American Madness

At least that is what H.G. Wells thought, too bad he was a little off.

With a nice long warm weekend coming up, what better to do then break out your bike and go for a ride.

Not sure where to go, well then you should visit RideTheCity. RideTheCity is a website similar to MapQuest or HopStop, enter your location and your destination and it will draw up a route for you, you can even pick if you’d rather take the ‘Safest Route,’ the ‘Safe Route’ or the “Most Direct Route.” There are two main reason syou are going to want to use RideTheCity instead of, say, Google Maps “First, RTC excludes roads that aren’t meant for biking, like the BQE and the Queens Midtown tunnel. Second, RTC tries to locate routes that maximize the use of bike lanes and greenways.”

Pretty nifty, especially if you have ever ridden your bike in traffic.

Right now it is only for New York City, plus you need to cut them some slack because they are still in their Beta Release, so go, check it out, show them some love and enjoy your nice long weekend.

Well, I guess it is technically for Thursday.

Starting tomorrow and running through October 13th, the city is getting 4 waterfalls. Olafur Eliasson’s “The New York City Waterfalls” has been installed around the city. Although organized by the City and the Public Art Fund, the project is totally funded from private supporters, corporations and other foundations, with no city funds being put towards it. Now on to the project itself

“The New York City Waterfalls” are 4 waterfalls that have been installed in various locations along the river. You’ll find them at at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge (in Brooklyn), Pier 35 (by the Manhattan Bridge), near the Brooklyn Heights Promenade (between Piers 4 & 5) and by Governors Island.

The waterfalls will be active between 7am and 10pm so if you travel along the bridges you may get a chance to see them during your daily commute. Otherwise you can venture out to see them in your free time.

the pictures from the ‘pre-dawn’ test look pretty stunning and it looks like this could be something incredible to check-out around the city this summer right around sunset.

The project is similar to one that Eliasson did in Austria in 2000 and Madrid in 2003, but on a much grander scale. You can learn more about him and his work here.

First a welcome back to me, I am once again trying to get back to writing on a regular basis, I am going to try and start off slowly and build to my previous posting levels, so without further ado:

Here at AmericanMadness we have not been huge fans of the law that requires chain restaurants to post calorie counts. Essentially we feel that the information provided can be misleading since it goes by the assumption that th only concern with food should be the amount of calories you are taking in.

Now we have another problem with it: Over at CellarDoor they have a post with pictures from 2 Dunkin’ Donuts, both located in Penn Station. 1 of them listing the calorie count on a Chocolate Glazed donut at 80 calories and the other listing it at 340 calories. Both are printed up in the official D & D way so which is to be believed? Or maybe they are both right, maybe each Dunkin’ Donuts in the city is using different recipes and cooking methods and that is why they get different calorie counts. Or the donuts on the left could be almost 1/4 the size of the ones on the right, there are so many possibilities that I decided to ask Dunkin’ Donuts to explain it. I am still waiting for a response.

Also in the realm of calorie counting: (more…)

Apparently there is one day out of every year when the New York City Grid aligns perfectly with the setting sun. You can look crosstown and watch as the sun sets down, no buildings or high-rises obscuring your view, just a beautiful sunset between rows of building. Of course to really catch a great glimpse of this you probably want to be on one of the major cross town street that runs from river to river- 14th, 23rd, 34th, 42nd, 52nd… One of those (Houston splits apart right after 6th Avenue, obscuring the view behind some buildings). This is a phenomena referred to as Manhattanhenge(Link 1, link 2).

Oh, and it just so happens that one day is today.

The sun is scheduled to set tonight at 8:16 this evening, so start hunting for those bars and restaurants with out door seating or just head to 1st avenue and 34th and marvel as you watch the sunset all the way across the island.

Some of you may be asking who is Harold Hunter, others may already know. In 1995 Harold Hunter became one of the faces representing youth in New York City in the movie Kids, a few years later he ended up in the Joan Osborne video “One of Us.”

Harold was a member of the early 90’s NYC skateboarding scene and part of the Zoo York team. Harold was last scene on TLC’s Miami Ink getting a tattooed tribute to WTC with the words NYC, Sk8 or Die. By the time this episode aired in April of ‘06, Harold had been dead for almost 2 months. On Feb. 17th of 2006 Harold overdosed.

This year Zoo York is one of the sponsors of the 2nd Annual Harold Hunter Day, a day in which Harold is remembered for his amazing skateboarding skills and his general good natured presence.

This year Harold Hunter Day will be this Saturday, May 17th. Zoo York is sponsoring The Harold Hunter Skate Jam forom 12-6pm at the Manhattan Bridge Skatepark and the Harold Hunter Party at KCDC in Brooklyn from 8pm to midnight. For more information you can check out the website.

There has been growing concern about bottled water recently. A little while ago there were reports that the plastic that bottled water was packaged in was leaching into the water itself which isn’t great. Next there is the environmental impact the disposed of bottles have.

Well, the NY Post is reporting that some New York restaurants are addressing this issue and ‘banning’ bottled water at their locations. so far 12 are on board with the ban (including the Waverly Inn, Del Posto, Gemma, Bobo, Gusto Organics and Broadway East). Apparently the issue has become big enough that even the Park Slope Food Co-op will be voting later this month on whether they will continue to sell bottled waters.

According to the NY Post article, it takes 41 million barrels of oil a year to produce, transport and store bottled water. In place of bottles like Pellegrino you will have the option of free tap water (as you always did) or specially filtered tap water that will run you about $5 a glass. Of course at places like Per Se all non-alcoholic drinks are free of charge (they offer both bottled water and filtered water).

Apparently, even though New York is the Big Apple, that isn’t an official nickname of the city. In fact, New York City doesn’t have any official nicknames.

While this may seem rather shocking that no nickname was ever attached to the city, Queens City Councilman Hiram Monserrate is looking to fix this by officially linking up New York as Gotham City. Monserrate feels that with this summer’s release of Batman : The Dark Knight, the city would be able to launch into an all-out campaign with “Come visit the real Gotham City.”

Of course the Gotham City depicted in Batman’s world is dark, gritty and filled with crime and supervillians, which, to some extent is actually kind of fitting for New York (sans the Supervillians). Not exactly the right message to be sending about New York, is it? Especially when you ate trying to lure in tourists. (more…)

Although we have previously mentioned that the sandwich shop formerly known as Zozo’s was going to be replaced with a noodle shop on the corner of Orchard and Stanton, there is now a banner up so we know that it will be called “Noodle Bar - Lower East Side.”

If you thought this might not be the ideal location for a new noodle shop with Open Sesame up the block on Orchard, Kampuchea just two blocks away on Allen and Rivington and a plethora of other spots on 1st avenue (including Momofuku), well apparently you’d be wrong.

Not only did Noodle Bar - Lower East Side think this would be a good location, but not even half a block away on Stanton (next to Epstein’s bar) another new noodle shop will be opening. Slurp has all of its signage up and for a while even had its tables set and looked like it was ready to open…before they had to go back in and do some more work (new work permit signs went up on the door just last week).

It looks like this is going to be the Spring of Noodle Soups for the Lower East Side. If either one of them ever opens maybe we will even go and write a review.

March is one of my favorite times of year, the weather (slowly) starts turning from freezing cold to mildly cold (and then eventually to warm even), um… Other things occur… But the big thing in New York is that the circus comes to town.

Now, I am not a huge fan of the circus or anything, in fact I haven’t seen Ringling Brothers since I was in high school, but I do like the animals, especially the elephants and one of the best things is watching the elephants run through the Queens midtown tunnel and then across 34th street to Madison Square Garden, it is quite a site to see. They also bring some horses along for the jog down the street and some more ferocious animals (in cages).

This year the Elephant Walk (as they like to call it.. But the elephants haul-ass down 34th) will be on March 18th according to the MTA Bridge & Tunnel group. Usually the walk is scheduled to occur around 11:30, but doesn’t actually happen until closer to 12:30. Most people hang out by the tunnel or down by MSG, but really you can stand anywhere along 34th street to check it out.

Personally I recommend the corner of 34th and 7th, you get a full view as they come down the street and then turn the corner on to 7th. The second best part of it are all the tourists around the area who have no idea what is happening untul the elephants come rolling down the street.

While everyone is all up-in-arms about Spitzer sleeping around, there has been other Hooker news out there: The Daily News reports on the Fire Department of New York crackdown on “Racy” nicknames for Fire Departments that has been going on since 2006.

Fire Departments in the city have their own logos and nicknames, kind of like a team pride thing. Some of them are humdrum run of the mill type stuff, but some of them they had a bit of fun with, like the 279 out in Red Hook. They are the Happy Hookers (get it, like Hook & Ladder… Glad we are al together on this one).

Apparently this name ban dates back to shortly after a 2005 scandal involving a firehouse that went by the name of Animal House. After the scandal broke the FDNY tried to clean up its image by changing the names and images of firehouses that they find to be offensive. Gone are the days of the Nut House, Southern Comfort, 90 Proof and, you would assume, the Happy Hookers. While many have removed the logo from the firehouses and dropped their firehouse patches, the Happy Hookers, out in Red Hook have refused.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” said one member of Engine 279, who asked that his name not be used. “It’s tradition and it’s not hurting anyone.”

I got to say, I do kind of agree with Firehouse 279, maybe Animal House and 90 Proof were inappropriate names, but The Happy Hookers is just a play on words, and words associated with firefighters at least (cause really, what does Southern Comfort have to do with fighting fires?).