Photo Flashback

While this is a New York City blog, I'm mainly writing it to provide me with a place to put my new photography. But I've also got lots of old pictures that I'd like to share, so every now and then I'm going to post a picture just because I like it. I took this picture while I was riding on the back of a motorcycle in Hanoi, Vietnam, where I used to live. I just pointed the camera without looking through it, and this is what I got!

In other news, I got my Sony p100 back together after having to take it apart to get a hair off the CCD chip. It was very scary taking it apart, and I almost stripped several of the cheap little screws, but now I don't have that huge hair in the middle of all my shots.

Is he really?

Day One of trying to fix my camera. I cant get the last set of screws off without stripping them so tomorrow Ive got to buy a new set of little screwdrivers.

In case you haven't noticed, I like taking pictures out my window of the Hudson River and the GW Bridge. But the bad news is that I've got a huge eye lash under my lens, and I'm going to have to take my digital camera apart. Sony is gonna want $190 to fix this problem, which all their cameras from the last couple years have. It's a shame how nothing is worth fixing anymore. You can see what I'm going to have to do with my camera here.

Check out my new Frappr map!

Atlantic City Baby!

A friend of mine works on a cable television poker show, and he invited me to spend the weekend with him while he was at the Borgata in Atlantic City. I visited him there in February, so it was strange to revisit him there at the beginning of the fall, with the knowledge that a whole summer had past since I'd seen him last.

Atlantic City makes for a good weekend trip away from New York, since you can take a Greyhound there for only thirty. Usually you can trade in your ticket at the casino that they drop you off at for $20, so the trip last time only cost me $10. I went to Bally's last time, but this time I took the bus to the Sands, and I couldn't cash in my ticket; they only gave me slot credits. The secret to this, which I discovered too late, is to cash out as soon as you win any money. I kept waiting to win a couple dollars before I cashed out, so I ended up losing most of it. Still, a $25 ticket isn't too shabby.

There really is no other place on earth like Atlantic City. In the 1800s, everyone was eager to get away from the coal fired squalor of north eastern cities, and the Jersey Shore seemed like the perfect getaway. America isn't alone in having 1800s resort towns that later fell into disarray, but Coney Island, Atlantic City, and Asbury Park were the kings of the boardwalk, where men in bathing suits could promenade and drink NeHi. But them someone invented cheap airfare, and everyone realized how much Jersey sucks, so they all went down to the Caribbean instead. Even though the mobsters and Rat Packs kept filling their hotels, the great American boardwalks slowly rotted, until by the 1970s it seemed the only solution was to completely raze them.

Asbury Park, with no investment forthcoming, stills stands in this state of rot, the roofs of her grand ballrooms having long since collapsed, with trees literally growing up out of the ruins. Atlantic City came up with the idea that legalized gambling could be their salvation. So in 1972 or so, they started a grand project that totally destroyed the old 1800s brick core of the city and replaced it with a bizarre fantasy land, tackier then Myrtle Beach. Millions of dollars poured into the city, only the economics of it didn't work for the city's residents. Casinos are designed to bring in tourists on buses and never allow them to leave. The Borgata is deliberately set away from the traditional strip, so that a guest there doesn't even have the option of stepping out to the liquor store or getting a bite to eat. So surrounding the casinos is a broken town of rotten brick buildings and shattered inhabitants.

I didn't really capture much with my photos because this was my second time in the city, and I was focused on having fun with my friend. I remembered the Borgata's isolation, so I packed a bottle in my bag. My friend and I shared it in his hotel, I lost ten bucks on the slots, and after I long night of set up, I decided that I couldn't part with the $25 cover required of the casino's swankiest night club. We got something to eat in the employee kitchen late that night, and I passed out in his room. The next day we watched the Giants come back in overtime to beat the Eagles, much to the chagrin of the many drunk Eagles fans crowded in the bar. The water is dirty, the sand is black, and it makes you wonder about the moral implications of legalized gambling, but Atlantic City makes for a nice weekend getaway for the itchy New Yorker.

9-11 in New York

I planned to avoid turning on the TV on September 11th. I wasn't interested in seeing how the government was going to twist this horrible event, but when I heard that the "Tribute In Light" project was going to be turned back on for one day, I struggled with it, but then I decided that was something that I had to go and see, since it had never been on while I lived in New York. And while I was at it, I would grab some pictures for the blog.

So I got out at Chambers street, and as I walked towards Ground Zero, I could see the remnants of the memorial trickling away from the site; Sailors, soldiers, Buddhist monks, fathers with crying children. And then I was in the middle of it, and this time more than any other that I had visited it, I could feel that this was a place where many people had died.

And soon I felt a little guilty for being there with a camera, if only because everyone was there to take a picture, to chip off a little piece of the experience to keep in a box and show off later. It reminded me of when they took the Pope's body through the streets of Italy, and everyone was trying to grab a picture with their camera phones.

And as I walked deeper into the crowd, it grew more raucous and disorganized. Protesters argued with people on the sidewalk. People swarmed around a children's choir singing hymns, trying to grab a photo of them. But as you walked towards the fence, you could tell that some were here to pay tribute to love ones lost.

I pushed through the crowd, and as I moved away from them, I walked closer and closer to the base of the light towers. It was an amazing, breathtaking, awe inspiring experience. After moving past all that grief and confusion, to come to the base of those light towers, pushing towards the sky, was a very emotionally powerful feeling. I rode the Staten Island Ferry out to take a look at it from the Statue of Liberty. I'm really glad I got my butt off the couch to see this thing. I can't imagine a more incredible art installation.

Cooler Weather

I took this picture last winter during the record blizzard, and it really doesn't seem that long ago. New York is a very seasonal place, and the weather really changes the way that people think and act. Summer in New York is just like those Spike Lee movies; kids jumping in front of fire hydrants, people playing dominoes out on the block, girls in their short shorts. For me, growing up in the South, summer was that time from April to almost November, but here it's much much shorter. After that big heat wave that knocked out all the power in Queens, it rained for like two weeks, and it's been cool and breezy ever since. It's a strange feeling, to step outside and almost need a coat. Soon it's going to be like this picture again.

A random picture from out my window

A night at the ball park

I went to a Brooklyn Cyclones game in Coney Island last week. The seat were 14 bucks after all the internet up your ass fees, and that's a little much for minor league ball, but it was a nice night, our team won, and there were some fireworks. This was on Labor Day weekend, which is one of those weird little holidays I never really cared about, because I was either in school or I was working. But it does mark the end of summer, and in New York, it does feel like summer is more or less over. We had that big heat wave, had a couple days of rain, and boom, it's over. When I was growing up in the south, it's hot way past Labor day, but ladies aren't supposed to wear white anymore. I never really understood that either.

The Fashion District

I just last week finished a three month stint working a temp job in the Fashion District, and I thought that I would share some of my photos of it. It interesting to work in the shadow of the Empire State Building, where the seedy edges of midtown mix with the yuppie boom of Chelsea. Each street was this great mix of wholesale places, massage parlors, African immigrants, fashion students, and daddy's girls. Way back in the day, there were lots of sweatshops in New York, if you can imagine textiles actually being made in the North East, never mind Manhattan, but this was a while ago. Most of that stuff is gone now, but some small shops remain if only because of the influence of FIT (The Fashion Institute of Technology), a New York State run school. But most of these older buildings and shops are being pushed aside as luxury high rises try to take advantage of high rental rates. I really enjoyed working in this area, as it had a real gritty feel of old New York that will soon be totally paved over.

Chelsea Photos