An Exclusive Look At The View From America’s Tallest Hotel Building

by Jessica Marati on

Last year, Marriott International made waves with the announcement that its latest New York City property would be the tallest stand-alone hotel building in Manhattan. But now, about 17 months into construction, it has become clear that the new Nobutaka Ashihara-designed skyscraper will not just be the city’s tallest hotel, but the tallest stand-alone hotel building in the entire United States.

The new property, located at 1717 Broadway and 54th Street, consists of 68 stories extending nearly 753 feet into the midtown Manhattan skyline. It will house the new Courtyard by Marriott-Central Park on floors six through 32 and the new Residence Inn by Marriott-Central Park on floors 36 through 64. Earlier this week, we were able to get a sneak peek at the construction of the new property, including the jaw-dropping, 360-degree view from the top.

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At elevations that high, the city is quite literally at your feet. To the west, you can see straight across the Hudson River to New Jersey. To the south, you have the heart of midtown Manhattan, including a clear view of Times Square, and to the east, you can look down at iconic structures like Carnegie Hall and the Hearst Tower. Northbound, you can see the whole of Central Park spread straight up through the tip of Manhattan. It’s a sight that will take your breath away (if your breath wasn’t already suffering from the high altitude).On the bottom chunk of the building, the Courtyard will contain 378 rooms, each providing the brand’s trademark “refreshing business” environment to help guests stay connected, productive and balanced. Up top, the 261 Residence Inn suites will provide comfort to guests on longer stays, offering full kitchens and home-style comforts. The 34th floor will house a shared fitness center, while common spaces, restaurants and retail space will take up the five-floor “pillar” of the building.

The building owners, Granite Broadway Development, and building contractor, CNY Builders, will celebrate the completion of the skyscraper’s structure this morning with a commemorative topping out ceremony, followed by the hauling of the final bucket of concrete to the top floor. From here, contractors will work on building out the interior of the hotel to Marriott specifications. An opening is slated for the end of 2013.

How To Eat A Fertilized Duck Egg

by David Farley on

The first time I ate a fertilized duck egg was at a Vietnamese restaurant in New York City three years ago. I was headed to Vietnam in a few months and knew I’d be writing about something food related, so I spent the run-up to the trip eating as much Vietnamese food as I could. When I saw balut, as fertilized duck eggs are often referred to, on the menu, I knew I had to try it. But as if the chef expected no one to order balut, my dining companion and I were informed they were out of it. “You want us to go get some,” the server said, daring us. We called their bluff and soon enough someone from the restaurant was making a fertilized duck egg run to Chinatown. A few minutes later, the eggs were presented to my dining companion and I.


They weren’t good. They weren’t bad, either. If you closed your eyes and didn’t look at the little dead baby partially formed fetus duck pinched between your chopsticks you’d just think you were eating something very egg-y. My dining companion went for seconds but I think he was just showing off at this point.

I thought I’d sworn off eating duck fetuses but a few months later, there I was in Saigon, doing a story on Vietnamese-born New York chef and prolific restaurateur Michael ‘Bao’ Huynh for a New York Times travel article. The mission seemed easy enough: just go where he goes and eat what he eats. The rub, though, was that he was eating congealed pigs blood, rats, snakes and, of course, those fermented duck eggs.
I looked around and watched happy families inserting the aborted partially formed duckling carcasses into their mouths. I figured out there was a five-step system to eating balut:

1) Crack the top of the egg with a spoon.

2) Sip the broth from the hole in the top of the egg.
3) Enlarge the opening to bite off the boiled, cooked yoke.
4) Pull out the partially formed duck and eat it. Yum.
5) Go into the bathroom and vomit.

I’ll admit balut wasn’t my favorite – even rat was better – but one has to do such things in the name of journalism. Right? You don’t, of course, have to go all the way to Asia to eat balut. That Vietnamese restaurant on New York’s Lower East Side where I first ate a duck fetus is long gone. But there’s a new place proudly serving balut in New York City. The Filipino restaurant in the East Village called Maharlika. Or you can just stop by the very first balut eating contest on Saturday August 25 at 3 p.m., taking place at the Dekalb Market in Brooklyn, where 10 brave eaters will try to eat as many fertilized duck eggs in five minutes. It’ll be five minutes of unborn-duck-eating glory!

Nicole Ponseca, owner of Maharlika and sponsor of the eating contest, said, “Our goal is to push Filipino food forward. We’re the third largest minority in the US behind Mexicans and Chinese. But no one knows our food.” She added, “Some people ask why we’re putting balut on the menu. It might turn people off. But we have to be proud of our food. And I want it to cross over.”

Anyone want to meet me for some balut?

10 Offbeat Fringe Festivals From Around North America

by Jessica Festa on

An array of fringe festivals are happening around North America, bringing together the most out-of-the-ordinary artists from around the world. From dancers, to acrobats, to buskers to unusual performance artists, these fringers will show that they are not only talented, but were born to perform. Want to see a show in the near future? Check out these 10 great fringe festivals to check out before the end of 2012.

Edmonton International Fringe Festival
Edmonton, Alberta

Advertised as “Canada’s largest and longest-running Fringe Festival,” the Edmonton International Fringe Festival features many bizarre events that will take place in Edmonton’s historic arts district, Old Strathcona. Themed “The Village of the Fringed,” spectators will see 1,600 performances of 220 uncensored productions. In fact, the festival refuses to restrain performances, which are chosen using an unbiased lottery system. Some acts to look forward to include:

  • “The Kif-Kif Sisters,” featuring twins who twist and intermingle themselves, make bananas appear, enter giant balloons and juggle umbrellas.
  • “Dr. Fondoozle’s Fantastic Show Of Awesome,” which features bizarre feats like whip mastery, contortion, contact juggling and poi spinning.
  • “The Lol Brothers Show,” which takes you on a tour of rock ‘n’ roll through risky circus acts and humor.

If you’re bringing children, KIDOPOLIS is safe and free for junior Fringers 12 and under, as well as their caregivers.

This year’s Edmonton International Fringe Festival will take place from August 16 to 26, 2012. Click here for more details. IndyFringe
Indianapolis, Indiana

Taking place in the Massachusetts Avenue Cultural District, IndyFringe provides opportunities for audiences to partake in the Indianapolis arts community. This wacky and wild festival allows emerging artists to display an eclectic mix of performances. From dancers, to story tellers, to visual art groups, this fringe festival is sure to entertain all festival goers. Some performances to look forward to include:

  • “Do Re Mi Fa So Latino,” which features President Rodriguez, the first openly non-American citizen President, and Mexican Harriet Tubman, smuggling hard working Hispanics out of Arizona to the less oppressive north.
  • “Iris and Rose – Wild and Thorny,” a show which features a pub singing duo belting out dirty tunes.
  • “Donating Sperm to My Sister’s Wife,” a performance about a man’s lesbian sister and her wife, and how he helps them get pregnant.

This year’s IndyFringe will take place from August 17 to 26. Click here for more details.

Boulder International Fringe Festival
Boulder, Colorado

The Boulder Fringe is actually a tax-exempt organization with goals to revitalize the community, help artists inspire each other and support local businesses by hiring administrators, technical crew and artists. This year’s Boulder International Fringe Festival will feature jaw dropping performances from over 300 artists. Some of the shows include:

  • “What To Do About Delusion,” where Andy Pratt will attempt to tame four personalities using juggle therapy, an experimental psychoanalysis technique for narcissists.
  • “Tobo’s Magic & Marvel Show,” which weaves magic, stories and history into an astonishing and inspiring experience.
  • “Flying Shoes,” where dancers use choreography to explore their relationships to each other, gravity and architecture.

Along with viewing artistic expression, attendees can enjoy the Fringe Encore Brunch, free Fringe Beer Garden, educational panels and presentations, west African song and dance classes, performance workshops, an interactive flea market and more.

This year’s Boulder International Fringe Festival will take place from August 15 to September 26. Click here for more details.

Chicago Fringe Festival
Chicago, Illinois

Taking place in the Pilsen neighborhood, the Chicago Fringe Festival features 50 unique performance groups like actors, dancers, impersonators, puppeteers and scientist-comedians. Some acts to look forward to include:

  • “55 Minutes of Sex, Drugs and Audience Participation,” a sketch-comedy performance where the audience is asked to suggest awkward topics and actors create emotionally honest stories of the pleasures of forbidden love, wretched excess, reckless living and making a good confession.
  • “Bruiser: Tales From a Traumatized Tomboy,” a true story of how a misplaced tomboy blossoms into an even more awkward adult.
  • “Konetic Concoction,” a bizarre yet thought provoking dance show where you’ll see acts like a ballerina dancing on pointe in a straight jacket and a dancer performing in a 24-foot long skirt.

This year’s Chicago Fringe Festival will take place from August 30 to September 9. Click here for more details.

New York International Fringe Festival
New York, NY

Pushing the limits with new ideas and new perspectives, the New York International Fringe Festival features innovative performances by over 200 companies from around the world all over downtown Manhattan. The festival boasts being the “largest multi-arts festival in North America,” with 1,200 unique performances from musicals to dances to rock ‘n’ roll Shakespeare. Some of this year’s performances to look forward to include:

  • “#MormonChief,” where Connor, an unassuming Mormon, becomes the center of media attention when he tweets inflammatory statements inspired by a Mormon presidential candidate.
  • “5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche,” a sketch comedy piece taking place in 1956 where communists threaten the Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of the Gertrude Stein during their annual Quiche breakfast.
  • “Magic Trick,” a burlesque-style love story.

This year’s New York International Fringe Festival will take place from August 10 to August 26. Click here for more details.

Atlantic Fringe Festival
Halifax, Nova Scotia

The Atlantic Fringe Festival has an “anything-goes” attitude. Displaying a wide variety of original plays, shows, and presentations, the Atlantic Fringe is the definition of an artist-driven festival. This entirely volunteer run event is filled with musicals, dramas, comedies, dances and belly dancers. Moreover, these fringers will prove to audiences they were born performers in over 250 performances and 40 different shows. The website will be up sometime this week with the performance schedule.

This year’s Atlantic Fringe Festival will take place from August 30 to September 9. Click here for more details.

Vancouver Fringe Festival
Vancouver, British Columbia

As British Columbia’s largest theater festival, the Vancouver Fringe Festival brings in more than 30,000 attendees for over 750 performances by 97 groups. Audiences will see an eclectic mix of uncensored theatrical performances by artists who break traditional boundaries. Additionally, the artists receive 100% of regular box office revenues generated during the festival. Some shows to get excited for include:

  • “Say Wha?! Readings Of Deliciously Rotten Writing,” where some of the worst writing in print will be made fun of by performers.
  • “One Human Race,” a live music show based on traditional Igbo roots rhythms, evoking the spirit of highlife and Afrobeat with a splash of funk, jazz, blues, and reggae.
  • “Does This Turn You On?,” a lighthearted look at sexual fetishes in the modern imagination.

Along with watching unusual performance art, you’ll get the opportunity to partake in improv, puppetry and other performance workshops. Don’t have a date? Make use of the festival’s escort service, where a knowledgeable representative will not only help you choose a show, but will also go along with you.

This year’s Vancouver Fringe Festival will take place from September 6 to 16. Click here for more details.

Seattle Fringe Festival
Seattle, Washington

After almost a decade, the Seattle Fringe Festival is returning to Capitol Hill. The event will feature a variety of genres, and will showcase everything from raw, untested acts to perfectly executed performances. Moreover, all performers are chosen by a non-adjudicated lottery. Some acts to look forward to include:

  • “First Born,” where life and death comes down to a game of rock, paper, scissors.
  • “Chop,” which focuses on a man who is isolated from the world around him, until he meets a mysterious tattooed woman who brings him to an underground amputation fetish group.
  • “The Ukrainian Dentist’s Daughter,” a show about a woman who relives her life while being stood up at the alter.

This year’s Seattle Fringe Festival will take place from September 19 to 23. Click here for more details.

San Francisco Fringe Festival
San Francisco, California

The San Francisco Fringe Festival is an open-minded event where performers will showcase an array of talents. With 40 different shows and over 200 acts, attendees will have the opportunity to watch a slew of creative, daring and fun productions. The event is in its 21st year, and is offering some interesting acts like:

  • “Aerial Allusions,” a fusion of multiple performance styles such as acrobatic dance, clown and theater that come together to bring chaos, humor and control to the stage.
  • “Antipodes,” a mix of tightly synced video projection, acting and live music that tells the story of an American man and a Chinese woman who find stable selves by being deconstructed.
  • “Jesus, Do You Like Me? Please Mark Yes or No,” a complicated love story featuring murder, religion and “answers to all existential crisis.”

This year’s San Francisco Fringe Festival will take place from September 5 to 16. Click here for more details.

New Orleans Fringe Festival
New Orleans, Louisiana

As a city known for embracing artists, it’s no wonder this show is a display of wild, weird, fearless and original theater. The New Orleans Fringe Festival features artists such as buskers, puppeteers, dramatists, improv folks, skit-makers and hula-hoopers, who will take the stage at the crazy circus tent known as the Fringe Free-For-All. Because the official schedule isn’t out yet, you still have time to apply to be a performer if you think you have some original performance art to show the world.

This year’s New Orleans Fringe Festival will take place from November 14 to 18. Click here for more details.

Killing The Pig: The Annoying Foodie Obsession With Pork

by David Farley on
I’m tired of pork. There, I said it. Pork belly, bacon, pulled pork, pork shoulder, pork terrines, charcuterie, head cheese, roasted suckling pig, porchetta, pancetta. I’m ready for this macho eating craze for all things piggy to finally go away.

I’m a very pork-patient sort of guy. Homer Simpson said it best in expressing his empuzzlement when his daughter Lisa became a vegetarian, asking what she could and couldn’t eat:

Homer: “What about bacon?”
Lisa: “No!”
Home: “Ham?”
Lisa: “No!”
Homer: “Pork chops?
Lisa: “No! Dad those all come from the same animal!”
Homer: “Yeah right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical, animal.”

Homer is right. But it’s time take an electrical prod to the head of this porcine passion. The straw that broke the pig’s back for me was when I noticed last week a restaurant down the street from my apartment in New York’s West Village opened up called Swine. It’s not all pork on the menu but it reads like a farce – a caricature unto itself – of 2012 menu trends, right down to the name of the restaurant itself.

As a nation increasingly obsessed with food our fetishization of pork is holding us back, arresting the development of our palates. Where’s the beef? Let’s go back to boring chicken for a while. What ever happened to tofu?

Oh, there are other food trends I’m tired of, too. See: deviled eggs, Brussels sprouts, bone marrow, beets, anything fried in duck fat, short ribs. I’m even tired of foie gras. And don’t get me started on the insanity that foodies exhibit every spring at the first (or second or third) sighting of ramps at a farmers market or on the menu of a restaurant (it usually goes something like this, “RAMPS! OMG, RAMPS!” and can be found on the social media of your choice.


Food trends ebb and flow – that’s why they’re trends, after all. Tapas was all the rage in New York and other American cities in the last decade, crossing the edible Spanish threshold into cuisines that have no history of serving food on small plates; the most comical I saw was something called “Australian tapas.” But this one, this proclivity for American-ish comfort food, is sticking around like bad leftovers left in the fridge during a long vacation. And it’s starting to reek. We’re in a recession, which means, like the big baby foodies that we are, we need to be comforted and held, spooned by porkliscious byproducts until the euphoric porcine food coma we put ourselves in takes us away.

For the record, I do think the “trend,” or “movement” might be a better word, of sourcing the provenance of our food is a good one. And I hope it sticks around. But do we need the economy to vastly improve before we change our eating habits? I just want this nation of eaters to graduate from what has become the poster animal of the relatively recent obsession with food. Is that so much to ask? In the meantime, I’m going to walk down to Swine to see if it’s still open.

Why Chicago Beats New York

by Dave Seminara on

Years ago, when I told a group of colleagues in New York that I was moving to Chicago, the reaction ranged from bemusement to outrage.

“Chicago?” one began, tentatively, as if they’d heard of the place but couldn’t quite place it. “Why would you want to live there?”

Another co-worker was more blunt.

“Chicago’s a dump,” he said. “You’ll be back in New York in a year.”

Like many New Yorkers who consider their city the capital of the world, he’d never actually been to Chicago, or anywhere else in “Fly Over Country.” My career ended up taking me away from Chicago after two stints totaling five years, but I never went back to New York, except for brief visits, and I never regretting moving to The Second City. How could I? I met the woman I would marry on my very first day in town.New Yorkers are always crowing that they live in the greatest city in the world. It is undoubtedly a singular place; perhaps the only can’t miss city in America for tourists alongside San Francisco. But I find all of the “We’re #1” bravado tiresome. There are a few things I like better in New York than Chicago – weather, weekend travel opportunities, pizza and bagels – but I’d much rather live in Chicago than New York for all of the following reasons.

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Less Attitude

Chicago attracts young people from all over the Midwest, so although it’s a big city, there’s a friendly, middle-of-America vibe. New Yorkers tend to be friendly towards tourists but rather hard on each other. When I lived in New York, I found that native New Yorkers were often friendlier than transplants.

I have a couple friends who are Staten Island natives, and I’ll never forget how newly minted Manhattan residents from other parts of the country would mock them as “Bridge and Tunnel” people. For me, the locals with the accents who live in the Outer Boroughs are the real New Yorkers, not all the transplants who live in Manhattan and look down upon everyone else as soon as they get a 212 area code.

More Affordable

According to Bankrate.com’s cost of living comparison, New York Metro’s cost of living is about 95% higher than Chicago’s. In the Windy City, you can buy a fairly nice three-bedroom home in a nice, close-in suburb with good public schools for about $450,000; whereas that same amount of money barely buys a small condo in a sketchy neighborhood in New York.

In New York, I lived in a neighborhood called Bay Ridge, a long subway ride from Manhattan near the Verrazano Bridge in Brooklyn, because I couldn’t afford to live closer to my office in Manhattan. But when I moved to Chicago, I felt like there were only a couple of neighborhoods that were completely off limits due to price.

Chicago is also cheaper to visit. I was in town last week for a visit and got a room at the Hyatt at Michigan Avenue and Wacker for $55 on Priceline. No chance you’ll get a nice room in NYC for that price.

Lake Michigan

There are more bike paths in New York now than when I lived there but there’s still nothing quite like Chicago’s killer lakefront, which has an 18-mile-long bike path and several very nice sandy beaches, including one just steps away from downtown.

Better Smells

Thanks to the Bloomer Chocolate Company, the sweet smell of chocolate permeates the West Loop neighborhood but New York has more foul smells than good ones. If you Google “New York smells” or “What does New York smell like” the most common results involve urine.

You Can’t Get Lost in Chicago

If you give me the east/west coordinates of any address in the city of Chicago, I’ll immediately know where it is, thanks to the city’s street coordinates system. Midtown and Uptown Manhattan are straightforward but the rest of the city’s a mess and God help you if you need to find something in Queens.

Billy Crystal and Yoko Ono Have no Apparent Connections to Chicago

Chicago has a few obnoxious celebs, but New York has scores of them. Donald Trump. Rush Limbaugh. The Jersey Shore kids. (some of whom are from NY rather than NJ) The list goes on and on.

Vintage Street Signs

Chicago has more vintage street signs than any city in the country and these old beauties are emblematic of the way the city preserves its past, rather than bulldozing it.

The Green Mill and B.L.U.E.S. on Halsted

New York also has its share of small, atmospheric jazz and blues music venues, but there’s nowhere I’d rather hear live jazz and have a stiff cocktail than the century old Green Mill in Uptown, and if I could hear blues in just one place in the world, it would be B.L.U.E.S. on Halsted, which features authentic live bluesmen and women 365 nights per year.

Conclusion

It’s silly to claim that one city is definitively better or worse than any other city. One man’s paradise is another man’s prison. But for me, Chicago’s the most livable big city in the country. It’s a place where it’s easy to meet people, easy to fit in, no matter who you are, and hard to leave.

There are harsh, long winters that stretch into hot, humid summers, legendary traffic tie-ups, and miles of boredom outside the city limits in every direction. But there’s something about Chicago – the neighborhoods, the architecture, the people, the vibe – that has hooked me in a way New York never did. It’s a huge city that still manages to be a well-kept secret.

[Photos by Dave Seminara, TheeErin, Spiterman, Cliff 1066, Nimatardji Photography, mdanys and Michael Clesle on Flickr]