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Walking Off the Big Apple
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New York walking journal, neighborhood guides, maps, lists of affordable hotels, and art reviews with entertaining commentary on the cultural life of the city.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'writers'
E. L. Doctorow\'s Homer & Langley
Homer & Langley, the sweet, funny and often heartbreaking novel by E. L. Doctorow, is inspired by the true story of the famous Collyer Brothers, Homer & Langley, reclusive siblings shuttered behind the doors of their Fifth Avenue mansion in ...
"I love this dirty town": J.J. Hunsecker and the New York of Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Sweet Smell of Success is one of the great and final dramatic noir films set and filmed in an alluringly dangerous New York. Directed by Alexander Mackendrick with a brilliant script by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets, the 1957 classic, shot in glor...
Gumshoes: A Partial Lineup of New York Detectives in American Crime Fiction
The word gumshoe can be used as an intransitive verb, meaning to work as a detective, but more commonly gumshoe refers to the investigators themselves. While the etymology is a little murky, the term most likely refers to the new soft-soled gum that...
A Month of New York Mysteries, Ghosts, Detectives, Gothic Tales and Noir
Thursday afternoon, the first real chilly day of the season with strong west winds, I visited two bookstores that specialize in mysteries. The chilly day, coupled with the passing of dark clouds, signaled the advent of many beloved autumn pleasures ...
James Weldon Johnson's New York and Four Stops in Central Harlem
James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938), influential writer, activist, and diplomat, settled into life in Central Harlem in an attractive red Romanesque building near the corner of 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in 1925. He lived in the building, designat...
Art "That Doesn't Even Exist": Dave Hickey Explains Ennui; and Upcoming Lectures on Art and Art Criticism
"Do y'all mind if I listen to my Ipod?" asked art critic Dave Hickey in a twang, just before striking the first notes of his freewheeling lecture at the packed SVA Theatre on. W. 23rd St. last Thursday evening. "I just put T. Rex The Slider on it." ...
Some Serious Wi-Fi: The Edna Barnes Salomon Room at the New York Public Library
Needing a change of work space other than my own living room, one with more gravitas than a place where dogs bring me squeaky toys, I went uptown to the main branch of the New York Public Library this afternoon. I mainly wanted to try out the new wi-...
E. B. White and the New York of Stuart Little
Of the many books that give young people their first and almost always glamorous introduction to New York City, one of the most loved is E. B. White's Stuart Little, published in 1945. Yet, while Hollywood made an enchanting film of the classic in 19...
From The Great Gatsby: Nick Carraway's Walk, A Slideshow and A Map
The New York zeitgeist this summer seems interested in revisiting F. Scott Fitzgerald's acclaimed masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, first published in April 1925. Director Baz Lurhmann has bought the rights to make a new film version, the radio program ...
WOTBA New York Events Calendar: Rainy Day Slacker Edition Monday, May 4 - Monday, May 11, 2009
This week appears to be one of those weeks that highlight change and transition, a tentative time between before and after. Nothing seems settled. Students at local universities and colleges are studying for finals, with commencement and graduation c...
Literary DUMBO: An Afternoon Walk Under the Bridges in Search of Books
Along with the possibilities of ice cream, chocolate, drinks at reBar, lying down on green grass and views of two bridges and Manhattan, this book-oriented walk has added perks. Throw in a beautiful day, and I can't think of a better quick escape tha...
Winston Churchill in New York: Sir Winston Churchill Square, New York's Downing Street, With a Note on the Opening of Topshop
For children growing up in postwar America, the real-life British action figure known as Winston Churchill looms large. We knew him on this side of the pond as a portly and clever world leader who smoked cigars and saved his country (that we got to k...
Antoine de Saint-Exupery on East 52nd Street
"-S'il vous plaît… dessine-moi un mouton!"Like many others, I learned French in school by reading Le Petit Prince, the charming and thoughtful story written and illustrated by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. So I was delighted, even in a child-like way,...
WOTBA New York Cultural Events Calendar: Monday, March 16 - Sunday, March 22, 2009
Yippee! Spring Break! St. Patrick's Day. Let's have a parade. Green beer is flowing through the streets, and spring bulbs are breaking through the ground. Actually, I've only seen the latter.This scene looks fun, yes? Mild weather brought many people...
Recent Books on New York City Life and Art: A List for Spring Reading
All I want is a week to browse through bookstores, and although I don't see that week in my near future, I have found time this weekend to scout out some relatively new and interesting New York-oriented books. A few of them deal with the city's every...
WOTBA New York Cultural Events Calendar: Monday, March 9 - Sunday, March 15, 2009
Want to stay focused, happy, and productive? My advice is to not twitter too much, concentrate on lengthier tasks, ignore at least some of the articles on the terrible economy, think like a philosopher, take long walks and eat your vegetables. I lear...
A New York Poem Made of Search Words - "Chocolate Peeps," "Derek Jeter Diet, and "Skirts Blown in Winds"
Here are actual search terms that brought some individuals to Walking Off the Big Apple in the past 24 hours. I think the phrases make a lovely beat poem, circa 1959.Search Words, a poemchocolate peepswashington square jamesgoogle weather new york ci...
WOTBA New York Cultural Events Calendar, with Events for Lincoln's Birthday and Valentine's Day: February 9 - February 15, 2009
DOGS. Monday, February 9 and Tuesday, February 10. The 133rd Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show: Madison Square Garden, Seventh Ave at 32nd St. 8 am–11pm. $20–$145. Also on TV but you miss the smell of pretty dogs. USA & CNBC.ART. Open Mondays....
Walking Off the (Current) New York State of Mind
In "When the Action Moves On," an essay published in the January 18 Sunday New York Times, author Alex Williams reports on a sentiment sometimes expressed these days that New York seems somehow over. Washington, this week for sure, is where the actio...
O. Henry's Thoughts on Fourth Avenue
"Fourth Avenue--born and bred in the Bowery--staggers northward full of good resolutions."- O. Henry, "A Bird of Bagdad"O. Henry's sentence above about Fourth Avenue should count among his most clever lines. As the Bowery earned a rowdy reputation du...
O. Henry's Christmas Stories of New York's Working Poor
The writer William Sydney Porter, known as O. Henry, wrote several Christmas tales in addition to "The Gift of the Magi." A couple of the stories are set in rural areas of Texas and the American West, as Porter lived and worked on ranches as a young ...
A Walk for a New York Christmas: Part IV. Exploring Irving Place
When he lived at 55 Irving Place, O. Henry believed, like so many others, that Washington Irving once resided down the street. Irving was more of a downtown guy, and he probably never lived along in here, but that didn't stop a 19th-century real esta...
A Walk for a New York Christmas: Part I. Clement Clarke Moore's Chelsea
In 1822, wealthy New York scholar and poet Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863), a resident of the Chelsea neighborhood, wrote the most famous Christmas poem of all time, "A Visit From St. Nicholas," known widely as "Twas the Night Before Christmas." The...
A Walk for a New York Christmas: From Clement Clarke Moore's Chelsea to O. Henry's Irving Place (Introduction)
Many of the ways we think of Christmas, in most of its secular and popular forms - the chubby Santa and his reindeer, the new fallen snow, the warm hearth donned with Christmas stockings, family and friends celebrating in cheer, can trace its roots t...
A List of Recommended Books of the Year: Drawing Babar, William Eggleston, Ada Louise Huxtable, Oscar Hammerstein II , and More
Regular readers of these pages are likely to share my fondness for literature and the arts. Each holiday I compile a wish list of recently published books along with a couple of previously published titles that I'd like to add to my library. It's alw...
Escape from Savannah, 1928: Young John Mercer Moves to New York
During my stroll last week through the historic sections of Savannah, Georgia, a visit that included Flannery O'Connor's childhood home and many moss-covered trees, I meandered over to the Mercer-Williams House. Most know this landmark from The Midn...
Flannery O'Connor's Six Months in New York City
Flannery O'Connor lived for six months in New York City in 1949. Before moving to the city, the native of Savannah, Georgia had been staying at Yaddo, the famed artist retreat in Saratoga Springs, New York. She had received the invitation to stay at ...
Mapping Holly Golightly: Walking Off Breakfast at Tiffany's
The world of Holly Golightly, as depicted in Truman Capote's 1958 novella Breakfast at Tiffany's, is set largely on the Upper East Side in the East 70s. In the novella, Capote does not specify an exact address for the brownstone he shares with Holly,...
Holly Golightly: A Child of the Great Depression
I'd wager that millions more people have seen the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's than have read Truman Capote's story. While I plan to discuss the movie version in a future post, I'm gripped by the original novella. I haven't seen the film in a long ti...
The Golightly Variations: Shopping for the Most Affordable Thing at Tiffany's
In the spirit of first-person participatory literary criticism, I visited the flagship store of Tiffany & Co. on Fifth Avenue this afternoon to see if the store could make me feel like Truman Capote's Holly Golightly, a place to beat the "mean reds."...
