Word: canals
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Hanging here are images of Coney Island before weeds turned it seedy, a Canal Street parade of Chinatown butchers holding slaughtered pigs, old men in tweed caps playing bocce in Corona, runners rejoicing past the marathon’s finish line and an ‘I love NY’ plastic bag in an orange wire-mesh garbage can. Here, too, are family snapshots: babies in Brooklyn, Central Park picnickers, mother and son trick-or-treaters, weddings, birthdays and the like...
...After passing banana plantations and coconut groves, we turned into a canal called Klong Bangkok Noi, where Poon spied a hawker in a boat piled high with soap, snacks and sodas. The long-sought coffee peddler set a pot of water boiling on a tiny gas stove. He carefully poured steaming water through what looked suspiciously like a gym sock filled with ground coffee. It dripped into a can already laced with two generous spoonfuls of sweetened condensed milk. In one practiced motion he scooped a plate of ice into a plastic sack, poured in the steaming coffee, stabbed...
...Canal Street is the clogged artery of lower Manhattan, a pothole-riddled, axle-breaking highway stuffed with trucks belching their way from the Jersey shore to Long Island. I love it. On a visit last week, I wove past Asian markets with windows full of roast ducks and durians, checked out prices in tiny perfume stores with Vietnamese names on the window and peered into that weird place that appears to sell nothing but fans (kitchen ones). I stopped in a tattoo parlor as three teenage girls from Queens, in J. Lo jackets and spray-on jeans, hovered nervously...
...that with good humor, sound institutions and tolerance, that swirl of humanity can create a vibrant culture and an unparalleled opportunity for people to dream of a better life for themselves and their families. New York isn't perfect, but an hour spent in the liberating mess of Canal Street should convince the most jaundiced observer that it doesn't do too badly...
Visitors inspired to make the trip downtown this week might make one more stop. At Varick and North Moore, a minute from Canal and just 12 blocks north of where the Trade Center once stood, is the firehouse of N.Y.F.D. Ladder Co. 8. You can stand outside, with the candles and damp flowers, and see the picture of a fire fighter missing since Sept. 11. Then turn south to look at the now unscraped sky and wonder when the rest of the world will be touched by the magic with which New Yorkers live each...