Travel and technology at the New York City Travel Massive event

by Jessica Festa on

On Tuesday, November 8, 2011, New York City Travel Massive will hold their November event at Winston’s Champagne Bar at the Gansevoort Park Hotel. New York City Travel Massive is a Meetup group in Manhattan that aims to bring together travel bloggers, travel brands, and travel start-ups while having a drink and a fun night out.

From 6PM-8PM, Travel Massive has reserved the entire 2-floor venue. While all are welcome, an RSVP is required to secure your spot. Along with wine and beer specials all night long, there will be free drinks given to those who arrive nice and early, and will be served until the allotted free alcohol runs out.

Event located at 420 Park Avenue South. Click here for more information and to RSVP to the event.

Cubby is your New York City luggage storage and courier

by Meg Nesterov on

Many visitors to New York City come for the shopping. What to do with all those bargains and souvenirs when it’s time for dinner? You could stow them at your hotel or use a left luggage desk at a transportation center like Port Authority, but what if your day takes you different places?

Cubby is a new bag check and luggage storage service on Manhattan’s Park Avenue South and 23rd Street (perfect location for a post-shopping lunch at Shake Shack) that will not only watch your bag but also send them via bicycle courier to the destination of your choice. The shop is open daily from 8am to midnight and has an iPhone and Android app you can use to make a reservation and get a discount on storage. Cubby charges $5-8 for the first bag with lower rates for additional bags and $10 for courier service.

The current Gramercy location is a pop-up until October 31, but they are working on making it a permanent store and looking to expand to further downtown locations.

Hat tip to Jeanine Barone for the find. Photo courtesy Cubby.

Airport contraband featured in Lever House Art Exhibition

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Go to Manhattan‘s Lever House, and you may see that lighter – or hand grenade – that was taken from you a JFK airport. Through the end of the year, the free exhibition will consist of photographs taken by Taryn Simon of items seized from passengers and mail packages coming into the United States. She spent five days clicking away at more than 1,000 items.

The exhibition, called “Contraband,” includes everything you’d expect to find at JFK: Cuban cigars, pirated DVDs, bongs and hand grenades. Also, there were animal parts and heroin. You’ll have to decide for yourself what’s strangest, but here are MSNBC’s thoughts:

So what’s the strangest thing in Simon’s new “Contraband” show? Hard to say, but the horse sausage and cow manure tooth powder have to be up at the top of the list.

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[photo by 16 Miles of String via Flickr]

Swimming pools coming to Park Avenue in NYC

by Sean McLachlan on

Ever want to swim in a dumpster on Park Avenue? Now’s your chance.

Summers in New York City can be sweltering. “Hot town, summer in the city” and all that. So the New York city government has teamed up with Vamos Architects and Marco-Sea, producer of converted dumpsters, to offer swimming on one of the city’s grandest avenues. After the dumpster pools proved so popular in Brooklyn last year, they’ve made a comeback. Perhaps this is the start of a new tradition?

The pools will be open the first three Saturdays of August on Park Avenue between 40th and 41st St. Park Avenue will be closed to traffic, so you can swim in peace. The sponsors are reassuring the public that the dumpsters are clean, but having swum in enough public pools in New York, I can’t guarantee the water will be 100% urine free.

Photo courtesy Macro-Sea and Vamos Architects.