I Still Love NY

I Still Love NY Hurrican Sandy Relief T-Shirt by Sebastian Erraziuriz. 100% of the profit goes to Hurricane Sandy relief programs.

(via Zach)

New York’s Newest Neighborhood

This illustration of New York’s newest neighborhood, SoPo, by Jake Levine made me chuckle. And then, my heart sinks at the thought that so many of my fellow New Yorker neighbors are still without power.

UPDATE: You can buy a SoPo T-Shirt for Sandy Relief

Designer’s Debate Club

The Designer’s Debate Club is going at it this Thursday, at General Assembly debating whether web designers must learn to code or not. Important question and awesome idea, going debate style. Get your tickets. Only 4 left.

The Invisible Dog

The wonderfully charming Lucien Zayan runs The Invisible Dog Art Center in Brooklyn. He has turned what used to be an old building filled with junk into a cultural center. A few years ago, Lucien was visiting from France, fell in love with the building, saw the potential and got to work.

He has since filled the Invisible Dog with so much passion and love for the arts that I happily call him the King of Bergen Street. It’s people like him that add so much to a neighborhood and to a community.

Lucien hosts art exhibits, a theatre, artist studios and a space you can rent for events. We have hosted a CreativeMornings there in the past and in just a few weeks Brooklyn Beta will have their third conference at The Invisible Dog.

As you can tell, I am quite fond of the institution and Lucien. He is a man with a heart of gold. He deserves all the support in the world. Join me in backing The Invisible Dog on Kickstarter?

(Oh, and I am honored to be part of his Kickstarter video, of course!)

NYC’s Skyline

The evolution of NYC’s skyline, 1876-2013. #impressive

Street Charge

Street Charge, a solar powered USB charger by my friends over at PENSA!, has been installed in DUMBO’s Pearl Street Triangle. Not only does it charge your phone and tablet, but it also provides some much needed shade. With free WiFi, picnic tables, and food vendors already in the area, Street Charge makes the Triangle the perfect place to enjoy the outdoors. Take a break and come charge up! #IheartDUMBO

ReLIT NY

I was tweeting earlier about two boxes of books in our coworking space that are hoping to find a new home. Most of them brandnew. Ivete Tecedor pointed me to ReLIT NY, a free reading program that collects your old, unwanted books and recycles them back to the public.

Brook Drop Sites include Whole Foods at Union Square, and Columbus & 97th Street and The Invisible Dog, on 51 Bergen Street in Brooklyn! YAY!

ReLIT NY
is completely volunteer run and therefore gets two swissmiss thumbs up!

Street Seats



Bade Stageberg Cox collected 50 abandoned chairs on the streets of New York, repaired them and gave them a new life with a coat of taxi cab yellow paint. The bottom of each chair is stamped and documented with the date and location it was recovered. Lovely. Street Seats.

New York City guidebook from 1916

“The first characteristic of New York, which impresses the stranger from abroad, and in a less degree from other American cities, is its atmosphere of breathless hast, its pervading sense of life keyed to an abnormal tension.”

“One direct consequence of this unending hurry, which the visitor is quick to feel, is a certain brusqueness and lack of civility as compared with other cities. Not that the great, motley, democratic middle class is deliberately rude to strangers; it simply lacks the time for the little courtesies of life, and grudges two words where one can be made to answer.”

Excerpts from a New York City guidebook from 1916.

(via Kottke)

The disappearing Face of New York

I just rediscovered the wonderful photographs of James and Karla Murray’s book The Disappearing Face of New York over on the Retronaut.

Where Books Are Loved

Strand is New York City’s legendary home of 18 Miles of new, used and rare books. Since 1927.

If you’re in NYC you might want to know that Strand is hosting an event with Christoph Niemann and Francoise Mouly tomorrow.

Brooklyn: 41 Reasons Why

This beautifully analog Brooklyn guide offers 41 reasons to visit including Bamonte’s, a family-run, fourth generation Italian restaurant; the Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop; The City Reliquary, an idiosyncratic museum of New York; the thrills and spills of Coney Island; and pelmeni in Brighton Beach. And that’s just five of them.

Get it here.

Brooklyn Robot Foundry

Brooklyn Robot Foundry is a group of educators and technologists dedicated to helping Brooklyn children optimize their hands-on, technology-based learning experience. In other words: They’ll teach your kids how to build a robot. It doesn’t get much cooler than that.

(thank you Josh)

The Inverted Bike Shop

(via Coudal)

Made In Brooklyn

Made In Brooklyn from Brooklyn Bridge Ventures on Vimeo.

Made in Brooklyn is a short film supporting, documenting and inspiring entrepreneurial talent in Brooklyn.

(via BKLYNHAUS)

A Cabin, in Brooklyn

Hey New Yorkers, need a place to go for a staycation? A Cabin in a Loft in Brooklyn is a two-bedroom loft in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The cabin is available for short-term rental as an alternative to hotels and hostels to those seeking a more local experience of New York.

Made me smile.

(thank you The Design Ark)

Lucky Ant

Brand new Lucky Ant is the Kickstarter for your community. Instead of funding short films and art projects, you help support improvements to your favorite neighborhood hot spots. Whether it’s sponsoring an outdoor patio for the cafe around the corner or even helping a local high school build a student-run restaurant, this is your chance to help build the community of your dreams.

Two thumbs up for this idea. Hoping they’ll add my Brooklyn neighborhood soon! Luckyant.com

(via TBD)

Sh*t New Yorkers Say

(via Kottke)

Emergency NY Tech Meetup

The New York Tech Meetup is organizing a protest of the PROTECT IP Act (the Senate version of SOPA, the Internet censorship bill) outside of the offices of New York senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. That’s 12:30 PM on Wednesday, January 18th at 780 Third Avenue (at 49th St.) in NYC. Here’s more info.

Wikipedia entries for PROTECT IP Act and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Also interesting, Boing Boing will go dark on January 18th to fight SOPA.

Dr.Brendan | The iphone Doc

In september of 2010 I discovered iPhone Doc Dr.Brendan. After a quick email exchange and a description of my ‘patient’ we met up in a hotel lobby in Manhattan. 20 minutes later my iphone looked like new. Impressed by his story I wrote a post about him, which apparently sent a lot of new customers his way. Yay! Well deserved!

I luckily didn’t need Dr.Brendan’s services since, until 2 weeks ago, when my husband dropped his new iPhone 4s in water. Outch! I emailed Dr.Brendan and an hour later, Tony, one of his employees was in our living-room, trying to ‘revive Siri’. But there was no heartbeat! He took “Siri” with him and a few days later, we got a call with good news: Siri was alive and kicking! YAY!

During the short visit at our apartment, I learned that Dr.Brendan since has moved his business out of his living-room and opened two stores. And not only that, he has a whole army employees and they now also fix Macs. I was thrilled to hear that as my 2.5 year old iMac at work was giving me a hard time. Tony, a Dr.Brendan employee, came to promptly pick it up the next day and conveniently brought it back a few days later, fixed. Pick-up and drop-off? Yes, please!

Dr.Brendan and his team not only fix iPhones but now also repair pretty much any Apple device, do data recovery, help you set up your network and much more.

I can’t praise Brendan and his team enough. Go check out his site. And if you live either in the East Village or Park Slope, drop by their shop. And no worries, if you don’t live in NYC, you can ship your patient to Dr.Brendan.

Yay for this wonderful entrepreneurial story.

Girl Walk // All Day Premiere

Do you live in NYC? Yes? Do yourself a favor and cancel any plans you might have on the evening of december 8th. Why? Girl Walk // All Day is premiering at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple. If you see one movie this year, this should be the one. It’s a love letter to NYC and will get you dancing. Trust me. Here’s what the NYTimes had to say about it.

more info.
rsvp here.

#mademedance

Brooklyn Brainery

Brooklyn Brainery offers community-driven classes on anything and everything. Anyone can teach–you just need a passion for the topic and a desire to share it with others. Here are some of their current classes that made me look: Cutting Hair, Design for non designers, Foreign Alphabets and Beginning Calligraphy.

Love that they are right down the street from my house. The concept of learning by people in my community makes me so happy. Somebody warn my kids, I just signed up for the Cutting Hair class.

(thank you Cameron)

Goings On

GOINGS ON is a free mobile app guide to New York City culture from the staff of The New Yorker. Available for Apple and Android mobile devices. More here.

Iconathon

Now here’s an idea that made me look: The Iconathon is an initiative to collaboratively design new civic symbols for the public domain.

In August & September 2011, several cities across the US will participate in a series of design charrettes — day-long collaborative workshops — called “Iconathons”. Through facilitated design sessions, event participants will generate icons and symbols that visually convey concepts frequently needed in civic design.

Iconathon events will include design workshops and networking opportunities for local designers, urban planners, city staffers and developers who are passionate about civic design. Participants will sketch ideas and concepts during the events, and refine them from their home or design studios while continuing the collaboration process through social media.

The NYC event is on September 10th, from 11am -4pm at the School of Visual Arts new space in the Flatiron District. Register here. Boston is happening tomorrow.

More info: www.iconathon.org

(thank you Josh)