Writing about Ellis Island last time, I mentioned that the U.S. Supreme Court ended years of controversy over exactly where the old immigration station — now a museum — officially sits. New York Harbor, of course. In New Jersey waters, not New York’s, it turns out. Which got me thinking about another, nearby saga of […]
The Empire State Building: No. 2 in New York, 1 in Our Hearts
Posted May 4th, 2012 at 4:37 pm (UTC-4)
The real-estate consortium that is organizing a public stock offering for the world-famous Empire State Building might consider this pitch line, slightly modified from the old slogan that worked splendidly for Avis Rent-a-Car: We’re No. 2! — Again No. 2 in height in New York City, that is, ever since workers at One World Trade […]
‘Most Unusual and Surrealistic’ Central Park
Posted July 12th, 2011 at 5:28 pm (UTC-4)
The quote in my title is from the Bulgarian-born artist Christo, who, with his wife Jeanne-Claude, erected 7,500 colorful “gates” draped in billowing saffron-orange fabric in New York City’s Central Park over 16 days in the dead of winter in 2005. Their work was surrealistic, too, as you see: At 341 hectares (843 acres), Central […]
The (Fill in Here) City
Posted February 2nd, 2011 at 3:36 pm (UTC-4)
After today I will, I think, have the “nickname thing” out of my system. I’ve told you about various state nicknames, such as “The Buckeye State” (Ohio) and “The Volunteer State” (Tennessee). And about the exuberant, often animal-related nicknames that colleges and universities have attached to their sports teams, such as “Wolverines” (University of Michigan) […]
