Anyway, no matter how tired I am, I have a ritual I follow and it usually leaves me feeling like new. Regardless of whether I arrive home in New York or in Barcelona my ritual is about the same. I check email, I handle anything work-related that has come up while I’ve been out-of-pocket. Then, I put on shorts, a T-shirt and shoes and I go for a run. I can do that any time of year in Barcelona. I admit my ritual has failed or been substituted for the gym in New York a time or two due to weather conditions.

I just got back from my Barcelona run and it was great! This is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and June is one of its better months. I run uphill to Montjüic Park and around the back of the Olympic Stadium and the Palau Sant Jordi Arena (where I used to work), and then back down and home. That route is only about 4 miles but half of it is uphill so it’s still a pretty good workout.

I’ve always loved to run and have been doing it pretty regularly since my early teenage years. With age my knees hurt if I do it too many days in a row and the last few years I’ve been gaining weight so it’s not as easy as it used to be. But, like in the song “Heavy Fuel” by Dire Straights; when my ugly big car won’t climb this hill I’ll write a suicide note on a hundred dollar bill.

Anyway, one of the best parts of living in two cities is no matter which direction I’m heading I always get to arrive to the comforts of home. That’s a really great feeling.

I suppose they’re used to that.

Immediately after the December 7, 1942 bombing of Pearl Harbor Edward Hopper began painting Nighthawks, one of the most recognizable paintings in American art. After this event there was a widespread feeling of gloominess across the country, a feeling that is portrayed in the painting. The urban street is empty outside the diner, and inside none of the three patrons is apparently looking or talking to the others; all are lost in their own thoughts. Two are a couple, while the third is a man sitting alone, with his back to the viewer. The couple’s noses resemble beaks, perhaps a reference to the title. The diner’s sole attendant, looking up from his work, appears to be peering out the window past the customers. His age is indeterminate.

Every morning on my way to the gym, about 100 yards out my front door, I walk past the empty lot where Phillies once stood on the corner of 7th Avenue and Greenwich Avenue here in Manhattan and I think of Hopper’s painting. The site is now called Mulry Square. Not many people know this. Even people who live in the neighborhood are often unaware of the infamy of the corner – which in recent times has become famous again for the “Tiles For America”.

Wikipedia says:

“Currently owned by the NYC Metropolitan Transit Authority, Mulry Square is a triangular parking lot at the southwest corner of Greenwich Avenue and Seventh Avenue South which was formerly the site of a wedge-shaped diner that was the inspiration for Edward Hopper’s famous painting Nighthawks. The diner’s tiling can still be seen on the one remaining wall. The parking lot’s fencing supports Tiles for America, a September 11 memorial consisting of some 6,000 tiles created across the country.”

Close-up of Tiles for America

Speaking of “hey look at me!” posts… early last year I thought I wanted to do a series of video podcasts that featured (rather, sort of compared and contrasted) Barcelona and New York. I go back and forth quite a bit so I thought I could get plenty of fresh footage on an ongoing basis and I was having all these ideas about how the two cities could be juxtaposed.

I was going to do the whole series in Catalan (so, obviously not directed at an English speaking audience). In the end, I just couldn’t get it together to make more than the first installment so I never posted it. I just had too much on my plate and I wasn’t getting any strong indicators that there would be a lot of interest. For what it’s worth, here it is.

For you non-Catalan speakers, what I’m pointing out in the video is that New York is beautiful and imposing as seen from above or from a distance but when you get down into the city it’s a bit gritty, industrial and it could use a makeover. Barcelona in contrast, isn’t so pretty as seen from above but when you get down into the city it’s one of the most beautiful cities in the world with great infrastructure and manicured public spaces. I make a few other comparisons and contrasts as well. You get the point.

I don’t foresee making any more of these.

A principis de l’any passat vaig voler fer una sèrie de vídeos curts que comparaven i contrastaven Barcelona i Nova York. Ja que vaig i vinc sovint, pensava que sempre tindria suficient metratge i no deixava de tenir idees de com relacionar les dues ciutats.

Entre una cosa i l’altra només vaig fer el primer episodi. Vaig començar a tenir massa feina i no detectava que hi hauria prou interès com per justificar la continuació. De totes formes, aquí tenim el vídeo que sí que vaig acabar. No crec que en faci més però si us agrada passeu-lo. A veure que us sembla.

Salut!

I was just reading in today’s New York Times about Spain’s growing and worse than expected jobless rate. I spend about a third of my time in Spain and the strange thing is that the bad economy isn’t nearly as noticeable in day to day life as it is where I spend the rest of my time here in New York City.

While real estate prices in Barcelona have really taken a hit and people are losing jobs in the construction and tourism sectors, people seem to be making it work. Of course, as you can read in this article, the government is getting stretched pretty thin as they try to hold the social net in place. The system may break before recovery can start to pick up the slack. Additionally, being tied to the Euro, Spain does not have the ability to print its own currency like we can in the US to stimulate growth. And the rest of Europe, although struggling, is doing a lot better than Spain is right now. So, Spain’s economy is likely going to take longer to recover and European policies aren’t going to cater very much to only one of its member countries. In short, Spain is going to have to sort out much of its own mess.

As you know, in the US we don’t have the same kind of social net. We rely a lot more on charitable organizations and volunteer-ism to take care of our needy. But that seems a lot less dependable than a government-backed program to insure people don’t fall through the cracks.

Today, we volunteered in one of Manhattan’s largest soup kitchens. One of the most surprising aspects was how many people who came through looked just like you and me. Sure, there was a fair amount of homeless-looking people. I didn’t see any families but I did see plenty of people I could pass on the street or see in a subway car and never think they might be needy. I got the impression that there are a lot of people with a white-knuckled fear grip on keeping their lives together.

Soup Kitchen

“Every year, the city has been getting hungrier. The New York City Coalition Against Hunger estimates that 1.3 million New Yorkers can’t afford to buy enough food for themselves and their families all the time. That works out to about one person of every six in the city.“

That is an amazing statistic to me and it generates all sorts of thoughts about volunteer-ism vs. government help. That’s a topic for another day. For now, here’s to 2010 being a year of recovery across the board!

Most of the time I lose perspective on what would be interesting to someone who doesn’t live here. Things I used to find curious now don’t even get my attention. This snowman however, would have gotten my attention anywhere. It was just especially out of place on the 2nd Avenue sidewalk near 30th Street.

Snowman on 2nd Avenue - Christmas 2009

It’s not really their faces that are drawing attention at any rate. It’s their combat boots!!

First though, this from wikipedia:

The High Line is a 1.45-mile (2.33 km) section of the former elevated freight railroad of the West Side Line, along the lower west side of Manhattan, which has been redesigned and planted as a greenway. The High Line runs from the former 34th Street freightyard, near the Javits Convention Center, through the neighborhood of Chelsea to Gansevoort Street in the Meat Packing District of the West Village. The High Line was built in the early 1930s by the New York Central Railroad to eliminate the fatal accidents that occurred along the street-level right-of-way and to offer direct warehouse-to-freight car service that reduced pilferage for the Bell Laboratories Building (now the Westbeth Artists Community) and the Nabisco plant (now Chelsea Market), which were served from protected sidings within the structures. It was in active use until 1980.

In the 1990s, it became known to a few urban explorers and local residents for the tough, drought-tolerant wild grasses, forbs and trees that had sprung up in the gravel along the abandoned railway. By 1999 broadened community support of public redevelopment for the High Line for pedestrian use grew, and funding was allocated in 2004. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was an important supporter. The southernmost section reopened as a city park on June 8, 2009.[1] The middle section is still being refurbished, while the northernmost section’s future remains uncertain, access disputed between the City of New York and the MTA.