Stacy Horn

I was out walking down the river with my friend Howard and we passed by these people dancing. They were doing the tango. I have to say, the heat makes me so depressed. I don’t do well once the temperature hits 90. In truth, I’m such a heat-wimp 88 is probably my true upper limit. I’m grateful for air-conditioning, but after a few days holed up in it I feel like the last zombie on earth. There are no more people with brains to eat, and no more fellow zombies to fight over what’s left.

I’m glad it seems like we’re getting a break. It was so invigorating just taking a simple walk along the river. There was a breeze and the heat wasn’t beating-down-oppressive and I felt alive again.

I walked around the dancers, trying to get landmarks into the background of the shots, like the Empire State Building. But the best shots were the dancers blocking it.

I did like capturing people dancing with the growing One World Trade Center in the background though. It’s a nice recovery shot, I thought.

I want her shoes.

I wish I had zoomed in on the girl in the flowered dress. She looks so happy.

… what? The sign over this building is broken off. It says Fourteenth Ward Industrial School Of The and then the rest of the sign is gone. It was a school for the poor, put in place in 1889 by the Children’s Aid Society and paid for by John Jacob Astor III, in memory of his wife. It replaced the original school that used to be at 93 Crosby Street.

At the time, the Times described the area as one of “wretchedness, poverty and squalor.” (This is across the street from where Alec Baldwin just got married.) Christ. I just browsed the Times a little about the school and the area. Just one sad story after another. IE, a 16 year old “colored” girl tried to kill herself drinking laudanum. They fixed her up and sent her home. Next! You only live once and some people get such a terrible roll of the dice. I wonder about the principal, Miss H. E. Stevens. She was the principal from when it opened in 1863, until I don’t know when. She was still the principal when this building opened. I can’t even find out her first name. Was she an unmarried society lady, or did she come from this neighborhood herself?

Wait, it seems like she may have lived at the school. I wonder if she worshipped across the street at Old St. Patrick’s? Maybe she’s in their records.

Some pictures of the building that housed the school.

A close-up of the sign.

I found this in the Museum of the City of New York’s digital collection. This is a picture of the inside of the school, taken in 1890.

I’ve been looking for the best recordings of Beethoven’s 5th and 9th symphonies (my favorites). Finding the best recording of the 5th was quick and easy (Kleiber’s) but finding my favorite of the 9th is tougher. Either they get the orchestral part right, but not the choral, or the other way around, but never both it seems.

Has anyone found the perfect 9th symphony recording?

These are pictures of the graveyard at Old St. Patricks (where Alec Baldwin recently got married, by the way — not in the graveyard of course, but in the church).

Someone pointed me to this easy-to-read explanation of all the components of the ACA (Obamacare to those determined to misrepresent it). Please read through this list and let me know which parts you don’t like. I didn’t know about this one, I love this one:

“Congress and Congressional staff will only be offered the same insurance offered to people in the insurance exchanges, rather than Federal Insurance. Basically, we won’t be footing their health care bills any more than any other American citizen.”

Honestly though, there are so many good parts there are too many to list. Just take a look.

The fireworks from my roof last night. It was an interesting night on the roof! There was someone who used to live on 11th Street when I lived there, around thirty years ago, and a person who lived in the building I’m living in now around twenty years ago. That was a pretty mangled sentence, but you get what I’m try to say.

This is zooming in …

… and this is pulling back. There were four barges out on the Hudson River shooting off fireworks. Next year, mark my words, I’m going to watch from the river instead of my roof.

I haven’t left the apartment and don’t plan to except to go to the roof to watch the fireworks. Instead, I’ve been puttering and catching up and holy shit, you have to read this history of the group Anonymous. I stopped mid-post to read it and was utterly riveted. You may think you don’t care about the subject, but trust me, it’s well worth reading.

I know they have a dark side (don’t we all) but it was exciting to read how at times they morph into an army for good. It reminded me of how scared I was at one point when I was about to take on an NYPD chief. Someone from the Detective’s Endowment Association said, “I don’t know a single detective who won’t stand behind you.” It was amazing feeling. I wasn’t going into battle alone.

I also just read that there might be an unexplored treasure trove of writing from one of my favorite writers, Joseph Mitchell (his New Yorker pieces were put together in a book called Up in the Old Hotel). They seem to be in the control of an unnamed executor. I wonder if this person is doing anything with it? And who is this person?

I took this while cutting through Washington Square Park on my way home. This is Manhattan!