Category Archives: New York City

September 10, 2010 · 7:40 pm

9/11: From Horror Comes Hope

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

This year instead of looking back on the horror that was, let’s look forward to the thriving neighborhood that will be. Don’t read that wrong. I am a firm believer in never forgetting. This is a solemn day that deserves respect and reverence. But I believe there is always a place for hope.

In case you missed this NYT article, here are the plans for what will be a completely new piece of New York. One that will both remember what we have lost and give hope for what we will gain.

In this time of insanity surrounding the protest of the building of religious institutions and the burning of sacred texts, is it not time for us to be the America we have worked so desperately to defend and preserve?

Enough hatred.

Please feel free to remember anyone you have lost or hope you may have for the future, but do not feel free to preach hatred in these comments.

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Filed under communities, current events, New York, New York City, politics, religion

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September 6, 2010 · 10:23 pm

Time to Cry Tuesday – Valentino’s on the Green

This week Time to Cry Tuesday takes a different twist. Having safely deposited both of my kids at college halfway across the country, I will focus this week on the joy of work.

Yes, you read that correctly. As a good friend from art school so wisely posted on facebook recently, ‘find something you love and then find someone to bill for it’. Every so often my career takes a turn back towards doing what I truly love; getting involved in a business and helping them to realize their vision for how they should look and feel.

One such client is a fabulous new restaurant and catering venue in the NY area called Valentino’s on the Green. I was hired to create their menus and associated materials. It just so happens that not only did I have the honor of working with this new venue, but one of the partners happens to be one of my dearest friends from High School, Chef Don Pintabona of Tribeca Grill fame. (we did not call him Chef, back then).

To add to the excitement, Don is planning to build a solar-and-biodiesel-powered vertical farm on the property, where he hopes to grow about 80 percent of his raw materials, from mushrooms and potatoes to farmed fish. He also envisions a teaching lab for local schools. How cool is that?

The restaurant is housed in Rudolph Valentino‘s summer home in Bayside Queens (hey, don’t laugh, in the 20s Bayside was like the Hamptons). The renovation is spectacular, the staff is award winning and stellar, the food is to die for. And Sunday night I had the joy of dining there during the Friends and Family opening.

I cannot tell you the thrill of entering that building I have watched turn from a construction site into an elegant restaurant over the past few months and see it filled with people. People who were actually holding my menus! But the most wonderful part of all was to see my dear friend Don – beaming as he walked through the place – at home in a way I have not seen in a very long time. There is nothing better than seeing a dear friend realize a vision and being able to take part in it.

Sometimes work feels like pushing a boulder up the hill. But if you are lucky, other times work is about doing what you love – with people you love – and finding someone to bill for it. It was an honor to work with a team of passionate professionals who truly cared about every single detail that led up to the opening of this restaurant. Don, Giorgio and Deanna, working with you has been a dream! Jimmy, Michael, Antonio, Don C., Lauren, Erin, and the entire staff, thanks for the great night last night, you were all on the top of your game.

So plug, plug, plug, full client/friend disclosure and all that transparency nonsense, you will surely thank me for turning you onto this place. Let’s help them find ‘many some ones to bill for it’. Join me in making this venue the great success I know it will become. Check it out here, or call and make a reservation at 718.352.2300 and tell them that Amy sent you. Do it now before this article hits and they are all booked up. (Oh and if you are looking to throw a party, their upstairs catering room is magnificent!)

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Filed under friendship, New York, New York City, relationships, restaurants, Time to Cry Tuesdays

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August 23, 2010 · 9:55 pm

Time to Cry Tuesday – The Last Play at Shea

(For those of you expecting a Time to Cry about sending my boy off to college this week… no can do. He is still here and the mantra is ‘hold it together’, so wait till next week for that one.)

Saturday night made me remember all the reasons why I love to be a New Yorker. This is a town like no other, and this particular night proved why being born and raised here is still something to be proud of.

Citi Field, a perfect summer evening and a unique sort of show that could only be dreamed up in the city that never sleeps. We went thinking this would be a fun sort of evening, a little barbeque tailgating with great friends and $10 tickets to see a movie about the Billy Joel concert that closed Shea. What could be bad about that? Little did we know what a gem of a film we were about to see.

I will not claim to be either an avid Mets or Billy Joel fan but I will tell you that this film made me realize what a huge part they both played in my coming of age.

Shea Stadium was that big ugly building that let me know we were almost home after a long road trip as a child. A place where my parents took us to see our first baseball game. Billy Joel’s music played as the backdrop to my adolescence. All the milestones of growing up were marked by the history that this film so elegantly illustrated. Sports, music, joys and sorrows that New Yorkers have endured through the 40+ year history of a man’s career and the stories of a Stadium and a team.

1965. The Beatles played Shea. I was 6. Do I actually remember it on TV in my house or is that memory of the retelling? Hard to say.

1969. All I could think of was kids listening to that game on transistor radios walking home from school with friends.

1986. Game 6, we were painting my friends kitchen in her new house and screaming at the game.

2001. September 21st. I still get chills at the thought of a New York still numb in a post-9/11 stupor; grieving as one family at the horror we had witnessed, as Piazza hit that 2-run homer that felt like hope. Maybe there was a chance we could think of living again.

And woven in between the stories of Billy Joel’s career were stories of the lives of Shea like Pete Flynn, the groundskeeper who not only drove The Beatles to the stage in a Cadillac in 1965, but then drove Paul McCartney to the stage again to close the Billy Joel concert that last night. And of course Billy, who stood humbled on the stage, in awe of being chosen to close that icon of a stadium that he too had grown up with. As he said, ‘Hey, I haven’t put out a new body of music in almost 15 years and this place is filled tonight. Thank you all.”

What a night. The world’s biggest drive in filled with the world’s greatest fans. And they cheered, and teared up. And breathed a collective sigh of appreciation at the end for a beautiful night out in NY. Nothing fancy. Nothing expensive. Just deliciously nostalgic and inspiring in its spirit of hopefulness.

As Paul McCartney ended the show with Let it Be, it was hard to think of anything else more to say.

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Filed under music, New York, New York City, places of interest, sports, Time to Cry Tuesdays

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August 21, 2010 · 11:29 pm

Citi Field, some messed up tickets and the Odd Couple

Stay tuned for the full post on the most amazing Saturday night. We saw The Last Play at Shea, a must see film simultaneously chronicling the history of Shea Stadium, the Mets and Billy Joel‘s career. More about this on Tuesday.

Tonight’s post is about a moment. One that took place right in the middle of an annoying sequence of events that led us to the ticket office at Citi Field due to bad computer print-outs. We were waiting patiently for the sweet, but very slow moving woman behind the counter to give us new, scan-able tickets when another guy in front of us went into a scene that was too good to be true. It made me realize at that moment, THIS was the reason that our tickets were screwed up (not a printer in urgent need of print head cleaning).

He said to the girl behind the counter that was certainly too young to know what the hell he was talking about, “You’ll remember my name, right? It’s Jeff Unger. You know, like Felix Unger, only I am truthfully a lot more like Oscar Madison.”

That was all I had to hear. Gary and I are HUGE Odd Couple fans. When I turned to look at him he gave me that exaggerated Ohhhhhhhh sort of face like the Little Rascals and then promptly broke into  the following song from the Odd Couple. (one of our favorites). Sometimes you are simply in the right place at the right time.

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Filed under humor, movies, music, New York City, sports

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July 22, 2010 · 6:20 pm

Naked Cowboy is suing again!

A while back I posted about the ever-famous Naked Cowboy and his quest to protect his brand. This man, who most of us New Yorkers regarded as simply another Times Square nut adding peripheral color to our otherwise drab days, turned out to be quite the savvy businessman.

When Mars used his likeness to promote M&Ms on a billboard he went out and hired himself a lawyer. Much to my surprise, and surely the shock of a giant like Mars and their not so savvy creative team, the (not so) little (naked) guy won the suit to the tune of 4 million bucks!

Now it seems our beloved undressed cowboy has gone one step further in protecting his intellectual (and I use that term loosely) property and has begun to sell franchises. For a guy who serenades without clothing in all sorts of weather in the middle of Times Square he has surely become wise to the ways of protecting his brand.

During a press conference on Wednesday (in his skivvies, of course), he announced that he is suing Sandy Kane, a 50-year-old former stripper who calls herself the Naked Cowgirl, for ripping off his Times Square act. It seems the king of the tighty whities already collects $5,000 annually in franchise payments from a woman named Louisa Holmlund, 27, who also performs as the Naked Cowgirl.

Now here’s the thing, and I don’t want to appear to be cruel here, but the woman who pays is, well, there is no other way to put this, she is a babe. And BTW, way more authentically naked. The new one, not so much. See for your self. Here is the ‘legally Naked Cowgirl’ in Naked Cowboy terms:

And here is the new one. Sorry grandma, if I were the cowboy I would not want you ‘diluting’ my brand, if you will. Oh and I would like to add; 50 MY ASS! She is pushing 60 if she is a day, maybe even 70 from this picture. Or maybe she just lived 50 really hard years, but seriously, cover that up. All of it, actually.

Yikes! This is just wrong. (I particularly like the woman on the left with the big smile).

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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Filed under absurdities, body image, carreers, current events, humor, lawsuits, marketing, New York City

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July 19, 2010 · 10:32 pm

Time to Cry Tuesday – Make More


Make more music. Make more art. What a lovely sentiment.

Last week, as I walked from the subway to Stuyvesant High School for a River to River Festival performance I passed this window. I believe it is a kid’s place.

Here in this little piece of Tribeca that used to sit in the shadow of the Twin Towers it struck me how resilient this city is. And how, almost 10 years since that horrific date, a neighborhood could thrive with families and culture.

Battery Park City and this edge of Tribeca are model neighborhoods in which to raise children. There is free music, public art, more green space than you could ever imagine, playgrounds, an esplanade along the hudson and restaurants, bars, galleries and shops all creating a quality of life that rivals any other neighborhood in NY.

It is hard to imagine how this neighborhood looked in the days following 9/11; a war zone in our very city.

Unthinkable.

And yet in the true spirit of New York it rose again to become a place to live where they encourage kids to:

Make more music and make more art.

Simply enchanting, is it not?

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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April 28, 2010 · 9:47 pm

New York vs. The World

I took this picture the other night when out with the girls. I kept stopping to take pictures and they kept going. I actually lost sight of them right before this and had to call to find them.

Yeh, I am a ton of fun to go out with.

This window was on a storefront somewhere east of Lafayette and south of Houston (can’t remember what block). I don’t think this was the name of the store, but rather a statement in the window. Anyone living down there, please let me know what this was because when I googled I came up empty.

Anyway, the sentiment struck me.

New York vs. The World.

How much more New Yorker can that be. We do have that center of the universe attitude that I would imagine is annoying to those who don’t live in the center of the universe. I would also imagine that a t-shirt with this emblazoned across the chest probably would not be the best wardrobe item anywhere but here.

Nonetheless, I love it. As I love NY.

Cliche? tough.

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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Filed under carry a camera, New York, New York City, signage

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April 15, 2010 · 1:01 am

The Bulgarian Bar

The Bulgarian Bar is NOT upstairs.

I, for one, was quite relieved by this signage.

Apparently they have a problem with thirsty Bulgarians.

What was upstairs was a fabulous, tragically hip (which we are not) asian fusion tapas (any other groovy name you can think of to describe it) restaurant called Kuma Inn. (113 Ludlow Str, NYC)

Great food, great service, reasonable prices and lovely bathroom with lots of candles.

And SO not a Bulgarian Bar.

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visitLeaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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Filed under carry a camera, humor, New York City, photography, places of interest, signage

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March 31, 2010 · 11:47 pm

Dylan in a Doorway

I love this shot. Looks like he can step right out of it and lay down on that makeshift couch.

Not sure about the significance of the red seahorse. Any thoughts on this? Then again if you ready Dylan’s autobiography just about anything would make sense.

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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March 21, 2010 · 6:13 pm

What a long strange trip it’s been…

… from Haight Ashbury to the New York Historical Society. Who would have thought that such a conservative venue would one day house the archives of the Grateful Dead. I guess if you live long enough.

And I did hear yesterday that someone who sits on the board of the NYHS donated a considerable amount of memorabilia to the archives with the caveat that he would be able to house a show here in NY.

If you are a casual Grateful Dead fan I would say this exhibit is probably not for you. It is rather small and unless you have the cult-like knowledge this tribe breeds you might find it a bit boring. Even for the hardcores there may be some level of disappointment at the size of the show.

The exhibit really needed audio headsets, like the Rock Hall uses. The Lennon Show at the now closed NY venue did a great job with this. Having to read each little sign was tedious and the type was way too small on a purple background (oh, sorry, graphic designers can be that way). A kick ass sound system playing live shows would have also been a nice touch. There was some music playing but it was sporadic and the sound kind of sucked.

However, there were some real jewels in the items on display so I will list my faves here , in no particular order (except for maybe number 1 because it is so ridiculous).

1. Boogie ’till you barf bag. (featured above) No, I did not disrespect the rules of the Society by photographing inside the exhibit. But the blogger that did will forgive me for not giving him photo credit and swiping his shot. Since he took the shot sort of illegally I don’t feel compelled to give credit. How’s that for rationalizing.

2. Steal Your Face Yarmulke nothing like a little kosher Jerry.

3. Original Warner Brothers recording contract Typewritten and looking a little bit like a term paper it was cool to see this document.

4. Original handwritten notes and sketches for the Wall of Sound For those who are unfamiliar, this is considered one of the largest sound systems of all time, built exclusively for the Dead and used on tour from 1974-1976.

5. Copies of 4 different Grateful Dead Comic Books Never heard of these and thought they were really cool.

6. Hand painted stage backdrop For the campies reading, this was reminiscent of a color war banner but bigger. It was quite cool, but I was a bit aggravated by the way it was displayed with part of the exhibit blocking the ability to see the entire piece in full view.

Oh and this was a big fave:

7. Dicks Picks binder Dick Latvala was the famous GD tape archivist. Fans were known for tape trading and Dick was the guru of all live show recordings, later releasing a CD series called Dick’s Picks, which was continued even after his death.

Dick kept meticulous notes for each show including set lists and commentary. If you know me, you know I LOVE a good binder. If you visit the NYHS site and click on photo #6 you can see the page for the May 8,1977, Barton Hall, Cornell show. Dr. Jimmy was there and tells me that this is arguably the greatest Dead show of all times.

Sorry to say I saw them at Cornell the following year – which I would like to say was the best show ever – but all I can remember about that show was the rather ‘interesting’ trip I took in the middle of the night to stand on line for tickets, something about albino deer on the side of the road and the rest is a blur.

And that last little anecdote seems as good a place as any to end a post about the Grateful Dead.

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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