dans les choux...

We're in a little bit of a pickle...
Mr.iPhone seems to be needing a brand new cable so we can peek at the pictures he took recently.

the great lawn with its white blanket

great lawn - central park - map it here
Pretty, no?

care for a little game of chess?

riverside park - riverside drive & W88th st- map it here
No? Come on, look! No need to fight for a table today. It's quiet and perfect for the concentration. As for inspiration, the view is not bad either.

Who's in? The winner gets a free hot cocoa.

tout est bien qui fini bien

view on the hudson river from an office building in times square - around 3:42pm

“We’ve had a miracle on 34th Street, I believe now we’ve had a miracle on the Hudson,” said Governor Paterson in tonight news conference. What an incredible story than the one the crash of US Airways flight 1549.

It took place right in front of my office window. And it did take me close to 15min. before deciding to snap those two pictures. Quality is very bad: dear iPhone is not meant for this kind of long-distance reportage.

This picture was taken from my office window around 3:42pm. For those of you used to my little universe, you'll recognize the building on the right. It is The New York Times building. To its left, you can see an ensemble of boats. These are ferries and rescue boats around the fuselage of the plane. You can still see the tiny little triangle of the tail. Well, you'll have to click and enlarge the picture to see it. I've added notes on the pictures too - so if you click on it and move your mouse around the picture, you'll see them.
The plane actually crashed to the right of The New York Times building (see picture below - click to see the notes that will show you where). In less than 15min, it drifted to the left of the building.

One of my colleague saw the plane crashing into the river. I saw it maybe a minute or two later: you could see the plane pretty well, with its wings on the water. And on those wings you could clearly see little black dots (passengers standing outside ... brrr...). Then very quickly, ferry boats from Manhattan and New Jersey congregating near the site, helicopters flying above, ... If you click on the above picture, I've added notes to indicate where the ferry terminals are. And on the first picture, notes where the heliport is.
Let's put it this way: if you need to land a plane somewhere on the Hudson, you want to land it exactly there. Yes, right there: midway between two ferry terminals, seconds from the heliport... the perfect spot. And you want to have that very same pilot behind the wheel.
Phew!!!
____________
• http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/plane-crashes-into-hudson-river/?hp
• http://www.flickr.com/search/?ss=2&w=all&q=hudson+river+crash&m=text [much better pictures on Flickr]

eco-friendly brownstone

holiday train show - new york botanical garden
Look what I found in my archives! The perfect wink at yesterday's brownstone: an eco-friendly one spotted last year at the Holiday Train Show held every year at the New York Botanical Garden in The Bronx.
This little house replica is built exclusively with vegetal materials (leaves, twigs, acorns, ...).

browstone, ca. 1881
West 54th street
manhattan
Hurry, you can still catch the Holiday Train Show until January 11th!
Want a peak? Here you go!

for sale by owner

somewhere in fort greene - brooklyn - map it here
Interested?
Needs a little love but this brownstone in Fort Greene could be yours!
Hmm, I wonder if it is haunted...

leçon du jour: le réverbère

somewhere in fort greene - brooklyn - map it here

réverbère: n.m. - dispositif à réflecteurs pour l'éclairage des lieux publics ; lampadaire

streetlamp: noun - a light mounted on a high pole, used to illuminate a street or road

the mysterious little yellow house in fort greene

the joseph steele house - 200 lafayette avenue (corner of lafayette & vanderbilt avenues - fort greene, brooklyn - map it here
I took this picture about a month ago. It was raining cats and dogs but being an intrepid New Yorker, I still ventured to discover Fort Greene. And see what I found! A little sunshiny house on the corner of Lafayette and Vanderbilt Avenues!
Can you believe this is New York City?!?
I've been very intrigued by this little house ever since: what's its name? who's living there? since when is it here? I really wanted to know more about it before posting its pictures. But I couldn't find a thing on it until... I looked a little closer at the pictures I took and saw the number on the ramp, the step of the stairs and above the door: 200 Lafayette Avenue.

(see the pouring rain on the steps?)

And I found quite a bit of information about it.
This is what I've learned so far:
• It was probably built for an Admiral around 1850.
• The small east side wing may date from 1812.
• The building is known as the Joseph Steele House.
• In 1853, Joseph Steele, a resident of Brooklyn Heights, sold the house and property to Joseph Brick who was the first President of the Brooklyn Union Gas Company.
• The architectural style is Greek Revival, combined with Federal and Italianate elements.
• It was landmarked in 1966 (very interesting description of the house in the landmark report from 1968 here).
• There's a cupola on the roof, which was used as a lookout for ships coming into the harbor. It was the tallest building around back then and permitted views of the East River.
• The house is rumored to be currently owned by two elderly spinster sisters. In case you are interested, they have no intention to sell it. :)

... and a view of its backyard
(photo credit: d.p.Hetteix on Flickr)

___________________
Sources:
• http://nycnpc.org/db/bb_files/STEELE-HOUSE.pdf
• An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn, by Francis Morrone and James Iska, p.175
• Brooklyn!, 2nd Edition, by Ellen Freudenheim, p.122
• http://brownstoner.com
• http://www.forgotten-ny.com
• http://hdc.org/blog/2008/07/25/john-mccain-and-admirals-row

what are you looking at?

an office in times square
I snapped this picture of some of my colleagues looking down at Times Square the other day.
What were they looking at?

Ah... the nice red one!

Oh... the nice pink one!
And... it's up!

Ooooooh... look at Central Park!
We can even see Harlem and a bit of The Bronx from here!
And the clear sky!
Ah... oh neat!

Allez, back to work!!
Sans blague...

que l'année nouvelle vous soit douce et légère

brooklyn bridge - above the east river - map it here

Allez hop, let's welcome 2009 and let's make it a fabulous one! All of us!!!

And we start the year with a tradition in the CityDailyPhoto family: the monthly theme day photo! Click here to view thumbnails for all participants.

For today, I am supposed to post my best, most fantastic, most favorite, most wonderful picture of 2008. How am I supposed to do that? Frankly, it breaks my heart: browsing through all my 2008 pictures, I found good reasons to pick almost every one of them. Not that they are all esthetically, technically, good but each of them is somewhat memorable, a little snapshot of that day, that place, that feeling I had when I snapped it. You know what I am talking about.

I think this one is a good choice for today: it reminds me how much fun it is to be spontaneous, to explore the other side of the river just because you feel like it and it also seems very fitting to illustrate all those good resolutions we are going to take today and probably not keep for very long. Exercising more anyone?

I leave my French-speaking buddies with this little tune, C'que c'est beau la photographie - Les Frères Jacques:

happy new year!!!

bonne année!!!

gelukkig nieuwjaar!!!