Month: November 2011

I meant to post this earlier, but someone I went to grad school with helped organize the NYC GeoSymposium: 2001-2011-2021 event tomorrow. It’s free, but you need to register right away! From their website:

The NYC GeoSymposium: 2001-2011-2021 will mark the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, by examining the response of the NYC GIS community as follows:

– how geospatial resources were mobilized in the first weeks after the event, with emphasis on the groundbreaking work that contributed to effective response and recovery efforts;

– which geospatial procedures, data, and technologies the City has pursued to ensure more effective emergency response during the past ten years based on lessons learned from September 11th – in the context of NYC’s comprehensive adoption of geospatial tools and techniques for supporting business functions across City agencies; and

– what unmet needs the NYC GIS community identifies for improved emergency planning and response as well as future challenges posed by emerging social media as well as enterprise-wide deployment of software and hardware advances that underpin geospatial application development.

For some reason I woke up after 1am and saw one helicopter parked in the sky over Zuccotti Park. It signaled something was up, but it was weird that there was only one. So by now you’ve all heard, they cleared Zuccotti Park. But are they back yet? A judge issued a restraining order directing them to reopen the park.

Like many people, I’m extremely freaked about the press blackout. The mayor said it was to keep them safe. Safe from what? And why would helicopters need to move to where they couldn’t film the eviction? What danger threatened them?

This is the view downtown from my roof. Zuccotti Park is a little bit down and east of One World Trade. That one helicopter at the top right comes in close from time to time, but even hours later the other helicopters out of the frame never move or come in any closer.

The pictures below are from the Grace Church archives, they’re undated shots of a televised holiday service. I zoomed in on the cameras, which say Dumont, as does the label on the cameraman’s jacket in the first shot. I googled the name briefly and learned that Dumont was a television network which ran from 1946 – 1956. In New York they aired on channel 5, which I will always think of as WNEW. Why would they change that?? WNEW was perfect.

That reminds me, my friend Brett Leveridge has started a New York City tour company, Avenues and Alleys. He knows so much about New York that he didn’t even study for the test the city gives to license tour guides and he passed. That is unfathomable to me. Knowing his love of NYC, and his friendly easy-going nature, I’m sure his tours are fabulous.

I am feeling so nostalgic these days. Yesterday I watched The Student Prince and it made me kinda sad. It used to air regularly on channel 13 (PBS) but they never put it on anymore. Posting this picture, researching Dumont, it’s all about wallowing in that feeling.

I think this guy might have been standing on an organ.

This is the entire shot. They’re shooting in front of the altar, looking right. That is where we stand to sing and where the orchestra plays. The choir furniture is moved away and we take over.

I spent some time researching the people named in all the plaques on all the chairs and lecterns and various objects around the church. Like “In memoriam Cornelius R. Disosway and Eliza his wife, 1801-1889, 1814-1897.” (More wallowing.) But I didn’t finish. (Disosway was a prominent NYC lawyer.) Actually, I don’t think any of that research made it into the book so I should post about it some day. I uncovered some decent stories, they just didn’t really fit with the story of singing.

Although the thing I’m contemplating doing instead of laying around on the coach all day doesn’t really count as “industry.” I just read that they’re going to be filming the new Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises up on the 59th Street bridge today. Someone shot this incredible video of them filming in the Wall Street area last week and this looks fun. Maybe the action will be too far away to really see anything good though.

From Union Square yesterday. The guy telling his story and the woman interviewing him look so nice. (That girl on the right … unfortunate shot timing)

I woke up and I forget the reason, but all of a sudden I HAD TO right there and then do a few things I’ve been putting off. It had to be NOW! So over my coffee I figured out how to add the plugin (Sociable) which puts icons at the end of every post so people can share them if they want, and I added buttons on the right to make it easier for people to follow me on twitter, email me, etc., again, if they want.

Making changes always freaks me out because I’m terrified of damaging something badly, perhaps irreparably. And that’s because in the early days of Echo (the online service I run), when I had to learn Unix and do everything myself, like rebuilding kernels, sometimes I did! My phone would ring off the hook with users understandably freaking out and the trauma and pressure was so great I’ve had this fear of making updates ever since.

So right now, even though the changes were relatively simple, my heart is pounding. It will stop in a minute, when I finally start to believe I didn’t break my blog, the world won’t end, and everything I’ve worked so hard for hasn’t been destroyed.

Buddy on the desktop, do-tah-do-tah-do, Buddy on the desktop, I’m so in love with you! (The song I just sang to him.)