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.
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