Tag Archives: New York

Dec 19 2011

The Tram in Nottingham

There was great news at the end of last week about the Nottingham Tram – phases two and three are about to start. This has been a long time in the making, but the reality is about to hit home.

A secret picture of a new Nottingham Tram....

The announcements last week about the awarding of the contract to TramLink Nottingham are very real as I have some letters on my desk at work telling me that one of my clients in Beeston is going to have his land taken on 16th January 2012 – less than a month away. It will be good to see the diggers getting started – with the first trams likely to run in 2014.

I will also see the benefit at work too as the tram is about to run past my front door – thus meaning I can stop paying a fortune to the City for parking in town! I spent £30 last week!

I do like the suggestion on their web-site that they are hoping to offer contracts to local suppliers – this should be good for Nottingham jobs. Hopefully we can avoid another Bomardier debacle?

The A453 meanwhile is still apparently fast-tracked. But unlike the Tram there are no dates for starting. I just wonder how long it will be before we discover that there are few technical issues to be resolved.

But as a very wise friend of mine said last week I bet by the time of the next election there will be some bright yellow diggers on that A453. Cynical? – perhaps. Probable? – certainly!

My only request for the Tram is that look at the fare structure. Last time I went on was over a year ago. I didn’t realise you needed quite so much money! Take a lesson from New York – $2.25 (around £1.45) for a ride – anywhere on the network. And discounted if you buy a carnet. Public transport needs to have great geographical coverage – but it also need to be cheap!

Nov 27 2011

Art – the New York way

Last week whilst over the pond we visited New York’s latest Art Gallery – The New Art Museum at 235 Bowery. It’s an interesting building from the outside – industrial looking – punctuated with a giant red rose!

But unlike the Nottingham Contemporary entry isn’t free. It was $16 each (around £10) – to see effectivley one exhibition -The Carsten Holler Experience.

I will confess that sometimes Contemporary Art puzzles me. This was pretty puzzling – a giant slide, a submersion tank (an hour queue to undress and get wet), some bird cages and giant mushrooms. There was a room with some plastic figures and headache inducing flashing lights. There was a tame carousel with mirrors all over it – a 2 year old wouldn’t have been ‘thrilled’ at the speed. You could have worn upside-down glasses all the way round if you signed a disclaimer.

This was a show I struggled with. I think they call it “installation art”. But it wasn’t partuclarly clever. I didn’t fancy queing to take part in some of it.

I suppose you always take a risk in paying an entry fee to see something you have never heard about -or an artist you haven’t hear of. I’m not sure if it was the lack of exhibits that disappointed or that this was at the edge of my understanding of ‘art’.

But the following night we were walking through SOHO on the way back to our Hotel – and happened upon a Gallery selling art. The front part of the gallery was a little too ‘fantasy’ world for my liking. But at the back were original cartoons – The Simpsons (signed by Matt Groening), Tin Tin (Herge), Shultz’s Snoopy, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride sketches and a brilliant sketch of Kermit the Frog by Jim Henson. Prices varied from around $800 up to $30,000. I didn’t buy any – although had the Herge’s Tin Tin not been sold I would have been very tempted.

For all of the prices though – viewing was free! And I appreciated it much more than Carsten Holler…

Nov 23 2011

New York – the essentials!

When you have been to New York 17 times there are some things you can afford to miss (the tourist attractions!). But there are some essentials. Having just got back to Blighty I thought I would scribble my recommendations!

Breakfast – The Cupping Room Cafe on West Broadway. Just great food and a great atmosphere. The way your day should start. And if not The Cupping Rooms – Edwards on west Broadway is a close second.

Boys Toys – the best shop on the planet – B&H Photo – just near to Madison Square Garden. Acres of ‘toys’ – and not all Apple. A photographers nirvana. When you have done that – the Apple Store – there’s a few of them. The one at the south-eastern corner of Central Park is quite cool – but the one in the Meatpacking District on 14th is pretty good too. The original one in Soho is being refurbished – so has a temporary home around the corner.

Neighbourhoods – Soho and The Meatpacking District are great fun to explore. The scale of the buildings here is more ‘normal’ and you can find some really interesting places.

Pizza – It has to be John’s Pizza on Bleeker Street, They don’t do slices and you have to pay cash – but $30 for two is great value – and this is where The Ramones had their Sunday lunch.

Star Spotting – you have to look carefully as the reason the celebs love the place is that they blend in. But I have seen Eddy Izzard, Ricky Gervais, Bill Murray and Charlize Theron (twice).

Humbling moment – go to Ground Zero. It makes you realise the devastation on that 9/11 fateful day. The new Freedom Tower is now a significant landmark – which you can see for some distance – and it’s not quite there yet!

Coffee – The New Yorkers do coffee shops rather well. There are hundreds of them. Often accompanied by Cup Cakes – clearly the healthy types. There’s a Starbucks on nearly every corner. But the independents are pretty good too.

Music – Bleeker Street Records is just a gold-mine of music. It has been there for ever and stocks an amazing range of CD, vinyl and even cassettes (remember those). The new vinyl is reasonably priced too – $15-20. Downtown at J&R you can pick up some bargains too.

So that’s this trip over – I guess we’ll have to wait for another couple of months to get back here…

Nov 21 2011

The High Line and Chelsea Village

This is one of our favourite parts of New York. I was here just after the High Line opened in 2009 – and had watched it being built (or rather re-built) over the preceding years.

The New York High Line - at Dusk

It really is one of the best pieces of public open-spaces in my view. The group of people who had the forethought to rescue it from demolition really do deserve a medal. It was frighteningly expensive to do – and when you visit you can see why. It meanders through buildings, over petrol filling stations and through pretty expensive real estate.

We were there at Dusk and the light was amazing – everything glowed pink. It was also really busy (not a good sign for a photographer!).

It has recently been extended northwards and now runs for nearly 1.5 miles.

But this whole area is a fantastic neighbourhood. This was The Meat Packing District (think Ronseal Tin!) but has now become the trendy part of town. Expensive boutique shops (Stella McCartney et al).

One of the best pieces of re-use of a building is the Chelsea Flower market. It is one of a handful of ‘shopping centres’ in New York. But comprises predominantly independent small shops – The Fat Witch Bakery and RonnyBrooks Dairy being two notable ones. It really has been well thought through – much of the original ‘industrial’ feel of the place remains. There are rough edges – this is no polished marble floored centre.

And I think that’s what New York does best. It doesn’t do the clinical sanitised centres we have become used to. Grunginess is character here. It may not have a long history as we do back home, but the history it does have, it celebrates and holds on to. It makes the shabbiness cool – but authentic too. There’s little pastiche here. What you see is what you get…

UPDATE

I have purchased the book about the story of the High Line – which contains some amazing images (and the story of how it was all saved).

Nov 20 2011

The Empire State Building is green…

In all the times I have been to the USA I have never really thought they go mad on green. I think a few years ago, the best they got was lighting the Empire State with green lights – missing the point a bit?

But times have changed and this building now sources 100% of renewable energy. The owners announced recently that they are buying all of their energy from the Green Mountain Energy Company. This is reckoned to save around 45,000 tonnes of CO2 annually – or the equivalent of
planting nearly 150,000 trees – more than 6 times the number of trees in Central Park now.

The owners have spent $550m in the last twelve months – of which $100m has been on ‘green technologies’. 6,500 windows have been upgraded to replace the glazing with a new super-insulated sandwich glass. This will save another 100,000 tonnes of CO2 over a 15 year period – the equivalent of 17,500 cars being taken off the road.

I think it has taken the Americans some time to come to the sustainability table. New York is rather consumer-centric.

The Empire State building isn’t my favourite New York piece of architecture (The Chrysler Building is), but you can use it in lots of places to identify where you are! It is certainly iconic. And at 2.85m sq ft – it is a monster of a building – from a different era. But it is now bang up to date! And very green…

When I say ‘green’ I mean purple…. bright purple last night!

Nov 19 2011

New York – there may be trouble ahead

As we arrived in New York on Thursday night I did notice a large number of NYPD Officers taking a break around the corner from our hotel. There were quite a few of their cars and vans parked up. In all of the times we have been here the high Police presence hasn’t been been unusual. Guiuliano‘s zero tolerance policy had a massive positive effect on this place.

But as we woke up on Friday it seems we were in the middle of the latest protest. The one here is “Occupy Wall Street” and they had assembled on Brooklyn Bridge and got themselves arrested!

The problem with the news here is that it isn’t BBC quality. In the space of an hour, there were 100, 99, 50 and 65 arrests all at the same place. Clearly there had been trouble – a protestor with his face piercings made good imagery as did the guy with the blood stained face. And a Policeman was also arrested – well a retired one from Philadelphia!

The thrust of the protest is that Wall Street controls the White House – and this is a people uprising. There were quite a few of them – the NYPD thought around 32,500.

What is interesting is that this is probably one of the most ‘market driven’ places on the planet. This is where you can make millions and live in a similar style. In all of the times I have been here, I haven’t come across this ‘attitude’. It has always seemed to me to be a place where you have the chance to make it. In fact, that is positively encouraged.

But something has gone wrong. The balance has tipped – as we saw in the UK in the summer. We have seen this in London recently too.

A lot of the protestors here are young people who seem to have lost respect for authority, but as a result of a loss of faith in the ‘system’. A loss of hope too. None of that can be good – and we have to find a way of re-engaging and giving them hope?

Nov 18 2011

Virgin -v- Willie (Walsh)

Welcome to my blog – brought to you this morning from New York City…As this goes to ‘print’ I am hoping to be sound asleep – being 5 hours behind the UK!

It seems like an age since we were here – actually it was January this year – one of the longest gaps ever. This is my favourite City on the planet (even over Nottingham!).

We arrived a few hours ago courtesy of Mr Willie Walsh and British Airways. This was a big change for us as we are pretty much died in the wool “virgins”. Virgin Atlantic Airways have carried us across the pond numerous times – I have a fair few air miles. But they were no good this time as the flight times out of Heathrow were early morning – which carries too much of a risk in getting to the airport from Nottingham! And coming back they could only fly us from Newark Airport – which is a potentially expensive transfer.

I blogged about the amazing price difference here, so it was not a difficult choice really – in and out of JFK at times which suited us. So the switch to BA was done.

The upside to BA is that you fly from T5 – which is an amazing building – more like a shopping centre than airport terminal. In fact, it is a shopping centre.

The downside is that World Traveller Plus is not the same as Premium Economy. I thought the seat was smaller, there were less seats and we only had a choice of one place to sit (you can only book 24 hours before unless you pay!) The TV screen seemed tiny.

The food was ok, but cold red wine doesn’t please me! And just three drinks on a near 8 hour flight isn’t enough.

Next time, I think we’ll head back to Virgin….

But for the next few days, it’s the Big Apple – I’ll try to find some interesting things to blog about!

Oct 20 2011

New York The High Line part two

It looks as though we might time our return to New York just right. We are heading back to the Big Apple in a months time; I was last there in January.

One of my favourite parts of the City is a public park which manages to blend old and new. Originally opened in the 1930′s the High Line fell into disuse in 1980 and was about to be demolished when a few people got together and elided it was with saving. It re-opened in 2009 was a Public Park. It is brilliant!

And the second phase has just opened – extending the present line by 10 blocks to the north. This is one of the City’s most interesting and unique settings. The High Line is a raised walkway with flower beds, benches, viewing galleries all built in the highest quality materials. It really is superbly executed. The first part cost a cool $153m to rebuild. The last part extends the line to approximately 1.5 miles and makes this a pretty long ‘park in the sky’.

This is a great example of how public spaces should be. It is really well managed, is unique in how it works – it weaves in and and out of buildings. It was part of a catalyst of things which helped reinvigorate an area (The Meatpacking District).

Sometimes it takes this sort of project to change perceptions and kick-start development.

Perhaps we need a few projects like this in the UK?

Sep 27 2011

Price Fixing – or a coincidence?

We haven’t been to New York for a while so are planning a quick trip before Christmas. November is a great time of year for the Big Apple…

I have been checking on prices – ideally flying out on a morning flight and avoiding an overnight one back – they mess with you. I’m happy going into either JFK or Newark – and vice versa for coming back. We would normally fly Virgin Atlantic – I have thousands of miles (even if they’re not worth very much).

But we always check other airlines too. BA offers Premium Economy too – they call it world traveller. And they fly into JFK…

Imagine my surprise when I checked the flights….

Now that is what I call a coincidence. The same price – to the penny! You couldn’t make it up?

Come on Willie and Richard – tell me you didn’t have a chat about how much you would charge me to fly to New York? Or is this the most amazing coincidence ever?

Jul 8 2011

Art for free?

As you probably know I am a huge fan of Nottingham Contemporary. I think the Gallery is a fantastic advert for Nottingham. At every opportunity I shout about it – and go there.

Jackson Pollock at The Tate Modern

In London at the weekend we ventured to Tate Modern. I have been a few times but my wife, Lesley has not! In fact she hasn’t been to London for quite some times – the joke is that we have been to New York more than we have been to London (ignoring the technical matter of flying out of Heathrow).

I like the Tate – they have some really impressive modern pieces of art – paintings, drawings, photography and sculpture. There’s plenty to see. The shop is great and the restaurant on the ground floor really good too. In fact my blog was started in that restaurant – over a lunch with my mate John Lyle. The coffee is pretty good…

But, the current exhibition was a step too far. They have Joan Miro on show. I have seen his fantastic Foundation in Barcelona. I love his work – and was once offered a pair of his prints in New York for a mere $52,000 – I didn’t. But the Tate exhibition is a paid entry. And it’s £15.50 to get in. £31.00 for two. That’s quite a lot?

I guess that they have quite a lot you can see for free, so I’m not complaining really. But I was reminded that Nottingham Contemporary is free. You are encouraged to make a donation – but the starting point is that it costs zip.

I like Art for free. I will happily spend money in the coffee bar and shop… Is this wrong?