Arctic Air

It’s snowing again in New York this morning, as another Nor’easter hits the city … It’s the sixth winter storm of the season. Now, I know the scenario depicted in The Day After Tomorrow (2010) was an exaggeration: The question is: by how much?...

Don’t Worry, Be Happy?

SIGNS OF THE TIMES New Yorkers are unhappy, it seems. In an article from today’s New York Times entitled “New York Ranks Last in Happiness Rating,” Clyde Haberman reports on an article published last week Science magazine by two economists, Andrew J....

Conflicting Signals (with Goth)

SIGNS OF THE TIMESTaken at 21st and 2nd Avenue at about 8:30 a.m., January 5.I’ve been encountering these ambivalent traffic signals rather too often lately in the Union Square / Gramercy Park area. Should we see in it an allegory of the times? A sign of the...

In Case of Bankruptcy

SIGNS OF THE TIMES Taken today on the southwest corner of 14th Street and Second Avenue. In case you can’t make it out, the sticker on the garbage can reads: “In case of bankruptcy: please help yourself.” The can across the street was not similarly...