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.
Courtesy of our friends at the Gothamist blog, here are "20 Lies New Yorkers Tell Tourists." Anyone out there have some other favorites they want to share? Click Comments below and join in.
You've seen it in countless movies, and probably taken a few snapshots yourself when you've visited the NYU Greenwich Village area. Now the Wall Street Journal gives you a sneak peek inside.
One of my key learnings over Christmas: No one in their right mind eats roasted chestnuts.
OK, OK. We've all sung "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire." We all have these nostalgic Currier & Ives prints of people pulling pans of hot chestnuts out of the fireplace. Some of us have even used the metaphor about "someone's chestnuts are in the fire."
So add chestnuts to one of those somewhat Yankee foods that I've never eaten. Until now. More accurately, until right before Christmas.
Yuk.
The missus and I were Christmas shopping along Fifth Avenue. Well, more accurately were were Christmas looking -- there's no way we could afford anything being offered for sale along Fifth Avenue. With one exception: There was a vendor selling hot roasted chestnuts out of his cart.
They didn't smell great. In fact, they smelled burnt. And I quickly found out why: In most cases, they burn the outer shell of the chestnuts as they roast them. You're supposed to peal the burnt shell of and eat the nut inside. I've admitted in this space that I'm a total moron, but thankfully I wasn't stupid enough to try and eat the burnt outer shell.
I should have. It couldn't have tasted much worse than what was inside. The texture was like a soft walnut, but without the flavorfulness of a walnut. It seemed more like a cross between a peanut, a walnut and sidewalk chalk.
I gobbled down two to make sure I hadn't gotten a bad one, and then tossed the rest. It was Christmas, the window decorations were out, billions of tourists were jamming the street, the wind was blowing and I'd eaten roasted chestnuts.
I can now say I've "done" Christmas in New York -- for the first time.
I thought it was a myth. It's a dyed-in-the-wool reality.
There really are two speeds when you're walking the streets of New York: "New Yorker" and "Tourist."
This has become abundantly clear to me as I walk to and from my new office in Times Square, and occasionally walk through the Rockefeller Center area to have lunch with the misses near her office.
Both areas are chocked full of tourists. In less than three weeks, I've already been in the background of 18,433 photos of family members visiting Times Square, including four where I actually held up "bunny ear" fingers behind people I didn't even know.
Walking to and from my office -- as I come to work, go to lunch, and head for home -- I bump into tourists. Literally. I'm usually walking at a fast clip rushing to find a quick sandwich shop or hot dog vendor so I can get back to my desk; they're usually staring up at the NASDAQ sign on the ABC News studio. (Useless trivia: My office is directly above the ABC set where they broadcast Good Morning America. I keep jumping up and down on my floor hoping to dislodge a ceiling tile onto George Stephanopoulos's head).
So invariably you have to learn the pedestrian equivalent of defensive driving -- you anticipate what's going to happen and plan escape routes for when a tourist stops in mid-sidewalk or inexplicably reverses course because they want to get just one more picture of the huge "Lion King" sign. You look for the telltale signs: The expensive, but not too expensive, camera slung around the neck. The shiny-brand-new Yankees cap. The New York Subway Map clasped firmly in the right hand, but never quite refolded properly. When you see these signs, you try avoidance, or at the very least keep a safe distance to avoid a catostrophic collision.
I mentioned this great performance piece in a previous posting, but Manhattan Hillbilly fan Catherine Stotts forwarded me the video, so enjoy:
As for me, after eight weeks I'm now moving at New Yorker speed. Except when I walk past the Wall Street Journal newscrawl . Whenever I first come out of the subway, I always stop dead in my tracks to read -- just like a tourist.
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.
One of the enjoyments you get for your $2.25 subway fare is the sense of excitement as you stare longingly down the tunnel, wondering when is my train going to show up? It's a tradition to gaze eagerly down the tube hoping to catch that first glimpse of headlamps reflecting off the tile and concrete in the tunnel, knowing like a kid waiting for Christmas morning that your un-airconditioned 7 train is on its way.
So it was until recently when the MTA began installing LED signs that tell you exactly how many minutes away your next train is. Now, the excitement is gone.
Artist Jason Eppink shares the disappointment, and surreptitiously began installing (unofficial) signs warning riders that the information on the sign is a spoiler. It's cute, it's creative and it reminds us to avert our eyes and let the mystery remain.
Eppink has a history of doing such stunts, including this classic sidewalk lane piece where he divided up the sidewalk into lanes for New Yorkers and for tourists.
This photograph of John Lennon is iconic. When he moved to New York City in 1971 he was fleeing the disintegration of The Beatles and the country in which he'd spent all his life.
New York was a new adventure to him. He commented that if he had lived in Roman times he would have moved to Rome. Since the United States was the dominant empire of his time, it was natural he would gravitate toward it's epicenter, New York.
Lennon liked the power of the city. The energy. The clubs. The activities. But he also liked the fact that it afforded him a little anonymity. With a hat pulled over his head and some sunglasses he could walk on the streets with little fanfare. For someone who had been mobbed by Beatle fans for most of his 20s, it was a great feeling.
I don't know how close I'll be living to The Dakota, the well-known and ritzy apartment building where he lived and where in front of its entrance he died, but I have little doubt I'll walk by it often. Sadly, I've noticed it's become a major stop on the tourist routes, and during the summer you can't go by without seeing someone taking photographs of the spot where John was shot and killed.
Lennon's New York years are so iconic, the Rock and Roll Museum's New York Annex even has an exhibit about John's time living in New York:
New Yorkers still have a warm spot for Lennon, and many of them were instrumental in battling Nixon when he tried to have John deported after his green card expired in 1972 and he wanted to becoming a citizen. They liked him because he chose them, and they appreciated the compliment. He got his permanent resident card on July 4, 1976, and would have been eligible to apply for citizenship in 1981.
I've chosen New York too, and hopefully I will love the energy, excitement and opportunity of the city as much as John did.
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