vip in the city

Trinity Church blooms

I missed this year’s Sakura Matsuri (Cherry Blossom Festival) at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden when the 200+ cherry trees along Cherry Walk, and in the Cherry Cultivars Area and Japanese Garden explode in clusters of magnificent pink and white. But here’s a link to the lovely timelapse video of the 2008 blooming season, created by the BBG’s web manager Dave Allen from over 3,000 digital photos — one taken every three minutes from April 18 to April 26, 2008. Set to original music by Jon Solo.

Hanami — Hana = flower, mi = see — is the cherished Japanese cultural tradition of viewing cherry blossoms, a festive time when family and friends gather beneath the full-blooming trees to celebrate the beauty of spring. Check out other Garden visitor photos on the BBG Hanami Flickr pool.

Manhattan has its blooms, too, which though not as abundant, are still beautiful. On warm spring days like today, the financial district drones emerge from out under the fluorescent lights to steal a few moments in the sun among the weathered headstones in the Trinity Church graveyard.

Flickr preview: my photos from Bay Ridge’s 17th of May Parade on um… the 18th of May. Gothamist approved!

Tags: cemetery, cherry blossoms, Financial District, flowers, Sakura, Spring, Trinity Church

Snow day

The first major snowstorm of the season hit New York City today, forcing the cancellation of over 1,100 flights, including that of our friends SC and JG. (Weekend in Boca!) By 2PM, 5.6 inches of snow had accumulated in Central Park, the city’s biggest snowfall in two years; until that Friday, just 5.7 inches in total had fallen all winter, due in large part to the snowless stretch in January.

The Parks Department held a “Snow Day,” providing free sleds and Urban Park Ranger-led nature walks at selected park locations across the city. Almost 2,000 people participated in the event, in which 1,700 free cups of hot chocolate were served.

As adults, we don’t get many snow days. I put on my Doc Martens boots and trudged into the office.

Later that night, I met CS at the Laugh Lounge on Essex for the “L.E.S. is Indulgence” party, organized by The Lower East Side Business Improvement District. The organization, established in 1992, is dedicated to revitalizing Orchard Street’s historic shopping district.

No hot chocolate here; the beverages were of a decidedly more adult nature. Event sponsor, Zygo, promotes their signature liquor as “caffeine-spiked vodka.” Hmm, sounds familiar. More precisely, though, Zygo’s active ingredients are Yerba Maté (South American holly, used for tea), Guarana (South American berry, containing a substance chemically similar to caffeine), D-Ribose (naturally occurring sugar that is a component of RNA) and Tuarine (amino acid, best known as the stuff that gives Red Bull its wings.) If you’re looking for more flavor than kick, there are plenty of places around the city that offer infused vodka. Spirited hot chocolate, anyone?

We toured the tables set up by participants from the neighborhood: handmade truffles and caramelized butter toffee samples from Roni-Sue Chocolates, slick polish from Valley Nails, makeovers by MakeUpMania, and um, tips from Babeland…

Candy and vodka do not a meal make, so off we went in search of more substantial fare. Near hour waits at ‘inoteca and Schiller’s Liquor Bar just wouldn’t do. Luckily, there was Essex — at the top of our minds since SC’s birthday brunch — where we enjoyed a comforting repast of mac n’ cheese and potato latkes… just the thing for a snowy day.

Tags: Essex, Financial District, LES, snow, Trinity Church

Dixieland downtown

Inside Trinity Church for one of their “Concerts at One,” part of the church’s Concerts-to-Go outreach program, now in its 40th season. This afternoon’s concert featured Doreen’s New Orleans Jazz, a Dixieland jazz trio made up of Doreen Ketchens on clarinet, her husband Lawrence Henry Ketchens II on tuba, and drummer Walter Harris.

Doreen has been dubbed by the press as “The Queen of Jazz,” “The Female Louis Armstrong,” “Queen Clarinet,” and “Miss Satchmo.” Their toe-tapping renditions of “Sweet Georgia Brown” (best recognized as the Harlem Globetrotters’ theme) and “Basin Street Blues” illustrate why.

Prior to Hurricane Katrina, the Ketchens used to perform in New Orleans near Jackson Square; they evacuated the city with their young daughter before the hurricane hit, losing virtually everything except for their musical instruments and a few possessions.

In between performances for American presidents (according to the group’s website, they’ve played before four of them), and their work spreading the culture and traditional music of New Orleans throughout the world, they still make it back for impromptu concerts on the streets of the French Quarter.

In 2006, the Ketchens participated in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s first ever South African cultural exchange program with the Field Band Foundation, an organization sponsored by The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to produce performances and events to increase awareness of the importance of HIV prevention.

Tags: Concerts at One, Financial District, jazz, Trinity Church