So today, my birthday, we officially launch the new home page:  Little Bytes of the Big Apple, which is a series of video segments, generally 3-5 minutes long.  These are tours of New York mixed with a bit of comedy in an attempt to balance information with entertainment.

We started shooting these on January 11th, two days after the temperature dropped from strangely tropical where it had been for weeks, to arctic which is where it’s remained…throughout our two other shoots. 

The first segment, divided in two parts, is playing now and you’ll be among the first to see it.  It’s called The Cathedral in Central Park, and shows how one of the most visited parts of the park was designed to function as a cathedral.

The other segments of this first movie include tours and trivia about crime in Central Park, the most expensive hot dog stands in the city, and the world-record-breaking cat.

We’ll be posting one video tour every Monday with an accompanying blog and credit list.  And every Thursday I’ll post a piece on the Blog page about another aspect related to that week’s subject.

Once this film is complete, it will be archived on the site to make room for walks across Wall Street, 46th, 81st and Bleecker.  Tours after that will include walks through my neighborhood at the top of Manhattan and walks in the other boroughs as well as an underwater tour of New York Harbor.  (By the time we get to that, I should have an idea of how to do it or you will have hopefully forgotten that I made the promise.)  There will also be a tour of the locations featured in Suspension, which is how this entire concept began.

We’ve been experimenting, and you’ll see various kinds of shorts—some are in one take, some involve a number of pictures spliced in, some are very elaborate and others are to-the-point, most involve comedy, a couple don’t.  These movies are already evolving as I write, as we shoot, as we edit, and something tells me they’re likely to change now that they’re being made public and we can monitor response.

So go on the site, watch the videos, and give me feedback.  If you’re a member of Google video, by all means, post comments, rate the videos, share videos with your friends.  If you’re not a member, by all means join up—it’s easy—and then you can post comments, rate the videos, and share them with your friends.

March 1 , 2007

So the deal was that I’d post a video on Monday with accompanying notes and credits and then follow up on Thursday with a blog related to Monday’s subject.  Now today is Friday, but I’m in Seattle, and in Seattle it’s still Thursday.  (Not true:  it's 11am here.)

A few more notes about Central Park:

843 acres  (over 185 acres set aside for lakes and ponds)

2.5 by .5 miles

59th to 110th/Fifth to CPW

58 miles of pedestrian paths

4.5 miles of bridle trails

6.5 miles of drive.

6000 benches (7 miles worth)

17 restrooms (but when you need one:  zero)

50 vendors

70 horse-drawn carriages

21 playgrounds

TREES: 

26,000 and 150 species

Most significant:  the American elms that line the Mall (the Cathedral Walk) and Fifth Avenue.  Because of the Dutch Elm Disease, these are the largest stands of American Elms on the continent. 

Rarest tree:  the single Chinese toon tree with the shaggy bark, planted in the early 1960's at 59th and 7th Avenue.

Largest tree:  the 100' tall London Plane Tree on the east side at 96th.

BRIDGES:

There are more than 30 bridges in the park, some of which are made of bluestone, a natural rock that blends into the environment and cost four times more than marble.

The park's total cost would exceed $10 million, more than 3 times the city budget in 1850 when idea was first conceived.  The bridges cost ½ million dollars alone--the park's budget was supposed to be 2 million.

The comptroller who had to deal with the ballooning costs was Andrew Green, the Father of the New York, the man who was instrumental in consolidating the boroughs and the man who was killed in his eighties by a man looking for someone with a similar name.  There’s a bench for Andrew Green on a hilltop in the northern part of the park and readers of Suspension will recognize the name as that of my protagonist.

BIRDS:

Central Park is one of the best spots in the country for bird watching:  270 species of birds have been spotted.  The red tail hawks that hunt are undoubtedly the stars, but don't forget the starling, the black bird speckled with yellow that has swept across the continent wiping out indigenous bird popluations and which was introduced here by a British businessman in the 1890's who released a number of starlings in Central Park as part of his plan to ensure that every bird mentioned in Shakespeare was in North America.

Famous word pyramid:  Write out STARTLING on a piece of paper and remove one letter at a time (creating a real word each time) without shuffling the letters.  The second word is obviously STARLING.

Why is he giving us word games?  Because I’m hopped on coffee out here in Seattle.  People who stop by always bring a cup of coffee for you.  They have this little espresso place called Starbucks.  I think it’s a real up and comer.  The scattershot quality of this blog also has something to do with my trying to write this while babysitting a two- and four-year-old, one of whom is inexplicably wearing a bumblebee costume.

LINK:

A great link to learn more about Central Park as well as the other parks

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation

An interesting list in the FAQ's:

What is your biggest park? How big is Central Park?

Top Ten Largest Parks:

1. Pelham Bay Park Bronx 2,765 acres
2. Greenbelt, Staten Island 1,778 acres
3. Flushing Meadows/Corona Park, Queens 1,255 acres
4. Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx 1,146 acres
5. Central Park, Manhattan 843 acres
6. Marine Park, Brooklyn 798 acres
7. Bronx Park, Bronx 718 acres
8. Alley Pond Park, Queens 655 acres
9. Franklin D. Roosevelt Boardwalk, South and Midland Beaches, Staten Island 638 acres
10. Forest Park, Queens 544 acres

Notice that Brooklyn, the most populous borough, doesn't have a park in the top five.

*************

Brilliant observation uttered behind me in line yesterday in the Delta terminal at JFK:

MAN:  Look at all this security.  This is what it’s going to be like for the rest of our lives.

WOMAN:  It has a lot to do with terrorism.

March 11 , 2007

Clearly I'm having trouble keeping that Thursday blog pledge.  It's been a busy week, what can I say?  I figure as long as I keep posting the videos every Monday, I'll be forgiven.  A few notes:

Regarding safety, as you might know, there's been progress outside the walls of Central Park and within the boundaries of the five boroughs.  People visiting New York and fearing for their safety are often coming from places with much higher crime per capita than Gotham.  A link to find where your city ranks:  the Morgan Quitno Awards:  13th Annual America's Safest (and Most Dangerous Cities).

And in these lists, you will find the following:

CITIES OF 500,000 OR MORE POPULATION: (32 cities)
Safest 10:
1--San Jose, CA
2--El Paso, TX
3--Honolulu, HI
4--New York, NY

I had another great trip to Seattle where I researched my next novel--half of the characters come from that fair city and I had to pick a high school where they all studied or taught; I met with a fantastic book club who served up a delicious lunch of crab cakes and mimosas not to mention stimulating conversation (although regrettably one of them had purchased and read another novel entitled Suspension that was published several years ago, which would explain why the person in the photo on the back of her book looked nothing like the person who had just walked through the door); and I relaxed with friends, including the Hellers and their four kids.

Part of the book club that met in Federal Way, from left to right: Kim Erickson, TaShawna Nash, Robert, Jessica Hardung, Alison Carl White and Cari Johnson.

I left Seattle on a beautiful sunny day and returned to New York where we were warned of subzero temperatures as we left the aircraft.  Back to scarves, hats, gloves, and multiple layers--I gave a tour on Thursday and Friday to my annual eighth-grade group from Michigan.  My favorite line of this year's trip took place at Rockefeller Center:

ROBERT:  They wanted the most famous painter in the world to paint the lobby of the RCA Building so they sent a telegram to Paris to Pierre Picasso.  Why did Picasso not respond?

(CORRECT ANSWER:  Because the most famous painter in the world was named Pablo, not Pierre.)

8th GRADER:  Because he cut off his ear!!

March 17, 2007

At the end of this week's byte I flee into the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a favorite refuge.  Here are some pictures from last spring when I was alone in the sculpture court with these statues and this crisp morning light. 

April 30, 2007

Most of my writing on the site has been posted in the notes and credits accompanying the videos on the The Little Bytes pages, but I'll return here shortly.

"We don't walk as fast as you!"  I hear it every time I lead a tour.  And now here's a published study that ranks New Yorkers as the 8th fastest pedestrian group in the world.  The World Is Walking 10% Faster.  The top ten:

1) Singapore (Singapore); 10.55

2) Copenhagen (Denmark); 10.82

3) Madrid (Spain); 10.89

4) Guangzhou (China): 10.94

5) Dublin (Ireland); 11.03

6) Curitiba (Brazil); 11.13

7) Berlin (Germany); 11.16

8) New York (US); 12.00

9) Utrecht (Netherlands); 12.04

10) Vienna (Austria); 12.06

Here are the twenty-seven photographs chosen as the World Press Photos of the Year.

What a great week.  Not only did we finish editing the current tour, "A Walk Across Wall Street," but we finished shooting the following movie, "Crossing Manhattan at 46th Street."  Starting at the Hudson and walking across to the United Nations, we shot for two days--both blissfully warm ones, the first days where breath was not visible, hands were not frozen, lips were not chapped.

And joining Cayce and me on location were directors, Tessa Derfner and Peter Flynn, and actors/friends/fellow guides, Susan Burns, Steven Devall, Nanette Drazic, Berda Gilmore, Walter Hershman, Nina Kane, Doug Nervik, April Ortiz, Jeff Plunkett, Elizabeth Rouse, Marta Sanders, Nicole Stefonek, Travis Stroessenreuther, and Marc Wolf. 

Other good news is that as of today, we've had more visitors to this site than any month since we first launched the site last Memorial Day...and we still have a week to set the bar for the months to come.  Thanks for watching and sending comments--they're very helpful as we keep working on the project.

The sad news, however:

The Gotham Book Mart (1920-2007)

I deliberately chose not to discuss the Gotham Book Mart on the 46th Street tour.  First off, the Gotham Book Mart really belonged on 47th Street, in the Diamond District, where it had been for decades, and not at this fake location.  Secondly, because I knew that by the time we posted the video, the venerable legend would likely be gone.  Little did I know that the day we shot our footage of the block would coincide with the liquidation of all the merchandise.

The crowd of bibliophiles lined up on Tuesday to partake in a court-mandated auction of all the stock, some of it dating back to the twenties.  The store was forced to close its doors "temporarily" last August because the owner, Andreas Brown, had fallen behind on his rent payments ($51,000/month).  He owed the landlord over $500,000 and the court ordered the abrupt sale of everything inside--tens of thousands of books, including valuable first editions, boxes of photos, and various knick-knacks.  The book lovers had less than an hour to inspect the lots (after laying down $1000 just to enter) but that didn't matter, because--and this is where you might throw up--a lawyer for the landlord purchased everything in a $400,000 single bid.