a yen for fancy fruit

$12.12 pineapple

Fruit is expensive in Japan.

$2.39 lime

We didn’t buy very much.

$36.37 strawberrys

$24.24 mango

$21.82 orange

The dollar is worth about 82yen.

$36.37 watermelon

Melons are used as corporate gifts.

$152.75 cantelope

Do the math.

$1.67 banana

just my 'magination

A few weeks ago I was cruising around Yankee Stadium on my bicycle and I saw this one-story convex building on the corner of 161st and Walton.

The terracotta frieze around the top reminded me of the lacework that graces the stadium, once part of the house that Ruth Built and now reinvented on the new one.

This photo, taken by me at the stadium about a year ago offers both the front and the back of that frieze.

So was the building up the hill an homage to the stadium? I decided to find out.

It’s a well documented building, dated 1928 and featured in Bronx architectural reports.

The original stadium opened in 1923, so this building could have been a reflection of the original. 

And the frieze is referenced in the reports, too, 

“Significant Architectural Features: Gothic Revival-style terra-cotta parapet at main (east/south) and west facades, featuring stylized tracery, zigzag banding, rope details, knob finials, and horse heads.”

Yep, I found the horse heads.

But nothing appears to indicate this terracotta ornamentation was intended to celebrate the frieze around the stadium.

My imagination, then. :-)

SoBro goes to Tokyo

I took a trip to Japan back on the 18th. It’s a long way but Nippon Airways flew me over in style.

The islands add up to 145,882 square miles, a bit smaller than California.

One hour out to JFK, two more waiting to board the plane, 14 in the air, an hour at Japan immigration/bag pickup and customs, then one more on the subway and another hour on a train to get to our well located Tokyo apartment. I rendezvoused there with my daughter Selina, who hopped down from Sapporo. 

I was tired. Long haul travel is not for sissies. 

what a cheap trick

1979

“I’m a fool again, I fell in love with you, again.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_(Cheap_Trick_song)

streetview

music I grew up with

from 1963,

And you thought you knew Donny Osmond, on the far right.

sobrosunset, 2.28.12

goose strikes out

New York airport officials intend to reduce the Canadian Geese population from a current level of 250,000 to a more manageable 85,000.

They will achieve this through a variety of means including hunting, birth control and capturing then gassing them according to methods approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association.

Do you remember when Captain “Sully” landed his plane in the Hudson River back in January 2009?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/nyregion/16crash.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=US%20Airways%20Flight%201549&st=cse

In that accident, Canadian geese hit both of the jet’s engines, causing a catastrophic failure that led to the splashdown.

According to the Department of Agriculture, there have been 78 Canada goose strikes over the last 10 years in New York, and those strikes have caused more than $2.2 million in aircraft damage. 

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/state-plans-to-eliminate-170000-canada-geese/

Now you know.

http://clocktowertenants.com/2010/08/less-than-half-mile-away.html

no really, k!ds

graphics16.com