From the archives: What lurks beneath

New York Harbor holds some deep dark secrets. New York mag dug a bit deeper into them this week with an online feature detailing the bizarre, valuable, scary and ugly.

Check out the whole article here, and some highlights below...





3. A 10,500-Mile Gas Main
That groove on the riverbed is a pair of 24-inch gas mains, laid down in the fifties, that—believe it or not—constitute the business end of a network of pipes that runs all the way from the Gulf of Mexico. (Gas takes roughly a week to make the trip.) This pipeline and another at 134th Street supplied 367 billion cubic feet of gas last year—about half of what we used. Since 9/11, the points where it comes ashore have been patrolled daily.

14. A Piano and a Dead Giraffe
The Army Corps of Engineers, charged with the task of scooping up floating debris, once fished out a grand piano. Another time, they found the corpse of a giraffe that had fled a circus.

23. 1,600 Bars of Silver, Weighing 100 Pounds Apiece
In 1903, a barge in the Arthur Kill—the oily, mucky arm of the harbor between Staten Island and New Jersey—capsized, spilling its cargo of silver ingots. It carried 7,678 bars; about 6,000 were recovered soon after. The rest are still down there. At today’s prices, they’re worth about $26 million. Every now and then, someone tries to find them. So far, no luck.

Lightning Strikes!

A strong thunderstorm rolled through NYC last night and someone was able to capture the Empire State Building get struck by lightning three times.

Wide right!

Is it really him? When I was 7 years old, a man named Scott Norwood became the hero of downstate and the zero of upstate New York when, as the Bills kicker, he missed a 47 yard field goal wide to the right in the closing seconds of Super Bowl 25, preserving the victory for the New York Football Giants. Facebook's new homepage confuses the crap out of me, but my newsfeed did deliver this gem today. I wonder if it is him. I hope it is him.



That season for the Giants and Super Bowl 25 (XXV?) in particular is my earliest sports memory. Stephen Baker's TD grab and Mark Ingram's epic conversion on third down are etched in my memory. But what made that Super Bowl so awesome was the pure, unadulterated Americanism on display. Operation Desert Storm had just gotten underway, there were attack helicopters hovering around the stadium, everyone was waving American flags, the payers were all wearing yellow wrist bands in honor of the troops and Whitney Houston DOMINATED the national anthem. And then Scott Norwood won it for the Giants.

Trying to reason with hurricane season

New York City will host the first East Coast stop on professional surfing's ASP Tour during hurricane season 2011. The window for the event is September 4-15 and will be held in Long Beach. Intensive study went into determining when an event in NY should be held in order to maximize rippable swell. A 15 year study determined early September. According to Surfline.com Chief Forecaster, "the surf climate in Western Long Island is greatly affected by the underwater Hudson Canyon offshore, which can turn average surf into very high quality surf comparable to many of the best surf spots in the world on the right day. We are also in a La Nina year, so we expect the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season to be a little more active."

More details here. And here, a western LI secret...

Field Report: NYC garbage removal

It snowed a couple of feet in NYC on December 26. A week and a half later, the only mounds left are those of the garbage that has yet to be removed. So gross.

Nothing phases Lady Liberty

The Gothamist has an unreal collection of photographs from the surreal thunderstorm/tornado that tore through La Grand Ciudad last Thursday...

Fall Blitz

Let's be honest, the Giants are away this weekend so there is no football happening in New York on Sunday. The real matchup in The Empire State is going down 120 miles East of NYC. Every Fall, and apparently a little early this year, an intense phenomenon of nature occurs in the swirling and ripping currents off of Montauk Point called the Fall Blitz. Bluefish, Striped Bass and False Albacore school by the millions, dominating bait fish as predators and prey alike move South as winter approaches. Typically one can time the blitz with the opening of Peconic Bay Scallop season, which is the first Monday in October, although the pic above that I received today suggests things are off to an early start.

And in case that pic seems like too much of a fish story, check out video of the blitz from '08. The water literally explodes with fish and it doesn't seem too outlandish to believe one could walk from boat to shore on the backs of hungry blues, stripers and albies.

Best Tacos by State, NYC North

After extensive personal research, I present to you the best tacos in each state of the New York-New England region. Yes, that region. The results and data supporting them are infallible.

New York - The state's best taco is made in the world's greatest city (and will be even when NYC and LI secede from the rest of the debacle). Cabrito's fish taco (Carmine Street in the West Village) is the ciudad's numero uno.

Connecticut - Thousands of people drive past Connecticut's best taco everyday and hardly notice it, so I don't have a problem keeping the name of this tasty joint in my current hometown a secret. What you need to know to get there is simple, though: get off I95 by the Ikea in the Have, go to the black truck on the South side of the highway near the harbor, and order the El Pasero. Boom goes the dynamite.

Rhode Island - Um. They make good pizza at Al Fiorno's?

Massachusetts - Although few good things come from Mass, Anna's Taqueria gets it done. According to one source: "Anna's Taqueria is the best and everyone will agree. If they don't, then they are wrong." Truth.

Vermont - Not only is Tacos Tacos the best taco locale of that name (the T-squared on Nantucket, of different ownership, couldn't even win the battle for last in Mass), but this spot on Route 100 in Ludlow also features the best tacos in Vermont. And the best nachos. And the best burrito. This is pretty much a mandatory stop for me when in state.

New Hampshire - I discovered this place entirely by accident on a long, cold and dark February night in 2002 on an even longer, colder and darker drive back to Maine from a trip that included stops in Jay Peak, Middlebury and Montreal with TCD fans "Vinny" and "Dwayne." J O B S. Margarita Grille. NH Route 302. Smack dab in the middle of the Whites.

Maine - Trick question. Maine's taco is technically the lobster roll. Perhaps the most significant psychological question of any lifetime is: what would you choose if faced with the tragedy of only being able to eat either a fresh pesque taco or a Maine lobster roll for the rest of your life? Deep thoughts. Anyway, the location of the best lobster roll in Maine is a highly, highly contentious subject. Personally, I think I make a damn good one when in state. Although this constitutes as cheating, the best lobster rolls in Maine can be found at Town Landing Market in Falmouth and Fat Boys in Brunswick.

All COMMENTS to the contrary will be considered by the author to be completely erroneous.