My Urban Sherpa

Today is the last day for an absentee ballot…

request to be received by your election officials.

Get your ballot!

Another dismal day for the Dow.

The one thing remotely amusing about the economy is this video.

Change of Pace

Andrew Weil in his book  Eight Weeks to Optimum Health recommends taking a break from the news. This is perhaps the optimal moment to put the news aside.

The prescription for the day is to enjoy the day. By leaving the Times for later, and taking in the glory of the changing of the seasons.

Man on Wire

Thirty-four years ago this week, Philippe Petit performed one of the most audacious stunts in New York City history. The infamous French daredevil performed on a high wire strung between two towers of the World Trade Center…110 stories about the streets of the Big Apple.

His efforts are documented in a film currently playing, Man on Wire…and Petit can sometimes still be found working his magic on the Big Apple.

New York’s 3500 year-old “needle”

The next time you’re soaking in the history at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, don’t forget to take a stroll into Central Park for a visit with Cleopatra’s Needle (East Side Drive and 81st St.).

This 71 foot, 244 ton Obelisk was erected in Heliopolis (Egypt) around 1500 BC and later moved to Alexandria around 12 B.C. In 1879, it was shipped to the U.S. (another went to London, while a third is in Paris) as a gift where it stands tall as the oldest man-made object in Central Park.

Welcome to the melting pot (and we don’t mean the weather)

The first black setters in NYC were some 10 or 12 Angolan men who disembarked as slaves in 1625. By 1644, they were granted freedom.

The first Italian settler in NYC: Pietro Cesare Alberto in 1635.

The first Jewish settler in NYC: Jacob bar Simson in 1654.

The first Chinese New Yorker was Ah Ken, a Cantonese who set foot in NYC in 1858.

The first sign of a melting pot: In the 1643 words of Jesuit missionary Father Isaac Jogues, “On the island of Manhate, and in its environs, the Director General told me that there were men of eighteen different languages.”

This Friday the 13th, look to the skies

While we have no logical reason to believe June 13 - Friday the 13th - will be particularly unlucky for New Yorkers, all bets are off for Fridays, April 13, 2029 and/or April 13, 2036. That’s when Planet Earth is expected to have a close encounter with an 1150-foot long asteroid named “99942 Apophis.”

Until then, may we suggest the Hayden Planetarium and the Rose Center for Earth and Space?

(Mickey Z. can be found here)

Muji

MUJI is open in the Times Building.
620 8th Avenue.

Simple and inexpensive well-designed Japanese goods for home, office, and self.
Move over IKEA.

Jeff Koons at the Met

File this under: Bicycles, pre-owned

In light of rising gas prices, it’s not surprising that many New Yorkers are choosing two wheels instead of four. Along those lines, every Wednesday night - in their DUMBO storefront (35 Pearl St., Brooklyn) - the good folks at Recycle-a-Bicycle (RAB) host a “volunteer night” from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. Why not join RAB this Wednesday to learn “bicycle mechanic skills while working to refurbish used parts and bikes on hand in the store”?

Email: info@recycleabicycle.org

Phone: 718-858-2972