It’s sometimes hard to see New York’s romantic potential, considering the city’s sheer quantity of subway rats and mysterious street sludge. But despite some of New York’s less love-inspiring qualities, there are a lot of beautiful, heart-stopping spots that set the right tone for romance, even if you have to contend with yellow snow on your way home. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, we’ve rounded up our 10 favorites, from a medieval monastery to a cozy restaurant haunted by Aaron Burr to tried-and-true favorites like the top of the Empire State Building.
City Living
City Living, Features
Photo via Flickr cc
Short on hope? Wondering where to find love? Craving the promise of Utopia? If you are, you’re likely not alone. What you may not realize is that a few New Yorkers have these things on the street where they live, or at least on the street signs where they live. While most New Yorkers, especially Manhattanites, are relegated to living on numbered streets and avenues, in a few city neighborhoods, streets do have names and just a few of these streets–Hope Street, Love Lane, Futurity Place, and more–are especially uplifting.
City Living
Grocery mecca Trader Joe’s has been posting signs in its Manhattan stores to let shoppers know it will end delivery service as of March 1, the New York Post reports. The quirky discount chain store known for its unique grocery items and clever crowd-control strategies cites escalating service costs as the reason for what a West Side Rag reader called an “unspeakable tragedy.” To be fair, the California-based chain is known for encouraging thrifty shoppers to buy in bulk, making the need for schlepping assistance a real concern.
Bushwick, City Living
Photo courtesy of Roman Kruglov’s Flickr
As frigid temperatures descend on NYC once again, real estate database provider Localize.City has produced a report showing which (non-NYCHA) buildings and neighborhoods have racked up the most heat violations in recent years. Bushwick, Brooklyn tops the list, followed by Van Nest in the Bronx. Read on to find out if your neighborhood–or building–made the list–and find out what you can do if your building has no–or not enough–heat.
City Living, East Village
Google Street View of St. Mark’s Comics
After 36 years as a cultural anchor of what was once an alternative lifestyle mecca, St. Mark’s Comics will be closing up shop at the end February. As Gothamist reports, the cluttered and beloved icon is among the rear guard of an exodus in recent years–Trash & Vaudeville and Kim’s Video have also vacated the neighborhood-defining strip–that basically ends an era on St. Mark’s Place.
City Living
Students learning how to code at Monsignor Scanlan High in the Bronx. Image courtesy of Amazon.
As part of ongoing campaigns and efforts to ease fears about the tech giant’s controversial arrival to New York City, Amazon announced yesterday that it will start offering computer science courses at 130 high schools throughout the boroughs. With funding from Amazon’s Future Engineer program, the company will start providing introductory and Advanced Placement Computer Science courses through the New York-based curriculum provider, Edhesive, as early as this fall. The plan covers 37 schools in Queens (the most of any borough), 27 high schools in Manhattan and the Bronx, 35 in Brooklyn, and 6 in Staten Island.
City Living, Museums, Restaurants
Via Pexels
New York City is stepping up to help furloughed federal employees who have been affected by the government shutdown, now on its 35th day. Federal workers who have missed paychecks due to the shutdown, the longest ever in history, qualify for perks at various spots across the five boroughs. With a valid government ID, federal workers can enjoy complimentary goodies, including free admission to museums, a free Broadway show, free food, and even free hotel rooms. And after filling up on freebies, join federal employees and their supporters at a rally to end the shutdown on Friday in Lower Manhattan.
City Living, Flatiron
Images courtesy of The We Company; Photography by Dave Burk.
Recently re-branded as the We Company, the juggernaut formerly known as WeWork has introduced Made By We, an “on-demand workspace,” event space, retail shop and cafe at 902 Broadway in the Flatiron district. Manhattan’s largest private office tenant adds the new retail and no-membership-required co-working concept to a growing list of conquests that includes the landmarked Lord & Taylor building which they’ve tapped starchitect Bjarke Ingels to restore and co-living (WeLive) and childhood education (WeGrow) ventures as well as their better-known co-working brand.
City Living, Policy
Via CC
NYC & Company, the city’s tourism and marketing agency, announced on Wednesday that the number of visitors to the city rose to a record high of 65.2 million in 2018, as the New York Times first reported. This is a notable jump up from 2017’s 61.4 million and the ninth straight annual increase. Most visitors still come from within the United States, but the number of tourists from China saw an uptick from 1.04 million in 2017 to 1.1 million. The agency was expecting an overall drop in tourism numbers, and particularly from China, due to President Donald Trump’s trade battle with the country and “America First” rhetoric, but the industry continues to thrive in the president’s hometown.
City Living, immigration
Via Flickr
There’s a steel wall in the Hudson River that celebrates immigrants, the only place in the United States where heritage can be honored at a national monument. The American Immigrant Wall of Honor first opened on Ellis Island in 1990 to recognize the country’s many immigrants and to raise money for the site’s National Museum of Immigration and the Statue of Liberty. Currently, there are 770 panels engraved with the names of nearly 775,000 immigrants. But spots on the wall are filling up, as the New York Times reported on Wednesday. Just five panels remain empty, enough space for roughly 3,300 names.
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