Shake man makes the New York Times

From a story about the gentrification of the South Bronx

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/nyregion/24bronx.html

"As he has been doing for 16 years, Angel Villalona, a Dominican immigrant, still sells papayas, coconuts and mangoes from the side of a truck, as well as batidas - fruit milkshakes that he prepares by yanking the cord on his sidewalk generator, which feeds electricity to an Osterizer blender. But now one of his customers is as likely to be a sculptor who has just moved from Williamsburg as a longtime resident like Charles Bachelor, a truck driver who immigrated from Antigua."

A tri-borough kind of day

Sunday started with a ride over the Triborough Bridge, location of my last year’s fall. Details of this are on my other blog.

Riding through the Bronx on 138th St. I was cursing the Yankees and their no big bags and no plastic bottles rule. I was thirsty and wanted something to drink. I saw a man selling all the fruit of the Caribbean out of his van. I stopped and ordered a pineapple juice in Spanish. He took a container of cut pineapple and placed it in the blender. Then he added sweetened condensed milk (brilliant!). Then he added some ice. Now pay attention, because here’s where it gets good: he cranks up his generator and the blender whizzes to life. After about 15 seconds, he cut off the generator and my drink is done.


That’s a sugar-cane juicer on the left. I wish I liked sugar cane more.

Meanwhile, in Yankee stadium, here’s the view from the cheap seats. As cheap seats go, they were pretty good. I’ve always liked right behind home plate, no matter how high you go.


Yankee Stadium is no Wrigley Field (but then what is?). But I still see any ball field and think, “green… pretty.”

He’s not going to hit the ball.


The Cubs lost. The game was cheerless (for a Cubs’ fan). And there were four generally obnoxious guys setting next to us. But we were still happy. That’s (from right to left) Alan, Aaron, and Karine. Aaron and Karine were rooting for the Yankees.



Meanwhile, back in Astoria (I went via Manhattan, thus completing my tri-borough day), there was a little dinner at Tamara’s. Karl bought me a Greasy Pete's t-shirt.


We cooked:
sausage


venison


garlic shoots

The fire looks better without the flash, but the greens are blurry.



and shrimps


Tamara made a peach pie!



And my friends John and Rain were in from Boston.


John is doing much better with his handlebar moustache than I ever did with my failed attempt about a year-and-a-half ago.

I just took this picture to get a good shot of Tamara’s neighbor. He’s a very sweet Greek man. Landed on the beach on D-day, among other things.



The night ended at home with some of the absinthe I bought for John in Amsterdam. Needless to say, things get a little hazy around then. I remember blue-flamed sugar and visions of green ferries.

It was strange to wake up this morning and find money in my pocket. Now that’s a change from the usual empty wallet after a night of heavy drinking. There was $80 in my pocket! I couldn’t account for it at first, but it was payment for the absinthe.

Somewhere over Long Island.

Passing a plane over Newfoundland

Dyn-O-Mite!

"TNT" airlines? Boy, now there's a great name for an airlines. Maybe they shouldn't have saved money on that management consultant team.

Father of the Turks

The cult of Kemal Attaturk is very Stalinesque/Arabesque. Except Kemal is more dapper. Kemal wasn't a bad guy. He certainly meant well. And his enforced Western-focussed secularism is interesting, to say the least. But how can you set up a multi-ethnic country that's rooted in Turkish nationalism? How did nationalism ever catch on, anyway?

There are 12-million stories in the naked city...

...and they've got to live somewhere. Here's an Alphaville-like complex near the airport. Goodbye Istanbul. I miss you. I love you. (only Rod will get that reference). I'll be back again in August!

Byzantine walls

It was those damn Christians, Latins from Rome (the Greeks called themselves “Roman”) who sacked the city in the crusades. But the walls were finally breached by the Turks in 1453. It was interesting for me to see a big poster celebrating the 550th anniversary of May 29th, the Fall of the City. Of course, the poster didn't use the word “Fall.” I wonder if Turks like to open up their businesses on Tuesdays?

St Sofia

from my hotel window

carpet cleaning

Just a little more to the... Oops

I'm no expert of big-time shipping. But from what I do know, I'm pretty sure this ship shouldn't be on its side.

street scene

I could live very happily on a street like this. It's a great city.

Groovy!

Check out the tile work.

street scene

Apartments with the nice view in the above picture.

nice view

A mosque

I like hearing the call to prayer five times a day. It's beautiful. And in Istanbul it's not nearly as loud and over-amplified as it is in, say, Egypt.

Pile of carpets

To clean? To move? To throw out?

Morning in Oldtowne Stamboul

Column of Constantine in the Hippodrome. 10th Century. Built by Constantine VII (Porphyrogenitus--that's born in the purple, to you and me). They used to have chariot races around here with thousands watching. Now there are a lot of tourists. But it's still a nice (oval) square.

The Sultan Ahmet Mosque (Blue Mosque) minarets are on the right. Agia Sofia minarets are on the left.

street scene

Old wooden homes

There are still a lot of these left in the old city. Some are in OK condition. Some have been redone (and are now, say $100/night hotels). But many are in disrepair.

Conrad view. Bosphorus bridge in the background.

Conrad view. Saint Sofia in the distance.

From the Conrad Hilton. The whole park in front was cordoned off by police for security.

The old tram at Taksim Square

Subway

The Levent stop. I like that you can take the subway to the Levant. You're not supposed to take pictures down here (I found out).

Water and Balloons

At the entrance to the park, the man on the left hawks the somewhat unique combination of water cart and shooting range. Nothing like shooting balloons with a BB gun to work up a thirst. Well he's got pleanty of bottles of cold water to quench that. I don't know why I didn't go for round of each myself.

Cable car

This must be the goofiest form of public transportation ever! There is a little team of two gondolas on each side that goes back and forth. Each gondola can hold four people.


This is the park the cable car goes over.


half way point

street scene

A city on seven hills

Istanbul, like Rome, was built on seven hills. Now that 14,000,000 people live there, they've covered a lot more hills. I walked a lot. And my legs feel it.

faan-cy!

There was a "wardrobe" room at the hotel where all the police had to get gussied up. They had pants and shirts and ties and jackets. So the standard dress for the Turks was white shirt, black jacket, and orange or yellow tie. They were also banned from smoking, which is kind of funny. But they did make a good impression.

Dinner at the palace

A priest, a rabbi, and a mufti walk into a bar...

From left to right: The head rabbi of Istanbul. The head of religious affairs (a Muslim). The head of the Armenian church in Istanbul. And the head Catholic. How come the Catholic doesn't have a cool outfit? This gathering was just one of the reasons why security was very very tight.

The joke potential!

A rabbi and priest and a professor walk into a bar...

The rabbi was very friendly and speaks very good English. The Priest (Patriarch, mind you) was also friendly. He studied in America and his English is fluent. He said there are 70,000 Armenians in Istanbul (which may be a bit high). The Armians have had it rough, but unlike the Greeks, the Armians didn't have a country they could move to (not that Greece always welcomed Greeks from Turkey). The Instabul Armenian community is stable, he told me, but only because about 5,000 Armenians migrate from the East every year.

I asked him what would happen to the Orthodox Patriarchate (since the Turks won't allow a none-Turkish citizen to lead the Greek Church and soon there will be no Greeks left in Turkey). He said the Greeks would probably try to hold on for as long as possible, and then, "who knows?"