I don’t want to be one of those people who talks incessantly about the good old days of NYC: before Giuliani cleaned up 42nd Street, when the definition of “hipster” made reference to the jazz era, and you probably took your passport on a visit to Brooklyn. Just in case. BUT, I was going through my photos the other day and came across these two portraits of Pablo the Rooster. He lived on the Lower East Side close to Canal Street. He had free reign of the alley that ran between two buildings. I know, from a reliable source (and to my great relief!), that he wasn’t part of a Cockfighting ring. Better yet, he had plenty of hen friends who shared his 100 square feet of pavement. They even had a nice little grassy spot where, on any given day, they could be found digging for bugs. So, while I know there are lots of good things to be said for urban development, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be woken up every morning by his crazy loud crowing, I still miss the good old days when you could be walking along in Manhattan and come across a rooster just running free on Ludlow Street.

Maybe I’m not getting out enough, but this is the first time I’ve seen a “C” grade posted in a window of a restaurant. What, I wonder, does one have to do in order to qualify for such a stellar mark. Here is your answer. And, while it’s not pretty, I’m not sure the almost failing mark would stop me from going to my favorite restaurant.

When we moved back to the Lower East Side back in July, this was one of the first photos I took. I saw this small-ish rodent (rat) on Division Street, on my way into the depths of Chinatown. He looked rather peaceful. And while I know this is a picture of a dead rodent, I love all the geometry going on here. I have had encounters of this sort before. See here.

Lendy’s Electric, on Grand Street in Manhattan, is one of those holdouts from an earlier time when small scale manufacturers and their accompanying tradesmen (tradeswomen?) dominated the downtown landscape. I always enjoy my visits there: so many unfamiliar things to look at, and I always learn something new. Even if that means appropriating some strange slang for a particular electric receptacle or seeing these schematics for plugs and whatnot. These Select-A-Spring photos are from a visit a couple of years ago.

We are moving soon. Right now though, we still don’t know where we’ll end up. Dumbo has become so outrageously expensive and, while the location is great, we are both ready for a change. We actually want something smaller and simpler, if you can believe that. If we didn’t have our place upstate, I might be singing a different tune entirely. Thanks to Cabin Porn for the unending inspiration. For more, click here.