Photo of the Day: Knocking on Knickerbocker

as of a visit Monday, February 20, 2017

Vestiges of the 'olde' New York can still glimpsed in the corners and shadows if you only look or know where to look. Hints: ends of platforms, tucked up out of sight, and/or disguised as the years have 'progressed' by. Where once a door may have opened to a glamorous hotel, now commuters jockey for a spot to cram on a subway shuttle and try to ignore the rats frolicking in the trash on the tracks feet below.

 ~ photo by iPhone, some slight filters

Knickerbocker Hotel entrance as covered by The New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/17/nyregion/behind-subway-entrance-to-hotel-knickerbocker-neither-arias-nor-opulence.html?_r=0

Photo of the Day: Time Clock

 

This is the actual time in the p.m. when I was standing on the subway platform Wednesday night after:

Working since 9:30 a.m.;

Standing in the cold for 10 minutes waiting for the 1 train; and

Representative of me frantically checking my watch to see if:

I will make the 11:13 train home, and 

If it is Monday yet?

Updates: made the 11:13, walked into Attic at 11:53. I think. So tired. This whole work thing is old already.

LATER UPDATES: 

And this scene was repeated on Thursday, Friday, and then an hour later on Saturday. LONG WEEK.

-iTouch

Photos of the Day: This is just MEAN!

From time to time, the MTA decides to try and glean extra revenue by having the Times Square shuttle(s) wrapped in advertising. The interior and exteriors of the cars are shrink wrapped for travel campaigns or other marketing pushes. Some of these are better than others - in design, content, and/or timing. For example, the Lady Gaga new album campaign that's encasing one of the shuttles right now, is rather ... um ... disturbing. Thank goodness there is no audio component to the inset television screens.

For the most part, I like the travel campaigns best. It's like a 3 minute get-away. The Norway and Iceland travel campaigns during the height of the summer heat were refreshing and yet mean, all at the same time.

Like this recent campaign from Brazil - not long after the incessant winter storms.

My little cell phone camera came in handy for these quickie shots.

(What is Brazil calling me, exactly?)

Please stand clear of the closing doors.

This exit does not lead to sand and surf. Brazil is just messing around with you. Life's not a ball, or a beach.
And to just taunt you further, you are going to be subjected to subliminal messages about carnival, Rio, Ipanema, and other Brazilian delights, while you have to deal with winter blahs, summer rains, and the gritty, grimy mess that is your commute.

Brazil is calling you. Celebrate life .. you poor schmuck of a commuter.

Have a nice day!

(HA!)

Grand Central Views

Auntie Nettie thought she'd interrupt her blogging about recipes, crafts, travels, and her nieces and nephews to highlight some of the oddities that she's seen on her commute through the mass transit system of New York.

One of the great things about New York is that you don't even have to go beyond Grand Central Terminal to see the world. The world comes to you.
In addition to the world's commuters and tourists using the facilities to move about the region, shop, gawk, or body block me en route to my train, many international travel bureaus use the Great Halls to publicize. There was a Turkish display which I missed completely, but more recently Northern Ireland had a presence in the Hall.

If you look carefully (and squint) you can see a replica of the hull of the Titanic through the cathedral spires and domes. The display had multimedia components, but my favorite part was the actors dressed up as if they were passengers from various steerages. Nothing throws you off more at 10:00 am on a Saturday though, than seeing a Lady glide across the floors in full jet-black Edwardian garb. I had to blink and look away, then I had to check to see if I was the only one seeing her. Grand Central is haunted, you know, and I wouldn't have been too surprised if it was an apparition. I was that tired. Nope, it was just one of the actresses after a cuppa!
At another end of the hall was the performing stage. Wouldn't you know we got there in the afternoon as the fiddlers and dancers were performing. (Which reminds me, when is the Scottish contingent coming to NYC? Me needs some more men in kilts!)
I just liked the view here, but let me tell you, the Hall is so vast and the lighting so odd, that even with a flash, this doesn't always photograph well. See what happened when I tried to take a picture of Jane?
The flash issue came up again when I surreptitiously tried to take a picture of this Asian gentleman with a fabulous Mohawk and British inspired Punk outfit. He had Union Jacks on the front of his skin-tight leather pants, and what looked to be bones on the back, complimented with a leather jacket, wallet-chains, piercing, and other appropriate accoutrement. Definitely not the "normal" commuter type that you see Monday-Friday during rush.

With a flash, the picture didn't quite come out. Without the flash, my camera just couldn't hack it. (It's probably a combo of my camera and the Terminal Lighting). He was there alll day. I kid you not. Jane and I left GCT at 10:30 am and came back by about 6:00 pm and he was still in the same place. I was not the only photographing him, and he didn't seem to have anything to do with the Northern Ireland Exhibition.

He wasn't the strangest thing I saw on the commute recently. That would be these two playing "music" for money.

Cookie Monster says: Can I Haz Commuter Cash for COOOOKIES?

I've seen this crew before. They pop up in various spots around the subway and in various outfits. Who know where they'll be next and in what garb?

Finally, on my normal evening commute through GCT, I catch different trains from different tracks, depending on the time. One of these usually goes out of track 102A, downstairs, where there is a sign pointing out the obvious-- that you have to take another stairway to get down into the bowels of the station to the train track.

Every time I see the sign that says "STAIRWAY" the song "Stairway to Heaven" pops into my head. EVERY.SINGLE.TIME.

I'm apparently not the only one.

Some one who carries around a Sharpie and Post-Its caved into our mutual conditioning and relabeled it.

I noticed. I stopped, backtracked, and dug out the camera. I documented. I grinned all the way down the stairs and on to the train. I think the conductor thought I was nuts. (No comments from the peanut gallery!)

The Post-its were still up the next morning.

I wonder for how long?

Stay tuned for more pictures of the crazy commute that the day in the life of Auntie Nettie. Coming sometime!

Rate Hikes

Dear MTA,

Riddle me confused. Why are you increasing our rates? On more than one occassion, I've had the entire shuttle car to myself ... in the middle of the day. I don't mind. It's nice not to be harrassed by pan-handlers, songsters, and the Help the Homeless people. Can't you take some of our fees and get more cops on the train to curtail that?


Oh, and obviously you aren't using the extra money to replace missing restroom signs on the Metro-North trains. We have to do that ourselves. You won't let us drive them, but you'll let us fix them.
Just wondering. I don't really need a response. I'm just venting.

Hugs and kisses,
Auntie Nettie

Lost on the Rails

Attention Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants.

I have located your shoes.

These silvery stilettos have been seen lying in the middle of the 42nd Street shuttle tracks at Track 1, just beyond the Stairway to Nowhere on the Grand Central Terminal side.

Pray tell Sisters: How have your soles survived the absence of these party shoes? What roads have your heels travelled? How can they stack up to the stories swirling in my imagination? What tales of your night life might these strappy numbers tell?

Alas, my vivid imagining of your revels quickly succumbed to my gag reflex. The sight of a very large rodent lying quite bloodily squished to death by subway car not inches from these accessories brought to an abrupt end my daydreaming.

Too bad.