Rich Mintz  

I suppose I can blame Hagan Blount for this one, too.

Finding myself at home unexpectedly for dinner, approaching 9pm (at which point delivery starts to get complicated in this neighborhood), I remembered that I now live next door to Zaitzeff, the home of one of Manhattan’s best quasi-gourmet burgers and fries. I ate at Zaitzeff a few times shortly after they opened several years ago, back when I was in full startup-company mode and couldn’t really afford 15 bucks for a burger and fries. It still feels like a lot of money, but I remember the experience fondly, and so tonight I said, “What the hell?”, and I dug the menu out of the menu box and gave them a call.

They were backed up on deliveries, but they cheerfully accommodated a pickup right away, so I walked next door to pick up my greasy and aromatic brown paper bag and brought it home.

Here are the contents, unloaded onto a plate in my kitchen:

And here’s the same photo with something added that I really think it needed:

I got the 1/4-pound sirloin, well done, with cheddar, and an order of Idaho fries. The burger came with a generous hunk of iceberg and a slab of tomato and a mound of well-sauteed onions, on which was melted a lump of high-quality white cheddar. The burger itself was done to my taste, well-seasoned and flavorful. And the whole thing was served on a big sweet chewy Portuguese muffin. No complaints here.

The fries were hand-cut and well-done, fried in peanut oil (I’m guessing), streaked with dark brown and salted just right. The closest fries I can think of are those at Five Guys, but I always roll out of there feeling like I ate way too much; these fries were satisfying but not heavy, so maybe there’s a trick of some kind.

All in all, another satisfying fast-food meal, about a 15-second walk from the front door of my building — and more evidence that the living down here in the Financial District is better than you think it is.

In “Life in New York — Then and Now” (referenced by Urbanophile), John Podhoretz evocatively discusses how New York, and specifically the Upper West Side, has and has not changed over the past 40 years.

To those of us who came to live in the city in the last decade, it’s sometimes difficult to imagine the Upper West Side, and New York City generally, as Podhoretz (like Saul Bellow, and a parade of others) assures us it was: physically neglected and crumbling, the social fabric frayed, at times menacing to the point of anarchy. Neighborhoods that today are overrun with $900 strollers and yoga studios and some of the most expensive brownstone real estate in the city can be difficult to imagine otherwise. But it was not always this way, and the documentary evidence exists of how it used to be: in the Times, in contemporary news footage and in the photo archive of the Museum of the City of New York (seen in the current exhibit and in the “Lindsay Years” documentary recently shown on WNET), in the memories of three generations of people born between 1920 and 1980. All those people didn’t move to Westchester and Merrick (and, on the coast I grew up in, to Northridge and Anaheim and Walnut Creek) for nothing; they were searching for a place where they could be free of the weight of a place where (in their view) the social contract seemed to have broken down. I knew a family of Brooklyn refugees in the San Fernando Valley in my early childhood; they obviously longed for the sweet place they had known, but they longed for it with (as I inferred) the resolution of people who knew that, at least for now, it was gone.

Even I am old enough to have had experience of New York in its anarchic and menacing days, or at least the tail end of them, in the 1980s, when the chattering classes were unified in the sense that something had to change — that the old responses to the breakdown of the old ways weren’t going to work — but nobody was yet quite sure how to pull it off. When I first visited the city in 1982, the overwhelming impression was of a place where people had lost the daily experience of routine social order, though they never lost the hope of regaining it. A city where armed guards sit in the entranceways of college dormitories is a city that is gritting its teeth in the face of an onslaught it can’t quite marshal the resources to defeat, waiting for a savior to come along.

We all know what happened: the city bounced back, changed in some ways but not in others. Podhoretz seems pretty emphatic that all the changes are for the better; I’m not so sure. The corporatization and homogenization of the city have exacted their costs (most notably in pushing popular cultural activity out of the central core). But, re Podhoretz, what right have I to expect otherwise from someone who in childhood was serially mugged, grew up in a world where assault was routine, watched a generation of failed attempts to tame the chaos in his own neighborhood? If you’re the one being punched in the face and knocked to the ground, it’s hard to take the long view.

I just want to point out that the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park has still got it. This review by the Wandering Foodie, Hagan Blount, is what dragged me there today after work (along with a 90-degree evening and having nowhere in particular to be) after a long absence, and the food was if anything better than I remember. My Shakeburger was substantial and well-seasoned, my Chicago dog was delicious, the cheese fries had a substance and flavor that I imagine only a great poutine could match… and my only complaint about the frozen custard with hot fudge was “delicious fudge, wish I had more,” which isn’t much of a complaint when you think about it. And I don’t even have indigestion afterwards! If you’re prepared to spend $17 on a (heavy) fast-food meal in the park, I don’t think you can do much better than this anywhere in the United States.

And on a warm evening like this, you get to eat your meal surrounded by a mob of good-looking people — comprising a broad cross-section of New Yorkers of all ages, and a good many of whom meet the qualifications to have their photos posted here — enjoying the pre-summer air.

As a counterweight to all the calories in this post (not to mention the implied lust), here’s some brain food: a bonus Madison Square Park photo of Secretary of State William Seward, the one who purchased Alaska for the United States from Russia in 1867.

For the second time in five years, someone tried the “You broke my glasses” hustle on me yesterday. This time, I was emotionally prepared, although it still really pissed me off.

This can’t be unique to New York City, but in case it is, and/or for those who are just joining us, here’s how you do it:

• Dress like you’re pitiful and you don’t have much to lose; alternatively, puff yourself up to look bigger and more menacing than you actually are. Your choice.
• Find a pair of broken eyeglasses. (Alternative: find a pair of unbroken eyeglasses, then step on them.)
• Stand on 20th Street near a busy sidewalk — busy enough that you can pretend to have been jostled, but not so busy that you will actually be jostled.
• Scope out your quarry — ideally a man (because they’re more likely to be willing to pay you to go away) in a hurry, of apparent means, ideally someone distracted, preferably a rube (which makes me wonder why I was chosen, but let’s not dwell on that). Bonus points for choosing someone who is smaller than you, weaker than you, or has vague interethnic or interclass unease around you. With practice, you’ll learn how to watch your prey and respond to his signals to get the most money out of each rube you roll.
• As your quarry approaches, hold the pair of glasses in your hand. Pretend to be wiping or adjusting them, then at the last second, bump him on the shoulder and toss the glasses in his path.
• When he steps on (or near) them, cry out in horror. Say, “You broke my glasses!” Demand and collect payment, and be on your way. (Don’t forget the glasses — you’ll need them to try this again over on 7th Avenue in a few minutes.)

Now, this is obviously, patently, clearly a hustle. I know this not just because my common sense tells me so, but because it’s happened to me before on the streets of New York, back in 2005 right after I arrived. (That time, I’m pretty sure I could have been pegged as a rube from 2 blocks away.) I can’t remember the details, other than that (1) I really felt intense emotional/social pressure to pay up; (2) I don’t think I paid up; and (3) I felt angry, frustrated, and a little dirty after the experience — I had a very strong sense that I was being rolled, but I couldn’t prove it. Robert Cialdini could probably explain where the social pressure to pay comes from (and some of it certainly comes from the New Yorker’s determination not to “make a scene”). But it doesn’t really matter; obviously the scam works, or it wouldn’t keep happening.

It didn’t work on me this time, though. At all. I was really pissed, and showed it. (It wasn’t a great day. I’d left the house without an umbrella, and was in the process of being drenched by cold sideways rain for the third time in six hours.) I picked up the glasses I’d “broken,” looked him in the eye, and handed them to him. “Hey,” he exclaimed, his timing all off, “you broke my glasses!” I think what I said was “Dude, this is a hustle. Do you think I just got off the boat?” before I turned around and resumed walking in the direction I’d been heading. He came after me, halfheartedly, for about 50 yards, calling “Hey! Hey!, then moved on to try it again somewhere else.

What is wrong with people?

Here’s a map, via Ryan J. Davis’ blog and CitizeNYC, of exactly what’s going to happen when the V train goes away and the M train changes from brown to orange. (The map’s a little out of date, since if I recall correctly the MTA bowed to pressure and decided to use the much more historic designation of M for the train, and do away with the V — but the proposed routing didn’t change, just the name.)

Ryan points out that for many people in neighborhoods like Bushwick, Williamsburg, and Ridgewood, life will actually improve, because they’ll now have a one-train route into Manhattan.

A law firm called Gottlieb & Associates has set up a site at http://nycrentrefunds.com to troll for tenants eager to exploit the J-51 tax abatement ruling in the Stuyvesant Town case. They’ve bought Google ads… and they’re advertising on TV!

From a New York City TLC public release issued last week, new enforcement guidelines for the taxi driver no-cellphone policy:

Effective January 29, 2010, all TLC licensed drivers must comply as follows:

You MAY NOT have a Bluetooth or other wireless or wired telephone device in or near your ear – even if you are not talking on it or listening to it.

You may not use a handheld or hands-free cell phone while driving – you MUST be “Legally Standing or Parked.”

While driving, you may NOT use any portable electronic devices that allow you to talk, text, communicate or become distracted in any way.

Only FHV drivers may receive dispatch information from a base using a mounted electronic device or FCC-licensed two-way radio. Communication must be brief and strictly business-related.

If you are convicted of using prohibited electronic devices while driving, you will be fined $200 and will earn three (3) penalty points on your TLC license under the TLC’s Persistent Violator Program. (Please be reminded that within any 15-month period if you accrue six (6) TLC points, you will serve a 30-day license suspension, and will have your license revoked if you reach 10 TLC points).

If you are convicted of a third violation within a 15-month period, your TLC license will be revoked – three strikes and you’re out!This includes any combination of summonses issued by TLC officers as well as those issued under the Vehicle & Traffic Law that are heard at the NYS Dept. of Motor Vehicles’ Traffic Court (e.g., summonses issued by NYPD police officers and any other authorized law enforcement personnel).

If you are convicted of any cell phone violation, in addition to accruing points, possible suspension and fines, you will be required to attend a mandatory Safety Refresher Course that illustrates the dangers of distracted driving. The course will review the rules governing the use of portable or hands-free devices, and the dangers of driving while distracted. Also, all newly licensed drivers, and probationary drivers, will be required to receive similar training as part of the licensing process.

Full text of the rule here (PDF).

Foursquare is taking off in NYC, so it’s worth saying something about. For the uninitiated, it’s a smartphone application in which you “check in” at all the places you visit as you move about the city, with your location being shared automatically with your friends as you do. (In the background, the users are building a venue database in real time, an asset that I’m sure the Foursquare development team has big plans for.) You earn points and badges for your check-ins, according to a somewhat arcane set of rules, and can thereby compete informally with your friends for social karma.

WIth my friends list hitting critical mass, and the venue database filling out, the whole thing is becoming more than a curiosity from where I sit. As a sort of experiment, I’ve tried to take the game seriously for the past couple of weeks — checking in religiously at every legitimate venue I visit, adding those that are missing, trying to recruit more friends to participate.

As a result, I’m currently leading my friends in points, and (as Andrew Hearst called to my attention this afternoon) I’ve hit the NYC leaderboard for this week, and am currently ranked somewhere in the mid-forties. (The numbers reset to zero on Sunday night, so I have another two days of glory before I fall off the list.)

This certainly won’t last (at a minimum, the resourceful Ryan J. Davis will certainly figure out a way to push back up to first position among my friends, where he usually is). But it’s been fun.

Foursquare has evolved; at least among the comparatively middle-aged people I know, it’s no longer only about keeping track of your friends when they “go out” at night. That’s resulted in some gray areas about what kinds of check-ins are legitimate, which the game designers didn’t or couldn’t anticipate or resolve. So in honor of the game, I’m going to publish a draft set of rules for fair play right here, for your review and comment.

(more…)

I started this post on the Long Island Rail Road and finished it on the AirTrain. Yes, I’m on my way to JFK, and musing about infrastructure.

Accreted urban infrastructure (today’s, yesterday’s, Robert Moses’, and on and on back to whatever motley crew of Dutch and English filled in Lower Manhattan’s canals) is everywhere in New York. Indeed, metro NYC must benefit from the densest infrastructure (especially given its land area) of any settled place in human history, with the possible exception of London. And infrastructure is the single most important reason that New York, and especially Manhattan, remains such a desirable place to live and do business. Infrastructure is what makes Manhattan levels of density bearable in the first place, which in turn enables all the positive second-order social effects of such a dense environment.

And all that infrastructure is the result of hundreds or thousands of smart, forward-looking choices made over the past 300 years.

Consider the infrastructure I’m using right now: from where I live and work, I have my choice of two separate and mostly non-overlapping public transit pathways to JFK, and three or more to Newark Airport. All of of those routes will get me to their respective airports in about an hour, give or take; all cost about $12 or less. (Apparently, Google Maps’ transit planner isn’t yet aware of the Newark AirTrain; any human smart enough to make it to Newark Penn Station can probably do better than Google thinks.) We in New York take these things for granted, but they should not be taken for granted, as a visit to any place of comparable size with an “infrastructure gap” (like, for instance, Los Angeles, where I grew up) will make immediately clear to you.

Those smart choices didn’t happen by accident; in each case, someone decided that they were worth the pain and cost of planning, construction, ongoing operating subsidies perhaps forever. (Don’t discount the costs of coordination and promotion, either: the fact that I consider “A train to Penn Station; LIRR commuter rail to Jamaica; Port Authority dedicated rail to the terminal” as simply “the train to JFK” constitutes a marketing triumph by the Port Authority.) And each component of these systems took years, sometimes decades, to put in place. New York City has been extending and tinkering with the subway system more or less continuously for 106 years.

What are we going to need in 50 years? 100 years? We’d better get moving.

Now, if only someone would build a dedicated high-speed link to La Guardia Airport, we’d be in business. Then again, La Guardia is the most overtaxed (and the most convenient to the central core) of our three major airports, so it was probably smart policy to link to the others first.