The 22nd Deepavali Festival is scheduled for early October, 2009
Date: Sunday October 4. 2009
Venue: South Street Seaport, NYC. [Google Maps]
Time 12noon to 8 pm.
Check out video and images of earlier Diwali Melas : 2006, 2005
To Book Stall, Advertise and Other Support please click here.
Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty is slated to be the Grand Marshall at this year’s India Day Parade here in NYC. This will be the 29th year of this parade.
To be held on Sunday August 16, 2009, the parade starts at 12:00 pm at 41st street @ Madison Avenue and ends at 28th Street. There is a big “mela” at the end with stalls selling everything from newspaper subscriptions to food, music, clothes and what not !.
Be there. It should be a fun-filled day, especially if the weather is good.
Much of what is considered “New York” in a very “Greenwich Village” kind of way owes itself to one lady. Jane Jacobs, in her 1961 seminal book “ The Death and Life of Great American Cities” documented the urbanscape of her surrounding neighborhood in Greenwich Village. This book opened up the debate about how we perceived our cities and what urban planners, architects and designers need to consider in preserving and revitalizing neighborhoods.
Jane Jacobs passed away in 2006, however the preservation group GVSHP that she helped found continues her work and mission. They had initiated a proposal to change the name of the street outside her former home at 555 Hudson Street between W 11th and Perry to be renamed as “Jane Jacobs Way”.
The Architects Newspaper in a blog post announced today
In a released statement by the GVSHP, Executive Director Andrew Berman said, “Jane Jacobs had such a profound effect upon our city and our lives; there are few people more worthy of the honor of having a street co-named in their honor.” Approved in 2006 by the local Community Board and the full City Council, the naming will take effect early next week with the installation of the official “Jane Jacobs Way” signs.
Way to go, GVSHP. Am sure Jane Jacobs will be happy with this one !
Last September I wrote about the spurt of Halal carts all over New York city. "Chicken-over-rice” had somehow suddenly become the flavor of the city and these carts were all over the city. And all that for $5 cant be beat !
And in recent months a similar phenomenon is taking place. The halal carts have competition and it is from the Taco trucks.
Just around my office on 6th @ 20th are at least two taco trucks within sight of each other. Taco trucks have never been the common gastronomic presence they are in LA or other cities with larger percentage of Hispanic populations. Here in NYC you would find them in some of the outer boroughs, the most popular ones being the Red Hook Vendors trucks at the Red Hook Ball fields.
Am happy to report that lunch at both these trucks is a tasty affair. They have everything from tacos to tortas, huaracheas to quesedillas; and a good selection of Mexican sodas, juice drinks et al. All most stuff for 5$ or less.
These trucks and their clientele is not just a result of the ever-changing palettes of NYCers. I think the slowdown in economic climate has a large hand to play in this. Where else do you get a full meal for $5? And I am not counting fast food joints !
This has to be some of the best news in a long time for the neighborhood. As a car owner, it is one of the least favorite tasks of mine…..to switch the car around every other day.
The city plans to suspend Alternate Side Street Cleaning for a couple of months till they change all the boards and then street cleaning shall be once a week. Whew !
My sincere thanks to all those who campaigned to get this approved.
Read below fold for actual notice and area coverages.
Spotted the friendly neighborhood “rat” outside of the Chelsea Best Buy yesterday. And today too !
However no protestors outside with placards and slogans and stuff.
I have no love for Best Buy and therefore dont mind their new “fan” outside their store.
However what is really interesting with this inflated balloon is that it is a perfectly Mobile Dissenting Machine (MDM….patented yo !)
Sitting on a truck, it can be driven to the next dissent site in a jiffy. If you want one outside your (or rather your employers place) just dial 1800-MOBILErat.
OK, I just so made that up. Slow news day and weather suck, so….
The Emerging Exchanges: New Architectute of India conference was held last Thursday and Friday at the New School Campus here in NYC. Jointly hosted by the New School, India China Institute, and The Architecture League it brought together a great mix of practitioners from India.
Thursday’s first session was an introduction to the theme. Kazi Ashraf gave an overview of the current state of Indian architecture which was basically paraphrasing his article for the “Made In India” AD Issue of 2007. In showing a lot of proposals for projects he tried to cover ground about the typologies of emergent Indian architecture. However as Rahul Mehrotra pointed out later in the conference, most of them were just proposals and never ever left the drawing board. And sadly this would be a constant criticism of the conference over the next two days. More of that later in the article.
Some of the outstanding presentations were: Read More
Over the next two days I will be attending this conference at the Architectural League in New York City. 
It’s been a while since an architectural-themed conference on India has taken place here in NYC and it should be interesting to see the dialogue that it generates.
Hosted at the New School auditorium, the conference sold out a few days ago. Nevertheless there are tickets available for the keynote address at the end of Day 01.
Himanshu Burte, Prem Chandavarkar, Kenneth Frampton, Soumitro Ghosh and Nisha Mathew, Sudhir Jambhekar, Rajeev Kathpalia, Anupama Kundoo, Reinhold Martin, Gurjit Singh Matharoo, Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha, Rahul Mehrotra, Geeta Mehta, Vyjayanthi Rao, Samira Rathod, Margie Ruddick and Tom Zook, Michael Sorkin, Neerja Tiku, and Billie Tsien and Tod Williams
The conference looks to understand the growth and development of Indian architecture and cities overall in the time frame of an overall growth in Indian economy, and its standing in the global scenario.
However the choice of participants seems to be a bit peculiar. There are the usual high profile “suspects” and then others that are probably there because the US-based co-chairs had heard about them. And somehow my feeling is that it does not reflect the ground realities.
As much as he is reviled in the architectural community in India, I would have loved to see Hafeez Contractor present and talk about the conference. As my friend and landscape architect Runit Chhaya of Design Cell NYC puts it “Hafeez is today, probably the only architect in India who gets buildings sold, just on his name and fame “.
I will be covering the conference in detail. If you are going to be attending, give me a shout in the comments section.
My love affair with Banh mi is ever so strong. Notwithstanding some crazy incidents, I will go a long way to get a good Banh mi. And with that in mind, I was thrilled that finally the doors were thrown open at BAOGUETTE CAFE on St. Marks Place yesterday.
As Metromix NY puts it
The economy may be tanking but business seems to be booming for Michael Bao Hyunh, who expands his wallet-friendly Murray Hill Vietnamese banh mi shop Baoguette with a second location in munchies-friendly St. Marks Place. (He also opened BarBao on the Upper West Side last fall.) In addition to the usual suspects—i.e. baguettes stuffed with pulled pork, country-style pate, catfish or curry-braised corned beef—the new spot will feature seating for 24, plus a more eat-in friendly atmosphere (as opposed to the original joint’s counter-style takeout vibe). It’s also more grub, including a new menu section filled with snacks (lemongrass sausage, lamb belly) and rice dishes.
I was there yesterday, their first full day open for the public. Tried their classic Vietnamese sandwich, and it was awesome. The bread was perfectly toasty, not too dry, not too soggy. The pork and ham were deliciously flavored and the pickled veggies added the right zing. I got the spicy version, but would have loved some more spice.
All in all a fantastic addition to St. Marks Place and a place I will be visiting often.
Baoguette Cafe:
37 St. Marks Place New York, NY 10003
Tel; 212-380-1487
I was spending a slow afternoon at IKEA today. Had to pick up a few items and landed up at lunchtime to devour the favorite Swedish meatballs.
IKEA, Red Hook Brooklyn. Image Courtesy: The Brooklyn Papers
After lunch I venture into the store. Its fairly empty and I think the weather this weekend is to blame. Get some of the items I want and put them in the yellow IKEA bag along with my saturday copy of the NYT.
Once on the lower level transfer all of the stuff to a cart. I continue walking around the store slowly moving towards the checkout. The last stop I needed to make was at the shelving area, to pick up some shelves. Put my cart out of people’s way and get busy measuring different shelves to get the correct ones.
And then pick up the correct ones and turn back to the cart to put them in and go to checkout. And lo and behold ! There is no cart.
At first I check around to see if someone pushed it out of their way. But its nowhere to be found. Spot the IKEA personnel in charge of that area and she hasn’t moved my cart or seen it. She offers to call security and I take up that offer. Security shows up in 5 min and ask me a few questions etc. Luckily besides my NYT copy, I did not leave anything in the cart of personal value.
However by this time I was pretty pissed to go back thru the store to pick up what had now wandered away. Will go back another day for it.
However its really scary to think about how someone can either intentionally or unknowingly walk off with the cart. When we go shopping Shirrin seldom leaves her purse in the cart, and I always leave my bag. Perhaps this is a good and inexpensive lesson, and henceforth I will be wary of leaving personal stuff in the cart.
As for Cart Thief, damn you.
Parsi Khabar Metblogs Mumbai Urban Architecture India