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Tuesday, 14 August 2012 - Shaking it on Sixth

 
 
11am at work this morning and we suddenly hear a huge ruckus from down below - music and screaming and all sorts. My building is right across from Radio City Music Hall, an entertainment complex opened in 1932. It has a seating capacity of over 6,000 and was the largest movie theatre in the world at the time of its opening. Radio City is home to The Rockettes, a "precision" dance company famous for their shows during the Christmas season which they've been putting on every year for almost 80 years now. They put on a free show in the middle of Sixth Avenue this morning as part of their annual Christmas In August event. I would have been down there in a heartbeat for a closer look but I had a friggin' conference call with Microsoft at that very moment - bugger!
 
In other news, the local lottery just jackpotted to over $300 million, and for the sake of $10 I figured why not! The draw is tomorrow night, so I'll probably be quitting my job on Thursday and spending the rest of my life travelling the world, so stay tuned ;)

Thursday, 16 August 2012 - I won!

 
So the ticket from yesterday came with a freebie - the one liner above, which as it turns out has won me... $4. Yup, I got the so-called "Powerball" - the little bonus number at the end which has yielded me a 40% return on my $10 investment ;) My boss actually won the same amount, so after telling each other we wouldn't be coming into work anymore we both turned up this morning. The Powerball hadn't been won in several weeks and the jackpot was a whopping $320 million (before tax, which amounts to quite a lot). Someone has apparently won it though over in Michigan, but they're yet to come forward. Unreal huh. The rest of us can only imagine.
 

Friday, 17 August 2012 - Drink!

 
 
I passed this on the back of a Coca Cola truck on the way in to work this morning. This is referring to Mayor Bloomberg's unprecedented proposal of banning super-sized sweet drinks. He wants to restrict soda drink servings to no more than 16 ounces (just under half a litre), which is half the size of the biggest, bucket-like container that patrons commonly guzzle from in cinemas, sports arenas and the like. I guess as far as he's concerned soda is the devil, and enticing fatties with no self-control with copious amounts of the stuff in a one hit can't be a good thing. Not surprisingly, a lot of folk aren't happy with the proposal and the idea of being told what they can and can't drink. On the other side of the coin, Fat Man Joe smashes back a couple litres of Coke on a regular basis, has himself an inevitable coronary, and this scenario adds pressure to the health system.
 
And right across the street: a beer truck hehe.

Saturday, 18 August 2012 - Manhattan Waterfront Greenway (part 2)

 
The Manhattan Waterfront Greenway is a 51km pedestrian and cycle loop path around the island of Manhattan. I started exploring it a couple weeks ago but amid all the distractions along the way I didn't manage to finish it. Well, here's the rest of it, starting right where I left off along the west of the island on the shore of the Hudson River at the USS Intrepid.
 
The Intrepid in an aircraft carrier built during World War II for the United States Navy. It is now part of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum - a military and maritime history museum. It houses a Concorde (I'm not sure which one), a Lockheed A-12 supersonic reconnaissance plane which you can see above, and the Space Shuttle Enterprise as of a few months ago.
 
 
So continuing from where I left off last time, this is heading south towards the Financial District and the southern tip of the island.

 
 
This is all part of the Hudson River Park which spans 550 acres along the waterfront, and includes tennis courts, soccer fields, playgrounds, dog parks, large sweaty men running who probably shouldn't be, and so on. In the distance there is the One World Trade Center building.
 
Due for completion sometime next year, it's going to be an impressive sight.

 
Construction of One World Trade Center obstructs the Greenway path which detours through this - the World Financial Center Plaza. Amongst all this office space are dozens of shops and restaurants, and this awesome waterfront esplanade. The layout of it along with the boats parked up reminded me of Auckland's Viaduct Harbour, though on a much grander scale.

 
 
Nice day for a bit of this.
 
Also nearby is the New York City Police Memorial site, honouring those who have been killed in the line of duty. There are a lot of names etched into that wall.
 
Back on the path on the other side of 1 WTC.

 
 
A little further south is Robert F. Wagner Park (a former New York mayor in the 50s and 60s), part of the 25-acre Battery Park on the southern tip of Manhattan Island.
 
From here you get a great view across the Hudson to Jersey City - the second-most populous in the state of New Jersey. The client I'm working for (UBS) have an office over there which I will probably end up visiting at some point.
 
Also close by is the Statue of Liberty, which is an easy visit if you don't mind standing in a huge queue of tourists.

 
 
Other spots around Battery Park, including a memorial to the Korean War on the right featuring "The Universal Soldier" monument. The monument is positioned such that at every July 27 at 10am, the anniversary of the exact moment in New York when hostilities ceased in Korea, the sun shines through the soldier's head and illuminates the commemorative plaque installed in the ground at the foot of the statue. Also nearby is The Sphere, a large metallic sculpture that once stood in the area between the World Trade Center towers. It was recovered from the rubble after the 9/11 attacks and relocated to Battery Park without any repairs. It has since become a major tourist attraction, due partly to the fact that it survived the attacks with only dents and holes. I walked right past it but, not realising what it was nor the significance of it, I didn't bother getting a shot.

 
Further around the tip of the island under FDR Drive is this bustling little market and the historic South Street Seaport. The seaport features restored early 19th-century buildings including renovated original mercantile buildings, renovated sailing ships, and modern tourist malls featuring food, shopping and nightlife on Pier 17 above.

 
 
I stole this shot looking overlooking the seaport and the renovated ships as seen from Pier 17 with the Financial District in the background.
 
Nearby is the Brooklyn Bridge (with a lot of construction work currently going on), looking over towards Brooklyn Bridge Park which I checked out a few weeks ago.
 
Well thank goodness you told me.

 
The final stretch, heading north again along the East River Park and promenade. This almost featured in my New York in Time Lapse video I put together recently, but I had to cut it for timing reasons.
 
 
Looking up the East River towards Queensboro Bridge with the United Nations Headquarters on the left (the white building that looks like a Tetris block).
 
And that is pretty much it for the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway - good stuff! Shortly after the photo on left the path is diverted onto the road for about 30 blocks (with a dedicated cycle lane the whole way) up to the point where I started the whole thing.

Sunday, 19 August 2012 - Polar panorama effect

This is a panorama I took in Kuala Lumpur last year. I've been playing around with a technique known as the "polar panorama effect". In a nutshell, you take a 360-degree panorama such as this one, and after all said and done what you end up with is...

 
 
...this :) It's basically a spherical representation of a two-dimensional plane. Largers version here.
 
While ideal, a full 360-degree panorama isn't absolutely necessary as long as the image meets certain criteria. This one I took outside of Newcastle in Australia meets some of them so I worked on this one too and ended up with...
 
...this. Rather than a planet though, I made this a cylinder. Good stuff.

 
 
A quick Google Images search reveals some stunning examples of this effect. I've seen these before but never really looked into creating any of my own until now. Hopefully more to follow!

Wednesday, 22 August 2012 - Planet Astoria

Following on from above on what I was saying about the polar panorama effect, we got a really nice sunset tonight so I played around with it a bit more. This is a 360-degree panorama of the view from the roof deck of my apartment building in Astoria. Larger size here.

Same again a few hours later. Larger size here.

 
And these are those same panoramas with the polar panorama effect - pretty cool huh?! Larger sizes here and here.

Thursday, 23 August 2012 - One year later
Today last year I left the UK after five long years and headed to Texas to start my ten months of travelling with Kristina. In that time we covered umpteen destinations across umpteen countries, and now I live in New York (and she'll be joining me in just a few weeks). Not a bad year!

Friday, 24 August 2012 - Midtown shooting #2

 
 
At 9:30am this morning I got an alert on my phone from a local news network about a shooting outside the Empire State Building. Details were sketchy but it had been confirmed there were two dead including the shooter, and nine others injured. The Empire State is less than 20 blocks from my office, so come lunch I grabbed my camera and headed down there. News choppers roared overhead and Fifth Avenue was chaos due to the police closing part of the road. Once past the road blocks (outside the New York Public Library here) it was strangely serene.

 
 
Right under the 450-metre monster I joined the rest of the hoard having a nosey. By now there wasn't much to see other than a lot of cops and a lot of news crews. In a nutshell, a guy who was laid off from his job in April 2011 returned and shot his former work colleague at close range in the head right outside the front door on 33rd Street (there had apparently been some long-running and on-going animosity between the two). He then calmly walked off but was followed by a construction worker who witnessed the shooting. The construction worker discreetly called the cops, of which there is no shortage in the area due to the Empire State Building being one of the city's most popular tourist attractions. The cops intercepted him just one block later at this intersection of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street. The guy apparently took aim, and the cops took him down. Nine bystanders suffered minor gunshots wounds in the process but none are considered life threatening. More info here.

 
I could do his job ;)
 
'Twas just another day in the Big Apple. Not even two weeks ago the cops were forced to take another idiot down in Midtown, coincidently near another major tourist attraction - Times Square.

Saturday, 25 August 2012 - Astoria, and Wheelchair Island

 
Well I had a very different destination in mind for a ride today, and although there was no forecast of rain it was far enough away that I didn't want to take a chance. So instead I stayed local and explored my own neck of the woods (which I probably should have done by now anyway).
 
So I live in the north-western corner of the borough of Queens in an area called Astoria. It's a pretty ethnically-diverse spot, but then so is most of the city. During the 60s a lot of Greeks moved into the area, giving Astoria the largest Greek population outside of Greece itself. Then in the mid-70s, Astoria's Arab population started to balloon and since the early 90s the South American and European population has seen significant growth. I recently added one to the New Zealand population hehe (though I'm starting to wonder whether I'm the only one).

 
 
The area is a mix of busy commercial roads plonked amongst quiet leafy residential streets. It really has a bit of everything: great shopping, nice apartments, a tonne of restaurants and cafes and bars etc., perfect location for Manhattan commuting and LGA - you name it. Anyway, I started scouring the neighbourhood to see what I could find.
 
For example.
 
Oh and there's a prison nearby haha, good to know. Rikers Island is New York City's main jail complex and is adjacent to LaGuardia Airport's runways. When I first flew in about two months ago I actually saw it from the air and thought to myself "Jesus what is that, a prison?!" Jesus never answers but it turns out it was indeed a prison, so there you go.

 
Down on the shore of the East River is Astoria Park. It's hardly Central Park but it's nice enough. I was rather bemused by the number of people out sunbathing, under the clouds.

 
 
I rode along the shore for a bit and under the Triborough Bridge, so-called because it spans the boroughs of Manhattan, Queens, and The Bronx (the only borough New York's five that I'm yet to venture into).
 
Further along I found this, some sort of random show by some local home boyz for the local hood.
 
This chick was digging it.

 
 
Further along again is this - the only bridge over to Roosevelt Island. This thing rises to allow large ships to pass beneath. Apparently it's broken down once or twice and refused to lower after being raised hehe.
 
When the bridge shits itself there's a Subway stop on the island, and there's this - the Roosevelt Island tram which travels over the river and into Midtown Manhattan. When this thing breaks down you're left dangling high in the sky over the East River.

 
Roosevelt Island is a narrow slither of land in the middle of the East River between Manhattan and Queens. It's 3km long and just 250m wide at its widest point. I was told the island was nothing but apartment complexes, and in fact I almost looked at an apartment here during my hunt when I first arrived in New York. These two shots pretty much sum that up. That street down there is called Main Street, but it may as well be called Only Street.

 
 
After passing several apartment buildings I reached the northern tip of island and the Blackwell Island Lighthouse (the island's former name). The stone lighthouse is 15m tall and was built in 1872. Yup.
 
A planet of the island's northern tip with Manhattan on the top and Astoria on the bottom. Larger version here.

 
From the lighthouse I started heading the whole 3km south opposite Manhattan's east side and more apartment buildings to the southern tip.

 
 
Not a bad spot for a bite. That's the Queensboro Bridge in the background - part of my route to and from work.
 
Now if there's one thing to rival the number of apartments on the island, it's the number wheelchairs and mobility scooters hooning around - I shit you not they're everywhere! I was on the island for an hour and must have seen no less than about 50 of them, either cruising the streets (or street) like this dude or just chillin' and taking in the view. It's weird!

 
Much like the northern tip, the southern tip is all parkland.
 
This is the former Smallpox Hospital plonked in the middle of the park. It was a 100-bed hospital opened in 1856 and closed a century later. Despite the availability of the smallpox vaccine, New York City still had large outbreaks of the disease, in part because of the arrival of infected immigrants. Building the hospital here on the isolated southern tip of the island was an attempt to quarantine patients.
 
 
So that's Roosevelt Island in a nutshell - wheelchairs and apartment buildings, but what I haven't talked about is the atmosphere or its population of 10,000'ish. The place is dead, d-e-a-d dead. I felt like I was in a completely different world. New York is a city of noise, bad traffic and general mayhem, and this place is none of those things. Given its small size that's hardly surprising but it still feels really out of place, as do the locals. It's like the place to be if you want to be in New York City, but don't want to be at the same time. It's really hard to put into words but the whole island just has a weird vibe about it. Probably a good thing I never did end up seeing that apartment advertised here before I found my place - Astoria at least has character.
 
 
Weird vibes and deafening silence aside, the island really is quite gorgeous and could be the perfect spot to live in relative peace and quiet amid the chaos. But there's just something about it that doesn't feel right for mine. Incidentally, there is nursing facility up near the northern park which I guess explains the number of wheelchairs and mobility scooters all over the place, but it's still weird hehe.

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Page Comments


Considering how small they are, there is very little anybody can really do with them so I'm not bothered. Furthermore, there's nothing any web developer can do to completely "lock down" images - if you know what you're doing you can still copy them.
- Aaron

I can copy your photos if I want to. Now that you're a pro cameraman you might want to lock them down so people don't use them without permission...just a thought...
- Auntee

Funky is my middle name.
- Aaron

£4 is what I normally win on the Euromillions too lol
funky polar panorama pics
- Jen