Month: November 2013

For some reason the other day I was remembering Ann Romney on the last election night. More than anyone else, her demeanor really showed how taken by complete and total surprise they all were by Barack Obama’s win.

Everyone around her was positive she was going to be the belle of the ball that night. She was so carefully put together, her makeup couldn’t have been more thoughtful, something between day to evening but not too evening, her hair so victoriously up, but every dangling lock arranged just so, the red dress that was the most flattering thing she’d ever worn, the very stylish statement necklace, all dolled up for a party that never happened. She was just so completely unable to hide her monumental shock and deep disappointment. Her face was so determinedly frozen in what I think was meant to be unreadable and calm, but came out as stunned and uncomprehending.

She was supposed to be the queen that night! The next first lady! They were all so sure they had it in the bag and she was so ready for it, with every atom in her body and just the right and carefully chosen shade of nail polish. I will always remember her look of this-can’t-be-happening. Like a woman who was expecting a marriage proposal and instead got dumped. And then had to go on national tv.

Anyway, I just saw her for a brief second on tv, looking absolutely lovely. She’s probably just fine now of course.

Here is not very great shot of a deer that I took on my way to my Tedx talk. I was so nervous, maybe I have this shot of a deer and I remembered Ann Romney because something of me identified with her predicament that night. I’m sure I wouldn’t have handled it any better (and I’m not saying she handled it badly, she handled it like any normal, feeling human being would).

Yesterday I posted about giving historical photographs from the Municipal Archives, The New York Public Library, The Museum of the City of New York or Shorpys for holiday gifts. And I wanted to be more clear about one cool thing you can do that I only briefly mentioned.

In the 1930’s through 1941, pictures were taken of every building in the five boroughs of New York, and they were taken again in the 1980’s. This was done for tax purposes. I have the 1930’s shot of my building (I was less interested in the 1980’s shot) and I’ve given 1930’s shots of buildings to others as gifts in the past. Another cool thing about this is you never know what else is going to be in the shot. The one of my building has this great old car in it. The Municipal Archives has these photographs and everything you need to order them is here.

Also, it’s worth it to go to each of the places I have links to (except Shorpy perhaps) and type in your address. You never know if there might be other photographs of your building (or street) in there. Your building might have been the site of a murder or something else! It’s also worth it to go to the first Municipal Archives link I posted, because there might be other photographs of your building besides the tax photographs.

While I’m at it, another fun thing to do it to go to the New York Times website, type in your address in the search box, and when it comes back make sure the “All Since 1851” date range is selected. If your building has ever been in the news, all the articles will come back.

Even better, go the the New York Public Library and do the same thing in the Proquest Historical Newspapers database. This searches all the newspapers they have online (and they have a lot now). FYI, a lot of very cool databases are accessible from home if you have a library card, but not the Proquest Historical Newspapers database. But other cool Proquest databases are (as well as many other databases, journals, etc.), it’s really worth exploring. You can start looking around here. If the resource has a little house next to it, you can use it from home. But if you live in New York, the 42nd Street branch of the library is a beautiful place to explore from.

I’ve done this for my building and have learned about some interesting people who have lived here, and died here, and other things that have happened here (crimes, but nothing very serious).

PS: There is much much more you can do to learn about the history of your building. I could go on. Actually, the NYPL has a nice page about it. Christopher Gray has great instructions. These are the ones I used when I researched my building.

A couple more shots I took the last time I was at Ft. Tryon Park. Which I love.

I got this email from the Municipal Archives: Holiday time is just around the corner. Choose from over 875,000 photographs viewable online and available at the NYC Department of Records Municipal Archives.

What a great idea! You can browse yourself here. But I’d like to point out that the New York Public Library also has images for sale, as does the Museum of the City of New York, and Shorpy, which would be less New York-centric.

There’s so many ways you could go with this. You could look up famous people, places or events. But since you can look up specific buildings, you could search for your friend or relative’s building and give them historical pictures of their home. Also, depending on the person you are shopping for, there is a huge range. There are tons of gruesome crime scene photographs, for example. I looked around a little at the Municipal Archives.

I found this one while looking for Christmas scenes. It’s actually a little sad. It was taken in the Five Points, a notoriously bad neighborhood, and it’s dated 1880-1899. The caption reads: Children playing in deep snow banks. One-story house, tenements, “A. Goldberg, Clothier” on corner.

I was searching on various animals (cats, dogs, monkeys) and came across this one that was taken in 1937 at the Central Park Zoo. This caption says: Two chimps embracing keeper; one is on leash. Keeper also carries feeding pan. Onlookers seated against administration building.

This one came from my dog search. It’s dated 1896-1898 and the caption reads: Young black boy seated next to small stove [?], lumber at his feet, large dog, white soldier approaching from background. One-story wooden structure in background.

It got my attention because I don’t really understand what’s going on. What makes that guy a soldier? What is this boy’s role? Where is this exactly? Wait, why did I pick three kinda sad pictures as examples?? Obviously you don’t have to go this route!

They were shooting right in front of my building this afternoon. This is looking down from my 5th floor apartment. I couldn’t spot any stars, hence the picture of the camera and camera man, followed by a picture of a woman with a microphone, standing out of camera range. I heard a lot of “quiet on the set!” (my block) and “we’re rolling,” and “action!”

I’ve been absent because I’ve been preparing and obsessing and terrifying myself about a Tedx talk I did yesterday at Tedx Montclair.

Friday night I was a mess. We did a dress rehearsal and I blanked out twice and dropped four small sections in my talk. ‘It will be okay,’ I thought. ‘I’ll work on those sections when I get home.’ Except I got home and I practiced and practiced and each time I got a little worse. I was blanking out more and dropping more. Finally, I realized I was psyching myself out bigtime and I stopped. ‘I’ll be better in the morning, when I’m rested.’ I was even worse.

I briefly considered calling in sick. “I have a 103 degree temperature!” Of course I couldn’t seriously consider doing that. So I left for my certain doom. We shall see how I did in a few weeks, when the videos come out, but I didn’t blank out! No dropped sections! And the feedback I got seemed genuinely enthusiastic!

Thank you Sue Grady for surprising me and being there. And thank you Amy Gash, my editor, who was also there. It was so great to have friendly faces in the audience.

Thank you Suzy Kass for inviting me to speak, and fellow organizers Kathy Smith and Robin Seidon, for all their help and support. And a BIG thank you to Kathy’s husband Steve, for picking me up and taking me home after the event. I would have been a thousand times more stressed out if I had to get up at some ungodly hour to take a train-bus-bus to get there and back. Instead I had wonderful company (and a pep talk) and here was our other companion for the trips, Joe, the Dance Walk Guru from Brooklyn who was endlessly charming.

Note: Here is more of Joe’s story.