The MTA Network: Working On The Railroad

Flashing Lights.

Every time I passed this spot,I’m compelled to take a pic. 40/41th and Park Avenue, looking north at Grand Central Terminal and the Met Life Building. I don’t know if it’s the lights (which are always out) or if it’s the overhead roadway or the statues in the pediment on the GCT entrance, but I have like 40 pictures- day/night, winter/summer.

#shoutout to my ‘patnah in crime,’ @deedarling, who works around the corner: we still got a lunch date at Golosi on the block…maybe on your bday..

NYC Song Of The Week: “El Tigeraso” – Maluca

…Wait, lemme stop dancing first. Just give me a minute…

… … … … …

I could have put this song up for my international post or for hype song of the week, it’s just that good and I would describe it as hype music..but all roads lead back NYC. I have to give shoutouts to Buraka Som Sistema and Le Poisson Rouge for exposing me to this talent, my neighbor from uptown, @MALUCAMALA. I first heard her at a show at LPR, she opened for BSS and she was hot. A good live act.

182nd and Audubon, huh,  sounds more like 177th and Amsterdam, Highbridge Park in the Summer. Cookouts turn into dance parties, abuelo with the piragua cart and the coquito at the bottom. (That’s grandpa, snowcones and frozen coconut and rum drinks for all my unilingual readers out there.)

I can play this track over and over, it just resonates in my head and I just let it keep running. Then twenty minutes later I realize I’m playing a playlist with only one song in it. After one more listen, then I stop.

See more Maluca.  See more Buraka Post.

<<<Last Week’s Song<<<>>>Next Week>>>

Full Stomach, Shame And A Smile: $15 Lunch

No matter how you slice it, fifthteen dollars for a single meal is a a lot of dough…And I call myself a Recessionist. We all need those times to splurge and GO IN on something really good even if it’s outside the normal spending limit. Now that I’m working back in Manhattan, I have to be very conscience of how my money is spent.

“How much for a plain slice? $4.50? American Dollars?”

“How much for a hot dog, sir? $3!! In real life?” Yeah, Manhattan will get you.

The ironic thing is that the last time I was working in the neighborhood I was a bit younger, making a bit less and I used to meal like this everyday. Ahh, to still be under my mother’s roof.  This meal is from Bagel Maven on 30th Street and 7th Avenue on the northwest corner and I fully endorse their make-your-own-salads. $12 for a salad isn’t that much for some people (I’ll be going here once a week- max). But the meal was great: mixed greens with spinach and Mesculun; sun-dried and sliced tomatoes; feta cheese; garbanzo beans, walnuts (my true love);  chopped bacon and cajun chicken breast. With some zesty lemon vinaigrette and lemon chipotle dressing, two kinds of BBQ/hot chips (nothing beats Wise, they’re the best, the original The Orange/ Peach/ Mango Tropicana was a must, as well. Wow, when it’s laid out all like that, it sounds like it should be $15, doesn’t it.

I then went to McDonald’s for a co-worker and got her two chicken “snack wrap,” “snackers,” “snackity things” for $1.39 each…what a world apart, that child is. McDonald’s is so 1998.

That meal had me satisfied for about five hours, by the way.

Around Grand Central Terminal

There is never a day that I’m not in awe by some of the beautiful sites I see around the city.

Time Square.11.27.09

It is incredibly rare it is to see Time Square completely empty, honestly, I kind of looks different to me right here. When the place is so crowded, you can’t fully appreciated how incredible the buildings are and how small you feel when you’re in the middle of the street. This was the first time I felt the “canyon effect” from being here. This must be how tourists feel when they visit.  NOTE: These pictures were take at 3:37am.

By the way, that McDonald’s is open, but there are halal carts on 44th and 11th, 9th, 8th, 7th and two on 6th and they’lre all out til the wee hours of the morning on Friday and Saturday nights. My dude Mustafa knows the best way to soak up the alcohol from the club is with a lamb/falafel gyro, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, easy on the white sauce o.d. on the hot sauce. (I truly woke up after that sandwich.)

By the way, the guy’s name really was Mustafa, that wasn’t an adlib.

Astor Place.

That’s the uptown 6 train down there and it’s running express in The Bronx- that’s my kinda’ train. And what am I doing, trying to get the perfect shot through the bars so I can tweet and blog about it later. HA! Me and my tech addictions…but, yeah I made the train *long legs and I through them ‘bows like a natives* And if I didn’t, the good thing about the 6 trains is that they run pretty frequently, but every other one is express.

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams, NYC.1

I call the area around Port Authority, Boulevard Of Broken Dreams. Actually the boulevard literally starts at 30th and 8th ends around 52th, but around the bus terminal is especially seedy and gross. It looks like the shuttle from the Island of Dr. Moreau just let out passengers. I swear, people from all of over America board Greyhound buses with champagne wishes and caviar dreams and get off at 42nd street and all of their hopes dissipate. Some people don’t even leave the area. Runaways, dopefiends and prostitutes, oh my.  It’s sad in an I’m-glad-I-was-born-here kind of way, because this city WILL eat you up and not spit you out.

Downtown Manhattan

These are some really beautiful shots of Downtown Manhattan, looking eastward towards the outer boroughs, Brooklyn and Queens, taken from one of the floors of the Federal Plaza Building. I was getting a new social security card, which is entirely too easy to do, by the way (now I see how illegals get licences and pay taxes.) The picture of the street below, is my favorite.

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A-Train At Penn Station

Manny Hanny Whoas

This is the scene I see every morning on my way to work. I’m on the Manhattan Bridge, leaving Manhattan for Brooklyn- how wrong is that. It’s like leaving Chili for Tamika Foster.

Downtown Manhattan looks so beautiful under the blue sky, if you look closely (on the left), you can see the Statue Of Liberty beyond the Brooklyn Bridge, all the way down the harbor.

Junkie NYC

The AM New York’s cover story today is about the rise in Heroin and perscription drug use in the city, especially amongst teens and 20 year olds. I’m glad to see that a news organization is covering this story, but where the hell have they been the last ten, twenty, thirty years? All you have to do is go to 125th Street and Lexington Avenue to see the drug epidemic up close and personal. You could stock up your entire medicine cabinet for a month off of deals made on the corner in front of Pathmark. Pfizer has nothing on the junkies at Skid Row. 24/7 the people beg for change, turn in bottles and cans at the recycle spot, dope-lean on the sidewalk, exchange pharmacueticals and drug contraband, open the doors for patrons at McDonald’s and Famiglia, sell loose cigarettes and swipes using tampered metrocard. All the while the officers just let it happen, they only interject when people complain or violence ensues. It’s one of Manhattan’s dirty not-so-little secrets, the East Side of Harlem is disgusting (including the 4/5/6 train lines) and it only gets worst the further east you go. I once saw a hooker going to town on one of her custies under the overpass on 1st Ave and 125th- in broad daylight (I was on the bus going to The Bronx, I wasn’t “shopping” or anything.)