Results tagged “nature”

Imagine waiting for the subway to arrive and hearing the pleasant sounds of nature. Running water, chirping birds, the rustling of leaves... the NY Times reports that this could all be a reality at the 96th and Broadway subway station in a little over a year. The public art project proposal is on the verge of MTA approval, and "the sounds, broadcast on a loop by hidden speakers in the above-ground headhouse, would be one component of an art installation intended for the station that draws on the ideas and iconography of Asian pop art and contemporary graphic design." Construction on the station is expected to be complete by the fall of 2010, and at that time the hope is to also have the project unveiled—complete with an arched glass-and-steel structure housing nearly 200 stainless-steel flowers that will sway in the entryway. Even though the aforementioned calming sounds will be drowned out by trains from time to time, could this all make commuters less tense? You know, as long as there are no mockingbird sounds?

      

After yesterday's funny post about the hawk who flew into an East Village restaurant, we thought it a good opportunity to enjoy some photographs of red-tailed hawks in a more familiar setting—the park. Flickr user atkaufman has a really nice set of photographs of red-tailed hawks in Riverside Park.

Hey, the muppets are here to help you prepare for the next big terrorist attack, and other terrors—like nature's wrath! Of course, not even Super Grover can help clean up George Bush's war, but he can lend a brightly colored smiling face to fearmongering. Wired reports that Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff and his wife Meryl have worked with the Sesame Workshop and the Ad Council to come up with a campaign focusing on preparedness. They've declared that "it's a fact of life that not every day is a sunny day," and "recent events have exposed families to a range of disasters; the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 have particularly emphasized the need to ensure children's physical and psychological protection." Grover and others will be the face of the campaign, which includes DVDs, magazines and more! But what they really ought to do is update The Monster at the End of the Book by writing Dick Cheney into the denouement.

     

One upside to yesterday's torrential downpour: A few people captured photographs of rainbows around the city. Here's hoping anyone caught after today's rains see rainbows, too.

You might think that today's forecast, warm with a chance of a thundershower, is a harbinger of spring. You would be wrong. Mother Nature lives up to her cruel mistress moniker by dangling spring in front of us while all the while holding another cold snap in a gloved hand behind her back. A warm front swept northward through town last night, raising the temperature to 62 degrees this morning. It may warm a degree or two more, probably not enough to reach the record of 68, before a cold front arrives in the early afternoon. Before it begins to cool there may be an occasional shower or possibly a thunderstorm. There's a big gob of rain on the radar just east of Atlantic City, that may just skirt the city.

Thankfully NBC’s new version of the classically cheesy 1980s show Knight Rider (Sunday 9:00 p.m., WNBC 4) is not a remake, but a continuation of the old in this two hour movie/back door pilot. Of course, this means there are some changes, such as the presence of David Hasslehoff being reduced to a cameo, the two leads are ex-soap stars (the way the Hoff was), and horror of horrors KITT isn’t a Trans Am anymore thanks to a deal between NBC and Ford that product places a Mustang as the talking car (and Trans Ams aren't made anymore anyway). It has all the makings, save for being relatively Hoff-free, of being so bad it is good.

Oh, Mother Nature. You bring us a couple inches of snow, make the city pretty for a brief spell, and then you send in the rain and turn up the heat a little, turning everything into slush.

Image credit: Nature abhors a vacuum

Disinformation is not an easy show to describe, which is a good thing. The first to note is that Reggie Watts, the show’s mad theatrical scientist with Sideshow Bob hair, is one wickedly funny man. In Disinformation he’s supported by a quartet of tireless performers as he coaxes the absurdity out of the corporate bromides, 2012 eschatology, gangsta rap posturing, and commercialized sex that litter the post-modern landscape. Watts prods his subjects obliquely while relating some wildly fantastic stories about secret underground grottos and science fiction camouflage suits like those found in Predator. Mixed with these hilarious monologues, he’s produced a series of bemusing promotional videos for a friendly/sinister corporation called Carnaidesai, a company with a vague purpose but one portentous mission statement: “There’s not much future left, but we’re using all of it!”

While New York is very urban, there are still many places where you can see some wilderness. Here's a list of the Parks Department's 48 Forever Wild Nature Preserves, which total over "8,700 acres of towering forests, vibrant wetlands, and expansive meadows" and include "flying squirrels, bald eagles, and fascinating rare plants." Flying squirrels!

At 93, Ted Kheel could be resting on his laurels as a well-known labor lawyer and negotiator (the NY Times called him the "the most influential peacemaker in New York City in the last half-century"). Instead, he has been crusading, as his Nurture Nature Foundation explains, to address the "fundamental conflict between development and the environment." He has suggested that the subways should become free and will be releasing results from a study to prove why it can happen. (Photo by Roger Moenks)

The most exciting story in New York theater this year had nothing to do with the Broadway stagehands' strike, it was the vibrant growth of what used to be called “experimental theater”, a movement that can now really only loosely be defined by what it’s not: non-naturalistic and not made for TV, with an emphasis on bold physicality, collaboration and, sometimes, multimedia.

SHOP: Still looking for that perfect gift? The Brooklyn Historical Society is holding the 4th Annual NY Creates Craft Fair, and they may have just what you're looking for. Check it out today and tomorrow, and it will be back the 22nd and 23rd for the real last-minute shoppers.

Caution: Half the bathrooms at the Tribeca venue currently hosting Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s No Dice are designed for children; the tiny toilets and sinks hover inches above the floor and may give adult users a disorienting sense of vertigo. The actors’ dressing room, which opens directly onto the performance space, is marked with a laminated sign that declares: “No Adults Are Allowed in the Bouncy Castle!” The company inherited these elements from this...

FESTIVITIES: Forget about that big shiny show-off in Rockefeller Center. Tonight the menorah and Christmas tree in Washington Square Park will be illuminated for all. Come bask in the glow of holiday, people. 6pm // Washington Square Park [W 4th St to Waverly Pl between MacDougal and University] // Free FILM: In a week-long tribute to Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini (pictured), tonight The Film Society of Lincoln Center will be screening Notes for an...

The snowfall season started off with 1.4 inches of flakes accumulating in Central Park yesterday. That doesn't sound like much but it puts us more than halfway to the December average of 2.6 inches. Unlike in icy New Jersey, rain and increasing overnight temperatures took quick care of what snow did fall across the city. There are a lot of rings around the Great Lakes low pressure system on this morning's surface weather map. The...

A look at some noteworthy television this week: 2007 American Music Awards (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., WABC 7) Most awards shows are basically useless and awards shows where people vote on line are even more so. This year this awards show invented by Dick Clark in 1973 gets even more useless. Jimmy Kimmel hosts. Nature: The Beauty of Ugly (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., WNET 13; Wednesday, 8:00 p.m., WLIW 21) A look at some of the strangest...

Mother Nature is all treats and no tricks this Halloween. With southerly flow around a high pressure system centered to the east today's high temperature should be nearly ten degrees warmer than normal. The day should be mostly sunny but there may be a few clouds and ghouls this evening.

A look at some noteworthy television this week:

In the shadows of the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, residents of Greenpoint will soon be able to go on a nature walk. The Department of Environmental Protection, which operates the sewage plant, is officially opening the Newtown Creek Nature Walk this Saturday. The 800-foot nature walk along Newtown Creek, which took 9-years and $3.2 million to complete, is landscaped and features access points to the polluted creek.

Start sharpening your spurs, gays and gals, because Jake Gyllenhaal is coming to Broadway! If director Mike Nichols has his way, you’ll soon have your chance to stalk the sensitive heartthrob as he flees through the stage door of Farragut North, a new play about presidential campaign hardball penned by a former Howard Dean staffer. According to today’s Post, Gyllenhaal (who made his stage debut in a Maggie Gyllenhaal-directed production of Cats in their parents’ living room) is all-but-confirmed for the cast. But before that, Nichols will shepherd other boldface names to Broadway with a spring revival of Clifford Odets’s The Country Girl, about a washed up wino actor and his beleaguered wife. With Morgan Freeman and our personal favorite Frances McDormand rumored to play the couple, this has Compelling Theatrical Event written all over it.

A look at some noteworthy television this week:

Reader Spencer sent us these photographs of a red-tailed hawk who frequents a terrace outside his Brooklyn apartment. And if we could fly, we would too, because that's some sweet view. These photographs are particularly well-timed, as the NY Times' FYI column explained that there are many hawks all around the city, though Manhattanites Pale Male and Lola are the most famous.

Con Ed is laying the blame on Mame Mother Nature for the two power outages this past week. The utility issued a statement saying that the 48-minute blackout on Wednesday - the one that hit the Upper East Side and South Bronx - was caused by a "strong lightning strike." This is what the Con Ed statement said:

Information obtained from real-time lightning tracking data show that detection instruments measured a lightning strike of 34,000 amperes in the vicinity of a substation in Queens at 3:42 p.m. on Wednesday, precisely at the time of the power loss. The lightning strike momentarily affected communication equipment that prompted circuit breakers on multiple transmission feeders to open, causing the service interruption.

Wednesday power woes weren't just for parts of the Bronx and Manhattan: Over 4,000 (or 8,000, depending on what you read) Queens residents were without power when last night's storm made its presence known. In fact, two hours after the MTA said LIRR service was a-okay after the Bronx-Manhattan power outage, the rain screwed up Long Island Rail Road track signals, causing hours of delays after service was suspended. In this instance, we feel bad for the MTA: You can't count on Con Ed or Mother Nature.

The city's Health Department is investigating three hepatitis C infection in people who "received intravenous (IV) anesthesia from the same NYC-based anesthesiologist." Oh, dear. The incidents occurred in August of last year, and it seems like the anesthesia was given in an out-patient (not a hospital) facility. The DOH is contacting about 4,500 patients who received IV anesthesia between December 1, 2003 and May 1, 2007 at the 10 outpatient facilities the doctor worked in to recommend they get tested.

Much to our forecasting chagrin, clouds instead of sunshine have been the rule today. Luckily the clouds are breaking up a bit as tonight is one of Mother Nature's great astronomical spectacles. Yes, this evening is Williamsburghenge, the night when the sun's setting rays are parallel to the streets, well the numbered streets from North 3rd to North 15th, in Williamsburg.

A look at some noteworthy television this week:

FESTIVAL: The New York Ukulele Festival has arrived. The weekend includes: "nonstop Ukulele Fun! Concerts, Vendors, Workshops, Jams! 40,000 Square Feet, Two Concert Stages! FREE BEER ALL WEEKEND. FREE UKULELE DOOR PRIZES AT EVERY CONCERT!!”

Patrick Cullina is the VP of Horticulture and Facilities at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and New York's go-to guy for cherry trees (there are over 200 trees and 42 species at BBG alone!). Anita Jacobs is responsible for all of the programs that go along with the garden, speaking of which...