A Trip Into The Tunnel For The 2nd Ave Subway

Benjamim Kabak over at Second Avenue Sagas got a special tour yesterday of the launch box and tunnels for the Second Avenue Subway. He has a great series of photos up on his site showing the deep cavern, nearly 60 feet under the avenue, as well as a peek inside the tunnel (seen above).

The west tunnel is now complete from 96th to 65th street and they just started boring the east tunnel.  Service on the line is still about 5 years away but this is a cool look at things to come.  Yes, Virginia, there will be a Second Avenue subway....here's the tunnel to prove it.

A Mile-High Skyscraper Planned For Saudi Arabia

It's only been about a year since the Burj Khalifa topped out as the tallest building in the world.  Now the Saudi's are ready to one up their bankrupt neighbors.  They announced today that a mile-high skyscraper has been given the greenlight for downtown Jeddah.  It's a city whose name sounds like something from STAR WARS and the building itself certainly looks like something George Lucas might have dreamed up. But actually, the notion of a mile-high skyscraper dates back to the 1950s.

Frank Lloyd Wright designed a building called The Illinois that would have been the first to hit the mile-high mark.  His tower looked like something from Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS and would have housed about 100,000 people, 20,000 more than the building the Saudi's are planning.  (Strangely enough, the design of the Burj was reportedly inspired by his Illnois sketches.)  But Wright's building was considered unfeasible because the majority of it's slim interior would have been taken up by elevators.

He would be happy to see that someone is pressing forward with his somewhat whimisical notion. Though I'm sure he'd rather it be happening somewhere in the United States. Of course, the cost of such buildings is prohibitive for commercial developers wanting to make money. The Saudis tower is estimated to cost over 30 billion US dollars.  The new World Trade Center building, by comparison, is considered outrageously expensive at 3 billion dollars...and that building will top out at a mere 1776 feet.

Tickets On Sale Today For WTC VIEW's Off-Bway Premiere

Tickets are on sale today for the return of WTC VIEW to the stage!  The show will open on May 19th at 59E59 Theaters as part of their 5th Annual Americas Festival.  This is a grouping of 7 plays that are original works by new American playwrights...like me! :)

WTC VIEW will be running from May 19-June 5 for a total of 16 performances. Tickets at $18 each and are available through 59E59's website.  You can also purchase seats at TicketCenter.  For more details on the show, please check out our Facebook page and LIKE it as well.  And, of course, we are still in the midst of our big fundraising drive for the show.

We have only 17 days left to raise about 20K....the key to crowd-sourcing is that everyone gives a little instead of a few fat cats giving a lot.  This is a non-profit production at a non-profit theatre and this is the only way we can make this show happen...other than winning the lottery. So please donate if you can and help us bring this show to audiences here in New York this spring.

Some Random Late 80's Nostalgia Courtesy Of Lita Ford

A friend from Brooklyn emailed me today with a line explaining his Saturday night; "I went to a bar and got in a fight, I didn't get laid, uh-huh, it ain't no big thing."  The song he is paraphrasing is Lita Ford's kickass late 80's rocker, "Kiss Me Deadly".  Suddenly the song was in my head on a loop so I had to look up the YouTube video.  OMG--I had forgotten what a crazy ass video this was!  Lita, who got her start shredding for The Runaways, basically makes love to her electric guitar on the floor of an industrial factory wearing some skintight spandex and hair that is blown out so much it looks like a tribal headdress.  Here's the clip below if you want to relieve your days of big hair and 80's dancing.

Florida's Newest Senator Is Kinda Cute

I had never heard about Senator Marco Rubio (R) and maybe neither have you.  He is only 39 years old and was elected in a surprise 3-way race for an open Senate seat in Florida.  He aligned himself with the Tea Party ideas without actually identifying himself as a card-carrying member.  (That means he's smart!) And since taking office less than 3 months ago, he has been keeping a very low profile....taking cues from the experience of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in their Senate terms.

However, suddenly Sen. Rubio is everywhere as he takes on Congress over his main issue; spending.  He appeared on the front page today of the NY TIMES in an article about his increasingly visibility as a promoter of fiscal responsibility and cuts as debate on the hill over the budget heats up. After some TV appearances and op-eds this week, there is some talk he may be angling for a VP slot in 2012. Though I cast my vote for him in the Kinda Cute column, he would be running as a Republican.  Since I haven't voted Republican since....well....ever, that rules that out.

Star Wars Episode IV Done Entirely In ASCII

I was at the Apple Store in Soho yesterday to fix a problem with my wifi. One of the cute geeks at the Genius Bar helped me out and, to test my connection to the internet, clicked on a site he uses as a test.  The site has a streaming version of STAR WARS: EPISODE 4 made entirely in ASCII.  Apparently, some computer nerd with some serious time on his hands started this whole thing in 1997 and now they've done a complete version of the film.  It was finished in April 2008.

I love going to the Apple Store because, not only do they always fix my problem promptly and efficiently, but I also learn something new...and sometimes a little bizarre too.  Thank you, geniuses!

Nick Pitera Is A One-Man Disney Movie

Singer Nick Pitera has been burning up YouTube over the last year with his one-man duets of classic Mencken/Ashman Disney songs, singing both the male and female roles.  It certainly helps that he is not only cute but actually looks a bit like a Disney character himself with features that are all just slightly exaggerated, from his big eyes to his big hair.

In his latest video, he creates something of an epic; a Disney medley in which he plays/sings not just two roles but six.  It's a little lengthy but still fun to watch as he acts all the roles out in a cartoony way.  It also makes me wonder how many takes he did to get this just right. If you're wondering what this amateur singing sensation do for a living, he works at Pixar Animation Studios.  Really!

Bronx Zoo Cobra Still Missing But Now Tweeting

There has been a great deal in the press lately about the missing cobra at the Bronx Zoo.  It slithered out of it's cage last Friday and is now hiding somewhere inside the zoo's large reptile house.  Zoo officials seem certain there is no way the venomous asp, native of Egypt, has escaped into the wild (aka New York City).  However, yesterday afternoon, an account appeared on Twitter called "BronxZoosCobra" which seems to indicate otherwise. In less than 24 hours, he's racked up 30,000 followers on Twitter, helped along by the fact that "Bronx Zoo" and "cobra" were the top searches on Google yesterday.

From the asps' first tweet thanking the animals of "Madagascar" for their inspiration, this snake-on-the-lam has proved to have a sly sense of humor.  In other tweets, he asks if anyone knows where Rebecca Black lives and marvels at the Temple of Dendur on a trip to the Met.  I think my favorite was the tweet where he gave away his actual location:  "You can find me right in front of Original Ray's Pizza".  LOL--one thing is clear....this snake is definitely a New Yorker.

A Stella Screaming Contest in New Orleans

The 25th Annual Tennessee Williams Festival wrapped up in New Orleans over the weekend.  It's an annual event that brings together scholars, fans and theater folk for discussion and some presentations of the famed playwrights' work.  One of the more interesting events was a "Stella!" shouting contest where some guys yelled at a balcony on Jackson Square, recreating the classic scene from A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE.  God knows what Williams would have thought of all the screaming...but he certainly would have been interested some of these attractive young men.  If he were alive, Tennessee Williams would turn 100 this week.

The 100th Anniversary of The Triangle Factory Fire

Today marks the 100th anniversary of a factory fire here in Greenwich Village which killed 146 garment workers.  Though the fire was not intentional, it resonated historically in some of the ways 9/11 does today in how strongly the event affected the history of the 20th century.  It spurred massive changes in workspace regulation and building codes as well as the organization of labor unions across the country.

The remarkable thing to me, as a Village resident, is that the building where this tragedy took place still stands today.  In fact, it is part of NYU's campus and students now learn about biology and chemistry on the 9th floor where so many perished a century ago today. There is a remarkable amount of coverage in the NY TIMES today, but one piece I found most interesting was about the Asch Building and it's current use.