Most of us who were home on Sunday know that something was happening in the nabe, but apparently five kids getting shot does not warrant a news story.

Around 9pm on Sunday evening, sirens started to kick up. They were quickly followed by ten or so minutes of helicopter engine noise randomly accented by a search beam. We began scouting online for any word, and came up nearly dry. Aside from a few blurbs on Gothamist's Newsmap, the only reporting we could find was from the Hip Hop Republican:

As I am typing, all of Harlem is in fear the time is around 9pm and there are shots all over the Harlem. On 127th near and St. Nicholas, a young light skinned black male in his 30's or early 40's was shot and possibly an officer. I am not sure how accurate the information is regarding the cop death is but I do know that there is no mention if this on NY media. Usually the media is quick on reporting this stuff but there is a dead silence where is NY1? caught the tell end of this criminal act and witnessed the guy laying on the street with blood flowing from his chest.

...This is Richard folks reporting for HipHopRepublican.com from the a war zone in Harlem not Fallujah.

Monday and today have seen nothing from dailies that I can find, but Gothamist did dig into the Newsmap items for a bit of clarification. Gothamist reports that no arrests have been made.

For those who would like to help, your local police precinct and Harlem Mothers SAVE are great places to start.

Posted by Chris at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Posted to Harlem Life

Dwyer developer John Cross threw a hell of a nice gathering this weekend for the building's owners, commercial tenants and neighborhood luminaries. Being none of these, I somehow got in.

There on the rooftop flooded by the warm light of a serene blue sky, with impressive views spilling out across Harlem to far reaching parts of the city, I could not help but wonder, Can this moment be captured for others to enjoy? Can this sublime experience, transcending language to become what Lacan calls 'The Real,' be transcended back into the symbolic?

Yes. The man who did it was Harlem Hybrid.

A Titian of the digital camera, Harlem Hybrid's Dwyer rooftop party oeuvre shows his mastery of both landscape and portrait genres. Be it the city as a subject or the city within the subject, Harlem Hybrid proves himself to be "the sun amidst small stars" or "the man with the SLR amongst those with point and shoot compacts." At times he is a Stieglitz exploring the play between spaces carved out by the city's rising buildings, and at other times he is an O'Keeffe rendering explicit the provocative power of the flower in full bloom.

But his greatest production of the evening? This piece. Simply amazing.

Here we see captured the full essence of the city man. The technical fibers of his sweat wicking shirt pairing sport and a gentlemanly embrace of life, his denim trousers a duality of working class roots and urban style, and of course, the stripped collared shirt slung long across the back at day's end.

Grandiloquent prose aside, and for those of you who have not thrown up all over your computer, John Cross put together a great project, both in terms of the building and the party's guests. I've been to a few development parties, and they can be difficult to pull off without feeling like all the rest. However, this party had two great things going for it: the people and the building. Amazing, but I actually wanted to talk to everyone there. And the Dwyer does a first class job of accessing the the lay of its surroundings for killer views and light.

Our hats go off our furry little heads to you, Harlem Hybrid, for landing a pad in such a cool building.

Posted by Chris at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Posted to Real Estate

A couple of days ago I took these two photos to tie together Harlem Hybrid's look at 110th Street with NYC The Blog's look at Frederick Douglass Boulevard. Both streets recently saw tire repair shops close up. Frederick Douglass had the 8th Ave Rim and Tire, and 110th had General Tire. General Tire was a personal favorite, as they let cyclists use their air hose for free.

At the time, I was thinking of matching up the photos with some by-now-trite Smart Car joke, maybe even enhanced with a rim job double entendre. But after the absolute punishment Wall Street has taken these past few days, I'm wondering if loosing them wasn't a mistake for a couple of reasons. I mean, potholes still plague the streets, and where are you going to sell tires to when you need a little extra cash?

For those of us looking for comfort in the familiar, I have a new Smart Car photo after the jump. It has a Semper Fi Marines license plate frame, just for the calming sense of incongruity.

Continue reading "Times Changed, Tires Not" »

Posted by Chris at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Posted to Closings

Adding a bit of recent news to the The Harlem Tea Room's complications and questionable service long tracked on UptownFlavor, a reader sends in his sighting of a different kind of tab:

So on my way to work this past Friday at about 8:30AM what do I see taped onto the front door of the place but a LATE RENT NOTICE. It was in the amount of $13,300 and change. The wave of schadenfreude that swelled up inside me would have been less intense had my wife and I not had so many mediocre experiences at that place. Anyhoo, just couldn't resist sharing.

I wonder if that includes an 18 percent gratuity?

Posted by Chris at 12:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Posted to Closings | Eats

(Despite the coming bad puns on the 2003 Electric Six single Danger! High Voltage, this post does address the serious condition of errant electrified ground in Marcus Garvey Park. As a reader points out, this is a consistent problem for dogs, and a real potential hazard for children.)

Fire in the disco? Of course, and we don't need no water.
Fire in the Taco Bell? 89 cent Cheesy Double Beef Burrito. Done.
But Danger! Danger! High Voltage! in Marcus Garvey Park? This is not my desire.

Harlem Fur reader Mickey writes in about the electrical burns one of his sister's dogs suffered from walking in Marcus Garvey Park.

Recently we noticed one of them had sores on her paws so we took her to the vet and the vet said they were electrical burns likely sustained from manhole covers or exposed wires.

We walk our dogs in Marcus Garvey Park so we next spoke with the parks workers who told us it happens "all the time". We were horrified! The workers said that the reason we don't hear about it is because it is only reported if the dogs get killed and thankfully no dogs have died at MGP, yet!

What sucks is at least one dog has died due to errant voltage, and it has been over a year since this happened. So you think this would have been resolved.

in June of 2007, New York Post reporter Denise Buffa's 100-pound Italian mastiff Mushy died from a Marcus Garvey Park electrical shock. 100 pounds is no small animal. As was pointed out at the time, there are a lot of kids and dogs running around the park who weigh much less than 100 pounds.

Mickey is looking to connect with other pet owners who have had similar problems. The idea is to approach the city and ConEd in full force. It's not as much as a shameless plug as it could be, but if you want to connect up, the Harlem Fur network (also liked via the box in the upper right) is a place to start.

Posted by Chris at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Posted to Dogs | Pets

The little bundle of sass called Harlem BuBu seems to have brought in an offer on her apartment through her blog 68 Bradhurst. Thou not for the reasons you might suspect. Instead of posting about finishes, appliances and floorplans for a listed unit, her writing on life in the new luxury building prompted a buyout offer for her to leave.

68 Bradhurst, as the subtitle says, tackles the good, the bad and the nasty in The Langston. As an example, a post from earlier this month covers some of the bad getting nasty with a board member at the near-by Duane Reade. A rather unrestrained public exchange turns noticeably cooler back in the building lobby.

So is the offer to buy out her apartment real? Will the person behind the anonymous offer be revealed? Is this a viable sales strategy in a soft real estate market?

Who knows.

Posted by Chris at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Posted to Harlem Life | Real Estate

Every year at some point we realize that the cat needs a friend. Not one of the recluse feline variety, Cimbi is bored when by herself, and angry with us afterward. However, Cheryl's allergies won't permit a second pet (cat, dog, rabbit or Dr. Manhattan - as we are damn excited for The Watchmen!). So we are trying to solve this creatively.

This summer's first genius idea was sending her off for a relaxing month in the country. We tried finding her a farm to visit upstate, envisioning her romping through alfalfa, intently watching bugs, and drinking fresh milk from a saucer. The reality was a total and complete failure. Given what we saw, Jane Austin would have vomited all over Charlotte Bronte. I may write about if, my insides stop turning.

Our second genius idea may involve YOU! That is, if you are someone either home during the day or have a small pet that could be her playmate. We're thinking a kind of co-parenting or something. Don't worry, this is nothing like Flexpet.

If you are interested, drop a note in the comments, or send an email to the address in the upper right hand corner. Successful or not, hilarity is bound to ensue.

Posted by Chris at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Posted to Cats | Pets

As a Public Service Announcement, Harlem Fur wants you to know that people speaking a different language are talking about you.

Tourists seem to forget that our little town has a cosmopolitan thing or two about it. People speaking something other than English feel free to openly critique and discuss those right next them. But strange as it may seem, some of us take our understanding of other languages beyond "Donde esta el bano?" (Where is the bathroom?) and "Ich bein ein Berliner" (I am a jelly donut). This evening's subway ride home was one such example.

(A little bit of background: Cheryl speaks 'language.' Having a gift for picking up languages, she studied a host of them, taught a couple, and understands many more than a normal person should. Cheryl's caught people talking about those right next to them, sometimes us, in Spanish, French, Italian, German and more. So, on with the story...)

Packed in this evening with roughly 46.1 million people on the uptown 2, I leaned over and gave Cheryl a quick kiss as a means of saying 'Don't worry, we'll get through this together.' When I did this, Cheryl could swear she heard the mother from a family of four standing right next to us say in some language 'Look, he kissed the black one.' Wondering if she heard it right, she asked me to give her another kiss. I did, and the woman said, roughly translated, 'Oh my God, he kissed the black woman on the lips!'

This wasn't 'Oh my God, we are in this great big diverse melting pot of New York and look, everyone gets along!' It was more like 'Gross!' Always able to entertain ourselves, Cheryl and I started exchanging small kisses and saying, in English, 'Oh my God!'

As the ride continued, the four of them (mother, father and two teenage children) kept talking about us in their language, and we kept doing things in response. Finally, they caught on that we just might understand them.

The mother sent the male child over to stand by us and listen to what we were saying. 'Over by us' meant he moved all of 5 inches. Remember, we were all crammed so close together on the train that I'm shocked none of us are pregnant. So when Lorenzo (because at this point we knew his name) came over and leaned in to hear what we were saying, Cheryl and I looked directly at him and continued lightly making fun of the four. He then made the 5 inch trek back to the group, and told them 'She understands our language.' They then continued to talk about us, but in lower voices.

Anyway, the family stayed on the train until 116th St, and then got off with us. Thinking this was too much fun to pass up, we guessed they were staying at the new hostel on 118th (correct!) and planned to walk behind them all the way. Looking to ditch us, the parents ducked into Fine Fare as the kids continued on to the hostel. Cheryl and I easily lost interest, and headed across the street. We would have continued home, but looking back, we saw the parents come out of Fine Fare, see us, and go back in.

This was too much. We hung out on the other side of the street, waiting them out. When the parents finally emerged from the safety of the grocery store, Cheryl and I walked over with big smiles and asked to take a photo with them. Totally confused, they agreed, and we posted the photo here for your enjoyment.

Posted by Chris at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)
Posted to On The Town | PSA

It's never polite to talk about a woman's age, but if yesterday's adoptable cats were too young for your taste, know that Mr. Pete, an orange female, has recently passed her giggling years. And she's newly single.

Pete is the long-time cherished pet of a good friend who went and did this crazy thing. He got married, moved to the Upper West Side, and no doubt will soon have his wife put Cheryl and I on the invitation list to their kid's oboe recital. (Given how quickly he and his wife accomplish things, I expect them to magically give birth to a 6 year old enrolled in a charter school any day now.)

Everything was perfect, save for his wife's insane cat allergy. An intensive cleaning routine backed up with multiple air filters didn't cut the mustard. So, Pete's now two months into a stay at Paws and Claws in Williamsburg, waiting for a new home.

And in case Pete deciding to recycle herself isn't enough to win you over, click through for more photos of her being herself.

Continue reading "Single Orange Female Looking to Shack Up" »

Posted by Chris at 09:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Posted to Cats | Pet Adoption | Pets

So I'm going through photos I snapped this weekend of soon-to-open or recently opened venues, looking to pick a few to post on, and I notice that the number of new unique places, in comparison to new chain stores, really isn't as bad as what one might think. (Or even what I might think.)

Granted, I am not including shots of the new Starbucks in SoHa 118 on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, the new Starbucks on 125th St and Adam Clayton Powell, the new Dunkin Donuts on Frederick Douglass and 113th-ish, or the new Dunkin Donuts on Frederick Douglass and 124th-ish. However, as best as I can remember, only the Dunkin Donuts on Frederick Douglass and 124th-ish replaced a unique neighborhood joint (La Marmite, which relocated). The others mostly filled vacant space. (I think the Dunkin Donuts on 113th-ish replaced a Curves, which is kinda funny, as if people just gave up and went for the donuts anyway.)

Now we will soon have Cafe Latte filling vacant retail space on Lenox and 122nd-ish near Settipani and Louise's Family Restaurant, as well as SVNTN Below and Subway coming into virgin retail space near Tribal Spears on Frederick Douglass and 116th. Cafe Addis on 125th and Amsterdam is open, and the Ethiopian coffee is good. (Neighbors let us know that the food is not spiced to tradition, as they had to ask for salt to give it some flavor.)

Posted by Chris at 09:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Posted to Eats | Harlem Life | Openings