William Klein’s 1958 short film, Broadway By Light…

…is so worth your time.

This was the scene just a few miles from where I live yesterday. Over at the Daily Beast, Michael Daley writes about Amazing Grace in the Bronx:

The third car had people trapped inside.

But the fourth was the most challenging to the firefighters because it was sitting at a tilt and swayed as they worked to extricate the injured.

“The car was teetering back and forth,” later said FDNY Capt. James Ellson of Rescue 3. “So the removal of those people was getting a little tricky.”

In all the cars, there were more injured people than the firefighters and cops could immediately assist in those early minutes. The rescuers, who are geared to helping whoever needs it, had to make a difficult request to the passengers who were less badly injured than others.

“It’s very hard to ask a civilian who was just involved in an accident to help us,” Ellson would recall. “They had just been involved in a very bad train accident, and now I’m saying, ‘I need your help, I need you to help people who are in worse shape.’ I asked everybody, ‘Listen, look at the people next to you, and if they need help, help them.’ And they did it.”

Hey all, welcome back to another edition of Where & When.  I have a pretty easy one for you this time, one with a view you’ve possibly seen before.  Imagining the scale of this edifice is to imagine a vast repository of natural effects; or at least the end game for the run-off…

This reminds me of one of my favorite towns that I lived in when I was growing up.  I’m making a gallery of pictures I took on a trip up there this summer, in fact; anyone whose interested should just click on my screen name for updates.  In the meantime, why don’t you dive into this challenge and seek out the name of this structure, the year it was built and when it was taken down (for whatever stands in it’s place today).  Knowing that much will give you a good idea of the actual size of this structure.  Bonus if you know of a similar structure that currently resides within city limits and can provide a link to a picture.

A truckload of Old Colony for the first person with the right answers and a Spring Grove for the rest of us who follow.  Leave your answers and recollections in the comments and we’ll talk again in the afternoon.  Happy Trails!

[Photo credit: syscosteve]

When art ruled SoHo.

[Photo Via: Forgotten New York]

How do you react when someone sleeps on your shoulder? I generally won’t have it but I suppose it depends on my mood and the person who falls asleep on my shoulder.

Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York looks at the changes in the meat packing district.

Welcome back to another edition of Where & When.  The holidays are neigh and I will probably only post once this week so that we can all do our own thing on the day and recover afterwards, but if I do post another, I’m certain it won’t be Thursday.  I do apologize for the inconsistency of late, but my work schedule has been similarly inconsistent.  This week should provide me a bit of relief; especially with what I hear will be a major snowstorm coming to the NY Tri-State area as early as Wednesday.

That said, let us debate over this latest picture:

I had a little bit of trouble pinpointing the location, even with the given clues, so this may or may not take a while depending on your resources.  I am particularly curious about a couple of the clues in this photo, so anything you can add to the description in terms of the businesses pictured would certainly be worthy of a bonus.  As far as when is concerned, I’m certain we can gather what season it is, but for the year I’m looking for the same year as a particular exposition in this region involving horses and drinking. Did somebody say fun? I sure hope they capped it at a certain point if it was…

A raft of River City for the first with the answers to both where and when, and Napitki iz Chernogolovki for comrades who follow with correct answers. Leave your answers in the thread and discuss freely. Links are your friend, and so are well researched responses.  No peeking at the photo credit, of course.  And again, anyone who wishes to submit a future challenge can submit the picture and corresponding info to me via email.  Poka!

[Photo credit: Wikipedia Commons]

I love our man Bags’ pictures from around town.

While you’re at it, check out this Super 8 footage of NYC in the 70s:

Welcome Back to Where & When.  This will be a special edition to highlight the recent loss of a cultural icon.  For several generations and cultures who inhabit the city, this was their Penn Station. I present this without further comment, but feel free to post thoughts.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013:

 Here is a Google Gallery of what was 5 Pointz. 

Here is a little history.

This is cool.

The dismantling of a New York landmark begins.

Dig Dan Nguyen’s photo gallery.

Good grief, welcome back to another round of Where & When,  where conversation and controversy flourish continually.  Or at least since the last game, where we had a little controversy about the actual location and date.  Nevertheless, it served a purpose and we all remain friends, ready to jump all over each other on the next challenge… I mean, jump all over the next challenge…

This is yet another picture I like a lot; something about the imposing aesthetic and the antiquity it represents.  This photo was undated by my source, but I’m sure a few of our clever participants will be able to round up, if not find the exact year or date this picture was taken.  Lots of clues to go by in that regard, so take your best shot. Some of you probably see this on a regular basis, but have not seen it in this manner for a long time, if ever.

A stein of Brigham’s Brew for the lucky number one who gets the name of the building in the background (when the picture was taken, important distinction) and the name of the street in the foreground along with an approximate date, and a cold bottle of Faygo for the rest who have similar responses. Bonus if you know what the building is called now and who owns it. I wonder if you know I’m keeping score somehow… anyway, enjoy; leave your responses in the comments and don’t peek at the photo credit.  Happy Hunting!

[Photo Credit: Wired New York]

A day in the life of Pete Hamill:

If it’s a beautiful day, I love taking walks. The walks are always aimless. From where I live, I like walking to the Battery, where so many people, including my own parents, came through that harbor and passed into Ellis Island and became Americans. You can just sit on a bench and look at the harbor, or look at the people. Like being a flâneur. You can just wander around and let the city dictate the script.

And here is Hamill’s review of The Boy Detective by Roger Rosenblatt:

To enter the world of this wonderful memoir is to leave the dull certainties of home and go wandering. The author’s destination is always the great wide world Out There, and through his sharp, compact prose, Roger Rosenblatt takes the reader with him. He is, after all, what some 19th-century Parisians called a flâneur, a stroller sauntering through anonymous crowds in the noisy, greedy, unscripted panoramas of the city.

In that role, Rosenblatt has no exact destination. In unstated homage to such wandering scribes as Walter Benjamin and Charles Baudelaire, he doesn’t consult Google Earth or a guidebook. He doesn’t need a tour bus or a taxicab. He walks the streets like a poetic stray, embracing chance and accident, inhaling the gritty air of his true Old Country, a Manhattan village called Gramercy Park. He is not, however, parochial. Sometimes he slips over the border to make the strange feel familiar. Along the way, he bumps against human beings he almost surely will never see again.

Those nameless men and women are moving in the streets, retreating into shops, escaping snow or wind in the churches, the schools or the malls that have replaced the arcades once so precious to Parisian flâneurs. At times, a single person is the object of his scrutiny. Above all, his subject is people one at a time. He studies them, he says, like a detective. Clothes, hairdos, shoes, postures. And eyes, which say so much without words about what used to be called the soul. Rosenblatt tells us he has been doing this since his age was written in single digits. Detective fictions filled his head with ways to see the world, really see it, and then try to figure out what he was doing in that world. He suggests that though he studied at Harvard, and even taught there, his most important education came from popular fiction. Above all, detective fiction, starting with Sherlock Holmes.

[Photo Credit: Dave Sanders]

I went once as a kid. I would like to go again. (And I’ve never been to Ellis Island–for shame!)

[Photo Credit: Sally Elena Milota]

Good morning, and welcome back to Where & When; tracking down locations over the eons. Well, at least in the 200 years or so… I have wanted to introduce the new feature I vaguely described, but I’ve had a rush of work come at me lately, so it has to wait for the opportune moment.  In the meantime, let’s track down the origins of the following pic:

I really like this one; the size and design seem very imposing in its girth as opposed to it’s height (which is still too high for me to swan dive into an Olympic-sized pool of chocolate milk below), but it also reflects the rugged undiscovered nature of early New York.  That was not likely the case when this photo was taken, but compared to what we have now, it was certainly both an achievement and a period marker.  I don’t have to give much in clues for this one; you’ll likely see it in other places, but it’s history is interesting enough, so feel free to discuss what you’ve found during your research.  Tell us what building this is and when it was built, and bonus points for knowing whether this building still stands or was replaced by another. Explain how you came to your conclusions and you’ll be able to honorably imbibe one of the following:  Steelhead for the first player with the right answers, and Sprecher for everyone else.  Enjoy! And no peeking at the photo credit… >;)

[Photo Credit: Museum of the City of New York/Getty Images]

Coming soon to my old neighborhood. Looks like I’ll have a reason to make a pitstop on the way home to the BX.

[Photo Credit: Dan Nguyen]

I was on Thompson Street last weekend when I saw an old woman dressed in black. She had on a long raincoat and was wearing bright red lipstick. We smiled at each other and said hello. I asked if she was from the block and she said no but that she was from the neighborhood.

“You’ve seen it change a lot,” I said.

“Yes. Some for the better, some for the worse,” she said.

What was worse I asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t pay attention.”

[Picture by Bags]

Well, well, well; welcome back to the exciting and intriguing Where & When. Did you miss us? We missed you… holidays are always the toughest days to come back from.  How about we help refocus your brain matter so the rest of your day can be a piece of cake (insert favorite flavor here _________)…

And for your pleasure, how about another piece of cake:

Nice day for a stroll, it seems.  Crazy nice, in fact.  Maybe more than crazy… maybe it was that time of the year, or maybe it was that year.  Well, don’t lose your mind trying to figure out the date; you’ll be really mad when you figure that part of it out.  But if you do… well... (yep, if you understand this one, you and I are on a wavelength that deserves much pity.)

Post your answers below in the comments and feel free to help out and discuss.  I’ll will be peeking in now and again (work work work) and offering some thoughts throughout if I can.

How about some of Dad’s stash if you are the first with the answers, and some Hansen’s Natural for the rest of us, butterfly included.  Now run along and sleuth, chop-chop! (Bonus if you know what all these awful puns are referring to… >;)

My grandparents lived across the street from the Museum of Natural History. They were older grandparents, not the kind to get down on the floor and play with my sister, brother and me. When in doubt, they took us to the Museum. We went so often that for years I never returned. It just reminded me of being bored out of my skull. But when I was in my twenties I went back and remembered just how cool the place is. I haven’t been in awhile but am down to go again.

[Picture by Bags]

This is pretty cool.