Pygmania

Haven't read the full article, because I got stuck on a few nice parts at the beginning, but: http://nymag.com/guides/everything/spending-time-alone/ Notable include [emphasis mine]: Walking Alone I once brought the conversation at a dinner party to a halt by saying that if everyone I knew died tomorrow, I wouldn’t be undone, because I’d still have the streets of New York, where, sooner or later, almost every form of human expressiveness is on display and I am free to look it right in the face, or avert my eyes if I wish, let my jaw drop, offer it an ice cream, or call the cops—as the mood takes me. Here, alone in the street, I feel free as I do nowhere else , except perhaps at my desk. There is no one to bore, embarrass, or threaten me. No one to whom I owe attention or from whom I need attention. I am free to stop, dawdle, or move on as I will, respond or recede, observe or participate. If I we...

There's a good chance you saw this on Gothamist, but I wanted to put it here anyway for like Posterity 'n' Stuff, Inc. History of the New York City Subway system: an animated GIF starts with a blank subway map and draws each line in the sequence in which it was built. [source: very-appealing.com ]

What follows is an impressive catalog of departure sounds and next-station announcements of subway systems around the world.  Courtesy: mic-ro.com/metro/table.html © 2004-2015 metrobits.org Amsterdam An electronic "ding-dong" signal. There is also a "ding" and in a pre-recorded voice the next station name. At the terminus, the voice says "Endpunt". Ankara "Booop! Ding-dang" sound when the doors close. Athens There is a series of beeps that starts when the doors start closing and stops when they are closed. Then when a train reaches the next station there is a ding-dong and a station announcement in both Greek and English (English added for the 2004 Olympics). Lines 2 and 3: There is a continuous beep when the doors start closing until they are closed. Atlanta The MARTA subway in Atlanta has a 1 kHz beep going off four times on the newer trains, like: "boop-BOOP-BOOP-BOOP". The old trains have a loud "PONG". ...

reposting a nice little piece from last week's nyt magazine [ link ] with several parts that felt like inside jokes between us. should we feel robbed? Bitten to the Quick By ABIGAIL MEISEL SEPT. 19, 2014 In the spring of 2013, a family of pigeons nested in scaffolding outside my apartment building two blocks off St. Nicholas Avenue in Manhattan’s Washington Heights. From the window of my first-floor apartment, I heard the cheeping of baby birds and affectionately observed their downy forms and tiny black-tipped beaks: my very own slice of nature. But in May, when the squabs matured into fledglings and flew off, it seems that a horde of barely visible parasites that had been feeding off them — bird mites — needed a new blood supply. They launched an Old Testament-worthy invasion of the first-floor apartments. Relentless and nocturnal, the bugs robbed us all of sleep, raising painful red bites on my skin that were ringed with bruises. They appeared to prefer warm and damp l...