Here is a beautiful apartment stoop in the East Village. I think the iron railing and gate here are new because they don't show any signs of wear and tear that are normally seen in older iron work. Also, the individual pieces are very thin and delicate. Notice the new paint job and the newly polish front door. I think the building just went through a thorough renovation or face lift.
Here is another fire escape photo and this one was taken in SoHo. Notice the vase shaped railings on the fire escape and the ornate moldings on the roof. This is fairly typical of the building built in that era.
Dozens of lamps like this one light up Union Square after the sun goes down. I thought they were interesting and beautiful and I'm glad the city is keep them instead of installing newer ones. But I don't think these are very "green" or efficient.
Last Sunday, I went to Ceci-Cela Patisserie in Nolita (North of Little Italy) for breakfast. I got a cup of cappuccino and an almond croissant, and sat outside on a bench in front of the cafe. While eating my breakfast, I saw this menu printed on the wall connecting the cafe to the store next door. I took a photo of it because I love the colors and typography. It reminds me very much of Provence, south of France.
This dome shape structure by Korean architect, Minsuk Cho almost encased the entire park south of Spring Street between Cleveland Place and Spring Street. The project entitled, Ring Dome was made out of hundreds of hula hoop-like tubes secured together by thousands of fabric straps to produce the dome.
Recently, yellow taxicabs were decorated with flowers to celebrate 100 years of motorized, metered taxis in New York City. The project entitled, Garden in Transit was started by two brothers, Ed and Bernie Massey from California in 2000. Over 27,000 pieces of vinyl sheets were painted by children in schools and hospitals and used to cover the roofs and top surfaces of about 12,700 taxicabs in the city.
The theme for October 1st is cemetery or tombstone. I took a photo of these ornate cement urns at a garden store in NoLIta (North of Little Italy) that I thought would make beautiful tombstones in the future.
These little toys are Chinese puppet lions on strings. Personally, I think they are more for decorations than actually play toys because a kid can easily tear them apart within 5 minutes. They are made of paper and stick-on fur and beads.
I was playing with the macro feature of my camera and took these photos of flowers that were sitting in a giant urn on top of a fountain at Union Square. I don't know what kind of flowers they are but they were in bloom even though it is late in the summer.
I took this photo of a gorgeous eggplant pizza that was on display at the window of a fancy pizza restaurant at Union Square. The restaurant is located next to the NYU dormitory on 14th Street between Broadway and 3rd Avenue so most of the diners here are students. I have eaten here a couple of times and the pizza is quite delicious.
This photo was taken last Saturday at the park in Union Square. The weather was amazingly beautiful so everyone was outside enjoying the city. I saw a group of friends hanging out and having a conversation at one of the tables and a girl trying to read at another table. There were others walking their dogs inside the park.
I rarely see laundry air-dried outside the apartments any more because most people go to the laundromats or have washers and dryers at home nowadays. So you can imagine my excitement when I saw this image of laundry on the roof top as I stepped off the subway this past weekend. Not only were the shirts fluttering in the wind, they were also all white, which gave it a beautiful effect.
Here is a photo of a booth selling italian sausages at the San Gennaro Feast in Little Italy last weekend. The hot or spicy sausages are usually served in crusty roll/bread and topped with grilled onions and peppers. You can see the onions and peppers in the two metal containers on the upper left corner. Every time I go to a street fair in NYC, I get one of these delicious italian sausages on a roll. But I didn't this time because I had just eaten lunch before coming to the San Gennaro Feast.
The weather on Sunday was simply perfect -- it was dry, sunny and cool. I headed downtown to meet some friends for lunch and we came upon the San Gennaro Feast in Little Italy. Actually the music was what alerted us to the street fair. There was at least a mile of booths selling food and drinks, games and candies, and there was even a stage where a live band was playing.
I was at Union Square/14th Street this afternoon and decided to stop by the green market right outside the subway station. Local farmers from the tri-state regions come here to sell their produce every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
These advertisements for Broadway shows at the Time Square subway station list some of the more successful shows playing in the city. The tickets to these shows are usually hard to come by because they are sold out weeks in advance. There are also many other less famous and cheaper productions of Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway shows that can be just as entertaining and fun.
This little restaurant called the Cinema Café on 60th Street between Madison and 5th Avenue reminds me of the cafés I saw in Paris. Despite the beautiful outdoor seatings in the photo, not many people eat outside because of the noise and dust stirred up from the traffic right in front of it. The seatings inside are much nicer and the food, I hear is excellent. I have never eaten here before.
I took this photo while standing on the Queensborough Bridge directly above the 2nd Avenue traffic. Beautiful buildings like these slowly being torn down one by one to make way for high rise condominiums like the ones you see behind them. The reason this is happening is because these older buildings are not always safe and some are crumbling due to old age. And it is very expensive and difficult to maintain.
I saw this sign on the window of an apartment in the Lower East Side recently and thought it was a hoot. Apparently, the person (most like a man) has a message to share with everyone.
I was looking to buy a new bag for work a couple weeks ago so I visited some interesting stores that carry obscure brands with unconventional designs. This was one of the stores I visited -- NYC Velo is a essentially bicycle shop in the East Village that also sells a range of messenger bags including this one in the photo.