my trip to the United Nations headquarters

Today I headed up to the UN headquarters on 42nd street & 1st avenue to take a tour of the buildings and learn more about the organization.

the outside of the general assembly and the flags of all 192 member nations

offices for each nation next door

outdoor statue representative of the UN's peacekeeping goals

the inside of the general assembly chamber, the place where delegates from each nation come together

awesome buildings

the chrysler building

radio city music hall + rockefeller center 

the plaza hotel

The Colbert Report

Tonight I attended a taping of the Colbert Report on Comedy Central.  The tickets were free and it was really cool to see how they taped a TV show and what went on behind the scenes.  Stephen Colbert was hilarious and seemed like a really cool guy in person when he talked to the audience "out of character" during a question and answer session.  They were very strict about not taking pictures but I was able to get just this one with my iPhone.  You can see Colbert in the middle, the set of his show behind him, and the audience in the foreground.  

A pretty cool adventure for a tuesday night in new york.  nbd

free vampire weekend show

Tonight in Union Square, Barnes & Nobel hosted a special event called "Upstairs at the Square: Writers & Artists Mixed".  Author and poet Kwame Dawes and Vampire Weekend were the guests of tonight's edition of this free program for the few hundred in attendance.  Vampire Weekend played an acoustic set of 4 songs including "Horchata", "White Sky", and "Oxford Comma".  Between VW's songs Kwame Dawes, winner of an Emmy Award for his documentation of life in Jamaica, performed selections of spoken word and poetry for the audience.  This "social mixer" of creative professionals was kind of a half-baked idea as it was clear the crowd was there to see Vampire Weekend play from their new album rather than listen to poetry being recited.  In the end through, it didn't matter the band sounded great and the crowd was glad to attend a free show in a unique convert venue.

photos courtesy of Tyler York

the blakely (lol)

the hotel named after me in midtown.  nbd.

real life, part II

this story takes place on my flight home from new york back to california for christmas

since i was flying home on the 22nd, my flight was completely full.  i was lucky enough to get an aisle seat even though it was in the second to last row of the plane.  i took my seat and was listening to my ipod when a middle aged man traveling with his 5 year old son approached me, beginning to explain his situation.  for some reason he was only able to get two middle seats on the flight, in the same row as mine but across the aisle from each other.  of course, he didn't want his young son to sit alone for the 6 hour flight so he asked me if i would mind switching into one of his middle seats.  i hesitated at first at giving up my aisle seat but quickly realized that a child that young shouldn't fly separate from his parent.  i took the middle seat on the other side of the aisle and the father took my seat and his child took the other middle seat.  the father thanked me and the flight went by like any other.  at the baggage claim, as i was waiting for my bag to appear, the father approached me again and casually tossed a crumpled up bill onto the book i was reading.  he told me to buy something nice and to have a merry christmas.  by the time i realized the denomination of the bill, which was $100, and tried to give it back saying it was too much, the father was quickly walking away, refusing to accept the gift back.  all i could do was watch as he jumped in his mercedes and drove away with his child. nbd.

washington square park christmas tree + snow

SantaCon 2009!

so apparently every year in washington square park there is a convention with thousands of people dressed up as santa.  basically, they get together to sing christmas carols, drink, and be merry for a while.  afterwards they split up into groups and each goes to a nearby bar to drink for the rest of the day so that by the end of the night there are thousands of drunk santas in new york.  i wonder if the real santa was there...

in the fountain

by the arch

santa jump-rope

view from kimmel

evening with Robert C. Merton, Nobel laureate

Tonight NYU hosted Robert C. Merton, recipient of the 1997 Nobel prize in economics, for a discussion of the recent financial crisis.  Merton is currently a professor at the Harvard Business School and spoke on behalf of the Institute for Public Knowledge.

The majority of Merton's presentation was his analysis of the origin of the financial crisis of the past two years.  He argued that three forces, which alone are harmless if not beneficial to the economy, came together in such a way that created the systemic risk to bring down the financial system.  These three forces  were the steady rise in U.S. home prices, falling U.S. interest rates, and the increased efficiency of mortgage refinancing.  This is a contradiction to the common belief that the crisis was a product of unethical or incompetent behavior on Wall Street.  Merton believes that since these three trends occurred at the same time they created an "unintended synchronization of homeowner leverage" in which every refinanced mortgage was taken out at the highest possible value of the home.  When home prices began to decline, everyone suffered rather than just those with new mortgages and not those individuals with mortgages valued at below current prices had there been no refinanced mortgages.

Robert Merton at NYU

friendly fires and the xx concert at webster hall

yesterday, Chris, Priya, Shreya, Anna, Toby, and I went to check out these two bands.  friendly fires was better than the xx, more upbeat and energetic.  check out the pictures below.

the xx opening

friendly fires

some random room filled with 40-something TV screens.  pretty unusual but also pretty cool

three of the coolest buildings in new york in the same picture

the MetLife building, Grand Central station, and the Chrysler building (from left to right) at the intersection of 42 st street & park avenue

each of these three buildings is awe-inspiring in its own way.

the metlife building takes up two entire city blocks and is one of the few buildings in new york that has a sign on the top of it.

grand central station is the largest train station in the world in terms of number of boarding platforms it contains.  (more pictures to follow).

the chrysler building was at one point the tallest building in the world until it was surpassed by the empire state building a year after it was built.  the art deco skyscraper is arguably one of the coolest  buildings in new york.

the pixies concert!

tonight chris and I went to see the pixies play in new york. as a celebration of the 20th anniversary of their album Doolittle they performed the album in its entirety from start to finish (and others as well). they were awesome!!!

their introduction song

the beginning of the doolittle album songs.

(click the pictures for bigger versions)

crowd shot at the end

free poster I tore off the wall nbd haha

really cool panorama photography

today I found this photographer who takes all sorts of awesome pictures of new york city in panorama.

his website is: www.newyorkpanorama.com so check it out.

here are some of my favorites:

grand central station, the met life building, and the Chrysler building all in the same shot

the intersection of 5th avenue and 59th street.  right on the south corner of central park east.  you can see the apple store in the middle and the plaza hotel on the very right.

bryant park in midtown.  the new york public library is on the left.  

Indian food at Panna II

Tonight we went to an Indian restaurant in east village on 1st ave and 6th street called Panna II.  When we arrived, there were three other restaurants around it all with very similar names trying to capitalize off of the success of the original restaurant (the one we went to).  It was a really small and crowded restaurant on the second floor of the building.  The food was pretty good, each dish costing less than $10, and the service was prompt. The thing that set it apart from others was that it had tons of lights hanging from the ceiling,  literally thousands of lights.  It was like nothing I've ever seen before.

The coolest apple store ever

So after ice skating in central park, we decided to check out the nearby Apple store. This store, on 5th avenue and 59th street, is the flagship store, which I've wanted to visit since moving to new york for college. The entrance is a giant glass cube with their logo floating inside of if. Inside the cube is a giant glass staircase and glass elevator that takes you down to the store, which is huge. The store is also open 24 hours a day, never closing in the city that never sleeps. nbd.









Pictures really aren't able to capture how cool this store is.

Ice skating in central park

So last night, nyu rented out woolman rink in central park for it's students to use at night. We took a double decker bus from the nyu campus in greenwich village up 6th avenue to central park near midtown. When we got there we could see parts of the ny skyline from the rink, which was unreal. While we had to wait in a few lines to get there and then get skate rentals, it was definitley worth it.

the best pizza in new york

This pizza place in greenwich village has been open for 80 years. It is arguably the best pizza I've ever had, ever. And it's cheap too.