ARTICLE -- New York May Require Photography Permits

[jovo]

Just because we're not from New York City doesn't make us stupid or our thoughts and feelings invalid.

Mike

You're quite right, you're neither stupid nor are your thoughts and feelings invalid. However, 'dissing' NYC isn't something I choose to accept unchallenged. I no longer live there, but live 'upstate' and enjoy many of the pleasures of rural life you describe. I also am lucky enough to be able to also access the city. Calling it "New Yuck City" is insulting. I'll stand by my statement.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Actually there is a very lively birding culture in New York. About half of North American bird species pass through New York every year. I'm more likely to see peregrine falcons, redtail hawks, or kestrels out my window than eagles, because they live in the neighborhood, but I have seen bald eagles, flocks of migrating turkey vultures, as well as osprey fishing in the Hudson from my window here in Manhattan.

And just to stay on topic, it's pretty common to see birders with scopes or cameras and long lenses using tripods in city parks as well as places like the Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Reserve (which is on the A train), and it would be very unusual to be stopped for a permit in any such location. The parks generally want to encourage birding and bird photography in the city.

My bird page is long overdue for an update, but if you go to http://www.echonyc.com/~goldfarb/photo, enter, and click on the mute swan, you can see some of my NYC bird photos.

 

[copake_ham]

I was in New Yuck city once and I wasn't impressed. I'll consider this one more reason to keep New Yuck City on my list of places to never see again.

Since domestic US tourists are the cheapest I can assure you - your pennies will NOT be missed.

Send me the Europeans, with their Euros yearning to be freed and put into the cash registers of our hotels, shops, theaters, museums, restaurants etc.

 

[copake_ham]

You're quite right, you're neither stupid nor are your thoughts and feelings invalid. However, 'dissing' NYC isn't something I choose to accept unchallenged. I no longer live there, but live 'upstate' and enjoy many of the pleasures of rural life you describe. I also am lucky enough to be able to also access the city. Calling it "New Yuck City" is insulting. I'll stand by my statement.

Jovo,

Don't get too upset, this kind of stuff is really uplifting. What was depressing was when folks like this got all teary-eyed about NYC after 9/11/01.

I am "soooo" glad to hear that the provincials hate us again - it means things are getting back to "normal". You know, big bad New York City filled with all those "strange" kinds of people!

[Oh, BTW, Jim, the US population passed 300 million a year ago - you need to update your data! :rolleyes: ]

 

[jmdavis]

[Oh, BTW, Jim, the US population passed 300 million a year ago - you need to update your data! :rolleyes: ]

But the new 50 million are outside of New York, so do they really even matter?

Who said anyone hated you or NYC. I just have no interest in going there.

Mike

 

[highpeak]

But the new 50 million are outside of New York, so do they really even matter?

Who said anyone hated you or NYC. I just have no interest in going there.

Mike

Mike, does NYC matters to you? Guess not.

Alex W.

 

[jmdavis]

Mike, does NYC matters to you? Guess not.

Alex W.

Not much, it's true. But so what?


Mike

 

[copake_ham]

....

Who said anyone hated you or NYC. I just have no interest in going there.

Mike

Hmmm...let's see, in this thread you ranted about raw sewage from NYC. Oh, and there was the comment about "medical waste". And, oh yes, the desire to amend the US Constitution to eliminate the Commerce Clause as it provides a 220 y.ol basis for NYC's ability to purchase refuse disposal services from legitimate business enterprises located in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

And, then there was the rising defense of your good bud over there in Kentucky who came up with the really witty term: New Yuck City.

Yep, no hatred in any of that. Just a whole lotta love.

 

[jmdavis]

Hmmm...let's see, in this thread you ranted about raw sewage from NYC. Oh, and there was the comment about "medical waste". And, oh yes, the desire to amend the US Constitution to eliminate the Commerce Clause as it provides a 220 y.ol basis for NYC's ability to purchase refuse disposal services from legitimate business enterprises located in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

And, then there was the rising defense of your good bud over there in Kentucky who came up with the really witty term: New Yuck City.

Yep, no hatred in any of that. Just a whole lotta love.

Ranted? Called for the repeal of the Constitution? I don't think so.

Clearly you don't understand how we "Provincials" act when we feel anger. Heck, this isn't even mild irritation. Though I could note that your responses have been filled with condescension and invective. But I don't even hate that.

Now about the sewage, please check to determine that NYC stopped regularly dumping raw sewage into the rivers in the mid 1980's. In terms of medical waste, the stories of red bags washing up on the shores are also well known. You may of course argue the points. But we should probably revert to PM's for that.



Mike "proud to be Provincial" Davis

 

[jd callow]

NYC is one of the most photogenic places on the face of the earth. The last time I was there I was shooting at night and was stopped by the police (2 cars and an SUV) and questioned. Big cities with big police forces tend to have a large number (larger percentile than most ?) of cops who joined for the wrong reason. An ambiguous law as described in the article will probably get more than its fair share of overuse/abuse.

 

[highpeak]

Not much, it's true. But so what?


Mike

So I don't feel guilty when more garbage dumped you where you live.

 

[Akki14]

I don't like NYC much either. Nothing against anyone living there or whatever but for some reason it never clicked with me and I visited many times, with school groups and when my sister lived in the (mid)Bronx.

Slightly more on topic.. the thing is sometimes amateur & spontaneous photography is very helpful to the police. If someone had been walking around with a camera phone in London late last night, they might have (albeit a poor) picture of the criminals leaving car bombs in the West End. This would be much quicker than having to trawl through hours of CCTV footage. Photography isn't the enemy; someone should remind NY that.

 

[Roger Hicks]

NYC is one of the most photogenic places on the face of the earth.

Much as I'd agree, it's also the first place where I ran into loony paedophile paranoia, sometime around the mid 90s. I took pictures of some kids playing baseball in a dead-end back alley, as heart-warmingly American a scene as one could wish for, and an adult sidled over and asked why I was shooting. I said, "It's a classic scene, kids playing baseball in an alley," and he was the first I ever heard to produce the now familiar "Some people shoot for the wrong reasons, and we'd rather you didn't take pictures."

Note to George: this is NOT an anti-American rant, but a simple statement of fact, and interesting in that it was early example of something that has become increasingly common since, especially in what the French call the Anglo-Saxon countries. Can others supply earlier dates? And locations?

Cheers,

Roger

 

[Kino]

So I don't feel guilty when more garbage dumped you where you live.

Yep, things are getting back to pre-911 days...

Maybe its time for a siege or blockade on NYC. We'll see how they fair without the "provincials"...

People in cities just don't realize the razor thin edge they live on and how much they depend on others in the countryside.

 

[Andy K]

I'm surprised that some New Yorkers appear to be expressing pride in the fact that their city's waste is dumped on someone else's doorstep. Surely that is something to be thoroughly ashamed of?

 

[Roger Hicks]

I'm surprised that some New Yorkers appear to be expressing pride in the fact that their city's waste is dumped on someone else's doorstep. Surely that is something to be thoroughly ashamed of?

Dear Andy,

New Yorkers are proud of EVERYTHING to do with New York, even the crime rate.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Dear Andy,

New Yorkers are proud of EVERYTHING to do with New York, even the crime rate.

Cheers,

Roger

And indeed they should be. New York has a fairly low per capita crime rate.

 

[Kino]

Well, I visited NYC in 1980, on my 48 hour leave after basic training in Fort Dix, NJ and LOVED it. Loved the history and hated the fact that I didn't have a camera around my neck and a a bag of film.

Our platoon walked from Battery Park to 166th street in the Bronx to visit a Corporal Mendez's family living in a partitioned Guilded Age Mansion; each room a 8 x8 foot cubicle on what was once the ground floor ballroom.

The Bronx in that area at that time was a bombed-out moonscape of burned buildings and a carpet of broken glass, inhabited by sadly deranged Vietnam Vets who came out of the shadows to shake our hands and talk a bit about 'Uncle Sugar' and the service. In retrospect, I don' t know how we survived; must have been our Class A uniforms that gave us the aura of badasses, although we were really just a bunch of kids fresh out of boot.

The people in the bario and down in the seediest areas of the Bronx were decent to us and wished us well, but the people in Manhattan were rude, ugly humans who only wanted to see our cash and the backside of our uniforms.

Some things never change...

 

[Roger Hicks]

And indeed they should be. New York has a fairly low per capita crime rate.

Sorry, David, can't resist. Compared with where in (let us say) Western Europe?

I don't know the figures, and you could well be right. But for example I have NY friends who are proud of having (? needing) five locks on the front door, and of having to use chunks of Queen Mary anchor chain to stop their motorcycles being stolen.

Either they're lying, and it isn't that dangerous, or they're lying, and what they call 'safe', the rest of us call 'dangerous'.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Sorry, David, can't resist. Compared with where in (let us say) Western Europe?

I don't know the figures, and you could well be right. But for example I have NY friends who are proud of having (? needing) five locks on the front door, and of having to use chunks of Queen Mary anchor chain to stop their motorcycles being stolen.

Either they're lying, and it isn't that dangerous, or they're lying, and what they call 'safe', the rest of us call 'dangerous'.

Cheers,

Roger

I suspect that crime is lower in Western Europe, but crime has dropped significantly in the city in the last 15 years or so. The image of having five locks on the front door harkens back to the 1970s.

Here's an AP story with a quick synopsis--

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-09-19-city-crimerates_x.htm

Here's a piece from the generally conservative _City Journal_ that interpretation aside, has a good overview of the data--

http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_1_ny_crime.html

Here's another piece with useful links--

http://www.gothamgazette.com/article//20050228/200/1335

It's a big city, so there's crime and people are generally careful about things like locking bicycles on the street, and there was a bump in the murder rate in 2006, but in general it's pretty safe as far as US cities go.

 

[jd callow]

How many Western European cities are as large and as populace or have a similar greater metropolitan area? Having been to London and Paris i'd suspect that NYC of today might not compare that poorly. The energy, vibrancy and variety in NYC certainly is equal to if not greater than London or Paris.

As for pride of place...
New Yorkers, like most Americans are obssesed with winners and winning more than they are interested in the game.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I suspect that crime is lower in Western Europe, but crime has dropped significantly in the city in the last 15 years or so. The image of having five locks on the front door harkens back to the 1970s.

Dear David,

Well, 90s anyway. But what you say certainly reflects the impressions I have gained in my rare visits: it really IS getting better.

But there's still a certain style of New Yorker who likes to boast about how tough it it.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[jovo]

As for pride of place...
New Yorkers, like most Americans are obssesed with winners and winning more than they are interested in the game.

It's amazing then, that the Knicks, the Rangers, and, of late the Yankees have even been allowed to live. Mayor Bloomberg didn't get the west side stadium, nor did the city get the olympics, and he's more popular than ever. As for pride of place, walk through Central Park on any nice day and you'll see people about as proud of a place as they can be!

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

But there's still a certain style of New Yorker who likes to boast about how tough it it.

Yeah, but those guys probably grew up in Brooklyn and now live in the suburbs and want to hang on to their street cred.

 

[jd callow]

It's amazing then, that the Knicks, the Rangers, and, of late the Yankees have even been allowed to live. Mayor Bloomberg didn't get the west side stadium, nor did the city get the olympics, and he's more popular than ever. As for pride of place, walk through Central Park on any nice day and you'll see people about as proud of a place as they can be!

John I was being sarcastic. I don't know any New Yorkers who take pride in having their garbage dumped in VA or who thought it was cool when the city was no 1 in crime.