NYC Day 23: Sunday in The Park and Native-Canadians at SummerStage

Central Park's Harlem Meer at 110th Street.

Harlem Meer Performance Festival: Something Positive
The 24th annual Harlem Meer Performance Festival brings the best local talent in music and dance to Central Park! Enjoy jazz, Latin, world, and gospel music while admiring the lakeside views. All ages are welcome. Location: Charles A. Dana Discovery Center, Central Park (inside the Park at 110th Street between Lenox and Fifth Avenues).

I made it to the Harlem Meer event in time to catch the performance by Something Positive before a very appreciative audience of mostly local Harlemites, and visitors to the city, like myself. Something Positive are described as an "...ensemble of international dancers, singers, and musicians [performing] a mix of Afro-Caribbean traditional and dance music with a blend of poetry, storytelling, and theater."

The show encompassed all of the above description, and the ensemble of five or six dancers, three percussionists, the leader singer/storyteller and a chorus line of three women, kept the mood party-like throughout the performance by encouraging audience participation by teaching us chorus lines to sing, and by getting audience members to get up and join the dancing at appropriate times.

Conservatory Gardens, Central Park
From the Harlem Meer, I walked down to one of my favorite sections of Central Park, the beautifully maintained Conservatory Gardens. I find it impossible today to create a picture in my mind that depicts this area of the park as desolate, abandoned and dangerous. All words that once described the area before the Central Park Conservancy began to rehabilitate the area during the late 1980s and into the 1990s. Today the well manicured lawns, hedges, and vast swathes of flowering gardens are a delight to walk through and enjoy.

The Conservatory Garden is Central Park's six-acre formal garden. It is divided into three smaller gardens, each with a distinct style: Italian, French, and English. The Garden's main entrance is through the Vanderbilt Gate, on Fifth Avenue between 104th and 105th Streets. This magnificent iron gate, made in Paris in 1894, originally stood before the Vanderbilt mansion at Fifth Avenue and 58th Street. 

The Italianate center garden is composed of a large lawn surrounded by yew hedges and is bordered by two exquisite allées of spring-blooming pink and white crabapple trees. A 12-foot high jet fountain plays on the western end of the lawn, backed by tiered hedges and stairs that lead up to a wisteria pergola. On the walkway under the pergola are medallions inscribed with the names of the original 13 states. 

Above and Below: Conservatory Gardens in Central Park.

The northern, French-style garden showcases parterres of germander and spectacular seasonal displays of spring tulips, and Korean chrysanthemums in autumn, all within an ellipse of Japanese holly. In the center is the charming Three Dancing Maidens fountain by German sculptor, Walter Schott. 

To the south is the very intimate English-style garden. There are five mixed borders of trees, shrubs and perennial plants, and five seasonal beds featuring spring bulbs that are followed by annual flower displays. A slope of woodland plants lines the western edge of this garden. At the center is sculptor Bessie Potter Vonnoh's lovely Frances Hodgson Burnett Memorial Fountain, a tribute to the author of the children's book, The Secret Garden. The children — a girl and a boy, said to depict Mary and Dickon, the main characters from the classic — stand at one end of a small water lily pool.

From the Conservatory Gardens it was time to make my way towards the evenings main event, a celebration of contemporary Native-Canadian culture at the Rumsey Playfield, where three acts from north of the border were getting ready to rock the night. The event was just one of a hundred or so free concerts in the annual SummerStage [www.summerstage.org/] series of concerts that take place across all five New York boroughs. First up was Iskwé.

Promo image of Native-Canadian performer, Iskwé

Iskwé

Hailing from Winnipeg in central Canada, the wonderfully diverse Iskwé is of Irish and Cree/Dene lineage. Her full name, in Cree, translates to “Blue Sky Women”; Iskwé alone means “women,” and she chose this solitary moniker to represent both her culture and passion for shedding light on female causes and struggles. Strongly attached to her origins and spirituality, the skilled singer/songwriter instills her work with powerful elements of her heritage. Her voice is potent and luminous, her style a jazzy medley of trip hop and R&B. She attributes her inimitable sound to her “mixed indigenous and Irish ancestry,” as this cross-cultural experience had made an indelible mark on her life and music. A perfectionist with her work, her first album, the self-titled 2013 masterpiece Iskwé, took eight full years to produce. She subsequently released several singles to address the everyday atrocities that indigenous women must endure, including the heartbreaking 2015 track “Nobody Knows.” Her stage performances are bold and stunning; in tandem with her vital music, often she strikingly paints her face in the tradition of her Cree people.

A Tribe Called Red 

Oh, Canada! For those unfamiliar with “pow wow,” a chanting & drumming performed by North American Native people, Ottawa-based A Tribe Called Red will whole-heartedly introduce you to it – mixed with electronic rhythms, hip-hop, moombahton, reggae and dubstep, naturally. Their gloriously inimitable sound (which some refer to as ‘powwow-step’) has been transforming urban club culture in Ontario and beyond, helping electronic music fans to significantly broaden their horizons. The present roster includes DJ NDN, Bear Witness and 2oolman, and with their fantastically feral live shows/parties (replete with original, politically inspired visual art pieces and videos), they have been disseminating their message of aboriginal heritage embracement through wildly fun music.

The SummerStage performance space and part of the audience waiting for the show to kick off.

Buffy Sainte-Marie looks at things differently. Since her very first release in 1964, It’s My Way, this luminous singer-songwriter, a member of the Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada, has viewed music as not just a means of personal expression, but as a way to effectively disseminate messages of peace to the global community. A prominent activist, pacifist, educator and visual artist, she split time in the ‘60s between NYC’s Greenwich Village, and Toronto’s equivalent, Yorkville. While performing next to the likes of Neil Young, Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, she naturally set herself apart from other “folk” musicians, with a sometimes ephemeral, sometimes booming voice rife with culture, history and visionary ways of viewing humanity and our relationship with the earth. A Juno, Golden Globe & Oscar winner, Sainte-Marie has been recognized as an innovator with her protest anthems (“Universal Soldier”), her startlingly honest take on addiction (in the much-covered “Cod’ine”), her incidental pop-crossover mega-hit “Up Where We Belong,” and her most recent album Power in the Blood, a beautifully unapologetic look at identity and our place in the universe.

Tonight's show marked the third time that I have seen Buffy Sainte-Marie in concert, and I continue to be amazed by the power of her high-energy performances. I've said it before, but I'm happy to repeat the observation that I'm sure is not unique to me: Buffy Sainte-Marie may be in her mid-70s, but you would swear she was thirty years younger, so dynamic is she as a live performer.

This is one singer that I am more than happy to see for a fourth, fifth and subsequent times if the opportunity presents itself.

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Sunday 9, July | Expenses $32.50 ($42.80)

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NYC Day 19: In Which I Wander from one Museum to Another via Central Park

A bucolic Central Park vista (click images to view full size).

My list of things to do today included some free jazz music at the American Folk Art Museum, and more free music at the Rubin Museum of Art (part of their Spiral Music Series). In the end I missed both of them due to a very slow start to my day. Instead I elected to visit the Met Breuer again, but left my arrival so late that I barely got in 45 minutes of quality time at that address.

In fact, all I really got to do with spend some time with the Brazilian artist Lygia Pape, and her exhibition and wonderful Tteias installations as seen below. This work uses metallic thread woven in columns from floor to ceiling or wall to wall. Placed in a darkened room and dramatically lit, Tteia 1, C (as the work in this exhibition is called), is composed of golden thread that appear luminous and ethereal, like beams of sunlight entering a room. The photo does it do this huge installation justice so if you have a chance to see the work for yourselves, I urge you to do so.

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Tteia 1, C

Above: A series of four works called Book of Paths (and numbered 1-4)

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From the Breuer I decided to walk across the lower part of Central Park and slowly make my way towards Columbus Circle where I planned to get something to eat. One of the many things I love about New York City is the way the city has a way of undermining all your favorite perceptions about the city and its people. Personally I think you can blame Hollywood and the major television networks for an endless series of crimes shows that portray the city in a less than favorable light.

My experience however, reveals a city of (mostly) well maintained parks and gardens, some equipped with dog runs and almost all the larger ones equipped with playgrounds and water features for the little ones, or basketball courts for the older teens and young adults. The really large parks may have baseball or softball diamonds, and from what I have observed they are always well patronized and popular.

A walk through neighborhood streets often reveal overflowing flower-filled window boxes and sidewalk flowerbeds, a vibrant street life with food vendors ranging from mobile food vans to the smaller single operator stand selling ice cream, sliced fruits, knick-knacks and  knock-offs of more famous brand name products such as perfumes, sunglasses, handbags, watches and cheap jewelry, among many other items.

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Of course, the other side of this idyll is also plain to see: trash filled rubbish bins spilling their styrofoam containers, plastic cutlery, takeaway coffee containers, and plastic and glass soda bottles (most, if not all of which could be redeemed for the .5c deposit). The ever present wail of emergency service vehicles, the incessant blaring of car, bus, and truck horns, the rumble of the underground subway trains (or the 24-hour overhead roar of trains on the few remaining elevated lines in the outer boroughs, and on and on and on. Oh, and let's not forget the rodents and roaches, and the doggy-doo that one has to keep a constant look out for since many dog owners still refuse to 'Curb Your Dog', as the sidewalk signs urge.

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Above and below: The bedrock of Manhattan is super hard stone called Gneis, or Manhattan Schist. 

These outcroppings in Central Park give you a sense of what really lies beneath the city..  

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Having rambled across Central Park, and then finding myself in the vacinity of Columbus Circle, or more accurately in the vacinity of the Lincoln Center, imagine my surprise when I discovered that I was standing in front of the American Folk Art Museum. The jazz musicians were long gone, and once again I had around 45-minutes to check out the two major exhibitions taking place at the museum, but of course in I went anyway.

The two artists on show are men I have never heard of (a far more common occurrence than not). The Italian artist, Carlo Zinelli (1916-1974), is described by Wikipedia (www.en.wikipedia) as an "outsider artist who suffered from schizophrenia. The other artist on show, also now deceased, is Eugene Gabritschevsky (1893-1979), a Russian biologist by profession, and artist by sentiment. Obviously I did not have enough time to fully examine and appreciate the work of these two artists, but now that I have found my way to the museum, I will definitely return for a more leisurely look and write more then.

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Tuesday 5, July | Expenses $19.00 ($25.00)

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NOTE: My daily expenses do not take into account accommodation, transport, temporary phone account, or museum memberships since I am accounting for these monthly expenses at the end of each week. For the record these four line items add USD$28.45 or AUD$37.42 per day to my daily expenses. Maybe I should just include them in my daily account to avoid confusion. Maybe. I'll see how I feel at the end of this week.

New York City Round-Up #5

Hallett Nature Sanctuary, Central Park

The Central Park Edition: I have made many visits to Central Park during my four trips to New York City, and I have still not seen or experienced all that there is to see and enjoy in that magnificent 843-acre green space in the heart of Manhattan. So for this New York City Round-Up, I am focussing on the park, drawing mostly on information from the Central Park Conservancy, the organisation which overseas much of the ongoing work of upgrades and maintenance.

Specifically, I thought I’d look at the park’s three woodland areas—the Hallett Nature Sanctuary, the Ramble, and the North Woods. Public tours of the Sanctuary, and the Woods have now began and continue right throughout the summer by members of the Central Park Conservancy, and I have provided details and links to more information about the tours below.

The Hallett Nature Sanctuary

In 2016, I managed to squeeze in a brief visit to the newly restored Sanctuary, a four-acre section of Central Park that had been closed to the public for many years. Located south of the Wollman Rink, and surrounded by the Pond at the southeast corner of Central Park, the closest street entrance is at Sixth Avenue and Central Park South.

The Sanctuary was originally called ‘the Promontory’, but in 1934 the location was closed to the public and preserved as a bird sanctuary by Parks Commissioner, Robert Moses. It was renamed in memory of George Hallett Jr., a birdwatcher, naturalist, and civic leader in 1986. Last summer—due to ongoing restoration work—there was limited entry to the Sanctuary, but happily this year the site will be open daily from 10:00am until 30 minutes before sunset. 

Tours of the Hallett Nature Sanctuary ($15; CPC Members $10), take place each Wednesday and Saturday, from now through until July, 2017, and beyond.

The Ramble, Central Park

The Ramble

Central Park’s chief designer, Frederick Law Olmsted, described the 36-acre Ramble as a “wild garden.” The area was planned as a tranquil spot where visitors could discover forest gardens rich with plants while strolling along the paths. As you walk through all three of the sites highlighted in this post, I’m sure you will find it as hard to believe as I did that everything you are walking through has been built by the hands of many men and women. The bedrock may be permanent, but the ten of thousands of plantings, trees, lakes, waterfalls, and other park features have each been placed there by hand and machine.

Below, Isabella Rossellini, Italian actress, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and model, shares secrets of the Ramble. Central Park's 36-acre wild garden.

If you are visiting during Spring or Autumn/Fall, look out for some of the 230 species of birds that spend time in the park—which is part of the Atlantic Flyway—as they pass through on their annual migrations.

The North Woods, Central Park

The North Woods

Earlier this month, ABC7 New York ran a story about the restoration of Central Park’s North Woods, a 40-acre forest retreat at the top left of the park, where a man-made ravine meets the Harlem Meer. Interviewed for the television story, Doug Blonsky, of the Central Park Conservancy, said the area was created to mimic sections of the terrain around upstate New York.

“Olmsted and Vaux created areas like this for the typical New Yorker to experience the Catskills or The Adirondacks," he said.

Due to the lack of ongoing maintenance over many years, the North Woods had become overgrown and neglected, but now the Conservancy has returned an open waterway to the area, and put huge boulders of Manhattan schist back in place. 

Check out the ABC7 New York story:

The North Woods renovation was part of the $300 million Forever Green campaign, which took two years to complete. Visit Central Park Forever Green, to learn more about the campaign, including more woodland restorations and the renovations of 21 playgrounds.

If You Go

Central Park: North Woods…

Make sure you check out the 90-minute North Woods tours ($15; CPC Members $10), that are scheduled each Tuesday and Saturday, from now through July, 2017, and beyond.

I have often thought that even if you were to spend five days exploring Central Park, you would still be in danger of missing some beautiful corner of that magnificent site. There is much to discover and appreciate across those 843 acres, and I would urge you, dear reader, to at least allocate a morning or afternoon to discovering some of its many secrets. In future posts I will focus on locations and objects within the park.

More Information
Central Park Conservancy…

New York City Round-Up #3

NYCGO.COM Releases Official Guide to Spring 2017

New York City’s official website has just released its Official Guide to Spring in New York. This 254 page pocket guide to the city has pretty much everything you need to get you through a long, or short stay in the Big Apple.

The guide is divided into numerous sections. After in introductory section focusing on the city’s five boroughs; The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island, there is a roundup of Must-See attractions, Fast Facts, Calendar & Free Events, and This is New York City.

From there the guide provides valuable information on Transportation, Hotels, Shopping, Sightseeing & Tours, Arts & Culture, Museums & Galleries, Dining, Nightlife, Sports & Wellness, and finally, Services. Of course, the obligatory map of the New York subway system is also included. All in all it is a great resource, especially for first-time visitors to the city, and I’m sure visitors returning for their second or third trip will also find the guide useful.

You can download the New York City Guide as a free PDF (24.5Mb), here, or you can order print copies of the guide here.

Watercolor of Collect Pond by Archibald Robinson, 1798,
via Wikimedia Commons

Artifacts From Foley Square

Razi Syed, writing for Our Town Downtown, has an interesting article about some of the historical artefacts unearthed at Foley Square, which was once the heart of the notorious Five Points section of Lower Manhattan, and one of the most poorest and most dangerous neighbourhoods in New York City.

Five Points was built upon the remains of Collect Pond, which provided much of Manhattan’s water until the early 18th century.

“It was this gorgeous, freshwater pond that we jokingly call ‘The Hamptons of 17th century New Amsterdam.’” said Seth Kamil, who runs Big Onion Walking Tours, which provides tours of the city’s historic districts and ethnic neighborhoods. “There were farms and summer cottages.

“It was this 60-foot deep lake, and then it was drained and became Five Points,” Kamil said.

By the late 1800s, the city acquired and razed many of Five Points’ worst buildings. Urban planning resulted in the construction of city, state and federal buildings over the early to mid-1900s.

Read the full article here…

Tony Danza Laments Closure of UWS Starbucks

Holy Moly! I have heard about the sky-high rents that people living in New York City have to pay for apartments that are often so small they would have trouble storing Kim Kardashian’s shoe collection!

However, when I saw a story in the West Side Rag about an Upper West Side Starbucks outlet that had moved due to a rent increase, I was gobsmacked by the monthly rent being demanded by the landlord. Here’s the opening part of the story:

Upper West Sider Tony Danza called into WNYC on Friday to speak to the mayor about all the mom and pops that have been closing in the neighborhood. And he mentioned one particular store that’s not a mom and pop — the Starbucks on 67th and Columbus that closed last year when the landlord hiked the rent to $140,550 a month.

No, that is not a misprint. That figure again: $140,550 each and every month, until the landlord feels he can get away with raising the rent even further. Man! That’s a hell of a lot of Decaf Cappuccino’s, Skinny Latte’s and Espresso Macchiato’s needing to be sold each month. And that’s just to cover the rent, add to that wages, restocking, insurance, and much more, and it’s a wonder that anyone is able to open a business in New York let alone keep it up and running for many years. Read the full story here…

5 Tips for Your Next Visit to Central Park

Douglas Blonsky has been a Central Park regular for more than 30 years. In addition to being an Upper East Side resident who walks in the Park every morning (and often many more times throughout the day), he is also the Conservancy’s President and CEO and the Central Park Administrator. That means he oversees all aspects of park maintenance, operations, and management.

In his 32 years at the Conservancy, Doug has helped transform Central Park from an area of neglect to a beautiful and beloved refuge in the heart of Manhattan. In the process, he has become an expert on the Park which makes him the perfect person to share a few tips for ensuring a memorable visit to Central Park.

1. Don’t let the cold keep you inside 

2. It’s the people who make the Park

3. Make sure to allow for a little wandering

4. Take advantage of events in the Park

5. Find some time for yourself

Read the full post here…

West Side Rag Weekly Events

The West Side Rag publishes a weekly list of each week's forthcoming events running Monday through Sunday that is always worth keeping an eye on if you live, or are staying in that part of Manhattan.

Rockefeller Center, NYC

Image: The Rockefeller Center, New York City

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It’s pretty much impossible to miss the Rockefeller Center in New York City. Located in midtown Manhattan, the complex consists of 19 major buildings, the largest of which is the GE Building. Directly in front of this building is a large sunken outdoor plaza which doubles as an ice skating rink in winter and restaurant during the summer months.

During my spring 2008 visit to New York I often found myself in the vicinity of the Rockefeller Center and enjoyed passing the time admiring the skaters, people watching in general, and stopping for something to eat at one of the many restaurants and cafés in the underground concourse beneath the GE building. For some reason I rarely went to the Center during my 2010 trip to New York City. Maybe it was because I had seen enough of the site previously to feel happy to overlook the area in favour of New York’s many other interesting locations.

Rockefeller Center, or Rockefeller Plaza covers an area encompassing 22 acres (89,000 m2), the borders of which are 48th and 51st streets, and Fifth Avenue to the east, and Sixth Avenue to the west (see map). It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987.

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View Larger Map

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Rockefeller Center was named after John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the only son of his namesake and father, John D. Rockefeller Sr. the wealthy oil magnate. Rockefeller Jr., initially planned a syndicate to build an opera house for the Metropolitan Opera on the site, but changed his mind after the stock market crash of 1929 and the withdrawal of the Metropolitan from the project. Faced with the choice of abandoning the project completely or building and financing the Center himself, Rockefeller Jr., chose to build, turning the construction project into the largest private building project ever undertaken in modern history.

Of course, apart from ice skating and people watching and eating, one of the other reasons visitors flock to Rockefeller Center is to take the elevator rides to the ‘Top of The Rock’ as the visit to the observation decks is called. The views from the 70th floor are quite spectacular, as you might imagine, and you have the added advantage of getting great views (and photographs) of the Empire State Building which is near by.

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Image: Looking straight up at ’30 Rock’

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Unlike most other Art Deco towers built during the 1930s, the GE Building was constructed as a slab with a flat roof. This is where the Center's observation deck, the Top of the Rock is located.

In 2005, the Center’s owner completed a $75 million makeover of the observation area which now spans the 67th-70th floors and includes a multimedia exhibition exploring the history of the Center. On the 70th floor, there is a 20-foot (6.1 m) wide viewing area, allowing visitors an unobstructed 360-degree panoramic view of New York City.

Here is a minute or so of video footage I shot during my Top Of The Rock visit during March 2008.

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Getting There:

The nearest subway station is the 47-50th St - Rockefeller Ctr. Station which can be reached by the B, D, F, and M trains (more info: http://www.mta.info/).

Tickets:

• Podcast $2.50     
• Adult $22.00     
• Child (6-12) $15.00     
• Senior (62+) $20.00     
• Sunrise Sunset $32.00     
• Sunrise Sunset Child $17.00 
• Note: a SUNRISE SUNSET ticket allows guests to visit twice in one day.

Online:

Rockefeller Center Official Site...

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Rockefeller Center [From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia...

Friday Photos: Duck! Duck! Duck!

Image: Ducks practicing their synchronized preening routines

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I captured the three ducks in the first photograph preening themselves on the banks of the Central Park model boat pond during the summer of 2010, and was lucky enough to get them in an almost perfectly synchronized cleaning session.

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Image: The Alice H. and Edward A. Kerbs Memorial on Conservatory Water

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The Alice H. and Edward A. Kerbs Memorial is the current ‘home’ of the Central Park Model Yacht Club (CPMYC). The Central Park Model Yacht Club was founded in 1916, but model sailing on Conservatory Water started about 40 years earlier.

After a wooden structure burned down in the early 1950's, a new home for club was established in 1954: The Kerbs Memorial Boathouse. The new building was sponsored by Jeanne E. Kerbs in memory of her parents Alice and Edward Kerbs, who enjoyed watching the boats sailing on the pond from their Fifth Avenue apartment window.

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Image: The Jeanne E. Kerbs plaque on the Inventors Gatepost at East 72nd Street, NYC

Source: New York City Parks website…

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You can see larger versions of these photographs and many others through my Flickr page here… or click here to watch a full screen slide show of all my photographs…

More Information

Central Park Model Yacht Club...

Central Park website...

PS: You can find previous Friday Photos by using the search box at the top left of the page.

Central Park: Six of The Best

As my time in New York winds down, I don’t have time for extended blog entries – I’m too intent on trying to pack as much into my last few days as possible. However, this blog nags at me and insists on the occasional update – no matter how occasional. So I’ve hit on the idea of a quick way to fill some space and still make entries of interest – hence, Six of The Best. Photographs, that is. Today, I’ve chosen six images taken on my rambles through Central Park.

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Image: Root Canal Treatment
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Image: Hans Christian Anderson statue
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Image: Would you like to dance? Two nuns watch as couples dance the Tango
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Image: Bethesda Fountain silhouette
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Image: Model Boat Pond
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Image: Bethesda Terrace ornamentation
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Image: Bethesda Terrace ornamentation detail
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Yes, yes, I know that's seven images, and not six. That's just the marketer in me trying to live up to the old marketing truism: Always deliver more than you promise.

Strolling Central Park

Image: Shakespeare watches over Tango dancers in Central Park

Caught a bus into the city and got off near Hunter College to attend Roller Derby in New York City! Yes, on Saturday night the Brooklyn Bombshells were meeting the Queens of Pain and I wanted to be there to see the clash. Unfortunately, so did hundreds of other roller derby fans, and since I had not bought a ticket for the event I missed out because it was completely sold out.

Gratuitous advice to visitors: If you want to see it – make sure you book it, or don’t be surprised if the event you want to see is sold out. It is New York after all, and the middle of summer at that. At least I will get another chance to see the teams clash again in August, and you can make sure I will book ahead for that one.

So what to do? Wanting to salvage something from a potentially wasted Saturday night, I headed off to Central Park where I was sure something would be happening, and it wasn’t long before I encountered a large group of people dancing in the park. Not just any old dance, though. They were dancing the Tango. I didn’t get the full details, but throughout the summer, free Tango lessons were taking place on Saturday evenings around the base of Shakespeare’s statue, and I had stumbled on the class. Of course, if you already knew how to Tango you were more than welcome to join in.

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Image: Bethesda Fountain in Central Park

After watching the dancers for a little while I walked down towards Bethesda Fountain. Before reaching the fountain I saw another group of dancers. These were gyrating around a trio of percussionists who pounded out a steady rhythm of primal beats that kept the mood lively and the dancers sweaty.

At Bethesda Fountain, numerous visitors and locals where being entertained by a couple of buskers who were creating giant soap bubbles, and eliciting excited ooh’s and ah’s from an appreciative audience, especially when some of the bubbles where reaching lengths of two or three metres.

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Image: Giant soap bubbles in Central Park

Later, as I retraced my steps back past the dancers to Fifth Avenue and caught a bus into Penn Station for a meal, I was happy to have made something out of a potentially wasted evening.

The Best-Laid Plans…

~ According to the American Heritage Dictionary, it was Robert Burns who wrote: “The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley.” Or as we might say today: The best-laid plans of mice and men often go astray.

I am ruminating on this after having spent nearly seven hours yesterday transferring footage from a series of video tapes onto my computer. The tapes, shot on my Panasonic video camera, are of my trip to Sydney during March and April earlier this year.

In addition to the four tapes I had from that trip, I have spent several more hours transferring footage from a number of other family events that have taken place this year. Add a box full of other cassettes to all this, and you begin to get a picture of a man who needs to find a workable system of archiving his numerous home movies.

As the self-appointed family documentarian, I am never far from my camera, and while I enjoy capturing the family at important family events, and turning the footage into short films, I often leave the work of transferring the original footage until long after the events have taken place.

When I returned from my trip overseas last year, I had dozens of tapes documenting my travels. In addition to the tapes, I had thousands of photographs in folders organised by month, week, and week day. I have yet to go through these folders and cull out the bad photographs: that is, the blurry, the poorly framed, the repetitions, and the just plain boring ones.

I guess all travellers have similar problems. Once the excitement of the trip is over, and we settle back into the daily grind of work and life, it is easy to forget we even spent that wonderful week in Hawaii, or New York City, or wandering the streets of London or Athens. Photos get transferred to hard drives, video tapes get put away in boxes or bottom drawers, and life goes on.

And so to my ‘best-laid plans’ to create exciting holiday films with which to wow my family and friends.

Even as I research my next travel adventure, my family and others are still waiting to see my videos, and the best of my travel photographs. They may be waiting for a long time, yet, unfortunately. However, as my forthcoming trip looms ever closer, I feel a need to get my ‘house’ in order, otherwise I will return from my next trip with even more tapes and photographs, and never find time to show off any of my handiwork.

So what has worked for you? Any suggestions or tips you can offer, dear reader, will be gratefully received.

Meanwhile, I’ve got work to do. There’s a box of tapes waiting to be processed and edited.

Image: Statue of Robert Burns in Central Park, New York

Photo courtesy of Wahaj Zaidi at Panoramio...

April in New York City

~ Things to do in April in New York City
by Rosalie Scott

April showers bring May flowers... and lots of exciting things to do in New York City. With spring in the air and dozens of events taking place, April is a great month to visit the greatest city in the world. Here are some highlights!

Tribeca Film Festival
For film buffs, spring in New York means it's time for the popular Tribeca Film Festival in lower Manhattan. Various cinemas in the Tribeca district showcase hundreds of international films, often with the director and cast ready and waiting to answer questions after the screening. Almost every one of the more than 200 films is a North American, international, or world premiere.

The Easter Parade
Every Easter Sunday, Fifth Avenue from 49th to 57th streets is closed to traffic for this colourful and exciting spectacle. The tradition dates back to the mid-1800s when the upper crust of society would attend church services and then parade their new Easter outfits down Fifth for all to see! Starting at 10am, admire the passing parade of participants decked out in creative bonnets and elaborate costumes. There is plenty of entertainment, stunning floral displays and even a real Easter bunny or two. Celebrate Easter services at St. Patrick's Cathedral on 50th Street and Fifth, St. Thomas Church on 53rd and Fifth or at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church.

Cherry Blossom Season at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Spring is a lovely time of year to experience New York, and there is no better celebration of spring's beauty than the cherry blossom viewing season in April at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG). Visitors can walk under the boughs of the cherry trees and experience the Japanese tradition of Hanami, watching the delicate blossoms as they vibrantly come to life. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden boasts the largest collection of cherry trees outside of Japan, and it is stunning to see the lush blooms of these more than 200 trees come alive in their rich colours. The BBG is located at 1000 Washington Avenue in Brooklyn.

Earth Day Celebration in Central Park
With its lush greenery and beautiful landscaping, Central Park is a must-see in the spring. The Earth Day celebration in the heart of the park is a free event open to the public and includes live musical performances, art and crafts, and lots of environmental projects like tree planting. Families can pack a picnic, spread out a blanket and enjoy the festivities.

Opening Day at Yankee Stadium
Baseball fans count down the days to spring training, and especially to the opening day of the season in April. The gates of the New York Yankee's new stadium open in April 2009. Located on the north side of 161st Street between River and Jerome Avenues, it is right across the street from its original home. The 1.3 billion dollar state of the art facility boasts advanced audio visual technology and several tasty dining options to enhance the fan's experience.

NewYorkJourney.com will give you a comprehensive look at several of the sites mentioned above along with information on a variety of other attractions and hotels in the Big Apple. Get the information you need to know before you travel, to make sure you get to see the best of the best in New York City.

Originally published on SearchWarp.com for Rosalie Scott Sunday, March 08, 2009
IMAGE: Cypress Hills National Cemetery
PHOTO: Jim Lesses

Article Source: Things to do in April in New York City