This, the first of our regional blogs, is authored by the technology and financial journalist Dominic Basulto. Dominic is a New York native, has been a senior editor at Corante since day one and has written for a number of online and offline media companies. Send tips or story ideas to: basulto@gmail.com.
About this weblog
Here we'll report daily on the latest tech and business developments in New York City. Impossible we concede: comprehensive coverage of the city's every story. What we hope you'll find: tips, tidbits and perspectives you won't find elsewhere. As well as unique insights, original interviews and more that should be of interest to New York's vibrant community of technologists and those who track, invest in and report on them.
Imagine this scenario: you're just settling down for a nice champagne (or mimosa) brunch at an outdoor cafe on the Upper West Side and you put your bag down - just for an instant - on the chair next to you. Unfortunately, the "chair next to you" also happened to be facing the street and a thief has been keeping a wary eye on that very seat for the past 30 minutes. Faster than you can say, "Waiter, check please," the thief has snatched and grabbed your bag, and you're left looking like a fool. Here's a way to prevent that type of scenario: BoingBoing (via Flickr) has a picture of a chair at MOMA that "keeps your bag safe."
The Bridge & Tunnel Club has created an A-Z "encyclopedia of cultural detritus": a cross between a photoblog and an encyclopedia for New Yorkers. For example, under "A" there are photos of Astoria by Night. Under "B," there are photos of Bryant Park. Under "C," there are photos of Canal Street. You get the idea...
Idle Words has an extensive narrative (with photos) of what it's like to journey down the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. The canal, still an ecological nightmare, somehow has managed to find a special place in the hearts of Brooklyn residents everywhere:
"Like so much in life, the key to enjoying the Gowanus is lowering your expectations. The canal has been through a lot, and it has been hurt before. It knows that it is no supermodel waterway, it knows that it needs a good dredging and possibly a Superfund grant just to get itself halfway into decent shape. It does not pretend to be some golden-haired World Heritage estuary filled with cranes and egrets. Then again, neither is it the Cuyahoga. Given half a chance, aesthetically speaking, it's the hardest-working body of water in New York City, and you'll never tour a more grateful urban canal."
A must read for anyone concerned about urban renewal and the impact of economic development on the environment.
Jason Kottke points to the work of Ji Lee, who is in the process of pasting 50,000 empty speech bubble stickers over advertisements, signs and movie posters on the streets of Manhattan. People then fill them in with random quotes, and Lee returns to photograph the results.
In this advertisement for an art exhibit at MoMA, Matisse (lower left) appears to be engaged in an interactive conversation with Picasso (upper right corner): "The exhibit's over. Why is this poster still here, Pablo?"
Flickr has some great photos from Robert Smithson's Floating Island barge art exhibit, which set off a "frenzy of photoblogging not seen since The Gates back in February." The Floating Island is actually a 30'x90' man-made island towed by a tugboat around Manhattan. The Floating Island will be making its journey around Manhattan everyday until the 25th, so there's still time to snap a few digital pics. (Hat tip: Curbed)
Park Slope-based photoblogger Travis Ruse has a great series of photos from the New York subway, including this snapshot of a guy holding an unmarked box wrapped in brown paper at Brooklyn's Jay Street station. Hope the NYPD checked this out -- something tells me that if he weren't dressed in a suit and tie and if he were a different ethnicity, the other folks on the subway platform would have scurried off to a different train a long time ago. Hey people, if you see something, say something.
The New York Times has launched an interactive exhibit called "Tribes of New York." It's kinda what would happen if an anthropologist living in the big city also happened to be a photoblogger. In the first of a series, Fred Conrad discovers the ladies of the Red Hat Society on a little jaunt around Times Square.
"Click away without fear, shutterbugs - a controversial proposal to ban photography in the subways is dead. The Police Department recently told transit officials the photo ban is unnecessary."
According to the New York Daily News, though, police officers will "continue to investigate and intercede if necessary, if the activity - photo-related or not - is suspicious."
From NewYorkology: the NYC Photobloggers event at the Apple store in SoHo is Wednesday, March 23 at 6pm. Among the sponsors and participants: Gothamist, Flickr and Fotolog.
The MTA failed to pass the much-debated subway photo ban. Gothamist points to an article in Newsday detailing the reasons why the MTA failed to get all its ducks in a row: "Officials said the hold-up is the result of an outpouring of criticism about the move, which would offer exemptions to working photojournalists but give police wide latitude in limiting even the most innocent souvenir-taker from clicking away."
NYC photobloggers will be granted a reprieve until May, when the MTA is set to conduct a full board meeting.
Gothamist recommends checking out Todd Gross's photoblog Quarlo.com for a new batch of stunning New York City photographs. The site has been mentioned in Slate, the New York Times, Forbes and USA Today, so it's worth a look.
