Thursday, May 16, 2013

Some more nice ideas

Remember Animal Biscuits? Why can't you buy them anymore? An NZ version of these boxes of biscuits has to be a good business idea

A double glazed window filled with marbles

Or not such a good idea - cake pops

Around every tree on every street in Manhattaan - little gardens


Love these Converse sneakers


More biscuits

Paper robot construction kits for kids

Remember this next time you go shopping...


Tuesday, May 14, 2013

more pics of the New York Public Library

One of the special writers rooms

Spring-time crowds on the steps at the front of the building


 
A genealogy research room

Volunteer tour guide in front with scarf - she was passionate about the Library

The Public Catalog Room (when it used to be a card catalog)

Nice idea

This is something I saw at the New York Public Library shop (you can buy online here, check out some of the cute things for children!). The shop is staffed by volunteers, and all profits go to supporting the collections.


The sign in front on the blackboard at the entry says "Keep Calm and Read On".

On the side window is this feature wall 'NYPL Reads 2013'. You can take one of the preprinted slips of paper - What I'm reading now', and fill it in. Most people hadded their names and some had drawn little doodles or illustrations of the book they added.


Lots of visitors were stopping to look at what others had added to the board. The book I was reading at the time was Claire Messud, The emporer's children. A very NY post 9/11 novel. The author was doing a free talk at Borders that evening about her latest book, The woman upstairs.

You can what NYPL shoppers are reading now on these lists - e.g. adult fiction top ten

Because the Main library attracts so many tourists and visitors, they have a good selection of activity books and readers for kids that are about New York. The second listed title here, Library Lion, is a picture book we have in our Kidzone collection.

Monday, May 6, 2013

back in Brisbane

Qantas flights have been really comfortable. Dallas Fort Worth Airport was great too. I had southern fried chicken. Had a row last night so could lie down for the 14 hour flight.  We must have almost flown over Auckland so this is seriously the long way around. A day in Brisbane would be nice, sadly it just a couple of hours.  Hooray for a short week. I just skipped Monday altogether.


Saturday, May 4, 2013

last chance

I'll have just enough time for a quick trip along to the Broadway shops tomorrow before I have to leave for the airport.  Zara was a madhouse this afternoon. You could hardly move in the store and there were lines waiting for the fitting rooms and another queue at the cashier. Buying online is looking good.  Also I am thinking a NZ designers pop-up store would go well in Soho. Verge and suchlike. I think it would go really well. And a Paluma Print shop at Chelsea Markets would do really well too.

I walked myself out again today, after the High Line I wandered through Chinatown and little Italy and then east side in a totally Latino area where I dropped in at a branch library and watched the kids going crazy at storytime.



Out on the street another bunch of kids was going crazy at what turned out to be a sidewalk Sunday school van. They were hyping the kids up in full Oral Roberts style. It is Saturday by the way.  Meanwhile back on the streets of Soho in between tourists shopping up big time the locals were hanging on the sidewalks soaking up some sun and looking cool and packing out the restaurants and walking their designer dogs on designer leashes.  I visited Purl Soho where the cutest knitters hang out. And the Pearl River Mart, a Chinese emporium. And a great bookshop, and Crate and Barrel, where I mentally furnished and fitted out my new NY studio apartment. And then an organic French commune bakery. And strictly window shopped a bevvy of famous name fashion designers. Whew! Worn out.  Last orders please.



Desigual very cool clothes

one to plan for next year

Tomorrow's event is the Five Boros Bike Ride.  There will be some 35,000 cyclists. Lots of folk come from interstate just to take part. It would be a great way to see a bit more of the city, beyond Manhattan.
High security, as in no bags allowed at all. The was the Avenue of the Americas, (6th Avenue) just outside my hotel. There were bikes going past like this for at least an hour, maybe two.

The city is introducing a share bike scheme called City Bike
Heavy duty bike locks are the norm


Beat the parking issues! High-rise for cars is common.

chelsea

Right around about the time of that loo queue experience I fell out love with the city. But it was just exhaustion and I was twitchy with tiredness. Another sort of line sorted me out. Saturday morning breakfast at Chelsea Market and a stroll along the High Line and I'm good again even to wait in the loo line at the Broadway branch of SStarbucks. Another day another queue.

I just needed some greenery, gardens and water views. Even though you don't really escape the crowds it is a space to bring a smile back and put a bounce in your step.



 It has to be one of the best public urban spaces ever.  Brings a fresh perspective to the whole environment and puts me back in love. We have a good book in the collection at 974.71 DAV The High Line: the inside story of New York City's park in the sky.
Before








After
A quick subway ride and I'm back on home ground in Soho.
Soho is all buildings like this with designer shops at street level

Here's a trend for you, it had to happen, Campers are doing twin shoes. A pair with each a different color way. You heard first here. So two pairs of Converse sneakers but wear one of each, one foot orange and the other pink. You hearin' me? Then a summer dress and a denim jacket. Or tiny frayed shorts with a cropped t shirt and that denim jacket over.. And those would be the platform sneakers.



Each branch of Starbucks must generate a truck load of garbage every day. I have not had a drink in a real mug or cup all week.




queues (On the Line)

After the Met, I walked to the Rockefeller Centre. Had in mind the views over Central Park. But just looking up at that building Freaked me out. Forget the views, but by now I needed the restroom. I had to stand in a queue of about 60 women. Let's just say my feet were aching. I saw where the ice skating rink goes and found the Anthropologie shop. Queued for a cup of tea. Queued to buy something at the MOMA design store. Queued for another cup of tea (just to rest those feet) and then of course had to stand in line again for the loo.



Thinking about how different it must be to grow up and live somewhere with no landscape, just endless city-scapes.


Uptown



Friday, May 3, 2013

The MET

This morning's coffee comes to you from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The two things I wanted to are both closed this week. So if I want to have coffee in the 5th floor cafe overlooking Central Park I'll have to come back next week. Likewise for the Frank Lloyd Wright's room. DEM's de breaks girl.

I hadn't really thought about how many universities there are in Manhattan. Whole neighbourhoods all over. That's a lot of libraries

This cafe does look out onto Central Park and those joggers are bac. Plus folk walking their dogs. All on leashes. Not such a good place to be a dog.  The Met is actually in the Park.

Maybe not such a bad life - they even get to go shopping

One of the current exhibitions is Fashion and the Impressionists.
Wandering around surrounded by works by Manet, Monet, Renoir, Baudelaire and others,
with some of the actual dresses that are seen in the paintings - sensory overload. That's Dejeuner sur L'herbe in the background. Two of the panels that survive. amazing

The Met was surrounded by hoarding which detracted from the facade

This was me trying to be arty, photographing Central Park through the sunshading inside the Met

Normal crowds in the foyer at the Met

Buskers spruicking for the lunchtime crowds in the steps, pretzel cart behind doing brisk business