A Weekday Morning in Photographs

Do I take the car or not?

With gas prices the way they are, I opt for the train. I depart from the Bronx via the 6 train.

I arrive in Long Island City about one hour later.

Breakfast consists of a buttered Blueberry Bagel and Orange Juice from Panera Bread.

After breakfast, I begin my walk to work down 35th Avenue. What's this? Looks like I can definitively tell you how to get to Sesame Street. It's one of many current television shows and films produced at the Kaufman Astoria Studios. The studio has an interesting and storied history; It was the east coast home of Paramount Pictures in the 1920's, the Marx Brothers made The Cocoanuts (1929) and Animal Crackers (1930) here and The Cosby Show was taped here, as well. 

Exiting: Traffic Safety Zone. Entering: Highway to the Danger Zone (It's what I think of every time I see this sign just before making the turn onto 31st Street).

This sad, condemned structure on 31st Street....

 

...reminds me of the house from Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends. I don't know why. Other than pitched roofs and haunted appearances, they share little else in common. 

Moments later, I make another turn onto 38th Avenue and descend the hill where I'm greeted by this view every morning.

Detail (l. to r.): Empire State Building, Trump World Tower and a portion of the Queensboro (59th Street) Bridge.

More Detail (foreground and center): Queensboro (59th Street) Bridge and Citigroup Center.

Finally, I arrive for another day of work at Holiday Image Inc.

BONUS: I work about three blocks north of another major New York City film studio Silvercup Studios. While this studio has a much briefer history than Kaufman (it was originally the Silvercup Bakery factory), it's productions are no less notable. They include the HBO series The Sopranos and Sex in the City. Currently in production there are NBC's 30 Rock (an amazing show, by the way) and ABC's Ugly Betty.

Asleep at the Grid: Map Errors

Last spring, someone demonstrated for me that if you typed "New York, NY to London England" into Google Maps' directions search, it would return driving directions to somewhere along New York City's furthest eastern waterfront and then instruct you to "swim." Recently I tested this again and apparently Google has corrected this, with search results now revealing that they "...could not calculate driving results for..." that particular combination. Whether accidental or intentional, map errors can be fun (or frustrating, depending on your situation) to discover.

Since purchasing my bicycle last year, I've twice called 311 - New York City's non-emergency information number - and requested a free NYC Cycling Map for both 2006 and 2007. While looking at the map to see what unexplored bike route I can tackle next, my eyes wandered to areas I was already intimately familiar with. Among those areas is Manhattan's Little Italy. It seems that the cartographer or graphic designer of the map moved Mott Street two blocks west of it's present (and only) location. Compare and contrast:

The crossed-out Mott Street is actually Baxter Street. If anything, the understandable error would have been with the confusing morph from Baxter Street to Centre Market Place (four out of the five streets between Hogan Place and Broome Street are named Baxter with the block between Grand Street and Broome abbruptly becoming Centre Market Place).

I can only hope that some poor tourist doesn't discover one of these maps and use them for walking tours - Lower Manhattan's named streets are confusing enough for most city residents.