Branding
No longer content with acronyms or surnames, companies now hire brand consultants to name their children. The best and the worst of new-age monikers, including those easily pronounced as ass-enter.
Clay Risen
Hart Island
New York City is a collection of islands, and one, Hart Island, is completely inaccessible, possibly because it's reserved for the dead. A report on the home of potter's field and an abandoned missile base.
Crooks and Longarms
Barring Times Square, nighttime New York is awash in a warm glow. Who do we thank for this? Why, our streetlamps! Investigating the rich history of light in the city.
The Illustrierter Bacillus
While looking through his parents' attic our writer finds the May 14, 1942, issue of the Nazi party propaganda paper Illustrierter Beobachter. Nobody has any idea how it got there. A look between the pages.
Joseph Zoettl's Grotto
The American South has many strange places to visit, though most towns don't have their own Hanging Gardens of Babylon, complete with plastic elephants.
New York's Real Skyscrapers
The proposed designs for downtown Manhattan are roundly disappointing, particularly for their lack of imagination. How about some tulip poplars?
Prison on the Park
Central Park is a lot of things: the pastoral center of New York City, a relaxing stroll on a Saturday afternoon, a patch of grass lined with horse manure. It's also home to a minimum-security prison.
The Nights of Malta
It's an acquired taste. It's a strange delicacy. It's a "non-alcoholic cereal beverage."
Looking for LeRoy
New York's fashionably-lit are always looking for the next hot thing in plastic glasses. With the days of Dave Eggers now frozen, and Franzen quickly fading, could writer J.T. LeRoy be it?
New York Stub Scene
If you happen to leave early from a show at the Philharmonic, be prepared to be asked for your ticket. No, not by an usher, but by a young would-be concert goer who'll either take your seat or talk trash behind your back.