Surreal, New York City

A walker in the city—who by definition has no destination except to get around—ends up a visual treasure seeker. Multitudes of streets hold the real, the beautiful, the unexpected, and the bizarre–sometimes all four at once. What to make of a black nude female torso hanging from a brass luggage rack above a stand of yellow daffodils? Or the guy who tries to shake me down for a few dollars after I laugh and grab a quick pic?

Slowly the puzzle resolves, aided by years of urban experience. I’ve run across the Department of Outlandish Found Objects, curated by a sidewalk book peddler. You might walk right by his shabby folding table, his thinking goes, but you can’t walk right by this. I don’t know where he gets his stacks of new and tattered books, his headless hanging nude or his crazy whimsical ideas. But if he had a book on Man Ray, I would need to buy it, wouldn’t you?

Mini Me, New York City

Evolving 3-D printing technology is pretty darn amazing, from household doodads and clothing all the way to houses and body parts. We can’t print full humans— yet—but Doob-3D™ a German 3-D printing company with two stores in New York City and seven more across the United States, promises to capture the real you in a core resin polymer figurine. It’s 3-D narcissism, a “selfie” in the round.

Enter the onsite “Dooblicator,™” which looks a little like an airport scanner, and a few weeks later receive your freshly printed mini-me. So-called Doobs™ range in price from a $99 4-inch “Buddy” to a 14-inch $699 “Diva.” They’re not exactly cheap, but, I suppose, a perfect gift for that person in your life who has everything. Why collect Lalique birds or Herend bunnies when you can gather up your own life stages?

The Upper East Side store features the material timeline of “Heather,” (photo below). You see figurines of Heather pregnant, holding a baby, and then with growing family. Looking at a row of aging tiny Heathers made me feel a little nervous, like pet taxidermy or The Twilight Zone. I can easily imagine a Black Mirror episode where Doobs—kissing couples, siblings off to school, beloved huggable dogs—come alive at night on their little shelves and march off to subsume their flesh and blood hosts.

Creepiness aside, there’s also something sweet and sentimental going on here. Time is a killer beast. Like photos and videos, making your own 3-D Doob is a proud, defiant move. Her children may grow up, marry, and have children of their own. But Heather will be able to hold her unwrinkled pregnant self forever in her hands.

Octotruck, New York City

This city used to run on coffee and conversation, but now it’s WiFi and the cloud. On bus and subway, citizens make personal space silos by plugging eyes and ears into smart phones. Today’s news is cleanly streamed and scrolled, not folded. Down at the new and shiny Hudson Yards, the neighborhood of the future presents an immaculate plaza, gleaming supertall glass towers, and a mirrored copper-clad staircase to the sky.

Undaunted, old New York standbys like graffiti and clutter persist on uptown streets like hardy weeds. Phone booths and large stacks of Sunday papers may be almost gone, but sidewalk boxes manage to hang in. So do random funny moments in an unexpected street scene. Here, four giveaway newspaper boxes line up like sentinels around a mailbox. Behind them, a big-eyed mollusk painted on a parked truck seems to grab the old print freebies. Only in New York: an octopus has snatched three dinosaurs.

Music Haul, New York City

Back before Uber and Lyft and Task Rabbit, the original members of the gig economy were the people who did gigs, i.e., freelance musicians. All over New York City, their instruments are visibly on the go. Mighty basses wheel down subway platforms, clever guitars steal bus seats, nimble flutes ride bikes, and leggy cellos, like the one above, are backpacked down the street. In this case, the case is critical. Why stick to dowdy brown or black when you can pack your axe in brilliant red or yellow fiberglass? This cello guy was so bright, graphic and eerily humanoid that I had to tail him for several blocks. All the while, I could feel his Cyclops eye looking right back at me.

Green Beans, New York City

Amazon packages may be scary fast and shamefully convenient, but they have yet to arrive with steaming coffee. They’re also not a textured communal experience (read here to find out why The New York Times thinks human contact is the newest luxury good).

Which may explain the growing tendency to caffeinate all sorts of urban spaces.

Custom cappuccinos have spread from bookstores to bank and hotel lobbies, gyms, clothing and home good stores, chocolate boutiques, barbershops, cocktail bars, Lexus Intersect accessories, and even a high-end car wash (see my post, Cleansed, August 18, 2018). Ditto churches and museums. No matter where you go, it seems that specialty coffee just the way you like it is there, too.

Even florists have joined the hybrid-retail trend. In Midtown East, Remi Flower and Coffee Shop sprinkles rose petals and lavender on cappuccinos. On the Upper West Side, the PlantShed sells custom coffee (would you like that with oat milk?), matcha tea and super-trendy Dirty Lemon charcoal drinks inside an enchanting indoor forest of small trees, hardy plants, terrariums, ferns, succulents, and fresh flowers. Cozy café tables in a garden setting add to the relaxing vibe. I got seduced into coffee to stay and flowers to go. Which, I guess, is exactly the point.

Uplifted, New York City

Everyone knows that balloons are just for kids, except, of course, they’re not. Adults send and receive them all the time. With their short little lives and tender thin skins, balloons—like cut flowers, chocolate and childhood—are a vote for joy in the moment. You have to be resilient to enjoy them.

Surprising someone you love in Manhattan with a big bunch of balloons is fun, but it’s not easy. Forget the backseat of a taxi, walking is the way to go. Still, casualties are inevitable. If scaffolding pops a few, hang tough. Pickpockets got all my cash while I was walking two dozen to a party in the park. Never mind. Balloons had long ago taught me how to weather small loss.

It’s entirely possible to hate clowns but love balloons. I certainly do. In her book, The Principles Of Uncertainty, artist Maira Kalman asks, “We see trees. What more do you need?” My answer is, balloons, of course. At the end of all those strings is someone’s loving hand.

Carted, New York City

As the holiday countdown accelerates, Christmas trees are on the run. Or more precisely, on the roll—in shopping carts and wheelbarrows—and on the lug, by hand. Streaks of deep green dot the dull gray landscape as the trees move by. I’ve seen them slung over shoulders like children, tucked under arms like medieval spears, and propped up like commuters on the subway. The doors open and the tree steps off, a memory of pine needles on the train floor. Sometimes the whole family chips in. Parents hug the end like goal posts while a couple of little kids lift the saggy middle. The whole street smiles at the effort. A grand behemoth is a joyful burden. Ten blocks home or five flights up can loom like eternity. But it’s an essential New York tradition—the tree must go on.

Transported, New York City

“I’m almost dead.”

I realized after a second that the skateboarder rolling slowly to a stop near me was calling to his friend about battery power. Not health.

I see the future and it is e-assisted. Soon we will have bionic hands and plug-in feet and chip-implanted brains. Until they arrive, we are in the clunky appendage boom. We strap smart watches to our wrists. We cradle iPhones. We pedal-assist our bikes, Li-ionize our scooters, electrify our skateboards. In cities across the U.S., dockless Bird and Lime e-scooters duke it out with pedestrians and local laws. Personal transporters ‘R Us.

I snapped these two night riders at Columbus Circle just as dusk began to fall. Their boosted boards sent small cones of light ahead like tiny lighthouses across a pavement sea. Intrepid but practical, they were sensibly geared up in helmets, heavy jackets, gloves and backpacks. I figured the fellow with knee pads and fierce red tail-light had fallen once. His talismanic level of protection spoke to me of caution born of experience.

I was curious to know where they had started and for how long they had been going. I wanted to hear what brand they were riding and if they had tinkered with the design. But before I could get my nerve up to ask, the traffic light changed. They leaned back, tilted up, and off they went, across the circle and into the muffled velvet dark.

Bellows, NYC

Accordionists are rare birds these days. Like supermarkets, landlines and cash, they speak to me of a disappearing time. I first fell in love with its elegiac sound at the age of two, when my parents hired a dark and handsome accordionist to perform outdoors at a garden party. I was never sure if it was him or his miniature piano-like instrument I was crushing on, but watching him turn squeezed air into music was mesmerizing. Walking across Central Park on a moody November day, I found this contemplative performer perched near the angel fountain at Bethesda Terrace. His eyes were closed and he was lost in a contagious reverie. Soon, I’d caught it too.

Spied, New York City

The city streets used to be places where you could blend in and disappear. No longer. As a resident New Yorker, I hate to think of how many tourist selfies I’ve accidentally appeared in. I imagine little pieces of myself in phones all over the world. Somewhere, in some remote place, a returned tourist is undoubtedly giggling over my backside in leggings in one of their shots.

Between ubiquitous cell phones and street cameras, you are more likely to be tracked, recorded, photographed and broadcast while going about your daily business than ever before. According to the World Atlas, New York City is the fourth most surveilled city in the world after London, Beijing and Chicago. It’s making the streets safer, but in exchange for what exactly?

I took this photo of artist JR’s giant Peeping Tom pasted onto Galerie Perrotin’s brick facade this past summer just as a man walked by. It’s art about the act of looking: from the outside in, as a curious act, and as an intervention. Ironically, as I captured the image, I became a spy on the man walking by underneath. I was watching the guy watching his phone and capturing it for the Internet.

It’s a sign of the times that in Gary Shteyngart’s new comic novel, Lake Success (Random House, 2018), the troubled hedge funder Barry Cohen leaves New York via Greyhound bus to find anonymity. Trashing his phone and credit card to avoid his persistent high-octane assistant, he goes on the lam in search of the self he has lost. It seems it’s now easier to get lost on the highways of America than in the streets of New York.

Anonymity is a bubble that could instantly pop. Maybe, like Tom Hanks and Madonna, we all need to wear sunglasses and baseball caps outside. It’s nice to be unseen in broad daylight.

Overhead, NYC

A crazy thicket of scaffolds is turning New Yorkers into moles. The other day I walked two long dark and dingy scaffolded blocks in a row, turned a scaffolded corner and walked yet another without seeing open sky. I wasn't just a mole. I was a mole in a maze. 

City laws promote the erection of scaffolds, but don't legally limit how long they can stay up (for details, read here). As a result, they're out of control. Something must be done. An obvious step is to regulate how long they can stay up. But there's an easier idea.

When I walked under this Hanging Garden of Scaffold outside Cafe Lalo (the Upper West Side destination pastry shop where a scene in You've Got Mail was shot), I realized exactly what was needed. Uplifting interior design. 

I propose The 2018 Scaffold Law of Aesthetic Uplift to stop the blight. Imagine the possibilities. Tiki Scaffold, Fiesta Scaffold, Disco Scaffold? Big Apple Orchard, King Kongland, Lady Liberty Lot? Think of blocks of lights at Christmas! Consider the stage sets outside Broadway! Tourists would come from all over to visit The Big Scaffold. Twinkling light and fake flower businesses would boom. People would actually mourn when the tunnels left. 

Goodbye, mole people. Hello, party in the streets! What do you think?

Pride, NYC

Whistles are a stop sign for the ears. Traffic cops, lifeguards and referees all use them to control the flow of action. But whistles have a happier side, too. A child with a whistle skips to a self-made joyful rhythm. Whistle-blowing can be fun, but it's not always easy. Sometimes it takes deeper convictions than lungs to blow a metaphorical whistle in corporations and government.

The annual NYC Pride March through Greenwich Village has always been a compelling mix of resistance, protest and celebration. The theme of this year's march (June 20, 2018), "Defiantly Different," protested the Trump and other world government administration's ongoing efforts to strip LGBTQIA protections and rights. Serious signs of protest joined bucketloads of glitter, confetti and rainbows on marchers and their floats. 

This large green team from TD Bank walked by tooting their own whistles and handing out free ones to onlookers. I grabbed one as did the people shoulder to shoulder with me. Individually, our tiny shrill exhales were impossible to hear. But all together, we made some damn serious noise. 

Play Ball, NYC

Let's not talk about the Mets.

Taunting a Mets fan is like kicking a puppy or pinching a baby. You would have to be extra cruel to want to inflict harm on such a sweet and vulnerable group. 

But hope springs eternal at the start of every summer, including on a ballfield shoved under the highway and dwarfed by skyscrapers. Here, Little Leaguers hit and run on a summer morning. Painted by imagination, it's a field of dreams.

The endless traffic rumble from the elevated Parkway? Really the roar of the crowds. The gigantic green metal curved highway supports? The magnificent arches of a stadium entrance in the Bronx. The imposing line of glass building windows? Press box and corporate skyboxes, of course.

Diamonds are precious here. You take what you can get.

Block out those stressed and anxious managers, aka parents, shouting tips and tricks. Keep your eye on the ball, wait for your pitch and swing for the stands. This just might be the time it flies over the chain link fence and straight onto the bike path. See-ya!

And the noise fills up the stadium.

Flower Hour, NYC

Urban Irony #353: you can shop for growing things while underground yourself. With the onset of Memorial Day weekend, my spring flower craving deepens. The subway florist Botany Bar, buried down in the Turnstyle Underground Market at Columbus Circle, serves up singular orchid "spritzers" on a silver platter. The whimsical shop also concocts air plant "shots," succulent "flights," and a "six-pack" sampler "for your next BYOP event." 

I don't just like to BYOP, I also love to seasonally BYOB. Since I can't plant violets on Memorial Day (I've got a park, but no backyard), I drink them. A fragrant bottle of Creme de Violette inspires botanical violet gimlets and brings flower power to my apartment while green thumbs are out in their backyard tilling soil.

I may not have a bed of dirt to run my fingers through, but I can work with metaphors. Here's another: You don't have to have a backyard patio to make your life a garden party.

Trashed, New York City

It was a dark and stormy night when a scofflaw snuck this unloved TV with shattered screen out to the curb. I've seen a lot of random refuse in my time, including an entire piano soundboard and a sweet hand-painted sign saying "Mom loves Norm" (was it Mom or Norm who put it out?). But this was my first sad and forlorn flat screen stuck out in melting spring snow.

All trash tells a story: This one's a double crime in progress. New York City law requires e-waste to be taken to an electronic recycling station. Also, household garbage is banned from sidewalk sanitation baskets. Who could do such a thing? Maybe there's a registered serial number here. No doubt the perp is chomping popcorn and streaming Netflix on a newer model at this very moment.

The questions ask themselves. How did the screen crack? Did the TV fall off the wall or was an object thrown at it? Who opts for Vizio over Panasonic? Let's look at motives. Did a lazy owner with a guilty conscience think, "Nah, not lugging it on the subway. But I'll almost do the right thing." Or in blind denial, "Perhaps someone will want it?" The plot lines are endless.

Spring cleaning can be ruthless. Could have been a condo-owning Kondo-izer (The Life-Changing Magic of Cleaning Up by Marie Kondo) or a foresighted Swedish death-cleaner (The Gentle Art of Swedish Death-Cleaning: How to Free You and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter by Margareta Magnusson. Broken TV's certainly do not spark joy or thrill heirs.

The only thing I know for sure. It was a dark and stormy night. All better to avoid the $200 fine.

Bulldogged, New York City

In Wes Anderson's fabulous film Isle of Dogs, canines are removed from daily life and banished to a remote island. Here in Manhattan, it's the opposite. We're an Isle of Dogs that has Aisles of Dogs. I've seen pets tucked, lifted, dragged, walked, seated and scooped just about everywhere, including to Starbucks and the movies. Trendy owners now bring fur babies to the office, or even the post office (above). The problem is not all breeds are good walkers. Some tire easily on skinny little legs; others may be heavy as bowling balls. Enter, four wheels. Compared to, say, bringing an emotional support peacock to the airport, doing chores with a bulldog in a baby stroller is a walk in the park. But the sight of a regal dog in a cushy throne always makes me wonder. Who's the real master?