I'm currently in Vancouver in a nothing special neighborhood that is still filled with parks and public spaces because if you build them, people will come and use and love them. I wish America had more non-rocking rocking chairs for people to sit in.
Glad to have you back, Anne -- you certainly deserved your vacation and it's good to know you had a fabulous time, including a "typically-Anne" musing about two cruise boat operators 😉, but I missed my weekly NYC-trip! Totally LOVE the fixed rocking chairs at the Avenue H Station. The view from the porch doesn't look at all like I imagine NYC, more like a town where people know each other. What a great piece.
That's what's so great about NYC. It IS exactly what you'd expect in terms of being busy, noisy, anonymous. But there are also places like Midwood in Brooklyn that look and function just like a small town. It's got EVERTHING!
"...ANNE MATH—a calculation strategy that involves giving the first answer that springs to mind head rather than the correct answer."
Well when I learned computer programming back in 1974 the first data point is zero. So I started the first week at zero and now I'm at week two and you returned right on time! No apologies necessary! Do you notice that you always seem to return with a very healthy "glow" from your vacation near the nuclear power plant! Never forget sunscreen!!
"Nothing can just be,” he said. “It has to double as an art installation."
Aharon is spot-on!! You know it all started back in biblical times with the Garden of Eden. That was an art installation originally. And as you know things went downhill quite rapidly after the Garden of Eden. I just shake my head. When will we ever learn?
I laughed so hard at "ANNE MATH"! Thanks, also, for finding the most charming / "Brooklyn Bucolic" subway station ever. I want to go visit just to hang out with all those cool people you met. And to sit in those chairs! Oh, and, also--welcome back!! Hope you had a very relaxing trip!
Another very New York read. Like another of your commenters I was intrigued about above ground subways but then gathered it’s an entrance? I wanted to see what was through the windows behind you. And I wondered what the little triangle things were all over the roof! And the amazing houses across the street! Wow!! So much to gawk at and wonder about.
And thanks for the photo of you too! Another enjoyable read. So glad you had a lovely ‘vacation’ / holiday / break. (Language is such a fascinating thing. So many of us speak ‘English’ but it’s so variable.). Enjoy your week. 🤗🤗😘
Thanks Beth! Send me a note (annekadet@yahoo.com) and I'll reply with some pics of the interior of the station so you can see what's going on through windows. It's a very cute station!
NY public art like Avenue H Station’s rocking chairs may well rival the best of the city’s museums when it comes to footfall if you add up users and passers by. The station building is wonderful. What about Street Art? Where I live it is everywhere (https://beestoncivicsociety.org.uk/beestonstreetart/). As good as always. Aka Kevin 🐰
We got lots of street art too of course but it looks like your community really takes it all the way. Some of the examples in the photos are just super lovely!
How do you access the subway? or is it elevated at this point? It is a good idea as long as no one who has bad intentions sits there to catch a lone person walking in. We never had art installations in subways or elevated trains years earlier so it is a nice touch.
Hi Irene! The Q train in this part of Brooklyn runs along a track that is open to the sky but below street level. Kind of like a long ditch!
Wow it's hard to imagine our subway stations without art. I know there's always been great tile work...
Okay, I just did a quick Google search: "MTA Arts & Design was created in 1985 to oversee the selection of artists and installation of permanent artworks in subway and commuter rail stations."
Happy Labor Day Anne. The end of summer and you shared a nice way to wind down on a rocker that doesn't rock.
(1) BULBS -- My Mom became unnerved by the lightbulb stuff years ago and my one brother was more than happy to fuel her anxiety as a plot of some sort by big government!!! I contacted her local utility and got her some rebate forms. As part of the coupon generation, my Mom spent her remaining years filing rebates for bulbs. She shared once that the bulbs were free as the utilities were thrilled to not have to build new generation. The rebates for MOST UTILITIES are larger than the bulb cost on Amazon. Contact the local utility for your Dad so he can pivot to something else that unnerves him. Pro tip -- get some stamps for Dad so he doesn't reminisce about the good old days of 3 cent postage. If he uses email (Mom didn't) it is even easier!
(2) Everyday art -- The porch looks nice. It doesn't look like it would be out of place on an Iowa farmhouse. I love art in unexpected places. A cast rocker that doesn't rock sounds perilously close to a lot of hidden bureaucracy behind the scenes. I happen to enjoy the projects here to add art on manhole covers for example. Not sure I want to know what they cost :)
LOL Mark I KNEW I could count on you to have something fun to say about lightbulbs. I had no idea about this lightbulb rebate thing. If this rebates are larger than the bulb cost on Amazon do you suppose I could quit this writing gig and earn my living that way? Maybe something combining light bulbs and Forever Stamp arbitrage.
Manhole cover art is a great idea! I don't think I've seen that here....
BULBS -- I am glad my predictability is soothing. When I renovated our basement I installed CFLs and got perhaps $200 in rebates. Hated the light and moved bulbs to less used locations and bought LEDs for at least another $200 in rebates. Probably $15 a month savings in electricity for ten years no brainier. It was a boondoggle. I did a post about bulbs a long time ago. Incandescents get so f-in hot. 90% of the energy is not visible. My simple theory is you can get people angry at anything they don't understand. My favorite part of the CFL story is they weren't new. They were invented by Tesla to irritate the old buzzard Edison more than 100 years ago. One year on Amazon Prime Day I bought about $30 bucks worth of can LED spotlights and got about $50 in rebates.
My favorites are the loons and walleyes -- there is one that says something like "You are here" and provides the latitude and longitude of your location -- clever and silly.
These are some of the newer ones -- they are really quite something to come across.
So funny you city dwellers...That's a timberwolf not a fox :) They are extremely prevalent in the northern part of the state. There are multiples of the covers but the latest artsy ones are concentrated downtown -- still a fair amount of each of them. The most common of the specialties is an old one with the City Motto on it (City of Lakes). Those are common. This cover is very common throughout the city.
I continue to be amazed by the range of discussion that commences at the Cafe.
We men are fortunate that manhole never became synonymous with a-hole cover before the name change :) -- as for the theft IDK -- I would like to believe theft of maintenance covers is not a big problem yet in flyover country :)
Wow, Ms. Kadet! When I saw that you were writing about the Avenue H station, I was perplexed, bemused, nonplussed - there’s nothing there but a nice neighborhood near Brooklyn College! Then I realized I haven’t been to that station in about 45 years. Thanks for a charming story and for bringing me up to date.
I'm currently in Vancouver in a nothing special neighborhood that is still filled with parks and public spaces because if you build them, people will come and use and love them. I wish America had more non-rocking rocking chairs for people to sit in.
It's true Michael! If I had a zillion dollars to give away, it would probably be mostly about creating public spaces with excellent places to sit!
Thanks for a classic travel-to-NY-without-leaving-home-Café-Anne-experience, Anne! PURE ENJOYMENT!
Oh wow so happy to hear that BA! I liked this one too. No point at all beyond having a good time. :)
😀
So well put!
Glad to have you back, Anne -- you certainly deserved your vacation and it's good to know you had a fabulous time, including a "typically-Anne" musing about two cruise boat operators 😉, but I missed my weekly NYC-trip! Totally LOVE the fixed rocking chairs at the Avenue H Station. The view from the porch doesn't look at all like I imagine NYC, more like a town where people know each other. What a great piece.
Thanks Jessica!
That's what's so great about NYC. It IS exactly what you'd expect in terms of being busy, noisy, anonymous. But there are also places like Midwood in Brooklyn that look and function just like a small town. It's got EVERTHING!
"...ANNE MATH—a calculation strategy that involves giving the first answer that springs to mind head rather than the correct answer."
Well when I learned computer programming back in 1974 the first data point is zero. So I started the first week at zero and now I'm at week two and you returned right on time! No apologies necessary! Do you notice that you always seem to return with a very healthy "glow" from your vacation near the nuclear power plant! Never forget sunscreen!!
Phew! I'm glad it all worked out JRB!!!
Love how this turned out. Thanks for the Uni Watch plug!!
Yay thanks for your great company Paul!
Can we can you up and spray you on? I can't remember what it was I was worried about now. Life is good after a stop in Cafe Anne.
That is great to hear IC! Thank you!
"Nothing can just be,” he said. “It has to double as an art installation."
Aharon is spot-on!! You know it all started back in biblical times with the Garden of Eden. That was an art installation originally. And as you know things went downhill quite rapidly after the Garden of Eden. I just shake my head. When will we ever learn?
LOL!!!
JRB you are totally spot-on! Garden of Eden as the world's first art installation. I love it!!!
I laughed so hard at "ANNE MATH"! Thanks, also, for finding the most charming / "Brooklyn Bucolic" subway station ever. I want to go visit just to hang out with all those cool people you met. And to sit in those chairs! Oh, and, also--welcome back!! Hope you had a very relaxing trip!
Jillian we can have our SS meetup on the porch!!!!
Another very New York read. Like another of your commenters I was intrigued about above ground subways but then gathered it’s an entrance? I wanted to see what was through the windows behind you. And I wondered what the little triangle things were all over the roof! And the amazing houses across the street! Wow!! So much to gawk at and wonder about.
And thanks for the photo of you too! Another enjoyable read. So glad you had a lovely ‘vacation’ / holiday / break. (Language is such a fascinating thing. So many of us speak ‘English’ but it’s so variable.). Enjoy your week. 🤗🤗😘
Thanks Beth! Send me a note (annekadet@yahoo.com) and I'll reply with some pics of the interior of the station so you can see what's going on through windows. It's a very cute station!
NY public art like Avenue H Station’s rocking chairs may well rival the best of the city’s museums when it comes to footfall if you add up users and passers by. The station building is wonderful. What about Street Art? Where I live it is everywhere (https://beestoncivicsociety.org.uk/beestonstreetart/). As good as always. Aka Kevin 🐰
Thanks aka Kevin!
We got lots of street art too of course but it looks like your community really takes it all the way. Some of the examples in the photos are just super lovely!
How do you access the subway? or is it elevated at this point? It is a good idea as long as no one who has bad intentions sits there to catch a lone person walking in. We never had art installations in subways or elevated trains years earlier so it is a nice touch.
Hi Irene! The Q train in this part of Brooklyn runs along a track that is open to the sky but below street level. Kind of like a long ditch!
Wow it's hard to imagine our subway stations without art. I know there's always been great tile work...
Okay, I just did a quick Google search: "MTA Arts & Design was created in 1985 to oversee the selection of artists and installation of permanent artworks in subway and commuter rail stations."
https://new.mta.info/agency/arts-design
So yes, it hasn't always been a thing!
Happy Labor Day Anne. The end of summer and you shared a nice way to wind down on a rocker that doesn't rock.
(1) BULBS -- My Mom became unnerved by the lightbulb stuff years ago and my one brother was more than happy to fuel her anxiety as a plot of some sort by big government!!! I contacted her local utility and got her some rebate forms. As part of the coupon generation, my Mom spent her remaining years filing rebates for bulbs. She shared once that the bulbs were free as the utilities were thrilled to not have to build new generation. The rebates for MOST UTILITIES are larger than the bulb cost on Amazon. Contact the local utility for your Dad so he can pivot to something else that unnerves him. Pro tip -- get some stamps for Dad so he doesn't reminisce about the good old days of 3 cent postage. If he uses email (Mom didn't) it is even easier!
(2) Everyday art -- The porch looks nice. It doesn't look like it would be out of place on an Iowa farmhouse. I love art in unexpected places. A cast rocker that doesn't rock sounds perilously close to a lot of hidden bureaucracy behind the scenes. I happen to enjoy the projects here to add art on manhole covers for example. Not sure I want to know what they cost :)
LOL Mark I KNEW I could count on you to have something fun to say about lightbulbs. I had no idea about this lightbulb rebate thing. If this rebates are larger than the bulb cost on Amazon do you suppose I could quit this writing gig and earn my living that way? Maybe something combining light bulbs and Forever Stamp arbitrage.
Manhole cover art is a great idea! I don't think I've seen that here....
BULBS -- I am glad my predictability is soothing. When I renovated our basement I installed CFLs and got perhaps $200 in rebates. Hated the light and moved bulbs to less used locations and bought LEDs for at least another $200 in rebates. Probably $15 a month savings in electricity for ten years no brainier. It was a boondoggle. I did a post about bulbs a long time ago. Incandescents get so f-in hot. 90% of the energy is not visible. My simple theory is you can get people angry at anything they don't understand. My favorite part of the CFL story is they weren't new. They were invented by Tesla to irritate the old buzzard Edison more than 100 years ago. One year on Amazon Prime Day I bought about $30 bucks worth of can LED spotlights and got about $50 in rebates.
MANHOLES -- City seems to sponsor artists ever ten years or so with the manhole cover thing. They are fun to come across around town. Here is an example. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/minneapolis-manhole-covers
My favorites are the loons and walleyes -- there is one that says something like "You are here" and provides the latitude and longitude of your location -- clever and silly.
These are some of the newer ones -- they are really quite something to come across.
https://katekburke.com/section/143737-Manhole-Covers.html
These manhole covers are great. My favorite is FOX.
Is there just one of each do you know?
So funny you city dwellers...That's a timberwolf not a fox :) They are extremely prevalent in the northern part of the state. There are multiples of the covers but the latest artsy ones are concentrated downtown -- still a fair amount of each of them. The most common of the specialties is an old one with the City Motto on it (City of Lakes). Those are common. This cover is very common throughout the city.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rickabbott/15814164006/
FOX
https://katekburke.com/artwork/4264244-TIMBER-WOLF.html
I love those covers! How do they prevent theft? Even plain ones get stolen for scrap metal.
And I see the ‘new’ term is maintenance cover.
"Maintenance cover!" So funny!
I continue to be amazed by the range of discussion that commences at the Cafe.
We men are fortunate that manhole never became synonymous with a-hole cover before the name change :) -- as for the theft IDK -- I would like to believe theft of maintenance covers is not a big problem yet in flyover country :)
Wow, Ms. Kadet! When I saw that you were writing about the Avenue H station, I was perplexed, bemused, nonplussed - there’s nothing there but a nice neighborhood near Brooklyn College! Then I realized I haven’t been to that station in about 45 years. Thanks for a charming story and for bringing me up to date.
So glad you enjoyed CL! Thank you!
This was such a joy to read ❤️🔥🪑 I loved hearing the different perspectives
Thank you Amani! Very happy to hear you enjoyed. :)
“It’s still Brooklyn.” 😂 Love it! Happy Labor Day, Anne! Ps - I was born in Brooklyn, so especially enjoyed this!
Thanks Jolene! Wishing you a lovely holiday day!
This is one of your 'as usual' clever and interesting articles!
Thank you Mariecher! It was a lot of fun to report and write!
Mariecher is Mary Riechers in disguise!
Hi Mary!!! Hope all is well!