The day started with my biking around Central Park. Then I made a walk-in appointment with a dentist down the street. I always claim I want dentists who don't do anything. My teeth are good. Please leave them that way. Well this guy was perhaps taking that to an extreme. Small place. Indian doc. One receptionist. No hygienist.
I got a simple cleaning. It cost $80, with my insurance picking up $50 of that. The dentist looked in my mouth and said, "Great teeth. No cavities." He used the whizzer machine a bit, scraped a little in the front, and said I was done. Needless to say, no pressure for x-rays or taking out my wisdom teeth. Just what I say I want. And yet somehow I feel strangely shortchanged.
So I was coming back from the Indian dentist and had just finished eating a Mexican Sandwich and having a beer. Delicio! Next to the Mexican place is a barber. So I stopped by, too lazy to buzz my own hair. Husband and wife team. I couldn't figure out where they were from, but I guessed Balkans. Their last name was something vaguely Slavic. I asked what language they were speaking. "Ve speak many languages," she answer, "but now ve are speeking Russian and Persian." How do you explain that?
Well, I'll tell you. Jews, ethnically Persian, living in what was once some form of greater Iran/Persia, and was then Russian and is now Uzbekistan. She figured her people had probably lived where they did for two hundred years or so. Most of her family is now in Israel. They were some of the first Jews to leave Russia when they could. As Yakov Smirnov says, "Vat a country!"
She also said Odessa is a very nice city and we shouldn't pass up a chance to go there.
I'm going to pack and head off to Amsterdam.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Monday, April 11, 2005
Karl’s Birthday
grill set up
pulling pork. This pork was slow cooked and incredible.
Packaged crab cakes. Fed-exed fresh from Faidley's in Baltimore. No bargain, but perhaps the best crab cakes in the world.
broiling crab cakes
grilling crab cakes
steaming oysters
zora at the steamer
the disassembly line
shucking
the spread
the spread
Karine's cleavage
grillin' girls
crowd shot
non-gloating cribbage
naomi
blowin' birthday boy
pulling pork. This pork was slow cooked and incredible.
Packaged crab cakes. Fed-exed fresh from Faidley's in Baltimore. No bargain, but perhaps the best crab cakes in the world.
broiling crab cakes
grilling crab cakes
steaming oysters
zora at the steamer
the disassembly line
shucking
the spread
the spread
Karine's cleavage
grillin' girls
crowd shot
non-gloating cribbage
naomi
blowin' birthday boy
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Fulton Street Fish Market
Welcome to the Fulton Street Fish Market, not yet relocated to the Bronx. The following text desciption is stolen straight cut-and-paste style from Zora's Roving Gastronome. But I've got the pictures!
Last night, in anticipation of Oyster Fest 2005, we trundled down to that venerable NYC establishment, the Fulton Fish Market—which hasn’t yet relocated to the Bronx, apparently, despite the countless nostalgic column inches already dedicated to its impending demise. (July, maybe even September, was the estimated move date somebody gave us last night, with a shrug.) But good thing we got our asses down there anyway, because the Fulton Fish Market really is a hell of a lot more than a bunch of concrete open-sided buildings filled with styrofoam boxes of fish and ice.
Part of the thrill is that it’s the middle of the night (we aimed for 1am, but in fact most vendors don’t start selling till 2am), and we’re in this fantastic marriage of grim and glorious urbanity: a dark, sketchy two blocks under the rumbling FDR, where the asphalt has gone to seed and the only lighting is from the glaring fluorescent-lit concrete bunkers that house about half of the vendors. But immediately to the east is the Brooklyn Bridge, all aglimmer, with the Manhattan Bridge right behind; lights are twinkling off the dark, slippery river, and it feels incredibly calm and gorgeous—if you can screen out the armies of guys shouting, and trundling right toward you on those little pallet tractor things. (All you "warehouse club" shoppers: This is the real deal!)
And it’s a bad idea to gawp at the river view because these guys are also wielding sharp knives and hooks. Hooks like I’ve only ever seen in On the Waterfront. I thought this genius tool had been rendered extinct by shipping containers, so it warmed my heart to see there’s still some commerce in America that requires the loving, individual attention of a big guy’s meaty paw and a nasty sharp hook. One guy we passed was gesturing wildly with his hook in his hand; he apologized when he saw us tourists coming through, because we’re the types who might end up with a hook in the ear if we’re not careful.
The market is not a consumer-friendly place—there are no signs telling you where to park, and it seems impossible to get past a phalanx of refrigerated semis lined up to the north. There’s no cheery market agent, as at the Greenmarket, say, to ask for guidance. We parked in a seemingly random spot by some overpass pylon and hoped for the best.
But it is a surprisingly friendly place overall. It did help that one of our company was a bodacious, outgoing redhead who was genuinely fascinated with these guys’ work. When a sweatshop full of filet-ers noticed us peering into their little aisle workroom, they waved us in, encouraged us to squeeze down the little aisle between them (it was a disassembly line: guys on one side filleted, slipping the carcasses into silvery, squishy heaps at their feet, while guys on the other side skinned the filets) and stare and chat and take pictures. “You’ve had a couple beers?” the Mexican guy I talked to asked me, assuming, I guess, that the only people who would stumble in here at 1am would be drunkards with nothing better to do. No, darlin', I’m drunk on the beauty of wholesale commerce, I wanted to say, as for once I was genuinely sober.
This was still early, before the market really opened. Quite a lot happened in the hour we whiled away at the Paris Cafe bar (where everyone had been quick to direct us, natch), and when we came back, the bustle had doubled. It was short work to buy 200 oysters and 200 clams, then cart them back to the car, dodging pallet-tractors and hooks all the way. We took another quick stroll around before we left, to see a gigantic plum-red tuna being hacked apart, gold-pink snappers, shad roe (which looked like agglomerations of the lungs I’ve pulled out of quails) and lots of crabs, all rolling-eyed and foaming at the mouth out of panic. I pet some of the crabs on the head to calm them, but crustaceans don’t really respond to that the way mammals do—all the more reason to eat ‘em.
We’d seen all we could see (even the truck from Taverna Kyclades, the fish resto near my house, arriving; I have fresh respect for them), and the guys had gotten as much of an eyeful as they wanted. (“I’ve never really noticed Katie’s ass,” Peter said as we walked behind her and heard the whoops of praise from either side, “but in this setting, I somehow have a fresh appreciation for it.”) Oh, and we’d eaten a mysterious chicken-sandwich-in-a-plastic-bag—funny, there were no fishy foods on offer. So we got in the car and drove home, dropping Peter at Penn Station to catch his 3:15am train to Boston. I haven’t been up that late and roaming around without the aid of drugs since I can remember.
So now I know you can get 400 shellfish for little more than $100, and be generously and graciously complimented on your physique and charmed by men in rubber bib overalls at 3am. But of course, this is all set to change, and we know that change is bad. The Fulton Fish Market is essential, the seafood hub for not just NYC but a lot of the Northeast, and its social value is measured precisely by the prime real estate, with its gorgeous river view, it sits on. When it gets shunted up to the Bronx, I imagine these guys will feel more than a bit marginalized. But who am I to say? Hunt’s Point will be indoors (it was pissing rain all last night), and air-conditioned. And it will be closer to my house. Throw in a bushel of crabs, and maybe I can handle a little change.
1
2
3
5
6
7
8
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
21
19
20
Last night, in anticipation of Oyster Fest 2005, we trundled down to that venerable NYC establishment, the Fulton Fish Market—which hasn’t yet relocated to the Bronx, apparently, despite the countless nostalgic column inches already dedicated to its impending demise. (July, maybe even September, was the estimated move date somebody gave us last night, with a shrug.) But good thing we got our asses down there anyway, because the Fulton Fish Market really is a hell of a lot more than a bunch of concrete open-sided buildings filled with styrofoam boxes of fish and ice.
Part of the thrill is that it’s the middle of the night (we aimed for 1am, but in fact most vendors don’t start selling till 2am), and we’re in this fantastic marriage of grim and glorious urbanity: a dark, sketchy two blocks under the rumbling FDR, where the asphalt has gone to seed and the only lighting is from the glaring fluorescent-lit concrete bunkers that house about half of the vendors. But immediately to the east is the Brooklyn Bridge, all aglimmer, with the Manhattan Bridge right behind; lights are twinkling off the dark, slippery river, and it feels incredibly calm and gorgeous—if you can screen out the armies of guys shouting, and trundling right toward you on those little pallet tractor things. (All you "warehouse club" shoppers: This is the real deal!)
And it’s a bad idea to gawp at the river view because these guys are also wielding sharp knives and hooks. Hooks like I’ve only ever seen in On the Waterfront. I thought this genius tool had been rendered extinct by shipping containers, so it warmed my heart to see there’s still some commerce in America that requires the loving, individual attention of a big guy’s meaty paw and a nasty sharp hook. One guy we passed was gesturing wildly with his hook in his hand; he apologized when he saw us tourists coming through, because we’re the types who might end up with a hook in the ear if we’re not careful.
The market is not a consumer-friendly place—there are no signs telling you where to park, and it seems impossible to get past a phalanx of refrigerated semis lined up to the north. There’s no cheery market agent, as at the Greenmarket, say, to ask for guidance. We parked in a seemingly random spot by some overpass pylon and hoped for the best.
But it is a surprisingly friendly place overall. It did help that one of our company was a bodacious, outgoing redhead who was genuinely fascinated with these guys’ work. When a sweatshop full of filet-ers noticed us peering into their little aisle workroom, they waved us in, encouraged us to squeeze down the little aisle between them (it was a disassembly line: guys on one side filleted, slipping the carcasses into silvery, squishy heaps at their feet, while guys on the other side skinned the filets) and stare and chat and take pictures. “You’ve had a couple beers?” the Mexican guy I talked to asked me, assuming, I guess, that the only people who would stumble in here at 1am would be drunkards with nothing better to do. No, darlin', I’m drunk on the beauty of wholesale commerce, I wanted to say, as for once I was genuinely sober.
This was still early, before the market really opened. Quite a lot happened in the hour we whiled away at the Paris Cafe bar (where everyone had been quick to direct us, natch), and when we came back, the bustle had doubled. It was short work to buy 200 oysters and 200 clams, then cart them back to the car, dodging pallet-tractors and hooks all the way. We took another quick stroll around before we left, to see a gigantic plum-red tuna being hacked apart, gold-pink snappers, shad roe (which looked like agglomerations of the lungs I’ve pulled out of quails) and lots of crabs, all rolling-eyed and foaming at the mouth out of panic. I pet some of the crabs on the head to calm them, but crustaceans don’t really respond to that the way mammals do—all the more reason to eat ‘em.
We’d seen all we could see (even the truck from Taverna Kyclades, the fish resto near my house, arriving; I have fresh respect for them), and the guys had gotten as much of an eyeful as they wanted. (“I’ve never really noticed Katie’s ass,” Peter said as we walked behind her and heard the whoops of praise from either side, “but in this setting, I somehow have a fresh appreciation for it.”) Oh, and we’d eaten a mysterious chicken-sandwich-in-a-plastic-bag—funny, there were no fishy foods on offer. So we got in the car and drove home, dropping Peter at Penn Station to catch his 3:15am train to Boston. I haven’t been up that late and roaming around without the aid of drugs since I can remember.
So now I know you can get 400 shellfish for little more than $100, and be generously and graciously complimented on your physique and charmed by men in rubber bib overalls at 3am. But of course, this is all set to change, and we know that change is bad. The Fulton Fish Market is essential, the seafood hub for not just NYC but a lot of the Northeast, and its social value is measured precisely by the prime real estate, with its gorgeous river view, it sits on. When it gets shunted up to the Bronx, I imagine these guys will feel more than a bit marginalized. But who am I to say? Hunt’s Point will be indoors (it was pissing rain all last night), and air-conditioned. And it will be closer to my house. Throw in a bushel of crabs, and maybe I can handle a little change.
1
2
3
5
6
7
8
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
21
19
20
Sunday, April 03, 2005
The Philli Phoamer
"Foamer" is a word used to describe transit buffs. The idea being that said people get so exciting about transit that they start foaming at the mouth. I don't know why I'd know this word.
I was in Philadelphia this weekend for an ethnography conference at University of Pennsylvania (it was great, by the way).
Philadelphia has never held much appeal to me. Even back at my days living in Princeton, New Jersey, I never saw the need to head towards Philli when New York was the same distance away in the opposite direction.
But I have been to Philli a few times, and I'm sure there's much to explore. It reminds me a Baltimore all grown up as a big city: unique neighborhoods, row-homes, history, urban decay, and ghetto. Too much of the latter.
And the Philidelphia transit system has always been very intriguing. How many cities in America have a streetcar system? Much less trolleys, subways, trackless trolleys (though these seem to have been permanently "temporarily" replaced by standard busses). And then there are great monikers such as "elevated-subway" and "subway-surface" (kind of like Chicago's L when it's a subway, I suppose, but nobody calls it the subway-L). Plus there are commuter railways, the wonderful PATCO Speedline, and Amtrak.
To get to the conference, I walked from 30th Street Station, about 15 or 20 minutes. Going back, I didn't really want to do the same walk with my suitcase, and there were trolleys to take! So I headed down into the underground trolley station and paid my $2 cash fair as I got on the trolley. Then I enjoyed the brief underground run from 36th St to 30th St.
But because I had left enough time to walk, and got to 30th Steet so quickly, I had about 45 minutes before my train. So I was still in the station, staring at the transit map (as I am want to do), wondering if there is somewhere interesting to go in a brief amount of time.
A voice addressed me: "I'm just heading to work and I saw you staring at the map and I was wondering if I could help you at all."
I looked up and saw a older geeky-looking glasses-wearing 50-year-old white man in a discount suit. I couldn't help but think of my brother in 20 years, you know, if the whole Amsterdam thing doesn't work out.
Mr. Helpful matter-of-factly added, "I know a lot about the system." I smiled slowly and thought, "I bet you do." (And just what work are you headed to at noon on Sunday the requires a friendly demeanor and a cheap suit?)
I saw both the beauty of this situation and the pressure of time. No punches would be pulled: "Why yes, I do have a question. I'm catching a train here but I'm here a bit early. Do any of these lines go above ground? I'd just like to do some sightseeing. No reason, just to ride something, but I don't have much time. Does the Blue Line, I mean the Market Street Line, go above ground?" I don't know what the line is called, but I got a good feeling that Philli don't use no colors.
He said, "The Market-Frankford Line goes above ground at 39th Street. It runs every 10 minutes on Sunday. You could take that to 69th Street. It takes 12 minutes. The 69th Street terminal was build in 1907 and has trains on three levels. You could walk around there and then come back. But you'll have to pay again."
I'm not making this up. And yes, I checked, the date is correct.
"That sounds great. I don't care about the money. It's just two dollars"
"I have an extra token. I have a SEPTA pass [of course], but I still have an extra token from when I didn't have the pass. You can buy it from me for $1.30, or whatever you have. There's no need to pay $2. You can buy 10 packs and they're... a lot cheaper [I think here he caught himself foaming]."
Tokens cost $1.30 each, but you can't buy just one. He reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope filled with spare change and at least one SEPTA token. I bought it from him for $1.25, as I didn't have more change. It was very nice of him to take a loss on the transaction.
He continued, "Coming back from 69th Street, trains leave every 10 minutes on the 10 minutes. I live there; that's where I come from." But why do I have the feeling he could have told me the information from the other direction as well?
Now I didn't have much time. I shook his hand and thanked him. Very sincerely, I might add. Off I went down to the platform level.
The subway came quickly, and as it pulled in, I ran to the front car. I saw that this line has a "lucky seat"! That's a term Pep coined for the front seat of the Chicago L. The sideways seat with the forward view. Lucky because you have to be lucky to get it. It's the best seat and almost always filled.
You get a great diver's 270-degree view of everything! When Papou used to take Andrew and me to Chicago to visit his friends and play "the machines" [pinball], we had a system where we alternate who got to sit in the front seat every 7 stops. Not 5 or 10, mind you, but seven. I think that seat is why I love trains. Now, as far as I know, only the Philli subway and the PATCO Speedline still have a lucky seat. sigh.
I was heading Westbound on the 12:30 local. A four-car train... The weather was drizzly and cold, overcast...
During rush hours, I think, they have an A/B split-stop system like Chicago used to have. Back in the old days. My train to NYC was leaving at 1:18.
West Philli is ghetto. Beautiful old rowhomes. Many vacant and abandoned. But they are much more ornate than the rowhomes in Baltimore. And there was some sign of redevelopment: refurbished building with proper "for rent" signs. The elevated-subway stations were old and beautiful.
The passengers getting on were all black. But some riders where white, connecting, I assume, to the suburban lines at 69th St. The subway, by the way, has the same annoying Chicago "safety" system where a beep forces the engineer to brake for no reason other than to avoid tripping an automatic stop whenever the overly-cautious speed limit is exceeded for the briefest of moments. This results in a herky-jerky ride and repeated full-stops despite a clear track and green signals.
The 69th Street Terminal was just as described. Three other lines leave from 69th Street: the "Highspeed" Norristown route and two local trolleys. Writing this, I learned that when delivery of the current cars on the Norristown route was delayed, they had to buy some old L cars from Chicago to run on the Norristown route! I miss those old L cars. Oh, I'm foaming again.
Anyway, I had no time to linger. It was 12:48 and the 12:50 would get me back in plenty of time to catch my train. So turned right around, dropped my token in the turnstile, and got back to 30th Street Station with just enough to buy a nice lunch for the train of fried chicken with cornbread and sides of collard greens and macaroni and cheese.
Thank you, Philli Phoamer! May your rails be smooth and trains run express.
I was in Philadelphia this weekend for an ethnography conference at University of Pennsylvania (it was great, by the way).
Philadelphia has never held much appeal to me. Even back at my days living in Princeton, New Jersey, I never saw the need to head towards Philli when New York was the same distance away in the opposite direction.
But I have been to Philli a few times, and I'm sure there's much to explore. It reminds me a Baltimore all grown up as a big city: unique neighborhoods, row-homes, history, urban decay, and ghetto. Too much of the latter.
And the Philidelphia transit system has always been very intriguing. How many cities in America have a streetcar system? Much less trolleys, subways, trackless trolleys (though these seem to have been permanently "temporarily" replaced by standard busses). And then there are great monikers such as "elevated-subway" and "subway-surface" (kind of like Chicago's L when it's a subway, I suppose, but nobody calls it the subway-L). Plus there are commuter railways, the wonderful PATCO Speedline, and Amtrak.
To get to the conference, I walked from 30th Street Station, about 15 or 20 minutes. Going back, I didn't really want to do the same walk with my suitcase, and there were trolleys to take! So I headed down into the underground trolley station and paid my $2 cash fair as I got on the trolley. Then I enjoyed the brief underground run from 36th St to 30th St.
But because I had left enough time to walk, and got to 30th Steet so quickly, I had about 45 minutes before my train. So I was still in the station, staring at the transit map (as I am want to do), wondering if there is somewhere interesting to go in a brief amount of time.
A voice addressed me: "I'm just heading to work and I saw you staring at the map and I was wondering if I could help you at all."
I looked up and saw a older geeky-looking glasses-wearing 50-year-old white man in a discount suit. I couldn't help but think of my brother in 20 years, you know, if the whole Amsterdam thing doesn't work out.
Mr. Helpful matter-of-factly added, "I know a lot about the system." I smiled slowly and thought, "I bet you do." (And just what work are you headed to at noon on Sunday the requires a friendly demeanor and a cheap suit?)
I saw both the beauty of this situation and the pressure of time. No punches would be pulled: "Why yes, I do have a question. I'm catching a train here but I'm here a bit early. Do any of these lines go above ground? I'd just like to do some sightseeing. No reason, just to ride something, but I don't have much time. Does the Blue Line, I mean the Market Street Line, go above ground?" I don't know what the line is called, but I got a good feeling that Philli don't use no colors.
He said, "The Market-Frankford Line goes above ground at 39th Street. It runs every 10 minutes on Sunday. You could take that to 69th Street. It takes 12 minutes. The 69th Street terminal was build in 1907 and has trains on three levels. You could walk around there and then come back. But you'll have to pay again."
I'm not making this up. And yes, I checked, the date is correct.
"That sounds great. I don't care about the money. It's just two dollars"
"I have an extra token. I have a SEPTA pass [of course], but I still have an extra token from when I didn't have the pass. You can buy it from me for $1.30, or whatever you have. There's no need to pay $2. You can buy 10 packs and they're... a lot cheaper [I think here he caught himself foaming]."
Tokens cost $1.30 each, but you can't buy just one. He reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope filled with spare change and at least one SEPTA token. I bought it from him for $1.25, as I didn't have more change. It was very nice of him to take a loss on the transaction.
He continued, "Coming back from 69th Street, trains leave every 10 minutes on the 10 minutes. I live there; that's where I come from." But why do I have the feeling he could have told me the information from the other direction as well?
Now I didn't have much time. I shook his hand and thanked him. Very sincerely, I might add. Off I went down to the platform level.
The subway came quickly, and as it pulled in, I ran to the front car. I saw that this line has a "lucky seat"! That's a term Pep coined for the front seat of the Chicago L. The sideways seat with the forward view. Lucky because you have to be lucky to get it. It's the best seat and almost always filled.
You get a great diver's 270-degree view of everything! When Papou used to take Andrew and me to Chicago to visit his friends and play "the machines" [pinball], we had a system where we alternate who got to sit in the front seat every 7 stops. Not 5 or 10, mind you, but seven. I think that seat is why I love trains. Now, as far as I know, only the Philli subway and the PATCO Speedline still have a lucky seat. sigh.
I was heading Westbound on the 12:30 local. A four-car train... The weather was drizzly and cold, overcast...
During rush hours, I think, they have an A/B split-stop system like Chicago used to have. Back in the old days. My train to NYC was leaving at 1:18.
West Philli is ghetto. Beautiful old rowhomes. Many vacant and abandoned. But they are much more ornate than the rowhomes in Baltimore. And there was some sign of redevelopment: refurbished building with proper "for rent" signs. The elevated-subway stations were old and beautiful.
The passengers getting on were all black. But some riders where white, connecting, I assume, to the suburban lines at 69th St. The subway, by the way, has the same annoying Chicago "safety" system where a beep forces the engineer to brake for no reason other than to avoid tripping an automatic stop whenever the overly-cautious speed limit is exceeded for the briefest of moments. This results in a herky-jerky ride and repeated full-stops despite a clear track and green signals.
The 69th Street Terminal was just as described. Three other lines leave from 69th Street: the "Highspeed" Norristown route and two local trolleys. Writing this, I learned that when delivery of the current cars on the Norristown route was delayed, they had to buy some old L cars from Chicago to run on the Norristown route! I miss those old L cars. Oh, I'm foaming again.
Anyway, I had no time to linger. It was 12:48 and the 12:50 would get me back in plenty of time to catch my train. So turned right around, dropped my token in the turnstile, and got back to 30th Street Station with just enough to buy a nice lunch for the train of fried chicken with cornbread and sides of collard greens and macaroni and cheese.
Thank you, Philli Phoamer! May your rails be smooth and trains run express.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)