NYC Life Told Through Legos: Pics of the Day 2/3

Artist Christopher Niemann published these photos capturing life in New York City through an interesting medium-- Legos. Pretty cool stuff. My favorites are the Subway Series (of course) and taxis.

NY Times' Jill Freedman Retrospective

Before its 1990s revival, New York City was a concrete jungle, teeming with nefarious characters and activity. Perhaps no photographer captured its landscape better than Jill Freedman in the 1970s and early 80s.

In its Sunday edition, the New York Times ran a story and retrospective of the self-taught photog's best work. Here are some of my favorite images.

Jill Freedman's New York was a blemished and fallen apple strewn with piles of garbage. Prostitutes and bag ladies walked the streets, junkies staked out abandoned tenements, and children played in vacant lots.

Law & Order: CSTU (cats stuck in a tree unit)

For the first time since records were kept in 1963, New York City will have fewer than 500 murders in a single year. Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that all major felony crime dropped this year, and that it's down 26% since 2001. Read about the turn- around here, and FYI- in 1990 New York City had over 2000 murders.

Makes you wonder what the future holds for all those gritty New York TV crime dramas.

The Greatest Political Achievement Since Détente

I haven't lived in New York City since I was a small child, I'm a proud product of the suburbs. But I still spend a lot of time there, and like to think I know my way around pretty well. But every time I get out of the subway I feel like a hayseed who just fell off the back of a potato truck. Sense of direction, to put it mildly, just isn't my thing. So it never fails, off the subway I walk in the wrong direction almost every time. Once I get close enough to see the sign on the next street corner (which takes a while because my eyesight's terrible) I have to do the embarrassing, a cardinal sin in New York City: turn around and walk in the opposite direction.

Well, turns out, I'm not alone. The New York Times reports that city officials have arranged to place decals outside of popular stops to serve as compasses. 9th ave. is to the left, Madison is straight ahead, etc.

Awesome idea, but it's kind of like when Tic Tac came out flavors with to go along with Green Mint, White Mint and Orange-- what took so long?!