I Guess We Get Wet

The forecast was 90% rain, but warm.  This posed a problem.  A new problem for us as it turned out.

"So what do we do?  Raincoat?"

"I didn't bring mine.  Umbrellas are out of the question"

"I guess we get wet."

It was Sunday morning, the day of NYPD Officer Wenjian Liu's funeral.  Rain was scheduled which meant you were going to get wet.  The whole point of a dress uniform is to look sharp, which is defeated when covered by a raincoat.  Also, you can't carry an umbrella, so that meant it was going to be a long, wet day, which seemed fitting in many ways.

The ceremony was held in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn in a residential neighborhood.  There were thousands of police officers milling around.  There were canteens that had been sent from the various unions, local jewish religious organizations, and outside departments.  There was plenty of coffee and hot chocolate, along with cookies and I even saw fresh empanadas.  Line of Duty funerals are the strangest mix between laughter and tears.  The laughter comes at the empanada part when people from all over who haven't seen each other for years or since the Academy are hugging and shooting the shit.  It's like a bizarre state fair only for cops

"Where did you get the empanadas?"

"Over by the plumbing supply store.  I think the DEA (Detectives Endowment Association) one has pizza." 

Thousands of officers from all over the country.  Large contingents from LA, Chicago and all parts in between.  Normally, the men and women of the NYPD's Ceremonial Unit are buzzing all over the place putting people in formation and barking orders, but they had to make do with yelling at us over loudspeakers they hung from cranes.  Giving directions without seeing any of us.  There were too few of them and far too many of us.  It was a little bit of chaos.  But like any crowd, people started moving towards 65th Street and that got everyone else moving and quieting down.

This ceremony, like Ramos's the week before, was unique for me because the wake and the funeral were held at the same place.  Normally, the wake is at a funeral home and then the body arrives and you salute as it enters the house of worship, along with the bagpipes, etc.  Officer Liu was apparently a semi-practicing Buddhist, so they held the service in the funeral home he was waked in.  So it was weird to just be standing around and hear people start talking.  Another unique thing that showed the difference in how these officers were killed, asides from the sea of blue, was the video monitors they had placed along 65th St.  Normally. once the service starts, they'll have a sound truck but the officers who can't fit into the church usually go find coffee or smoke a cigarette or connect with old co-workers.  Not this time.

The speeches came first.  FBI Director Comey spoke on behalf of the federal government (Biden spoke at Ramos's), The Governor was unable to speak as he was handling the death of his father, though he did attend the wake.  The Mayor spoke, and most of the people I saw turned their back. I didn't, because I didn't think it was appropriate at a funeral but not because I have any respect for the Mayor.  The Police Commissioner spoke and spoke from the heart, giving the best "official" speech of the day.  He spoke of how when he learned more about Ramos and Liu he wondered why it was always the good ones who were killed.  He said it was simply the law of averages because the vast majority of cops are good, kind and well-meaning human beings.

Then the family spoke,  First came Wenjian's younger cousin to talk of how kind he was.  Mr. Liu, Wenjian's father spoke next.  Let me tell you that though he spoke in Mandarin, I understood every word he was saying.  Grief is a universal language and it was clear to all those standing along that street, how much pain that man was in.  I noticed many officers getting choked up by a language they didn't know.  Wenjian's wife of three months spoke last in English, thanking the officers outside for coming and talking about how much he meant to her.  This is why you come to cop's funerals.  To show the parents and the loved ones that they do not grieve alone.  That they are not alone.  That from now until the hereafter, the department will look after them.

And then there was a break for a personal Buddhist ceremony.  I think.  It was hard to tell because the camera feed stopped and there wasn't an announcement of when the procession would start.  So with a light rain falling, Maslov's hierarchy kicked in.  Officers started moving towards the restrooms and the 7-11 to get coffee and to shake hands and meet each other.  I on my third sip of coffee when "DETAIL...." rang out. Cut to a scene of officers throwing coffee cups and running to get back in formation while putting back on their white gloves.  "ATTENTION!" Officers now forming up ranks 4 deep, some 12-15 deep in places, standing at ramrod attention.  Remembering not to lock the knees, having done this before.

And silence.  Dead silence.  We were blocks away from the actual funeral home.  Standing straight ahead, looking at the neck roll of the guy in front of you.  Waiting for the next command.
"PRESENT......ARMS!" The command echoing down the Brooklyn block as the fluttering of thousands of gloved hands come up to the brim of the dress cap.  Taps is played by two trumpets.  And as the last few notes of taps goes into the ether, here come the helicopters in the missing man formation.  No more than 60 feet off the street, the beating of the rotors making your chest vibrate as you hold the salute.  I catch officers from smaller departments looking up at the helicopters as they pass by.  Amateurs.  You never look.

"ORDER......ARMS". Hands snapping back to the right sides of bodies all up and down the street. Total silence.  Then come the motorcycles, hundreds of them.  They seem to go on forever.  Here's an awesome video shot from a motor showing the incredible turnout.  If you get to 2:47 and look right past about 8 guys, that would be me.

They were followed by the flower car and then the NYPD Emerald Society Honor Guard and Pipe Band.  It was interesting because given the ancestry of Officer Liu, they didn't play the pipes.  Just beat the drums as they marched slowly in front of the hearse.  As the hearse arrived, this wave of salutes started from my left and carried down to follow his body.  Salutes held for the family members in vans, and then it was over.

Well, not really over.  They kept us standing there for a bizarre amount of time to the point that after 40 minutes, when the pipes came back past going the other way playing, people just broke and dismissed themselves, many walking a mile back to their cars.

People said the turnout was less for this one, perhaps being that it was two weeks after the shooting and on a Sunday.  I honestly couldn't tell you because literally all I could see was cops in both directions and I know I only saw less than half of those there. I do know that this day reinforced my belief that you always make the funeral.  I was disappointed in the low turnout from DC, given that its only a train ride away.  Given how much it means to the family, you need a damn good reason not to make it.

Law Enforcement is Grey. So is life

So like the rest of the world, I've been following the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri over the past few weeks.  This event, which many people are saying is not just a singular event, is incredibly hard to dissect.  It's like pulling a string on the biggest sweater ever knit.  However, between the media I consume and enjoy usually (Gawker, Twitter, etc) stating that cops are abusive and corrupt and murderers, and my Facebook feed which alternates between condemnation of Sharpton and the looters, condemnation of a brutal police state,  and ice bucket challenge videos, I decided to get some thoughts down.

Where I'm From

I want to start at the beginning, because the reality is that I'm just one guy and I have one perspective.  I was raised in New York City as a white kid who was afforded all opportunities in the world.  As proof, I should tell you I attended sleepaway clown/computer camp in Avon, Connecticut for 2 weeks one summer.  My all-boys private elementary school was mostly populated with the offspring of incredibly wealthy WASPs from Park Avenue, and it had a conservative ethos where sports were just as important as grades.  As a theater kid, who never seemed to "reach his potential" according to my report cards, it wasn't a great fit.

Then I went to high school at a more liberal  co-ed institution, but still not that liberal.  Our Gay/Straight Alliance club seemed to consist of straight kids eager to ally with any gays who wanted to make themselves known.  We did have a lot more black students thanks to a terrific program called Prep for Prep.  It was here I got to talk with and hang out with students of color, which was sadly and belatedly formative for me.

Then I was lucky enough to get into Vassar College, and majored in Urban Studies and spent loads of time reading about poverty, gentrification and spending priorities that never seemed to prioritize people who needed help.  Also my personal ideology shifted more left as I recognized my own privilege surrounded by friends on financial aid.  In junior year, I applied to the New York City Police Department, which had been a lifelong dream just like many of my friends had wanted to be astronauts or cowboys when they were little.  My obsession just stuck.  I halfheartedly looked for jobs in government, but prepared myself for the police department.

I completed the NYPD Academy in 2000 and was assigned to the 28th Precinct, which is in Central Harlem.  If you took the east/west boundaries of Central Park and went straight for another 17 blocks that was my home.  It's the smallest precinct in the city.  .68 square miles.  Solidly African-American at that time.  I was warned that the black officers and the white officers didn't get along.  What I noticed was that there are more black officers than white officers there which was unusual given that white officers were still the majority.

Observations as a Cop

A few thoughts on race as a cop. I learned that the white cops and the black cops who actually did work got along fine.  The zips (NYPD vernacular for do nothings) were generally disliked by everyone.  We did have several leaders from 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement who worked in the 28, which could make things tense when they had press conferences outside the precinct condemning the department.  Some of them were good cops,  some of them were better at their positions in the organization than their jobs in the department.  But overall, we were cool.  My partner for 4 years was a handsome Dominican lad from Brooklyn.  He remains one of my best friends.  I was best man at his wedding.

White people would ask me sometimes if it was hard being a white cop in Harlem.  I came to realize quickly that it was harder being a black cop which seemed to surprise them.  But I didn't live in Harlem or grow up playing on those streets and I got to home to Queens when my shift was over.  And though I would hear the occasional but still humorous "cracker ass cracker" thrown my way, I heard black officers called "sellout" or "Uncle Tom" and worse.  And many of them still had friends and family there, and that had to hurt, and is wonderfully explained in this Root piece. 

Much has been made of officer-involved shootings and with snipers set up on armored vehicles, the issue bears discussion.  Many people say it's not a dangerous job.  And statistically this is true, as law enforcement doesn't even break the Top 10 according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, coming behind fields like professional drivers, loggers, garbage collectors, roofers and others.  And to be honest, asides from the occasional foot chase, wrestling with a perp or standing in the August sun at a parade, it's not really a physically demanding job.  Many cops will tell you that roofing in the summer, construction, road work all work harder than they do, in terms of sweat produced.

But what you can't see, and what creates this deep rift in relations between cops and their loved ones, and anyone who's not a cop, is the mental toll the job takes.  Let's take the danger aspect.  We know the job isn't the most dangerous, and as of today, there have been 67 reported line of duty fatalities from local, state, federal and tribal law enforcement.  But the threat of danger is always there.  When you're logging, trees can fall the wrong way and chains can snap and kill you in an instant, but the trees don't become self-aware and try and kill you as you log.  The roof doesn't decide to become slippery and send you to your death.  These other occupations are dealing with inanimate objects while cops deal with people.  There are sadly more and more cases of officers being ambushed while they ate or sat in their cars or returned from calls. Now, does this happen every day?  No.  Not at all.  It's an isolated incident, even if it's sadly becoming more frequent.  The chance is small that I will be killed as I sit in my car.  But I have no way to mitigate that risk because it depends on another human being's state of mind. Hurricanes are incredibly rare in New England, but it doesn't mean that planners and meteorologists don't worry about them and plan for them.   So all I can do is be on guard and make sure I see people's hands, because regardless of the whole "Guns don't kill people...." trope, police officers know that hands are the only thing that kill people.  Until the bad guys develop shoe guns or something.  So cops treat most people as a possible threat, until they determine otherwise.

In addition to the ever present threat of danger, there's another more insidious threat to the mental health of a police officer, and that's the community they serve.  So, when I worked in the 28, I'd say 93-95% of people in that community woke up, fed and clothed their kids, went to work, came home from work, read their kids bedtime stories, watched a Knicks game (they lost) and went to sleep.  And that majority of the population we rarely saw.  We did see, interact, and help the 5-7% of people that for reasons larger than ours to fix, required police intervention.  A few of my favorites:

• Amanda M., 65 years old, who called the police every day drunk because her live in roommate, 40 years old wouldn't have sex with her.  
• Guy at the fish market who believe he was ripped off and his Jumbo shrimp were not jumbo enough. 
• Couple who have three kids together and fight all the time but stay together even though there's a restraining order in place, so he gets locked up while she yells at us not to.  
• Guy on PCP who bit my neck while fighting me in the middle of 116th St, which is how I still remember my last tetanus shot was in 2003.  
• Sisters who couldn't decide whether to watch Ricki Lake or Maury Povich and called 911 to have an officer settle the dispute.  

These calls are every day, 5 days a week, for 8.5 hours a day.  The screaming in your face, the parents with babies outside at 3AM in November with no coat, the shooting victims who never see who shot them, like ever.  People lie to your face all the time, and they're terrible at it, or maybe you're just good at reading it because you're lied to for a living.  It gets old and you begin to withdraw and think of people as less than who they are because they refuse to act with any respect for you or their fellow man/woman.  I should say that the only time you normally get to interact with the 95% is for burglary calls, and it does help to remind you that there are hard working people who care and invite you to watch the Knicks lose on TV while your partner takes the report.  

Everyone loves firefighters.  They have a dog.  They have calendars.  They always seem so nice.  Why can't cops be like them?  Well, for one, they get to see everyone.  Sadly, everyone's Aunt Milly can have trouble breathing at Thanksgiving or anyone can get into a bike accident, so they get to handle the public at large, instead of the smaller subset like cops do, which improves their overall demeanor.  Also, the amazing thing about firefighters is that people love them even if they don't succeed.  As a volunteer firefighter in the Hudson Valley for two years in college, I literally watched a fire on a back deck spread due to poor tactics and consume the house.  You can have a firefighter bust out all your windows, saw your couch in half and you'll still bring them cookies to thank them.  This is no knock on fire guys.  They are brave and have a demanding job and I think being burned would be 100% worse than being shot.  The same public that asks "Why didn't you shoot the knife out of the guy's hand" will never ask "How come you didn't vent the roof or stretch another Inch and a Half line around through the bedroom." That's just the way it is.  

Where To Go From Here

I want to be clear that there are other non-environmental issues that create indifferent or troubled officers.  A Lieutenant gave us this speech on the first day of the Academy that has always stuck with me. 

      10 percent of you were meant to be police officers.  You have it in your blood and bones and you will excel in this profession.  For 80 percent of you, this is a job.  Its a job you will do well and honorably for your career with the NYPD.  10 percent of you should never made it this far.  You are too dumb, too damaged or too criminal to be police officers and you very well will be hurt, killed or arrested in the years to come.

Indeed, I have met terrible officers.  Sexist, racist and generally awful people.  The smartest person and the dumbest person I've met in my entire life have had NYPD personnel tax numbers. If every department has a few bad apples, then the size of the NYPD guarantees it an orchard of assholes and misfits.  But they are, on balance, the exception and not the rule.  I have amazing friends and incredibly hard working and caring individuals that many people will never get to know behind the exterior of the blue uniform and the badge.  I was once driving with a friend and got pulled over and my friend couldn't believe how the officer's demeanor changed once he saw my badge.  My friend kept remarking how nice and interested the guy was compared to when he didn't know me from Adam. While some of this was probably because I was a cop, it was mostly because the cop knew I wasn't a threat and could let his guard down and be himself, which is a rare occurrence on the street. 

Also, I think given the small segments of the general population you serve that you end up resenting and often times stereotyping the communities you work in.  Regardless of whether that's an African-American population in Harlem or a liberal white population in Manhattan or Brooklyn.  It's why I think cops should rotate their precincts, so they get to work in different communities with different constituencies.  I realize the union will never let this happen, but even taking officers off the street and giving them an administrative assignment with decent days off every few years could help reset some of the issues.  People do wonderful research on the effect that poverty has on communities and the children that grow up in severe poverty.  You can't tell me that working in incredibly depressed communities for 40 hours a week for 20 years doesn't take a similar toll, regardless of where the officer calls home.  

I'm not sure anyone is still reading this (Hi Mom) and I recognize this is long and somewhat rambling. I'm happy to write more about the issues and difficulties surrounding putting officers on foot or making them live in the cities they patrol, or why perhaps more black kids get locked up for weed than white kids.  But I'll save that for another day.  I'm just one cop with an opinion and make no claim to have the answers for other cops or other departments.  In the past weeks watching social media explode with comments by people about police overreach and brutality, as well as those who seek to elevate us as heroes draped in the flag of the just and righteous, I just wanted to put together some of my thoughts.  I recognize that racism is alive and well and that black men do get stopped for driving nice cars all over this country or hanging out on the corner with their friends.  Just as I learned that I can't assume the community I serve is represented by those who call 911 over and over, I wanted to point out that you can't judge an entire profession or calling based on the actions of a few. 

No Way in Hell the NYC Marathon Should Go On. (Updated: It's not)

Updated: As I wrote this post, it was announced that the marathon was cancelled.  Clearly they knew that I was about to publish this post. Also, I changed the title of the post as it was unfair for the runners and the organizers should have borne the vitriol. 

Perhaps I'm cranky today.  Maybe it's Donald Trump being Donald Trump.  Or maybe its the fact that NYC got hit by a hurricane and everyone knew it was going to be serious and the news is filled with stories of horror that could have been avoided. Or maybe I just am tired of the election and the schizophrenic polling which is exhausting to follow.

However, the news that the NYC Marathon, one of the world's largest and preemient racing events, will be go on as scheduled really bothers me.

Mayor Bloomberg's Reasons For

He's quoted by Sports Illustrated as saying "has to show that we are here and we are going to recover'' and "give people something to cheer about in what's been a very dismal week for a lot of people.''

Let's talk about this for a second.  The Marathon is only exciting for one group of people, those running the marathon.  Very few New Yorkers look forward to a weekend day in November when driving and walking anywhere is impossible.  I remember sitting in traffic headed to work in 2000 for an hour and I moved a block.  A total nightmare.

Also, is there any doubt that NYC is going to recover?  New Yorkers have no doubt.  Sure there are some living near water that may relocate or move. But NYC is resilient, and you don't need to convince New Yorkers of that fact.  We went through 9/11.  We know what the city is made of.  So maybe you're trying to reassure tourists.  Well, two things on that.  First, a marathon isn't the event that's going to do it.  Second, tourists don't leave Manhattan below 59th St, and once the power comes back online, the city will be full of shoppers and morons staring at the big tree.  Don't worry about them.

Bloomberg also said, "You have to keep going and doing things,'' he said, "and you can grieve, you can cry and you can laugh all at the same time. That's what human beings are good at.''

Alright,we're not talking about cancelling the marathon because of the enormity and sadness of the storm.  We're talking about a simple logistical matter.  Rest assured that if 2 bombs went off at schools, killing over 40 children (approximate number of Sandy deaths in NYC so far), then the marathon would be cancelled in a national day of mourning.  But that's not what happened.  This is not about restoring New Yorkers faith in humanity or the city or America.  This storm should inspire a closer look at SLOSH maps by New Yorkers, but that's it.  We don't need time to grieve.  We need time to get to the Home Depot and buy some tarps and drywall, without miles of traffic caused by an unnecessary athletic event.

My Reasons Against

• Staten Island: For those who don't know, Staten Island also known as Richmond County, is the oft forgotten borough.  Almost all residential, it is more conservative and whiter than any of the other boroughs.  Very popular for NYC employees who are from New Jersey but need to abide by the residency requirement.  They fit somewhat uncomfortably in the greater NYC.  Often talking of seceding.  Which if they ever did, would make them the second largest city in New York. The reason I bring up Staten Island is that it's the start of the marathon.  Right.  The place with the tanker on it, is where over 50,000 runners are arriving.  And taking over the only bridge to the rest of the city.  Right.  This makes sense. 
• First Responders: So my many friends in the NYPD have been working 12-hour tours since the storm.  FDNY has done the same.  Walking up 25 flights of stairs to help those people who thought they were correctly safe from flooding, but sadly not the time it takes for medics to respond to your floor without an elevator.  The streets are usually watched by the National Guard and cops during the marathon.  Both groups are people that should either be working on the recovery or taking care of their lives.   Look, these cops live on Long Island and Queens and Staten Island too.  I know friends who have lost their childhood homes.  And these cops would work for days to help others.  But now you tell me that they have to work an optional sporting event, instead of taking care of their business or stocking their fridge?  Bullshit.  

Oh, and marathon runners, I'm not against you.  I've run 5Ks which I know is what you do in order to break a sweat.  I understand the mental importance of finishing NYC.  But do it another year.  New York asks you.  You love this marathon because you get to run through the greatest city in the world on a nationally televised race.  The people of that city are trying to put their lives back together and you're being here does not help.  Trust me.  

Why Sandy Isn't Shocking

So I've been watching the news and following Twitter about the storm, and the stories are incredible.  The 6-alarm blaze that claimed over 50 houses in Breezy Point was particularly poignant because the photos didn't show water, but ash.  And the story of the hundreds of hospital employees and first responders who helped evacuate NYU Langone Medical Center by carrying adults and children down stairs and breathing for them using bag-valve masks, otherwise known as "bagging".

And there's tons of You Tube videos of people in Lower Manhattan astonished at the water flowing by their apartments.  I understand that it's not normal to see water pushing cars down 2nd Avenue, but its possible.  I looked up the SLOSH maps for part of NYC.  Slosh stands for Sea, Lake, Overland Surge due to Hurricanes and happens along all borders with lakes and other bodies of water. 

 

So the  yellow on the map is the surge from a Cat 1 storm, which is essentially what Sandy was.  Basically the storm is pushing the water onto land, but as the seafloor rises to meet the coast, that water has no place to go and gets pushed up into a larger wall of water.  This is why you can see surge heights of 3-5 feet easily.  Here's a great animation from the National Weather Service. 

Also, people seem to be shocked that the subway might stay closed for a week.  The subway is underground and runs on electricity.  These are two things that don't respond well to flooding.  There are currently 7 tunnels under the East River that are flooded, which will take time to pump out.  Even once all of the tracks are pumped out, they still need to determine what the state of the wiring is.  Juction boxes and track signals aren't meant to be underwater.  So give it some time.  Join the old people and get reacquainted with the joys of busing. 

New York City will bounce back from this, because it is a vibrant and resilient place that imparts its citizens with an attitude that doesn't take crap and makes the best of bad situations.  The message here is that this is nature and science and it doesn't care that you're not prepared or that your apartment is on the 28th floor.  If you have a heart attack, because you eat fatty foods, the EMTs will need to walk up 28 flights to get you.  And you'll be dead.  

As a born and raised New Yorker, my heart aches to see the city in harm.  But I also know that in this time of need, there are amazing acts of selflessness and heroism, like I saw during 9/11. Be safe, but more importantly, be aware.  I'm sure though that this storm has brought plenty of awareness for everyone. 

New York Must-Sees

I wrote a list for a friend of mine who will be leaving New York soon of places they should see before they go.  This is more a list for people who hate NYC or are down on all the pretension and the bullshit and the rat race.  I acknowledge that I haven't lived there in 8 years, but that's alright because I'm not thinking any of the places that sprang up in the last 8 years are places you need to see anyway.


This is not a "Hot" list of in places.  This is a list I made of things that make me miss New York.  And my New York, the actual fabric of the city, that was there before I was born and will be there hopefully when I'm gone. They're in no particular order except the last one, which is my favorite.  The ones that are not in Manhattan I'll just say that transit or wheels is required. 

Eisenberg's: Eisenberg's is a lunch counter located on 5th Avenue between 23rd and 22nd, opposite the Flat Iron.  It is one of the few lunch counter places that used to be everywhere which provided NYC office denizens a chance to grab a stool and a quick lunch.  Your usual NYC favorites are amazing.  But I'll recommend the pastrami or tuna melt.  And if they have the matzoh ball soup, and you like it, then you should get it.  Matzoh ball as big as your head.  And it goes without saying, but only losers sit at tables, the counter is really where its at.  

Ziegfield Theater: Long before IMAX and fake IMAX and "squint your face with stupid glasses on" IMAX, there were movie houses.  And these theaters had one screen.  This was before owners decided to chop their one screen into 8 closet sized screens to maximize revenue.  The Ziegfield never changed.  It remains the largest screen in the city.  And as a fan of movies, if you haven't been there, you owe it to yourself to see NYC in the way it used to be.  Before even my old ass.  Currently Playing: Dark Knight Rises

Staten Island Ferry:  I'm sure you've probably done this, but it remains a great tour of the harbor and view of southern Manhattan for free.  Go over and come back, or sample some of St. George's culinary delights.  But its' a free boat operated by the City of New York, and that's pretty cool.  

Brennan and Carr's: Let me tell you how I found out about this place.  When I was in the Police Academy with Mahoney and Hightower, a guy named Frank Kolanovic (AKA Franky Yo-Yo, Frankie Beans) asked if I liked roast beef.  That question was followed by asking if I'd "ever had roast beef so good I creamed my pants?" I had to respectfully say I hadn't.  And then he took me here.  It's in the ass end of Brooklyn, near Marine Park.  But it's been there for years.  You gotta get the roast beef and the cheese fries.  The bun its on is soggy from the roast beef.  But more importantly it's Brooklyn, and not your kale eating, brown flip-fop wearing Brooklyn.  Speaking of Brookyn...

Coney Island:  Yeah, I know its cheesy and the amusement park feels like a training ground for grifters and pedophiles.  But Coney Island, is another example of NYC in its original weirdness, and not fake weird, or safe weird.  Home of the Mermaid Parade and the July 4th Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, where NYers show up with sign saying "Tojo go home!" in awesome racist reference to the Japanese competitive eating giant, Kobayashi.  While here, ride the Cyclone.  Not because the coaster is amazing for a wooden roller coaster, but because its old.  And as you look at the Russian immigrants operating it and seeing the bolts rattling as you're climbing the first hill, you become scared.  As in, you could actually die.  A rite of passage for kids in the city.  And while we're still in Brooklyn...

L&B Spumoni Gardens: This is a place that's a tradition near Bensonhurst.  You've never seen so many actual Goombahs outside eating pizza.  The pizza comes in trays and it's like grandma pizza, which is pretty good if you've never tried it.  It's off the 86th St. stop on the N.  Real family place.  Great on a night that isn't blazing hot and you just want to be reminded that you're in NYC.  No kale chips sold here.  

McSorley's Ale House:  While they only began admitting women in the last 40 years, this is the oldest bar in the city. Sawdust on the floor and only two types of beer.  Light and dark.  They come in small glass half-pint mugs and you can either order light or dark and get two mugs each, or half and half.  Again, this place is special.  They have no food, and if you don't like beer, then you probably won't stay long, but it's worth the visit.  Careful, douchebags like this place sometimes.  Here's their location.

NYC Formal Gardens: Not sure if you like Central Park, but I grew up with it being my backyard.  But it wasn't until my parents showed me this gem near our apartment that I found it.  You'll have to fight the crowds of brides and grooms getting their photos taken on the weekends, but this is a really nice and quiet place to go and read or just see some really cool flowers in Central Park.  

And finally, if you do nothing else on this list, you must, must, no but seriously, must visit....

Empire State Building: Alright, this is the only really touristy thing on the menu.  But, there are qualifiers.  You need to go at night . No one cares about being able to see New Jersey.  Also, you need to go to the open observatory on the 80 something floor and not the higher one which is lame.  When I was living in NYC, I would go to the ESB every year.  At night, outside with the city unfolding in front of me, it felt like I owned that city.  It made me fall in love with it every time. Also, if you bring the Icelander, it's pretty romantic.  But more than that it is awesome, in the way that it is full of and inspiring awe.  

I realize that some of these are food related, and you might not hit all of them, but they're all things that remind me of why I love NYC.  Oh, and if you've never had a falafel at Mamoun's on McDougal. stop reading this right now and go get one.  

Never forgotten

Never Forgotten

Hope everyone is doing okay today. Especially my peeps in New York.