It’s About Time

Friday 9/27

On September 24th, the Hunters Point Library finally opened to the public. I was so excited that I decided to bike there on Friday, my first available day off.

Hunters Point Library

I first saw this library back in 2015 (which is apparently when construction began) when I was an instructor for Bike New York. Ever since seeing the building, I was looking forward to checking it out as it seemed very modern and chic, and because I’m a design and architecture nerd.

However, whenever I would pass by it, it was still under construction. Apparently this was something that had been in the works for 9 years. I found a multitude of articles about the delay and the $40 million price tag. However, I kept following it online until finally I found an article that posted an opening date.

When I got there, the first thing I noticed was that there was no bike parking. I had to find a place to lock up across the street. However, considering all they had dealt with to get it completed, I wasn’t going to complain.

Hunters Point Library

The library itself is beautiful. The layout is very minimalist and almost industrial, using light wood and concrete in the design. It is very unconventional as well and you sort of have to zig-zag across the structure to make your way up to the higher levels, making for an airy and open design.

When I got to the top level, I was a bit bummed that the roof, which was meant to be a patio for lectures and to just sit and relax, was not open yet as it was still under construction. I guess they just figured, “let’s get this thing open already.”

Hunters Point Library – interior

The only other complaint I had was that there was only one computer that was for searching the catalogue! I don’t understand why, of all the computers they had in that area, just one was for searching. It also seems odd that they would just have a catalogue computer on one floor and not at least one on all of the floors. However, I guess I shouldn’t complain as it was at least cool to finally check it out and I’m sure they are still working out the bugs.

Manhattan Movie Bench

After having explored and photographed the library for half an hour I made my way to stop number two. I biked over the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan (mention the bit about how I biked far passed it and had to double back) to find a movie location.

View from the bench from the movie Manhattan

There is a clip in an episode of Family Guy where Stewie and Olivia are sitting on a park bench, looking at a bridge and Stewie says, “This really is a great city, I don’t care what anybody says.” However, not until I was watching the CNN docu-series The Movies did I realize it have been stollen from the Woody Allen film, Manhattan.

So, a bit of Googling lead me to the location which I decided to make a quick visit to before continuing on my way. I’ve never seen Manhattan and thus I don’t necessarily care about it, but it’s always fun to go to famous locations.

Apple 5th Ave

Next I made my way to the recently re-opened 5th Ave Apple store for a third attempt to try and go in without a line. However, despite it being open for a week, there was still a line out front. Now, I’m not sure if perhaps the line was only for people who were buying something but, regardless, I didn’t even want to waste the time it would take to lock up my bike, walk over and find out, so I continued on my way.

B&H

After that failed attempt, I made my way over to and down 9th Ave to 34th St to visit B&H Camera. I was looking for a backpack to replace the uncomfortable Away bag I’d purchased, and was in search of a wrist strap for my GoPro.

I found Incase backpacks, the brand I was looking for, but I couldn’t find the specific model I was interested in. I then moved on to the camera section where I ended up finding a wrist strap that was considerably cheaper than the one I had found on their website which was great.

Not that you care, but I wanted the strap so that when I go on my next vacation, if I want to take the GoPro into a body of water, if I drop it, I hopefully won’t lose it. However, as a secondary precaution, I bought a “floaty” for the camera so that if I do drop it and it slips off my wrist, it will at least float to the surface.

Jeffrey Deitch Gallery

Next I made my way to the Jeffrey Deitch gallery in Soho to check out the Tokyo Pop Underground exhibit.

The first thing that caught my eye was a statue of a Golden Robot. I was familiar with the design of the robot due to the cover of the 2001 Aerosmith album, Just Push Play which was illustrated by Hajime Sorayama. It was fascinating to see a three-dimensional version of an image I’d been familiar with for 18 years.

Hajime Sorayama’s golden robot statue

The next big feature item in the room was the skateboard wall. The wall was covered in hundreds of used skateboard decks. The decks had been flattened in such a way that the nose and tail of the boards no longer curved up, making it look like a two-dimensional image.

Whats more, the decks appeared to be layered “over” one another as if they were all piled on top of each other. However, the decks “below” were cut in the middle so that the decks “above” could fit into the negative space in between to give the illusion of sitting on top.

Skateboard wall

From there, I made my way to a dark room with six glass rectangular cases, three on either side, that were lit from above and below. There was a mirror on the back panel of each case. In the cases were more of the Hajime Sorayama robots, this time in chrome.

There was a pole sticking out from the back of the case into the back of the robots to make them appear as if they were floating or hovering in zero-gravity in the cases. It gave them this haunting yet ethereal appearance.

Chrome robots in glass cases

The last piece that really intrigued me was one in the lower level of the gallery. There was a dark room with a projected image of an anime character, a young girl in a nightgown, on the wall. Towards the far wall was a single light bulb which was turned on and hanging from the ceiling from a wire. In the middle of the room was a podium with a computer mouse on it. Below the mouse was a label which read, “Click mouse, then wait.”

So, I clicked the mouse and the projector whirred to life. The anime character suddenly fainted and fell to the ground, lying on her side for a bit before the image faded to black. Then a noise came from the ceiling and a ceiling mounted printer printed an image of the collapsed character.

Anime girl

It was so bizarre, like a piece of performance art. On the ground were hundreds of other printed papers from the other visitors to the gallery. Pleasantly confused, I made my way to the last stop.

K&M

I headed further south to K&M Camera to check out their inventory of Incase backpacks. Upon entering I immediately found the bag I was looking for but, in doing so, accidentally knocked over all of the other backpacks and a shelf of cables and other equipment sitting above it.

Embarrassed, I took the bag to the table to examine it. I was ready to buy it but it was more expensive than it was listed on the Incase site. I asked if they could price match the website and though they could not do that, they could check Best Buy and B&H. They found they “same” bag on the B&H site for even cheaper than it was marked on the Incase site and gave it to me for that price.

I knew this was not the same bag, having just come from B&H, however I was not going to correct an error in my favor. So, I got rung up for the lower price and then the guy I was working with needed to get the non-display bag for me to take home.

However, when I got to my bike, I noticed that he had given me a different model. I then had to walk back to the store and exchange the one he gave me for the floor model I had been looking at. This should have been easy except that the floor model had a security device that he had to fumble with before I could finally leave with my bag.

Lunch

I biked down to the Fulton Street station since I had two backpacks to awkwardly carry and hopped on the train back to my apartment to grab a small lunch. While eating, I realized that there had been one other thing on my to do list that I wanted to get done. This one, unlike the others, was time sensitive as it was a one-day-only pop-up shop.

Modern Anthology

I hopped on my bike one more time and took a ~20 minute ride to Smith Street in Brooklyn to check out the Never Not Riding x Modern Anthology pop-up event. I had one thing only in mind, a 5-panel hat that I wanted to get as a sturdier cap to wear than my cycling cap.

Upon entering I immediately found the hat I was looking for and, as luck would have it, I got the last black one. I grabbed it and held onto it while walking around the store and chatting with the owner of MA and the founder of NNR. I also grabbed a free beer and relaxed for a bit.

Never Not Riding hat and stickers

I was stoked to be getting this hat. To top things off, it was a little cheaper than I thought it would be, and, the founder Nemo, threw in some NNR stickers for free as I was hoping he would. A very solid/productive day off.

Saturday 9/28

Since Friday had been so busy, Saturday was deliberately more chill. I basically just did laundry, returned my Away backpack and applied to more jobs. However, in the evening, I met up with my buddy Kris for a little birthday shin-dig on his roof.

We chilled for a bit before heading out to grab pizza and eventually bar hopping around Crown Heights. The star of the night however was Butter & Scotch. I had been there once before but had never indulged in their cocktails.

The one I ordered was really good, Ciao Bella, and the one my friends got was also good. I bought Kris a slice of cake since B&S specializes in desserts as well. It was a really fun night and was nice to be able to just bike there and bike home when I was done.

Three In A Row

Thursday – May 30th

Ever since my friend Caitlin showed me pictures and video from The Django jazz bar/club I have been wanting to go check it out. This past Thursday, as I was walking home from the subway it was pouring and I got soaked. After changing my clothes I was really not interested in going back out into the rain. But, when the rain stopped and I was just sat watching Netflix, I decided to go.

I’ve walked past The Roxy Hotel several times but I’d never been inside. As the name would imply, it is 1920s themed and has a really cool prohibition era vibe with exposed brick walls. In addition to having a movie theatre in the basement, they also have The Django. The Django is, I believe, named for the gypsie jazz musician Django Reinhardt and pays homage to Le Caveau de la Huchette in Paris.

The Django at The Roxy Hotel

Having been to both, I’d say that I personally like Le Caveau better as it’s more cramped and feels more legit. One of the things that I loved about Le Caveau when I was there was that everyone danced. I was hoping/expecting that would be the vibe here, but I was wrong. I don’t know if it was the fact that it was a Thursday night, (and not a Friday or a Saturday) or that the band didn’t play many dancing tunes, but no one danced.

I really wanted to, and made it my mission to dance with someone before the night was over. Early on, I spotted what I would later find out to be a bachelorette party, sitting on the other end of the club. There was one woman in the group who I saw “dancing” at the table earlier in the evening. So, when I eventually walked over towards the end of the night, she was my target.

“Excuse me for interrupting ladies,” I said “but you look like you might wanna dance.” I looked straight at curly hair and, with the egging on of the rest of the table, she danced with me. I was glad that they didn’t make a big deal out of it. So many times women in groups will look at you like you’re crazy for asking them to dance. I get it if you just don’t want to, but what else are you here to do? We’re not getting married, we’re just dancing.

In any case, in our short dance together I found out that curly hair and her friends were from San Diego and that they were in town for a bachelorette party. She told me their plans for the weekend and that was it. I was glad I didn’t hesitate too long for them to leave or just plain chicken out.

Beer at Django – $12

Friday – May 31st

Every time I have a day off, a “weekend” day, I try to make the most out of it that I can. I’m always torn between doing something I should be doing, like applying for more jobs so I can quit the one I have, and doing something fun. Usually, I’ve been leaning towards fun since the weather has been consistently nicer.

I have been needing to do a food shopping for a while but being that I have a small trip coming up, I didn’t want to get a lot of stuff that might just go bad in the time that I’m away. So, betraying all my instincts, I went to my local Key Food to get the bare essentials. I dislike Key Food as it is small, the aisles are narrow, the selection is poor and the prices are high.

However, it is so much closer than Stop and Shop and much less of a hassle as I don’t need to take the train. That said, I didn’t need much, so I grit my teeth and got what little food shopping I needed to get done.

Grocery Shopping ~ $60

Next, I made my way into Manhattan to visit the Toyota dealership. I am far from in need of a car, however, after seeing so many videos and magazine articles on the new Supra, I went down to see if they had one on sight. Upon my arrival, I found out that they will not be getting them in until the end of the year. Just as well, all I was going to do was look at it, sit in it and maybe take some pictures of it.

After that I crossed the street to the Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep dealership. Again, I had been seeing articles and videos on the Jeep Gladiator, so I wanted to try and see one in person. Sure enough there were two in the showroom so I sat in and explored them both. I really hope that either Jeep or a third party has plans to make a cap for the bed. I would love to see a “Chevy Tahoe” looking Jeep driving around. Though it’s essentially just a Wrangler with a truck bed, I love the look of the extended wheel base.

Once all of my tire kicking was done, I made my way down to 14th Street then across town to Union Square. Once there I walked the short distance to my favorite comic book shop, Forbidden Planet. I was in search of a comic I’d read about on Hypebeast called The Magic Order. In the article, they mentioned that the series had been put out by Netflix, weirdly enough, and that they were now working on turning it into a show.

I made my way to the back of the store and instantly found two other things that caught my eye, a Stranger Things comic book (weirdly another Netflix property) and Spider-Man Noir. I had been looking for Spider-Man Noir ever since finding out about it’s existence in college when my roommate was playing the Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions video game. Here it was, a compendium of those individual comic books in graphic novel form.

Just as I was about to pick it up I was interrupted by an employee who was diligently doing his job. “Can I help you find anything?” he asked. “I don’t know if you’ll even have this,” I said, remembering that the article I’d read about The Magic Order made it sound rare, “but do you have any of The Magic Order comic books?”

He walked me around the corner to the next aisle over and immediately found exactly what I was looking for. “Oh wow, thanks.” I said. “No problem.” he said, and like a superhero who’s power was to help others find comic books, he was off to help the next patron.

I held it in my hand and leafed through it. I then gathered the other two in my hands. At ~$20 each, did I really want to spend $60 on impulse comics that I really didn’t need? I hate making frivolous purchases. I claim to be a minimalist but I am not immune to the transitory pleasure that comes from getting something new. I decided against them… for now.

Moving on, I made my way north to 23rd Street and west to The Lego Store. On the same website where I had come across the comic book, I had been informed of a new Lego set that I wanted to check out. It was the Byer house from Stranger Things (there it is again). I knew it wasn’t set to release in stores until June 1st, the next day, but I figured I’d enquire about it anyway.

When I arrived in the store, I was amazed to find that not only did they already have it, but they had several of it. I fully expected that if they were getting any, it would be out of stock. In the time I spent in the store, I did see one get purchased but it was still crazy that they had any at all. Possibly one of the coolest and most creative Lego sets they’ve come out with, I was intrigued and consider spending the $200 for the set.

Then, in the corner of the same shelf, I found another set that I thought would have sold out already, the James Bond Aston Martin DB5. I love the idea of Legos and enjoy building them, but essentially they are just expensive dust collectors, so I saved myself the $150.

I headed back to Union Square and took the (6) train down to Spring Street. Side note, phase one of the OMNY contactless Metro Card System was up and running which was cool to see. In any case, from Spring, I made my way over to the Chrome Industries store on Mulberry. I have been thinking about getting a new backpack for a while, ever since the zipper on my current bag started to fail.

There were three requirements I was looking for, a working zipper, a place to hold my bike lock and for the bag to be waterproof. The guy who helped me, Max, read my brain, finding something light, simple and on sale.

I inspected it and thought about it but again decided to hold off since I didn’t really need it and, though my current backpack is 7 years old, there really isn’t enough wrong with it to justify the purchase. Before leaving however, I told him that my birthday was coming up and that I’d have to see what, if anything came my way.*

On the way back to the (6) train I passed a beautiful old Porsche street parked. It was clean and in excellent condition so I admired it for a bit and got a few pics before continuing on my way.

Porsche 356A 1600

*When I got home from my excursion, I checked the mail and found a letter from my Grandpa. In it was an envelope with a check for about half the cost of the backpack I was looking at. It basically sealed the deal.

Saturday – June 1st

The next morning I decided to do a small load of laundry since the downpour from Thursday had soaked my hoodie and pants. Despite laying them out to dry, they were still damp… and smelly. Since I was out of change, I had to use the ATM at the laundromat to take out $10 so I could get quarters from the machine.

Laundry – $10

After I was done, I headed into Manhattan with the intention of getting the Chrome bag partially with the money I had recently come into. I wanted to cash the check that I had received but the bank that said it was supposed to be open until 3pm wasn’t actually open.

I think you can cash checks at the ATM but I don’t trust that sorcery. Being that I needed to fill my unquenched craving to buy something, I decided to just go into the city and buy it with my debit card so I could “pay myself back for half” once the check has been deposited into my checking account.

Chrome Backpack** – $113; ($50 from Grandpa, $63 from my own pocket)

After hastily making my purchase, and feeling badly about it, (in fact, as I write this I still feel bad about it) I made my way northwest to the Houston Street Station and took the (1) train north to 23rd Street.

There I made my way over to Poster House on 23rd between 6th and 7th. I have known about PH for at lease a year, maybe even more and have been anxiously awaiting its opening. Somehow I found out about “Community Day,” a day where PH would be open to the public for free before its grand opening on the 21st.

Upon entering, I was greeted and one of the women working there explained the space to me and what what was currently showing. I strolled in through the first main gallery space and took in the Art Nouveau posters on display. It was nice and quiet, seemingly few people knew about the soft opening.

Art Nouveau poster by Mucha at Poster House

I then made my way downstairs to the basement level gallery and slowly walked through the small space. After that it was back upstairs to the one other room I hadn’t checked out before I was done. I’m not sure if perhaps there are more galleries that I missed, but if not it is a very small museum and I’m glad that I didn’t have to pay to check it out.

I’m hoping that I perhaps missed an entire section of the museum. Additionally, unless they do an exhibit on vintage travel posters or advertisements from the 20s through the 70s, I don’t necessarily plan on spending the $12 admission anytime soon.

I walked back to the 23rd street station where I was pleasantly surprised to find a (2) train on the local track and took it back to Brooklyn. I chilled at home for a bit and had a light dinner before heading back out, this time by bike, to the new (literally had opened the day before) Time Out Market in Dumbo.

Jordan’s Friend and Jordan on the rooftop patio at Time Out Market

There I met up with my buddy Jordan and his friend from college (whose name I forget, sorry). I grabbed tacos and a beer and we sat and ate and drank on the ground floor of the market. After chatting and drinking for a bit, we made our way up to the 5th floor where there are a few more food venders and another bar.

College friend and I grabbed drinks while Jordan waited for the food they ordered. The service at the bar was super slow and yes it was kind of busy, but this was ridiculous. Eventually we got our drinks and drank them out on the patio which overlooked the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridge. It was a beautiful night. The weather was perfect and we just had a low key fun time.

Tacos – ($14), Beer – ($10), a round of drinks – ($30)

At around 9:45pm we made our way towards the Clark Street Station. Jordan and his friend were going for pizza. Along the way we passed some restaurant in Brooklyn Heights where we saw Adam Scott and Paul Rudd having dinner which was kinda cool.

Once at the Clark Street station we split up. It was 10pm and I needed to get home to get to bed so I could work the next day. On the ride home, while heading through Carrol Gardens I passed an old Mustang.

Street parked Mustang

It looked like a Boss, however it didn’t have the louvers over the rear windshield nor did it have the correct stripes. I only know the old Boss to have come in the 302 and 449 variants; this one said 351 which perplexed me. Either way it looked cool and I grabbed a few crappy shots before continuing on my way home.

**I have since return this backpack as it was a hasty purchase, was difficult to zip shut and didn’t have enough pockets.