ThrillRide! Special Features

The third week of July, I went back to New York City to see some old friends, hang out, and enjoy some of what I still consider a second home. I have a lot of problems with this town, starting with the rental market, which was bugnuts-crazy when I left in 2006 and has gotten even worse. (The average monthly for a new Manhattan one-bedroom apartment, in a walk-up, is north of $2,500 YOU HAVE GOT TO BE JOKING.) The first morning I was there, I went out to get some oranges and bananas, a cup of coffee – nine dollars and change. And Times Square? I grew up with the Times Square of "Midnight Cowboy" and I miss that Times Square, god help me.

Still, most of what I love about New York survives and all of that was in full bloom while I was there. It was magical. The Big Apple, she's a gal I can't quit. Not for good.

Rather than go on and on, relating every single detail of every hour of every day, which is what I want to do, I'll share only select memories, in four parts. (Doesn't mean you won't end up in a drooling stupor before I'm done, but I'll do my best to keep it lively and sort of relevant to this site's general subject matter.)

Also, this first batch of photos is in some sort of Gershwin-inspired grainy sepia, just because. (And all can be enlarged by clicking upon them.)

There are only two kinds of people: 1) those who have already committed their souls to the devil for a Shake Shack burger, and 2) those who are going to. SO GOOD. Why are these not in theme parks yet? WHY?!

If I'd had a solid month to do nothing but visit all the museums I wanted to, that still would not have been enough time. But we did get to the Gugg (who cares what's inside; that building!) and MoMA (we just went through some of the design collection, which was totally awesome, predictably).

At the Doris C. Freedman Plaza, Central Park's southeast corner, there's a space dedicated to temporary sculpture installations and showing now through August 26 is Paola Pivi's "How I Roll."

It's a twin-engine plane supported at its wing tips that does 360-degree rotations. Good art or bad, I'll leave that to the experts. I think it's cool.

How many cities do things like this? Not too terribly many.