vip in the city

Garden in Transit

I’ve been spotting these flower-decaled cabs all around town this month – part of temporary, mobile public art project “Garden in Transit,” which celebrates the 100th anniversary of New York’s first motorized taxicab. 23,000 children and adults, drawn mostly from the city’s public schools, hospitals and youth programs, participated in the Portraits of Hope creative therapy program. The massive project of painting the flowers on adhesive weatherproof panels to be applied to the hoods, roofs and trunks of an estimated 13,000 of the city’s yellow cabs began last September; negotiations with city officials for the deployment began six years earlier. Owners volunteer their cabs for the project; individuals can sponsor cabs for $500 apiece, which includes a signed certificate with the cab’s medallion number.

I always enjoy public art in unexpected places: whales in Cape Cod, cows in Boston, apples in New York City. These colorful blooms will remain on the streets through December 2007, long after their real life counterparts brown and wither away for the season.

A tale of two NoLItas

On the way to dinner this evening, I passed through the largest and most famous of the New York City street festivals: the Feast of San Gennaro. For eleven days in September, this sprawling, chaotic celebration — now in its 80th year — takes over Mulberry Street from Chinatown/Little Italy to SoHo.

Just two blocks east of the festival was an entirely different scene, as even the permeating scent of sausage grease seemed to fade from the air.

MB made our reservations for dinner at — where else? — our favorite temple of Australasian cuisine, Public. She and LW were already waiting at the bar when I arrived, and within minutes, our party was shown to a table on the open patio/loading dock. As these autumn days grow shorter and cooler, we won’t have many more opportunities to dine al fresco this year.

My pan-seared Tasmania sea trout was served on a tangy and refreshing bed of fennel, green apple and pistachio, to which MB contributed a robust, screw-capped red from her wine mailbox. Later, a quick perusal of the dessert menu and our choice was clear: the Hokey-Pokey, for which MB may be single-handedly responsible for bringing back to the restaurant’s offerings. Not the dance, mind you, but the ice cream from New Zealand (where, incidentally, that same dance is known as the “Hokey Cokey.“) Here at Public, the ice cream (a malted vanilla laden with crunchy bits of caramel toffee) is served with mango sauce and a ginger snap. Delicious.

Visiting neighbors

On a tip from SC, I took a walk over to Fulton Street for the Downtown Visiting Neighbors Festival, taking place in the financial district this Friday afternoon.

Who are these “visiting neighbors”? Italian sausage purveyors? Chinese masseuses? French crêpe-makers?

A block from the festival, I ran into DD who just then was returning to his office from lunch. Funny to think how it’s been almost a decade since I first met his sister, and though it’s been several years since she left New York — another defector! — I still cross paths with DD around town with startling regularity. It is primarily through these happy, random meetings that we’re all still able to maintain tenuous tabs on each other’s lives.

This city is the biggest small town in the world.