The East River runs through New York City separating Brooklyn and Queens from Manhattan. It’s dirty and gritty and iconic; just like New York in every way.
ARTS
New York City Photography- Hudson River
The Hudson River runs up the west side of the island of Manhattan. By walking up the river or taking a cruise down into the harbor, you can see great memories of a New York past in the old piers, the rising spirit of the Freedom Tower, or the natural beauty of the bluffs on the shore of New Jersey beyond. It’s a must do in New York City.
New York City Photography- Central Park
At the very heart of the vast urban sprawl of New York City lies Central Park. Call it what you will. An island. An oasis. From The Plaza to the old Band Shell. The park itself and the buildings which surround it are as quintessential New York as you can get.
My interview with Modern Bear’s Travis & Chris- WOOF!
I have been a fan of the Modern Bear guys for quite sometime, when I stumbled upon their website through a photo my friend shared not of a hot bear, but of a particular “modern” design photo that I had a similar interest to. My thought process here was, “Finally! A bear page not 100 percent devoted to shirtless men. There is thought behind this!” And that is what the Modern Bear message is truly about. They equate it to the following- Modern Design + Bears + Retro + Beefcake= THE MODERN BEAR! Travis Smith and Chris Bale, who are based out of Palm Springs, California, visited the Urban Bear festival a couple of weeks back and I got the opportunity to talk with them about a variety of things they have going on currently. Something I definitely wanted to mention was their fantastic new book called “Guide For The Modern Bear”, where they visited a variety of cities and found where is the best places to eat, shop and bar hop for the everyday MB (Modern Bear). Take a look.
So Travis, how did this whole “Modern Bear” thing start for you guys?
It’s a combination of starting it three years ago, so that was a really good time to be starting a good commercial Facebook page anyway. It was an experiment for us, a petri dish if you will, to see if anybody was interested in a “Modern Bear” concept and our formula of modern design plus bears plus retro plus beefcake. Those are the things we like. It was a free way to put it out there, and see if there was any interest in that concept and then determine if we should go further with it and produce a book and all the other things we ended up producing. There wasn’t an immediate response to it, but I would say in the last six months we added 5,000 people. It took us the past three years to get to 25,000 fans overall.
What is that increase in fans attributed to?
I think the bear thing is going mainstream, we are kind of last to become part of this trend thing. I think you will be seeing a lot more bears popping up in movies and television. Like Anne Hathaway’s best friend role in her next movie will go to a bear. It’s starting to happen. That’s one of our goals is to get a TV deal, but doing the book first is the perfect baby step for us because by processing and writing the book it also helped formulate what Modern Bear was going to be as a commercial entity.
Tell me about the book you just released.
What we love about the book and how it turned out is how accessible it is. A lot of straight people buy our book. Wives and girlfriends approach us and say “What is my boyfriend? Is he an otter? A wolf? WHAT IS HE!” It’s hysterical. It’s really funny when the book is at shelves, children gravitate toward it because it’s really cute looking of course. The shop owner usually has to explain to parents what it really is about, and sometimes they even buy it.
Chris, tell me more.
Well, the book is a hybrid. It’s a guide to all the different characters in the bear world. You got your straight up bears, you got your muscle bears, cubs, wolf like me. We are going to do this book every year and update it like so. Each of these characters right now lives in a different city and talk about the bear bars, a few places to eat both fancy and low brow, you know for the bears who want their diner food. The Modern part is mid-century modern furnishing and the stores in each place. So you got Miami, Los Angeles, New York and Barcelona and London to name a few. In the future we are going to have Vancouver and Phoenix which is actually where this whole thing started.
As an avid New Yorker would you say it is the best place to eat from your research?
Well, we did ELMO which is the best Mac N Cheese in town. Let me refer to the book actually! The Breslin is really good. That is this amazing restaurant in the ACE hotel. The Shake Shack is amazing, and Westville is my favorite place for Breakfast. We had a super cute experience at Kitchen last night. We had comfort food like Fondue which was yummy.
What are you ultimately hopeful for?
Well, we’ve always joked about being Beartha Stewart. We are two bears, a bear and a wolf, that are into design and into hot men and bringing those two worlds together in any which way we can.
On top of being incredibly friendly and sexy guys, they are also very down to earth and have a great message to share not only to the bear community but straight women and beyond. For more information on The Modern Bear guys and their story, check out their Facebook, Twitter and to shop for the book and anything else log on to their main site here.
New York City Photography- A Rhapsody in Blue
New York City is a place of incredible color. The one color in particular I always associate with the city more than any other is blue. I look up and see a glorious reflection of the sky off of the glass of the buildings or off of a simple rain puddle on 8th Avenue. The city is wrapped up in blue, just take a look around.
New York City Photography- The High Line
The High Line Park is like New York City in many ways. It has a strong, blue collar past. It has fallen on hard times but also has had a glorious resurrection. It blends breathtaking views with a trendy, artistic atmosphere.
The area around the park is still being developed and when combined with the eclectic energy of the people in the neighborhood it makes for classic New York scenes.
Public art and good eats in Madison Square Park
Spring has (finally) arrived in New York, and one of the best ways to enjoy the newfound sunshine is to surround yourself with some of the free, outdoor art that’s popping up in many of the public parks and spaces around the city. Madison Square Park is now home to Red, Yellow and Blue, a massive installation by New York-based artist Orly Genger. By knotting over one million feet of nautical rope, covering it in primary colored-paint, and weaving it around the trees and lawn spaces of the park, Genger has transformed the landscape into a visual playground that brings the spirit of costal waves and sand dunes to the middle of Manhattan. Commissioned by Mad. Sq. Art, a program that brings free contemporary art to Madison Square Park, Red, Yellow and Blue will be on display through September 8, 2013.
When you’re done soaking up all that nature and free art, be sure to head across the street to Mad. Sq. Eats, an tiny outdoor market located in Worth Square, which is the name for that trapezoid of concrete directly north of the Flatiron Building. You’ll find your typical food truck fare – everything from lobster rolls, pulled pork sandwiches and mini meatballs to ice cream, macaroons, and a solid variety of local wine and craft beers. Best bets include truffle salami from Charlito’s Cocina, tamarind pineapple glazed chicken satay from Graffiti | Metaphor, and a tiramisu cannoli from Stuffed Artisan Cannoli. Mad. Sq. Eats is open daily from 11am-9pm and runs now through Friday, May 31.
Madison Square Park is located on 23rd Street between 5th and Madison Avenues; take the F/M, N/R, or 6 train to 23rd Street. Check out madisonsquarepark for more information.
New York City Street Photography- Working New Yorkers
Take a moment. Step back and think. How does a city the size of New York City function? Only through the hard work of those that fix the streets, collect the trash, clean the streets, work on the tugboats and barges on the river. Through the dedication of those that work the midnight shift so that when we wake up in the morning our city is all the more perfect. Without out any filters or fancy photography tricks this is the first of many journals I plan to post in their honor.
New York City Neighborhood Photography
I love the variety of neighborhoods in New York City. Walk a few blocks and you can go from Little Italy to Chinatown. From Koreatown to the Garment District. In the upcoming weeks I will be spotlighting in photographs the mosaic of communities that make up New York. They will not be advertisements or real estate agent walking tours. Rather they will be what the communities look like from the street level. As if you took a stroll and simply looked around. The point is to draw the flavor out from what that neighborhood has to offer from the average point of view in every day life.
The first in this series is Sutton Place. A very small neighborhood on the east side of Manhattan. Sutton Place and Sutton Place South run from 53rd Street to 59th Street. It’s as far east as you can go on the island of Manhattan at that point. The numerous cul de sac parks offer sweeping views of the East River and Roosevelt Island, as well as the Queensboro Bridge.
Sutton Place is considered one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in all of New York City. The wealth is evident from the attentive doormen of the high rise apartments and the clothes of the women walking around on a sunny day.
It is a beautiful yet exclusive part of the city that certainly adds to the character of all New York.
New York City Street Photography- New York at Night
As the sun goes down over New York you can feel a change coming over the city. It’s not that the city awakens because as we all know, it never truly sleeps. It’s more like a mood change. If you put a soundtrack to it, it wouldn’t be a full symphony orchestra or an operatic aria. It would a lone whining saxophone filling the gray night air (think an abstraction from The Love Supreme); much different than the frantic piano piece of the hectic work day. (think Flight of the Bumble Bee) It’s the sound of the endless possibility of victory, defeat, or both. When the night falls over New York City anything can happen and usually does.