Astoria Park Pool

It's a Republican's nightmare - a well run, well maintained public utility enjoyed by a diverse group of people. That, in a phrase, sums up the swimming pool in Astoria Park.

Take the N/W to Astoria Boulevard and walk west to the park and you'll hit it. (There's also parking spaces right nearby.) You'll get in a line behind some long metal bars and, upon entering, need to show the guards that you have two things: a swimsuit for each person and a padlock (if you need to buy a padlock, there's a little kiosk outside that sells locks and other swimming apparel). Once inside the complex, the men go left into the Men's room and the women go right into the Women's. You lock your stuff in one of the lockers and then take a quick shower before heading to the pool. Just before leaving the Men's/Women room, a guard will want to see if you have some kind of underwear or protection beneath your swimsuit. Once you get outside, another person will ask you to shake out your towel, to make sure you're not bringing in any contra-band. You can then safely leave your towels on one of the big decks and go swimming in the enormous, pleasantly heated pool. There are lifeguards and guards everywhere. Needless to say, since this is a public pool in NYC, security and safety are #1. But if you follow the rules, you should have a good time. Oh, and all of this doesn't cost you one red cent.

This is a great public service and it's one of the city's best kept secrets. The pool is open every day from June through Labor Day, from 11 AM to 3 PM, then from 4 PM to 8 PM. On weekdays, you can get an early swim from 7 to 8 AM and then there are "laps only" lanes from 7 to 8:15 PM. I suggest getting there early, at 11 AM, since the pool fills up quickly. However, since it is so big, there's plenty of space for you to swim comfortably. There are also places where you can sun yourself and there are sprinklers you can run under as well. There's even a snack bar!

On a hot day, this is a little bit of heaven brought to earth in Queens. Mr NYC, for one, is grateful it's there. The Astoria Park Pool is the crown jewel of the city public pool system and it's been there since 1936. And you thought you'd never get to swim in the shadow of the Triborough Bridge!

GoCitykids/Astoria Park Pool

PS. Above the pool, there's also a big clock, so you can easily keep track of time.

"It's a City of Strangers": How to Check Out People on Public Transportation

Okay, admit it: every so often you find yourself on the bus or the subway and suddenly ... a vision walks on. A person of extra-ordinary beauty, someone "really hot" or "totally gorgeous", someone who clashes mercilessly with the kennel of people who usually rides the MTA. This person acts like a magnet for your eyes. Suddenly the ads for Dr Zizmor and the other passengers melt away ... and you lock your eyes on this person and stare ... stare ... stare. But ... oh no! Now you've crossed the line! You've gone over to the other side. You have become ... a creepy person! You're a creepy staring person! And now your l'object d'amour might whip out the pepper spray at any moment. You want to stop staring but you can't ... for the life of you, you just can't! So what do you do? Never fear, for Mr NYC is here to guide you through the art of checking out people on public transportation. Just follow these five simple rules:

1. When you first spot "the person", don't stare too long. Like Jerry Seinfeld once said, act like this person is the sun: you get a sense of the thing, then look away.

2. When you next look at the person, DO NOT STARE DIRECTLY. Use subterfuge. Pretend to read one of the ads above your head or, better yet, act like you're looking for one of the bus or subway maps on the wall. You can then check out the person who ... oh, you know, just happens to be in your line of vision. Make sure people think you are trying to look at something and not someone. Then you can more easily get away with looking at the person.

3. It helps if you have reading material. Then you can look up from it every so often to, you know, see what's going on and to, oh yeah, check out the hottie.

4. When the bus or train pulls into a stop, pretend to stare out the window. You know, you want to see what's going on outside, and who is getting on or off. This is a custom-built moment to check out "the vision."

5. If all else fails, and you just can't keep your eyes off this person, and you've done steps 1 to 4, maybe multiple times, then do this: pretend that, oh darn it, you have a crook in your neck, and you need to rub it and you gotta bend your head, oh, this way ... and then that way ... and you're just looking out ahead of yourself and ... oh wow, there he or she is! What a coincidence!

I hope you will find these steps useful. But please understand: Mr NYC does not, in any way, endorse any kind of harassment or talking to or touching of any stranger on public transportation. There is a galaxy of difference between "checking someone out" and actually trying to interact with another person. I hope this disclaimer is well understood.

And so I conclude with something by Stephen Soundheim, who in his great NYC musical "Company" observed:

It's a city of strangers,
Some come to work, some to play.
A city of strangers,
Some come to stare, some to stay.
And every day
The ones who stay
Can find each other in the crowded streets and the guarded parks,
By the rusty fountains and the dusty trees with the battered barks,
And they walk together past upholstered walls with the crude remarks.
And they meet at parties through the friends of friends who they never know ...

... And another hundred people just got off of the train.

Taxi TV

Once upon a time, in the 1970s, there was a TV show called "Taxi", about a bunch of cab drivers in NYC. Today, in 2007, there are TVs in taxis. At least, there are here in NYC.

Recently my beloved and I caught a cab, and upon settling in we were confronted with a TV screen snuggled into the back seat partition. It's not really a TV screen but a touch screen, one that includes an electronic fare meter and a GPS-like tracking thing (so you can see the streets you traveling on). The screen also includes several buttons where you can get weather updates as well as local and national news (in this case, the cab was "sponsored" by NBC so it was all Peacock network programming). We didn't have enough time to check out all its funky features but it was a cute if somewhat annoying new technology.

There's been some controversy about these in-cab TVs. Some people hate being forced to look at flickering images during their ride (although there is a button to turn it off). The cab drivers hate the GPS technology since they don't like being able to be tracked. I can understand why some people would love it and why others would loathe it. I say, if you like, have fun. And if you don't, just ignore it. After all, this is New York City, and if you can't stand putting up with new annoying things, well ... it's time to think about moving to the South.

Le Perigord

Tonight my beloved and I went to Le Perigord, the restaurant where tout le monde en NYC go when they want classic French food. This isn't Le Cirque or one of those places that serve nouvelle cuisine. Mais non! It's hardcore, real French cuisine, and it's quite good.

Even though we were going as part of Restaurant Week, upon entering, the French maitre'd said "Welcome home!" The service was good too. We had a delicious pate appetizer, followed by a delicious lambe au jus and their famous desert the Floating Island (a puffy meringue and custard concoction). It wasn't the greatest meal I've ever had but the elegant, low-key atmosphere and well-prepared food made for a pleasurable time.

Overall, I say Le Perigord's a good bet if you want a classy and quiet evening. It's part of classy New York, not "trendy" New York. And it's nice to know places like this still exist.


Le Perigord

That Other NYC: City Island & Roosevelt Island

If you know New York, you can probably reel off its boroughs and most famous neighborhoods no problem: Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, Soho, Harlem, the Upper East and West Sides, Park Slope, Astoria, the South Bronx, Riverdale, even Flushing and Flatbush. But what about City Island and Roosevelt Island? Eh, not so much. That's because they belong to the other New York, the parts of the city you rarely see on TV or in the movies. These little chunks of land are part of this town but they really aren't integrated into it and they don't belong to any borough. They're like little enclaves, small towns within the big city. However, today, here at Mr NYC, we will give them their due:

• City Island: This is what one might call a "nautical community." It's like the Nantucket of NYC, a little island floating off the coast - in this case, the coast of the Bronx. But this isn't the tough Bronx of the popular imagination. No, this small island, about a mile long, consists of charming little houses and seafood restaurants. It also has several docks for boats and you have to constantly remind yourself that you're in New York City and not in a New England fishing town. I was there last year and we had a pleasant walk along City Island Avenue, the main street that cuts across the length of the island. We looked at the charming little stores and had a lobster lunch at a restaurant with a beautiful view of the water. Getting there is a bit of a hassle (you gotta drive), but if it's a nice day and you're inclined to see a very different part of this town, it's worth checking out.
  
  
• Roosevelt Island: okay, I'll be blunt, it's nowhere near as charming as City Island but it's a lot easier to get to. You can just get off on the F train or take the Roosevelt Island tram on East 59th street (it's running again after a most unfortunate snafu last year). The island - used to be called Welfare Island - consists mostly of small apartment buildings that look like socialist worker housing. There's also a hospital here. While there's not much of interest on Roosevelt Island, there are two very cool things to see: 1) the stunning view of Manhattan 2) the Ruin! Yes, like Rome or Athens, this city has a ruin - in this case, the Pauper Lunatic Asylum. It's at the very southern most tip of the island and while it's not the world's most attractive ruin, it's makes you think of Old New York, the city that was.
  
  
• For more info of these parts of "that other New York", go to:
  
  City Island.com
  
  Welcome to Roosevelt Island
  
  
  
  

Inside Rao's

There are lots of "exclusive" joints in this town but there's one place that's so exclusive you can't get in unless you know someone. That place is Rao's, the legendary Italian restaurant in East Harlem (114th street and Pleasant Avenue). There are only about 12 tables that a few - very few - people "own" one night a week or a month. And if these people and their guests don't show, no one is seated there. You can't make a reservation and you certainly can't just walk in. You gotta know someone who owns a table and that person's gotta like you. Otherwise, tough. As Dick Standen wrote on City Search, "you can't really say you've arrived in this town until you've scored a table here." (An example of a person who owns a table: Ron Pearlman. It's also a celebrity hangout.)

Needless to say, the food is great. Rao's is famed for it's great sauces and lemon chicken and meatballs. Plus they have great cheesecake. And how do I know this? 'Cause Mr NYC has eaten there!

A friend of a friend of a friend was my source and we went several months ago. It was glorious. There's no menu. The owner and proprietor, Frank Pelligrino, sits at each table, tells you what they're serving, and takes your order. The meal is basically "customized" for each table. My table had the pleasure of being served wine by the legendary Nicky the Vest who regaled us with this stories about serving celebrities like James Caan (Nicky got his nickname since every night he wears a different vest jacket with a distinct insignia). The bread was served with a delicious oil and garlic and we had the great lemon chicken and meatballs (best meatballs I've ever had). The restaurant is covered with photos of the famous clientele and the atmosphere is raucous. We also had the pleasure of seeing Rao's most famous regular, legendary detective Bo Dietl, holding court at his big table. (I overhead him say that back in the day, on hot summer nights, they would open the front doors and people would eat by the stairs.) The nice thing about Rao's is that whether you're rich or famous or not, they treat you like a star. Because at Rao's, the biggest star is the food and fun.

PS. Check out the following link about how to get in:

So You Wanna get into Rao's?

PPS. If you can't be one of the 0.000001% of the population that scores a table at Rao's, you can find the restaurant's sauces and pasta in your friendly neighborhood grocery store.

New York Ain't So New

The steam pipe that exploded yesterday was apparently laid in 1924 and working just fine until yesterday. It's amazing to think that any part of this city's infrastructure is 80 plus years old - think, when that pipe was laid, Fitzgerald hadn't published The Great Gatsby, Hitler was still ranting in German beer halls, and movies were still silent. How much more of this city's physical make up, both above and below ground, is that old? Certainly there are buildings that have existed for more than a century - the Flatiron opened in 1902 (full disclosure: I once worked in it) and many of the more beautiful apartment buildings around town are nearly that old. With the exception of terrorists and arsonists and demolition crews and poor construction, the city's infrastructure has basically just hummed along, housing and supporting 8 million people and their hopes and dreams. What was so unusual about yesterday what that one tiny chink, one little sliver, one minute cog in the enormous wheel that moves this city, just said ... "I'm tired. I've had enough. I give up!" And so it did, causing panic and havoc and injuries and, sadly in one case, death. Yet after 84 years, could you blame it?

So the all of this begs the question: what can the city do? Can we do anything? Should we do anything? We can't rip up the whole city and replace it, nor does anyone really want to. But after yesterday (or more accurately, after 400 years), while grateful that our city hasn't totally fallen apart, we'll just be a little bit more cautious.

PS. Thanks to those of you who viewed my first attempt at live blogging. Since this is not a news blog, it was more of a diversion than a general feature. But this blog tries to be relevant to the times (or more precisely the moment) so whenever the next city emergency happens, Mr NYC will be on the case.

EXPLOSION!

According to the Mayor and Homeland Security, this is NOT - repeat NOT - a terrorist act. However, it is a 5-alarm fire and there have been some injuries.

Please stay away from the area around Lexington Avenue and 42nd street.

EXPLOSION!

Less than an hour ago, there was a steam explosion in Midtown, right near Grand Central Station. It's a developing story and Mr NYC will follow it.

Breaking News

Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden

As our city sweats through the summer of '07, refreshment and fun can be found in the heart of Astoria. In the last few years, the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden has become the city's new hot spots (in fact, I'm behind the eight ball in talking it up here). I recently hosted an event there with my beloved and, if you ever go, you'll understand why its such a great place to have a party.

The Beer Garden is basically a big open space with lots of picnic tables where you can congregate with family and friends. A pitcher of beer costs about $14 and you can get one (or just a glass of beer) at one of the indoor or outdoor bars. Waitresses circulate and take orders for the fine Czech food they serve (best bet: chicken crepes). There's also a place you can line up for hot dogs and franks.

It's a fun place and people come from all the boroughs to enjoy it. People even bring their kids! Some advice: get there early. If you're going on a Saturday or Sunday, go there before 4 PM. Because it's so popular, there's crowd control. Go there on a Friday and Saturday night, and you'll find a nightclub-like line down the block, and you'll be forced to wait! But it's worth it. The Beer Garden's some of the funnest, least expensive, and unpretentious fun you can have in New York City.

Here's the link for their website:

Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden

Also, find out what others in the neighborhood say. Check out the great blog Joey in Astoria:

Joey in Astoria