The Central Park Conservancy, the non-profit entity that helps maintain the park, has posted an appeal in case you want to donate to contribute to the cleanup effort.

We also bought this bootleg T-shirt with the only-in-Philly poignant (unintended?) double meaning at a bar in Port Richmond on Friday night the day before the game:

The game on October 4 was interesting for the shadows on the field, which the Times talked about during baseball’s different division series. You can see how the shadows move across the field over the course of an afternoon during the early fall:

We also saw the Spectrum before it will be demolished:

See also: Bloomberg For Mayor 2009.

Later that day we got takeout at Karam’s Restaurant in Bay Ridge:

Traveling between Rockaway Peninsula and Brooklyn meant traversing another bridge, the Marine Parkway Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge between Brooklyn and Queens:

August 1, 2009

Dinner at Agnanti in Astoria, including their Rooster specialty dish:

The kids went to Shannon Pot after dropping off the parents:

August 2, 2009

It rained in Ridgewood, New Jersey:

But we had a nice view of Midtown from the Secaucus Junction Train Station on the way back home:

August 3, 2009

One of the aforementioned Mets games at Citi Field.

August 4, 2009

The Frick Collection:

We watched the sun set from the North Recreation and Interpretive Area in Gantry Plaza State Park in Long Island City:

August 5, 2009

A trip to one of Mom’s favorite NYC stores, Fishs Eddy:

We tried impressing the parents with the soft serve at Dessert Club, ChikaLicious:

August 6, 2009

Dinner at Taverna Kyclades in Astoria:

August 7, 2009

We rented a car to go up into the Hudson Valley for the day. This was the first car, a Chevrolet Aveo:

By the way, Old Yankee Stadium is still there:

We made a pit stop at the Palisades Interstate Park Commission Visitor Center (otherwise known as a place to go to the bathroom) on the Palisades Interstate Parkway:

On the way out, we (I) hit this mammoth pothole and popped a hole in the front left tire of the Aveo:

The nine-dollar-a-day insurance came in handy, so we returned the car to Budget at Stewart International Airport. This required a detour through Newburgh, but not before a stop at the US 9W Overlook above West Point:

Everything looked different than when we visited there last fall:

The detour through Newburgh, New York:

Then returning the car at Stewart International Airport. I had never been to Stewart, so it was a chance to check it out. While there, a well-intentioned State Trooper asked why I was taking a picture of the terminal. The folks cheerfully explained that we had a website where we put up pictures of anything and everything. He was alarmed, and took a look at the pictures we’d taken. Exterior shots of the airport were OK, but this image had, in his words, “no apparent aesthetic value,” language which I remembered hearing about:

You may wonder what the purpose of the Big Map is. Fair enough. I think the pictures have many purposes, including aesthetics (sometimes!) but also in terms of transmitting information. In the above image, there is an ad for Nyack in the foreground, the airlines that fly out of Stewart in the background and people in 2009 dressing a certain way and using particular types of luggage (carry-ons!). Many years from now people might be interested in these details. When I look at archival photos I’m often more interested in details that the photographer probably overlooked — stuff like clothes, cars, advertisements. Our own photos have adjusted over time with this in mind; it used to be that I’d avoid cars in a street scene until I realized that those details were what made images. Places like strip malls then become interesting — this is how we live today and what it looks like. Spots like IKEA that you wouldn’t normally think are interesting then become interesting — incidentally, I think the reverse is also true: sometimes those closeups of historic cornices are lame in that they’re interesting to contemporary audiences who get jazzed about old stuff, but they’re chronologically out of context (I’m not judging, either — I get sidetracked by cool old cornices all the time — but I also know that series of images of landmarked neighborhoods have a staleness about them; those are places that by definition remain static, and there’s less of a reason to run out to photograph them — of course those are the places that people love to look at). It goes on and on. But anyway, like I was saying, I think the purpose of photos changes over time. The utilitarian look of Stewart might be interesting years from now, even if it looks pedestrian today. In a way, it’s silly to talk about stuff like this, but the State Trooper made us think about it, so it’s worth remembering as you peruse the Big Map photos. (By the way, I’m smart enough not to take photos of the security areas, but those kinds of images will be interesting one day, too, in showing among other stuff how we live today.) For me, why do I want to take a picture of Stewart? Because I’ve never been there and I want to know what it looks like. And I want to fill in the spaces of the Big Map . . .

After seeing art, we stopped by Woodbury Common Premium Outlets to run errands:

Oh, and in case you hadn’t heard:

August 8, 2009

I took the car back to LaGuardia early in the morning, and waited for the bus home by the MTA Bus LaGuardia Depot. Again, a security guard asked why I was taking pictures, but he seemed satisfied when I pointed to this cool old bus:

So you see, an old timey-time bus is fair — and fair enough, more reasonable people will look at that and think, “Oh, cool!” and it makes sense that you’re taking a photo of it. But there are also the newer buses there — and in time they will become cool, too. Or maybe transportation will look totally different years from now and all these vehicles — or even the idea that there’s a depot to begin with — will have a different meaning to people. We — I — don’t know.

You can’t take pictures from the upper levels of the Guggenheim, but that leaves a lot to enjoy in the big rotunda on the ground floor of the museum:

Later, a drink at Pier 66 Maritime:

August 9, 2009

A visit to the TKTS booth in Duffy Square:

We got tickets to South Pacific at Lincoln Center:

I think Mom and Dad had a nice visit.

You can also follow the timeline of third term-related blog posts on the right column of the page . . .

The first game was the Mets vs. Diamondbacks on August 3, 2009. We located the sad old Shea Stadium Home Run Apple:

An excellent sunset over Manhattan:

I complained before about the obstructed views from the upper rows of Section 538, but the dirty secret about Citi Field seems to be that there are obstructed views nearly everywhere, including Section 524:

And it’s not just in the 500 level. A friend said he came across tickets seven rows behind the Mets dugout and couldn’t see the right field corner (his regular seats, part of a season ticket, are above the Spongetech sign in the outfield where he can’t see most of the left field corner):

We sat a little lower in Section 426 for the game against the Phillies on August 21, 2009 and still couldn’t see the left field corner:

And there is a lot of interference when looking at the field from that part of the stadium:

I know part of the knock against Shea Stadium was that it was so cavernous, but at least you could see the entire field from most (if not all) the seats. How you can spend $800 million and have obstructed views of any sort seems strange. And charging people what the Mets are charging seems outrageous. The face value of our Section 426 seats was $42. For that you had to listen to the crowd to discern whether Gary Sheffield gave enough of a shit to catch the ball. Weird.

Then there’s the out-of-town scoreboard that doesn’t feature “2s,” so you didn’t know that the Yankees were actually beating the Red Sox 20 to 7, instead of 10 to 7:

Before the game we took a walk from Hinton Park in Corona to Citi Field. This is also known as a way to avoid spending $18 to park, a tip I learned from the Mets Police blog. In only eight minutes, you can get from here, at 34th Avenue and 114th Street:

To here, the Left Field Gate at Citi Field:

Along the way you get to walk along the Whitestone Expressway:

The Monday day game against the Phillies on August 24 was a perfect day:

These seats, in Section 518, actually had a full view of the field. You know things are bad with the sightlines when StubHub sellers boast that a particular seat has a “full view of the field.”

That weekend the Mets were celebrating the 1969 World Series-winning team with specially mowed grass and painted “1969s”:

It was the day after Phillies utility man Eric “Beardo” Bruntlett made a super-rare game-ending unassisted triple play, only the 15th in the history of major league baseball:

An aside — I happened to be at Yankee Stadium to witness the 11th unassisted triple play in a major league game in 2000 — on the scorecard, see Shane Spencer’s sixth-inning at-bat, with the “4U TP”:

You can change the stadium but you can’t change the flightpath — I actually love watching the planes fly into LaGuardia, even if they’re a little loud (and the city somehow believes they can develop Willets Point when planes fly through there until late into the evening every night . . . hmmm):

The late-afternoon shadows fall over the field and Mets fans endure yet another loss:

First order of business was an evening on the Wildwood Boardwalk:

Watch the Tram Car, please:

We dined on Curley’s Fries and Kohr Bros. frozen custard while watching the Friday Night Fireworks, and enjoyed the Wildwoods Sign before going big at the Gateway 26 Casino and Olympic Casino. We did not spend long at the Boardwalk Chapel, though the folks there seemed nice enough.

Wildwood is always a little bit of a crapshoot. In 2004 we caught the infamous “Wack The Iraq” display before it was taken down:

This time there were some slightly embarrassing T-shirts for sale, and I don’t mean those of the “Flip Cup Master” variety:

Elsewhere, some remnants of Wildwood’s “Doo Wop” style remain, though the old 50s-style architecture is endangered:

Day two was Ocean City, where we saw a giant tuna being taken apart on a dock. It smelled like a sushi joint:

The main event of the weekend was Ocean City’s annual Night in Venice celebration, a rare night of partying in this dry town:

The idea is to decorate pleasure craft and parade them through the inlets on town’s bay side. Bay side residents typically have big parties that last well into the evening. It’s kind of difficult to photograph, but this YouTube gets across the basic idea:

Night in Venice 2009 YouTube Video

And the Soy Sauce Crispy Baby Chicken at Fuleen Seafood Restaurant in Manhattan’s Chinatown works magic with Pringles:

While you’re at it, watch these asshats post no bills: