The New York City Traveler

Just in case you don’t yet have any plans for Halloween, get yourself down to the Village tomorrow for some festivities! Be prepared for some giant puppets in the procession. It all started in 1973 with a Greenwich Village mask maker and puppeteer organizing a parade beginning as a walk from house to house in his neighborhood for children and friends. Now the parade is the largest celebration of its kind in the world and has been selected by Festivals International as "The Best Event in the World" for October 31 drawing more than 50,000 costumed participants and an estimated 2 …read more

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Established in 2003 by artist Alex Grey and his wife Allyson, Chapel of Sacred Mirrors is a spiritual/hallucinogenic art gallery showcasing a series of 19 paintings and two etched mirrors examining the anatomy of body, mind and spirit in rich detail. Initiated in 1979, this series took ten years to complete depicting life-sized representations of the human body often using an x-ray perspective exposing the neurological system beneath our skin. Inspired by his entheogenically induced mystical experiences using LSD, the five years he spent at Harvard Medical School working in the Anatomy department preparing cadavers for dissection, and ten years …read more

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The Central Park Pumpkin Festival is sure to be the best way to spend Halloween if you find yourself here in the city on Saturday, October 25, 2008 from 3-8 p.m.. Designed to enchant all ages, events range from the Scarecrow Design Competition at Bethesda Fountain, The Spooktacular Haunted House with six rooms crammed with bone-chilling zombies, bloody monsters, and creepy gouls jumping out from the shadows. A 20-foot tall Jack O’ Lantern Tower filled with hundreds of jack-o-lanterns at the Bandshell area that will be lit at 5:30pm, just as the sun is setting.  The entertainment roster is packed …read more

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Billing themselves, "The Big Taste of Texas in a New York Minute", Texas Rotisserie and Grill serves up top quality BBQ fast food at fair prices. There is a great deal of debate surrounding what is the most authentic BBQ joint in NYC. There really isn’t an agreed upon destination, but one thing is for sure…this place delivers the comfort food using fresh and not overly fatty ingredients. Sure they are a local chain and closely approximate what Boston Market sells but this is where the similarities end. Their cornbread is really a corn muffin, not pasty in the least …read more

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Even before the financial meltdown hit the public eye via the bail out bill signed into law a few weeks ago, news of restaurants and bars offering "recession specials" filled the streets here in NYC. So flee Wall St. like so many investment bankers but instead of with cardboard box, bring your appetite! There are plenty of bars/eateries whose business is to inject a little mood elevating stimulus amidst the tumbling stock market. These are my favorite Brooklyn hideaways:
 
More information on PlanetEye: 68, Long Tan Restaurant, Footprints Cafe, Jamie Lynn’s Kitchen

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OK, you’re on Arthur Ave. in the Bronx, NYC’s largest Italian neighborhood. You know that the countless bakeries and restaurants along this thoroughfare are going to be authentic. After all, there are high expectations to cater to here but you might just need help deciding. Well, if you’re in the mood for pizza and have wood fired thin crust on your mind, I recommend Giovanni’s Brick Oven Pizza. At $3 for a huge Sicilian slice either loaded with peppers and eggplant or lean slices of sausage or mortadella, you can’t go wrong. Everything is fresh from the rich pomodoro sauce, …read more

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Think slavery only took place on cotton plantations in the Deep South?  Think again!  Slavery, introduced by the Dutch in the early 1600s, was alive and well in NYC. Africans were imported only as slaves, but some became half-free before New Amsterdam was captured by the British in 1664. By the Revolutionary war, there were about 10,000 Africans in New York.  The skeletal remains of more than 400 African people were uncovered in 1991 while excavating the site of a new federal office building in lower Manhattan at the corner of Duane and Elk Streets. From the 1690s through the …read more

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Does horseback riding in NYC merely conjure up images of mounties navigating the streets? Turn your quaint notions of enjoying the beauty of New York City’s parks via horseback into reality!  Starting at $30 per hour in most locations, you have several options:  In Bronx’s Pelham Bay Park, trot over to the Bronx Equestrian Center and take your steed on some long trail rides including a winding bridle path with beautiful vistas of marshland and woods.  Miles of trails wind through over 1000 acres in verdant Van Cortlandt Park’s Riverdale Equestrian Centre. Just take the 1 or 9 subway to …read more

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When you need a reasonably priced smooth cup of coffee, look no further than Oren’s Daily Roast. This place successfully combines the cup-a-joe convenience with coffee house quality and conscience. One thing you’ll notice upon walking in one of their shops is that pictures of farmers along with their bean crops prominently plaster the walls. You should know that these aren’t just feel good decorations. Rather than merely affixing the "Fair Trade" label to their coffee, founder Oren Bloostein has personally traveled to Central and South America and Africa selecting coffee farmers he wants to work with. He purchases directly …read more

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Wards Island Bridge, within view from atop Carl Shurz Park and the Gracie Mansion grounds, can be reached by taking a moderate stroll down the East River Esplanade along FDR Drive. Its bluish-green arched stateliness can’t be missed spanning the Harlem River complimenting vistas of the Triborough suspension bridge and Hellgate Bridge, whose abutments are firmly planted on the island’s eastern shores. Open to pedestrians only, this vertical-lift steel bridge was built in 1951 connecting the Upper East Side to the park’s stadium, psychiatric hospitals, and ball fields. First built in 1807 with private funds as a wooden drawbridge leading …read more

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