A very New York night

Friday night I spent the evening with two girlfriends and had a night you could only experience in New York. We hopped in a cab and headed to the Ukranian Institute after work where we went to watch the St. John fashion show.

We ended up sitting front row and I was 3 people away from Gloria Estefan, who was incredibly nice, incredibly gracious and incredibly tiny.

The show was fantastic. There were these amazing red pants that I wanted, along with a brown sequined pencil skirt. I would wear them every day…or every other day.

On the way out we caught sight of Kate Winslet who is apparently the face of their line. She was wearing red tights – my favorite.

After the show, we headed over to the Carlyle where we grabbed a table at the bar, got a round of drinks and caught up over the jazz of the bar piano player. The woman sitting at the table next to us happened to be an opera singer. She joined in to sing a few of the songs. So amazing.

Seriously, where else can someone have a night like this. So iconic!

Oh, and yesterday at brunch with my girlfriends, I was checking out this girl’s amazing pants. She turned around and it was Eva Pickford. Only during fashion week.

April Showers

It has been raining a lot here lately and the other night a storm rolled through that made the city look really creepy. This is usually our view of the city at night:

While this storm was rolling through, this was our view. Mind you, it wasn’t raining when I took this, it’s not obstructed due to precipitation. The clouds just literally enveloped the city and settled thickly.

So creepy, right?

A couple days later another storm was rolling in while I was on my way home from work. Walking into my building, the Empire State Building looked so cool. There were somewhat opaque clouds drifting in front of it and it was back lit by the sun before it set. I went home, dropped off my purse and grabbed my camera. It didn’t look as cool by the time I got out to take pics, but these are a few of the neat ones I snapped.

See the spire? Just barely.

New York City Skyline Photo Project

So early this year I decided I wanted to make use of my nice camera by creating a photo project. My first idea was to set my camera up to take a picture out my livingroom window (my view is the NYC midtown skyline) every five minutes to see how things change in a day and then to make these into a stop motion video. Then I started thinking, how neat would it be to maintain this idea, but take a picture every day for a year so you can see the seasons change as the year goes on.

I still haven’t done my first idea, but I am working on the second. Here are some of the most contrasting photos I have so far:
Taken on 2/14/11

Taken on 2/20/11

Taken on 2/21/11

Taken on 2/25/11

Crazy how drastically the days can differ.

My daily picture is taken every morning before I leave for work, but I took this one on Valentine’s Day evening. Thought I would share it. I’ve also thought about taking pics every night to show the change of the lights of the city every day – the Empire State Building is different every day and I thought it would be neat to illustrate the holidays and special days through the year be it green/yellow lights for the Packers winning the Superbowl, red white & blue for the Fourth of July, in this case red, pink and white for Valentine’s Day.

Hopefully other people will think this project is as fun as I do!

Snow Day

This January is the snowiest January on record in New York. In the last 24 hours, we have apparently gotten 19 inches of snow. The trek to work this morning was interesting. The subways are working fine, but the roads aren’t plowed at all and the sidewalks aren’t shoveled at all. You’d think we’d never had a snow storm before. However, unlike every other New Yorker, I get happy every time it snows and I never want it to stop. I also want to spend all day playing in it. It’s probably the fault of the girl who lived in Texas for 12 years.

The walk ahead from my apt to the subway.

The view back toward the city with an abandoned taxi in the middle of the road.

A pretty tree.

Snow Storm

It’s a beautiful, snowy day here in New York. Big, fluffy flakes are falling and the city looks like a snow globe.

Snowing in Times Square.

Photo Project Idea

So, I have a fun idea for a photography project, although I’m not sure what I’d do with/as a final project.

So this is the view out of my livingroom:

I’ve thought, it would be really neat to set my camera up in the window and set it to take a picture every five minutes for 24 hours. It would actually be really cool to do this in the spring for a couple weeks and turn it into a stop motion video…food for thought…so you could see the change in seasons. Or to take the one exact same picture every day for a year and do the same thing. Hmm…I like where my head’s at! Anyway, since we’re supposed to have a snow storm tomorrow, I think I may try to do my pic every five minutes for 24 hours tomorrow. More to come on whether I did it and how it worked out!

Playing in the snow

A week ago we got some pretty good snow. I was off of work and had some visitors in town, so we went to play in the snow. Here are my fav pics from our time at the park:

A NYC Male’s Work Uniform

Men in NY all wear the same thing with slight variations. Every day. Some days I wish I could have this simple wardrobe and have what I’m going to wear more or less predetermined for me. Other days, I’m so glad for the variation.

This morning walking through Times Square, I passed by a food cart where there were 6 guys in line, all wearing essentially the same outfit. By the time I got my phone out to snap a pic, one had paid and walked away and one had stepped in between me and 2 of them, so it looks like 3, but if you look hard, you can see the other 2. I found it amusing.

Times Square Car Bomb

Guess where I happened to be Saturday night.

My parents were here for the first time to visit me since I’ve moved here. Long time coming, huh? We went to Times Square to take pictures with all the lights on. Instead we stumbled on crowds and blocked streets. We thought at the time it had something to do with Arizona’s new law and the protests that were planned for the weekend. Then we saw a stretcher and someone said they thought there’d been a car accident. We asked a cop who told us a transformer has blown – basically he regurgitated what happened outside of my office a couple weeks ago (the transformer that blew and caused a large fire underground on 52nd St.). It wasn’t until we got back to my apartment and the New York Times put out the story that it was a failed car bomb.

So scary.

Radio City Christmas Spectacular

Last night I went to the Radio City Music Hall and saw the Christmas Spectacular! It’s the first time I’ve ever seen the Rockettes. It was definitely very kid friendly, but it was cute. I enjoyed myself and can now say I’ve both been to Radio City Music Hall and seen the Rockettes.

They did all kinds of dancing from ballet to tap. I was really surprised that the girls actually sang while dancing and they sounded so good. I was very impressed. Not with the child 3 rosw in front of us who threw a tantrum for 45 minutes, but with the show for sure.

Also, some of the schwag they had was crazy. Martini glasses with kicking legs, fans with skirts that spin parallel to the floor as if dancing – all kinds of kooky things.

During the show, I had kind of an idiot moment. There’s a scene where some kids are reading the Christmas story from the Bible. I was like…this is really weird that they have this in there. Why would they include this? That is how much NYC has worn on me. Helloooooo?!? Christmas is one of the major pillars of the Christian religion. Why would that NOT be included?! In my New York mind people would be upset or angry that that was included because they may not be Christian and so many people here are so touchy. But how do you have a Christmas spectacular without including that?! I felt a little ashamed that I actually had that thought.