from as far away as Columbia and France ask if they can have their pictures taken with my hounds, because they have beagles at home and miss them.
Exacerbating my beagles' celebrity is the current bedbug epidemic facing New York. Most pest control companies here use trained beagles to sniff out the pesky critters, making Roscoe, Squirt and Freedom into local celebrities. I regularly have New Yorkers ask if my dogs are trained to sniff out the painful vermin that have tormented apartment-dwellers, theaters and retail stores. I have to admit they aren't, but they still usually get a nice petting and smile anyway.
They are however, trained to track down squirrels in Central Park, and once they spot them, skillfully bay and leap forward, dislodging my right arm from its socket.
About once a week I start having serious withdrawal. I mean, tremors and shaking. Disorientation. Irritation and confusion. The enormity of a Southerner stuck in Yankeeland truly hits me.
It's at that point that I usually go out to the park, crank up the iPod and listen with my eyes closed to some bluegrass music.
Today, it's a new album I just downloaded from the Steep Canyon Rangers.
Ahhhhhhh.
Enjoying the remote-control sailboats in the Conservatory Pond at Central Park -- in the hillbilly style.
New Yorkers hate cyclists. Up until my arrival here four weeks ago, I could take them or leave them. But I already understand why they’re despised in this city.
In Georgia, we rarely saw anyone on a bike over the age of 12. And my few adult friends who rode bikes followed the rules of the road. Here in Manhattan, cyclists are everywhere, although the estimates of how many are highly inflated. They’re on the sidewalks. They’re in Central Park racing through red lights as pedestrians try to cross the streets. They’re going 35 miles an hour. The wrong way down a one-way street. In traffic. At night. Wearing black. Anything stupid or obnoxious, and you can bet it’s a cyclist doing it. Lately, thankfully, the NYPD is starting to crack down on them.
Reuters blogger Felix Salmon has created the “Unified Theory of New York Biking.” In it, he points out that there are three types of transportation: Motorized, Pedestrian and Cyclists. He notes that the rules of the road for motorized-motorized and pedestrian-pedestrian interactions are pretty well defined. Cars follow signals, signs and rules of the roads. Pedestrians rarely collide on a sidewalk. Even motorized-pedestrian interactions are well-regulated, through crosswalks, crossing signals, etc.
But cyclists screw things up. They ride on the roadways, but they don’t want to obey the rules of the road, going the wrong way down one-way streets to avoid having to travel an extra block. Or they cut off pedestrians because they’ think they’re entitled like a vehicle.
They even screw each other over. In many instances, they’ll be in a bike lane but going against the direction of traffic (referred to as “salmon-ing”) and occasionally collide with each other.
In just four short weeks, I’ve witnessed two bike-on-bike collisions, watched a woman plow into the side of a car at full-speed, and witnessed an almost-collision where the cyclists turned and yelled indignantly at the driver who almost hit him – even though the driver had the light and the right of way!
Last night walking the beagles, I had one cyclist whiz by me from behind perilously close. I was a little late getting my left forearm out, but I’ll get faster. The missus asked why I would do such a thing, since if the close-skating cyclist hit my arm, it would undoubtedly give me a huge bruise.
“Yes,” I replied. “But I’ll trade my bruise for the loss of three of his teeth.”
First, I found racoons in Central Park. Now we've got skunks!
H/T: Gothamist.
My expectations about what it was like to live in New York City were formed by movies. Admittedly, movies are perhaps the most inaccurate representations of real life, but my expectations of the subway system were formed by The Warriors. My ideas about what it is like to work at Rockefeller Center were created by My Favorite Year.
Since there's a film festival this week at the lawn at Central Park, this seems like a good opportunity to rattle off some of my favorite films about New York. Have your own favorite? The comments section is located below.
Those are some of my favorites? Got films to add?
... we worship them and build statues to them!
Scenes from Saturday morning's Bagel Bark, a monthly get-together for dog owners in Central Park. Dogs got water and healthy dog treats. Humans got coffee with unhealthy danishes, crullers and other pastries.
Why have a career and pay for a gym membership, when I can have two-in-one?
Was taking my three beagles out for their morning constitutional in Central Park yesterday, and heard music playing at 7 a.m. through the trees leading to the bandstand. Couldn't figure out who in their right mind would be performing at that ungodly hour. Blew it off, picked up poop and headed back to the apartment.
Apparently, I missed a free live performance by the Jonas Brothers and somone named Demi Lovato.
Needless to say, I'll live. Not sure my daughter will forgive me, though.
My beagle Marshall likes dirty water hot dogs in Central Park.
Good thing my camera takes 2 frames per second or you'd have never seen the hot dog.
A very moving spot.
Just 60 seconds from our front door.
Kept looking for where you could pick your own berries, though.
Blog posted here.
Think how much corn you could plant.
Either they need to plant some grass in Central Park, or they're getting the soil ready to plant peanuts.
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