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.

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.

Time Lapse of Manhattan

I'm really becoming a sucker for these things. Ah, well. It doesn't take much to keep a hillbilly like me entertained. Ya'll have a great weekened wherever you are!

 

Go Vols! (Empire State Building edition)

How nice of the Empire State Building to light itself orange and white on behalf of my University of Tennessee Volunteers last night!

(Actually, it was to recognize the Lupus Foundation, but I'll pretend).

Will this building destroy city's skyline?

 
Big fight going on right now about the proposed 15 Penn Plaza building for midtown Manhattan. A lot of purists -- and the current owner of the Empire State Building -- think the sleek tower would ruin the views from the ESB, and of the city in general. Currently the plan is for the new tower to be just 34 feet shorter than the ESB.

Your thoughts? Comments section is below.

In a city of ugly buildings, here's your top 10

There are some impressive structures in Manhattan. There's a lot of architectural garbage. Here's a slideshow of the 10 ugliest buildings. Quite candidly, these aren't the worst, but they're the most notable among the worst.

Checking off my "Hillbilly Bucket List"

The countdown to my departure from the South has begun. And with it comes the reality that I will be leaving the only life I've ever known. A life of walking barefoot, of ya'lls a ma'ms and blackberry jams. So amidst the chaos of packing, selling the trailer, loading up the car, finding a job and figuring out whether to drive up I-95 or I-81, I need to find time to do that "one thing, one last time" before I depart the region of my birth. So here's a short list I devised, a sort of "Hillbilly Bucket List." Feel free to add suggestions in the comments section below.

• Climb Stone Mountain
• Eat at Paschal's
• Jump off a rope swing into the Chattahoochee
• Stick my feel in a waterfall in the Smoky Mountains
• Play Indian bingo in Cherokee, N.C.
• Attend as many college and high school football games as possible
• Go visit my old family cemetery on Roan Mountain
• Go to a movie at the Swan Drive-In
• Eat at a Waffle House
• Water ski while wearing a beer helmet
• Attend a beagle field trial
• Watch a Civil War reenactment
• Buy a watermelon in the "Watermelon Capitol of the World."
• Attend a lowcountry shrimp boil
• Finally get around to touring the Cyclorama
• Whitewater raft the Ocoee, Nantahala and New rivers
• Have a beer at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge
• Attend an Atlanta Rhythm Section concert
• Bake a peach cobbler
• Stock up on country ham

Did I leave anything out?

Apartment hunting: Now here's a very nice view

OK, here's an Uppper East Side apartment with an interesting view out the window.

 

For the uninitiated, that's the Queensboro Bridge and the Roosevelt Island Tramway just outside the window. I kinda liked the idea of sitting in my bathrobe and watching the hordes of commuters packed into the trams and on the bridge as I sipped my coffee.

Apartment-hunting up to now has been an esoteric exercise. Once we get the official word that this relocation is really going to happen, then it will get serious -- and very, very scary.

More to come.