Lower East Side Tenement Museum
I’ve lived in four apartments in the East Village, all tenement buildings around a hundred years old. Each had its quirks: slanted floors, musty smells, leaky pipes or crumbling walls, and railroad bedrooms in sizes that I’m told are illegal….
Four Days in San Juan
The older I get, the more desperate I get for color come wintertime. So I went a little crazy with my new polarizing filter among the sherbet-hued buildings of Old San Juan. After four days of strong coffee, 16th century…
Eastern State Penitentiary
“Shipwreck” is a word that came to mind when visiting Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, but when it opened in 1829 it was the most modern facility in the world.
Coney Island Mermaid Parade 2014
The Coney Island Mermaid Parade is one of my favorite events in the city: it’s like our own mini version of Mardi Gras with a slightly seedy nautical flavor that’s all Coney Islands’s own.
Inside the Tent of Tomorrow!
The Tent of Tomorrow in Flushing Meadows is New York City’s most infamous ruin, a decaying modernist carnival of a building ripped from a science fiction novel. While I’d viewed it from close range, it’s been locked to visitors for…
Magic Gardens
At first glance, the Magic Gardens in Philadelphia looks like the world’s most impossible game of Jenga. The towering jumble of brick, tile, and flea market junk travels along half a block on South Street, practically daring an errant wind…
The Dream House
How you feel inside the Dream House, a 20-year-old light and sound installation located in a Tribeca rowhouse, may ultimately come down to your opinion of wall-to-wall carpeting that’s steeped in Nag Champa smoke. But it’s the noise, that inescapable…
Tompkins Square Dog Halloween Parade 2013
The Tompkins Square Dog Halloween Parade attracts a bigger media frenzy every year, and 2013 was no different. But somewhere in among the TV cameras and puparazzi, pooches were rocking some major costumes, or looking a little confused by the…
The Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden
The 11th annual Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden looks like it’s just one hookah smoking caterpillar short of Wonderland. Housed in the vast Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, the exhibition includes tens of thousands of orchids which float…
Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show
The 137th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show wrapped up last night with a tiny monkey-faced Affenpinscher named Banana Joe scurrying off with the Best in Show title. I’d been afraid the little squirt would win. Of all of the dogs…