Madison Avenue Baptist Church Sign About "Politicians and Diapers"

This is this week's sign outside the Madison Avenue Baptist Church in midtown Manhattan. Not your average Baptist church, MABC is a  American Baptist congregation that is inclusive of all people. It is located at 30 East 31st Street with the main entrance at Madison Avenue. The nation is in its fifth day of a federal shutdown that sent thousands of non-essential New York-based federal employees home and shuttered National Park facilities, including the Statue of Liberty. Federal lawmakers were unable to reach an agreement on how to keep the United States properly financed by the midnight deadline, prompting most federal agencies to halt all non-essential functions, send 800,000 workers nationwide home on furloughs, and require millions more to work without pay, the New York Times reported.

Caliente Cab Company in Greenwich Village

Caliente Cab Company has become one of the best recognized dining, drinking and entertainment destination in Greenwich Village. This Mexican Cafe and Tequila bar opened in 1984. Caliente Cab Co. features generous portions of fresh, premium, Tex-Mex and traditional Mexican food accompanied by over sized drinks and frozen concoctions which over flow with taste with an added Mexican kick. Caliente offers a wide variety of foods from all regions of Mexico from Tapas to Entrees such as Sizzling Fajitas, Taquitos, Enchiladas de Mole, Ceviche, Burritos Gordos, Quesadillas, and more…Unlike many other restaurants serving Mexican food, Caliente prepares all of its menu items from scratch. Food preparation is all done under the direction of Executive Chef Alfredo Vicuna, a native of Puebla, Mexico. Caliente is located at 61 7th Avenue S in Greenwich Village.

The "Ship of Tolerance" New York by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov on the Brooklyn Waterfront

Ship of Tolerance is a conceptual art installation which aims to educate and connect youth of different continents, cultures and identities through the language of art. The ship's sails are stitched together from paintings by hundreds of schoolchildren from different ethnic and social backgrounds to convey a message of tolerance and hope. Originally modeled after an ancient Egyptian sailing vessel, the Ship is constructed with a wood frame and measures approximately 66-feet long by 23-feet wide. The ship is now on view on the Brooklyn waterfront, docked on the East River between Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge until October 8th. It was part of this year's DUMBO Arts Festival last weekend.

Under the direction of Russian artists, Emilia and Ilya Kabakov and project director, Yulia Dultsina, the Studio in a School art instructors led workshops for hundreds of students, ages 5 through 13, in public schools throughout the five boroughs of New York City. 150 student paintings were sewn together to create the sail for The Ship of Tolerance. 

“Children understand tolerance amazingly well. They are mostly unspoiled by the prejudice often carried by the adults. If we listen to them, perhaps, we can alleviate some of the oppression we witness everyday,” commented Emilia and Ilya Kabakov.

A Celebration of Mexican Independence

Last September 15 was a day of revelry for Mexicans in the city, proud of celebrating their independence. More than 200,000 people gathered on Madison Avenue to watch participants in their colorful, traditional costumes from 38th to 27th street for the annual parade.

Red Stoop

Central Park Studios at Lex Guest House, a hostel in East Harlem has bright red stoops. The word stoop was originally brought to New York by settlers from the Netherlands, meaning "a small porch." According to Mario Maffi, "stoops served many different functions: projected outward into the great theater of the street, these elevated platforms were ideal for observation, courting, a chat, or gossip... The first builders in the city brought with them their customs of erecting buildings that were elevated (as protection against the havoc wreaked by North Sea floods) and flush to the street (to make up for the lack of space in a canal-dominated city like Amsterdam). The early village of New York thus assumed an identity that, three centuries later, it still retains --- and charmingly so along certain streets and in certain neighborhoods." According to Gothamist, another reason for the existence of stoops is the amount of horse manure in the streets in the 1930s.

“In vacant lots, horse manure was piled as high as sixty feet. It lined city streets like banks of snow. In the summer time, it stank to the heavens; when the rains came, a soupy stream of horse manure flooded the crosswalks and seeped into people’s basements. Today, when you admire old New York brownstones and their elegant stoops, rising from street level to the second-storey parlour, keep in mind that this was a design necessity, allowing a homeowner to rise above the sea of horse manure." The New Yorker.

Square Diner in Tribeca

The Square Diner in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan has been described by the New York Magazine as a "a den of mid-century, blue-collar charm in the midst of 21st-century Tribeca." Its exterior, like a train car or a World’s Fair ride, has an undeniable retro charm. The Square Diner is actually triangular. The menu is standard diner fare. The ATM outside is there for people who didn’t realize that the diner doesn’t take credit cards. The diner is located at 33 Leonard Street between Hudson and Varick Streets.