A day more erratic than your 401K.

Tuesday’s 9-5, errr 8:30am-9:30pm was rough, so my apologies for not posting until today. Hopefully all will be forgiven when you realize this post is blessed with more than one picture. And words…lots of words. Cheers.

The last thing I wanted to do was prance around the city on my way home from work hoping to be inspired for the daily pic. I wanted to cook the steak that was quickly turning in my fridge (steaks are supposed to defrost for three days, right?), snuggle up with Google Reader, and crash for 8 hours. None of that happened. But alas, you won’t hear me complaining.

I walked to Grand Central to cool off from a day worth forgetting. Looking up I saw one of the reasons I love this town. Most people see these shots during the opening credits to Law & Order or the-best-damn-show-everrrrrrrrrrrr. For those that live and/or work here, we can see the same shots if we stay long enough at work for the sun to set and the moon to rise like cream to the top. I don’t know about you, but walking through the streets surrounded by such bad ass-ness will never get old. Even while being overshadowed by empty buildings, bailout money-turned-electric bill streaming from shimmering windows, the streets still manage to feel more alive than any other city’s business district. Hey Midtown – who loves ya?

Dear politicians, special interest groups, commercial real estate moguls, architecture firms, and Bloomberg – next time you are developing serious plans for the Moynihan Station (bring on the next real estate bubble!), take a lesson from the pages of Grand Central and do things right. GCT manages to strike the right balance between practical use (125,000 riders a day on Metro North, another 500K stop by to say hi), shops, and beauty. I used a slower ISO to capture people moving and shaking on their way to wherever they might be headed.




Hitting Grand Central I grabbed the 4 express because a) it was there and the people waiting for the 6 local looked entirely too frustrated (read – they’ll be there all night) and b) of the guy getting on the 4 with two huge bongos. One man, two massive bongos. I somewhat regret not being Jessica Simpson and whipping out the camera, but part of me was just wanted to sit there and enjoy his skills. After tipping him I bounced and headed towards 11th Street Bar where I was going to meet a friend for a much needed cold one and great entertainment.


Cutting across 14th street, I was enlightened. Penn State was playing Florida in the “other” basketball tournament. I dropped in at Finnerty’s for the second half and enjoyed the PBR/shot of whiskey special by my lonesome. Yes, it’s the NIT tournament, and no, I’ve never watched an NIT game before this season.
But it’s Penn State, need I explain more? BSD sums it up better than I possibly could. We held on for a good win against Florida, a team that was 18-1 at home this year. Not bad. Due up next for the team that won’t quit is a trip to the Garden on Tuesday against the Irish. Any takers? Tickets are $10.

Finally getting across the ‘hood to 11th Street, I arrived to find the band done for the night and my friend p/o’ed that I took a serious detour. But all was forgotten when we realized our old friend’s clone was sitting next to us at the bar. Clone in the back-of-the-head-cow-lick-and-all sense, not in the actual sense. That would just be too much.

The pendulum swung back to the brighter side by the time I called it a night. Here’s hoping it stays that way for the rest of the week.