Today was my final commute from Sunset Park, Brooklyn, to Harlem, via train. I am so thankful that was my last commute! Public transportation is great, but an hour and 15 mins each way, each day, will make even the most optimistic person (definitely not me) a misanthrope.
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Showing posts with label harlem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label harlem. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Day 43: Whiskey Fudge from Red Rooster
I had some of this delight today to celebrate a coworker moving on and taking some joyous scary steps into the unknown. I am grateful for fudge (really, any derivative of the cacao bean), Red Rooster, & Janis.
(Red Rooster is here.)
(Red Rooster is here.)
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Day 42: Lunch with Janis
Today I had a lovely Island Salad burrito for lunch with my coworker Janis, whose last day is tomorrow. She's been great to work with, and we're both leaving our jobs here to take a giant leap out into the unknown and push ourselves to the next level. It's been a pleasure serving with her - I'm grateful to her, because she is a genuine team player. And sitting outside in a Harlem garden patio, strung with little lights and brightly colored umbrellas, sharing a yummy lunch with her was pretty wonderful.
(Also for NYers, Island Salad is super yum and the owner, Milo, is awesome. Come support them!)
(Also for NYers, Island Salad is super yum and the owner, Milo, is awesome. Come support them!)
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Day Two - The Gratitude Project
Day Two!
Today I am grateful for being able to lunchtime walks in a New York summer.
Here are some the delights I passed by:
The apartment above the right-most door has used the stoop to grow plants on - an extended windowsill! Props for inventiveness! (Sorry the quality is so bad, I'm using my phone. I'll upgrade for you loyal readers to a real camera soon, promise).
A fountain in Marcus Garvey Park, refreshing and enticing on a hot summer day.
Delicious helados! If you can't read it, the flavors include "coco," "blue," and "chery."
And an absolutely lush little garden, remarkable for 20 sq feet, and proof you can make any space beautiful if you really try:
I have to say - this has already started to work. I went out today searching for beauty, and because I was looking for it, I found more of it.
Today I am grateful for being able to lunchtime walks in a New York summer.
Here are some the delights I passed by:
The apartment above the right-most door has used the stoop to grow plants on - an extended windowsill! Props for inventiveness! (Sorry the quality is so bad, I'm using my phone. I'll upgrade for you loyal readers to a real camera soon, promise).
A fountain in Marcus Garvey Park, refreshing and enticing on a hot summer day.
Delicious helados! If you can't read it, the flavors include "coco," "blue," and "chery."
And an absolutely lush little garden, remarkable for 20 sq feet, and proof you can make any space beautiful if you really try:
I have to say - this has already started to work. I went out today searching for beauty, and because I was looking for it, I found more of it.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Lately...
I have been thinking about writing blogs, and not writing them. I haven't felt very inspired, and rather than "water down" the quality of my blog, I have elected to be silent. Here's a summary of the blog entries I contemplated:
Book review of Aravind Adiga's 2nd novel, in the wake of White Tiger, entitled Between the Assassinations. Verdict: it's no White Tiger, but an interesting novel nonetheless.
Book review of Leila Marouane's The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris. Verdict: meh....
Restaurant review: Sylvia's in Harlem. Soul Food. Deeeeelicious. See proof below!
This week I had the gift of seeing my city through fresh eyes, as E's Aussie friend visited us and America for the first time. Walking with a tourist, I felt authorized to take pictures and act like a tourist (except when it comes to knowing my way around the subway and walking like a New Yorker). It is easy to forget how imposing and beautiful and crazy New York is, how full of lives of all kinds, how deep this place is...
I also had the blessing of going places I don't usually go - like Yankee Stadium. I can't normally find an excuse to ride the train all the way to the Bronx, but now...I can say I've seen the stadium (the game's cheapest tickets were $135, though, so...I wasn't able to go inside said arena.
Later that night, we enjoyed the sumptious delights of Nyonya's Malaysian cuisine in Little Italy, wandering up through SoHo on a lazy warm summer night.
The next day, we tried Bonnie's Grill in Park Slope, sampling their delicious burgers.
I also tried watermelon beer, because hey, it's summer, and I love watermelon and beer. It was definitely a girly beer, with a bit of sticky sweet melony aftertaste. Not bad.
Today was the real tourist day, however: taking the (free!) Staten Island ferry so we could get a good look at Manhattan's gorgeous skyline, we then lunched at Arturo's in SoHo. Then up to Washington Square Park, where kids and adults alike took advantage of the fountain's water on a scorching July afternoon. Next, to Central Park, where tourists walked or rode in pedicabs, hustlers hollered, "Cold refreshing waters $1 only," hauling coolers on their backs, a group of Haitian drummers and trumpeteers entertained a crowd of spectators eager to document their performance, bikers and runners working out, newlyweds posing for photos near Bethesda Fountain, and...us.
It feels nice to be a traveler again, or to see with new eyes and appreciation...It makes me all the more excited for my upcoming travel to San Francisco, Yosemite, and Las Vegas. I am thrilled to be going on the road again, seeing new places, visiting friends along the way, and spending some time on the West Coast.
Book review of Aravind Adiga's 2nd novel, in the wake of White Tiger, entitled Between the Assassinations. Verdict: it's no White Tiger, but an interesting novel nonetheless.
Book review of Leila Marouane's The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris. Verdict: meh....
Restaurant review: Sylvia's in Harlem. Soul Food. Deeeeelicious. See proof below!
This week I had the gift of seeing my city through fresh eyes, as E's Aussie friend visited us and America for the first time. Walking with a tourist, I felt authorized to take pictures and act like a tourist (except when it comes to knowing my way around the subway and walking like a New Yorker). It is easy to forget how imposing and beautiful and crazy New York is, how full of lives of all kinds, how deep this place is...
I also had the blessing of going places I don't usually go - like Yankee Stadium. I can't normally find an excuse to ride the train all the way to the Bronx, but now...I can say I've seen the stadium (the game's cheapest tickets were $135, though, so...I wasn't able to go inside said arena.
Later that night, we enjoyed the sumptious delights of Nyonya's Malaysian cuisine in Little Italy, wandering up through SoHo on a lazy warm summer night.
The next day, we tried Bonnie's Grill in Park Slope, sampling their delicious burgers.
I also tried watermelon beer, because hey, it's summer, and I love watermelon and beer. It was definitely a girly beer, with a bit of sticky sweet melony aftertaste. Not bad.
Today was the real tourist day, however: taking the (free!) Staten Island ferry so we could get a good look at Manhattan's gorgeous skyline, we then lunched at Arturo's in SoHo. Then up to Washington Square Park, where kids and adults alike took advantage of the fountain's water on a scorching July afternoon. Next, to Central Park, where tourists walked or rode in pedicabs, hustlers hollered, "Cold refreshing waters $1 only," hauling coolers on their backs, a group of Haitian drummers and trumpeteers entertained a crowd of spectators eager to document their performance, bikers and runners working out, newlyweds posing for photos near Bethesda Fountain, and...us.
It feels nice to be a traveler again, or to see with new eyes and appreciation...It makes me all the more excited for my upcoming travel to San Francisco, Yosemite, and Las Vegas. I am thrilled to be going on the road again, seeing new places, visiting friends along the way, and spending some time on the West Coast.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
Review: the Studio Museum of Harlem
Given that I work 3 blocks from the Studio Museum and had never been, I decided to use my lunch break creatively and go visit. The SMH has a glass facade looking out over the intersection of Lenox and 125th Street, one block down from the Apollo Theater and the Lenox Lounge.
I really didn't have an idea of what to expect: I have visited many museums here in New York as a nerdy personal visitor but also through my training as a museum studies scholar. The fact that the SMH had been left out of our curriculum puzzled me, as we did make an attempt to visit other small community museums like El Museo del Barrio, the MocA: Museum of Chinese in America, and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. (The other noteworthy exception was the Museum of the City of New York.)
As the museum opens at noon, I was one of the first visitors. The entry into the exhibition part of the museum is through unmarked white doors leading out of the lobby which was a little confusing but the staff pointed me in the right direction. The name of the museum aptly describes the exhibition space: a large white room, with a open central part and two open levels nearby. There were also works down a short flight of stairs in the basement.
Other than Chris Ofili and James VanderZee, I didn't recognize any of the artists, which made me a little ashamed: the two artists I did know were part of major exhibitionary controversies, Ofili for his depiction of the Virgin Mary in Sensation at the Brooklyn a few years back with its legendary elephant dung and the ensuing religious fracas and VanderZee for his documentary photographs of Harlem in the Met's catastrophic entry into race politics with its 1969 Harlem on My Mind.
I was intrigued by the work of Saya Woolfalk, whose drawings are inspired, human, creative, fun, and nonlinear - including "No Placean Anatomy." I also appreciated Frederick Brown's "Stagger Lee in Concert," a painting with the words "I am not from Brooklyn" carved into its thick paint. Ellen Gallagher's installation "DeLuxe," which also reappears on the front of the current museum catalog, is at once playful and sinister with its multiplicity of textures and gouged out eyes, white almonds (see below). I also appreciated the local highlight area in the foyer, which showcases artists photographs of Harlem and their interpretations thereof. Visitors are even invited to take a free souvenir postcard.
The work that most resonated with me was Howardena Pindell's video, "Free, White & 21." I am not sure if I can accurately articulate how deeply this work spoke to me, and made me want to literally sit on the wooden floor in front of the video and just stay and weep. Pindell talks to the camera directly, relating her experiences of discrimination: a teacher who wouldn't put the A student Pindell into an honors class because a less deserving white student might benefit more, a job interview where Pindell witnessed white candidates being given clear and respectful instructions about what positions were actually available and the candidates of color being told nothing was available, a pastor who made sexual advances at a wedding, a Maine woman who stared at Pindell while eating...she intersperses these accounts with footage of a woman with strikingly white makeup, black sunglasses, and a blonde wig (presumably Pindell, according to the museum label) commenting back, "You must be paranoid. No one I know has had this happen to them...you really must be paranoid," and "You need to do things our way, with our symbols, or we simply won't validate them."
There was a feeling in my stomach akin to the feeling I got when I read Native Son for the first time and then looked at the copyright information, nauseous and humiliated that our country, so prideful of our freedom and our ability to lead the world's democracies, had changed so little in 60 years that Wright's words in 1940 were fully believable today. The work (works! both Wright's and Pindell's) are honest in their simplicity and factual nature, but ferocious and heart-rending in the depiction of how pervasive and shameless white privilege is. Pindell broke my heart. My only hope is that other hearts will be broken in going to the museum and seeing this, and from our brokenness we could, as a community - or a nation - or at least person-to-person - build a new, respectful, open, equal place, together.
The Studio Museum's website is here. They are open Wednesday - Sunday.
Some other resources that I know about, but by no means an exhaustive list:
Patricia Raybon My First White Friend
Paula Rothenberg White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism
Richard Wright Native Son
I really didn't have an idea of what to expect: I have visited many museums here in New York as a nerdy personal visitor but also through my training as a museum studies scholar. The fact that the SMH had been left out of our curriculum puzzled me, as we did make an attempt to visit other small community museums like El Museo del Barrio, the MocA: Museum of Chinese in America, and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. (The other noteworthy exception was the Museum of the City of New York.)
As the museum opens at noon, I was one of the first visitors. The entry into the exhibition part of the museum is through unmarked white doors leading out of the lobby which was a little confusing but the staff pointed me in the right direction. The name of the museum aptly describes the exhibition space: a large white room, with a open central part and two open levels nearby. There were also works down a short flight of stairs in the basement.
Other than Chris Ofili and James VanderZee, I didn't recognize any of the artists, which made me a little ashamed: the two artists I did know were part of major exhibitionary controversies, Ofili for his depiction of the Virgin Mary in Sensation at the Brooklyn a few years back with its legendary elephant dung and the ensuing religious fracas and VanderZee for his documentary photographs of Harlem in the Met's catastrophic entry into race politics with its 1969 Harlem on My Mind.
I was intrigued by the work of Saya Woolfalk, whose drawings are inspired, human, creative, fun, and nonlinear - including "No Placean Anatomy." I also appreciated Frederick Brown's "Stagger Lee in Concert," a painting with the words "I am not from Brooklyn" carved into its thick paint. Ellen Gallagher's installation "DeLuxe," which also reappears on the front of the current museum catalog, is at once playful and sinister with its multiplicity of textures and gouged out eyes, white almonds (see below). I also appreciated the local highlight area in the foyer, which showcases artists photographs of Harlem and their interpretations thereof. Visitors are even invited to take a free souvenir postcard.
The work that most resonated with me was Howardena Pindell's video, "Free, White & 21." I am not sure if I can accurately articulate how deeply this work spoke to me, and made me want to literally sit on the wooden floor in front of the video and just stay and weep. Pindell talks to the camera directly, relating her experiences of discrimination: a teacher who wouldn't put the A student Pindell into an honors class because a less deserving white student might benefit more, a job interview where Pindell witnessed white candidates being given clear and respectful instructions about what positions were actually available and the candidates of color being told nothing was available, a pastor who made sexual advances at a wedding, a Maine woman who stared at Pindell while eating...she intersperses these accounts with footage of a woman with strikingly white makeup, black sunglasses, and a blonde wig (presumably Pindell, according to the museum label) commenting back, "You must be paranoid. No one I know has had this happen to them...you really must be paranoid," and "You need to do things our way, with our symbols, or we simply won't validate them."
There was a feeling in my stomach akin to the feeling I got when I read Native Son for the first time and then looked at the copyright information, nauseous and humiliated that our country, so prideful of our freedom and our ability to lead the world's democracies, had changed so little in 60 years that Wright's words in 1940 were fully believable today. The work (works! both Wright's and Pindell's) are honest in their simplicity and factual nature, but ferocious and heart-rending in the depiction of how pervasive and shameless white privilege is. Pindell broke my heart. My only hope is that other hearts will be broken in going to the museum and seeing this, and from our brokenness we could, as a community - or a nation - or at least person-to-person - build a new, respectful, open, equal place, together.
The Studio Museum's website is here. They are open Wednesday - Sunday.
Some other resources that I know about, but by no means an exhaustive list:
Patricia Raybon My First White Friend
Paula Rothenberg White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism
Richard Wright Native Son
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Food Review: Delicias Mexicanas
I am apparently expanding the reach of my restaurants. Having recently begun working in Harlem, I decided it was time to sample the delights of Spanish Harlem. A quick troll of blog reviews and Yelp told me to try Delicias Mexicanas.
Walking over from my office, I realized when I crossed Lexington that I went from Harlem to Spanish Harlem. Delicias Mexicanas is located just south of the 116th stop on the 6 train, with a clean, pleasant seating area decorated with tans with plastic plants. Their menu is extensive, from the standard burrito and taco to huaraches, birria, and flautas. I sampled the al pastor taco, which is strongly flavored with pineapple, and the carne enchilada. These are served with chopped fresh cilantro and onion on small corn tortillas. They make excellent fresh guacamole that holds true to the flavor of the avocado, and red (very spicy) and green (milder but not mild) salsa. On the whole, Delicias Mexicanas is very good, although I remain partial to my neighborhood taquerias.
Also recommended: eat-in restauarant, rather than getting takeaway. All the savory juices make your taco shell soggy by the time you finally get to devour it.
Delicias Mexicanas
3rd Avenue between 115th and 116th
Manhattan, NY
Walking over from my office, I realized when I crossed Lexington that I went from Harlem to Spanish Harlem. Delicias Mexicanas is located just south of the 116th stop on the 6 train, with a clean, pleasant seating area decorated with tans with plastic plants. Their menu is extensive, from the standard burrito and taco to huaraches, birria, and flautas. I sampled the al pastor taco, which is strongly flavored with pineapple, and the carne enchilada. These are served with chopped fresh cilantro and onion on small corn tortillas. They make excellent fresh guacamole that holds true to the flavor of the avocado, and red (very spicy) and green (milder but not mild) salsa. On the whole, Delicias Mexicanas is very good, although I remain partial to my neighborhood taquerias.
Also recommended: eat-in restauarant, rather than getting takeaway. All the savory juices make your taco shell soggy by the time you finally get to devour it.
Delicias Mexicanas
3rd Avenue between 115th and 116th
Manhattan, NY
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