Sold in New York City

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 19:26:13 +0000

Traveling the streets and avenues of New York’s five boroughs, the search continues for commonplace stores selling objects that might become the focus of an interesting photograph. Some objects are unusual, some are ordinary and some are visually interesting in themselves, but something is found in each one of them to complement this project.
The stores and objects featured here represent the diversity and local flavor of New York’s neighborhoods.

This is an on-going essay, and there are a lot of neighborhoods to visit, so check back for updates.

CHINATOWN / MANHATTAN

admin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:40:00 +0000

The traditional Zongzi is made of sticky rice with various fillings wrapped in bamboo leaves and tied with string. Either steamed or boiled, they make a full meal in themselves. Zongzi are traditionally eaten during the Dragon Boat Festival, commemorating the death of the famous Chinese poet Qu Yuan.

BELMONT / BRONX

admin — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:06:00 +0000

The Saguaro Cactus grows to only two inches tall in its first ten years of life, but can grow as high as 50 feet, weigh seven tons and live more than 150 years.

FLUSHING / QUEENS

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:39:00 +0000

According to legend, Chinese characters were invented by Cangjie (c. 2650 BC), a bureaucrat under the legendary emperor, Huangdi. The legend tells that Cangjie was hunting on Mount Yangxu when he saw a tortoise whose veins caught his curiosity. Inspired by the possibility of a logical relation of those veins, he studied the animals of the world, the landscape of the earth, and the stars in the sky, and invented a symbolic system called zì—Chinese characters. It was said that on the day the characters were born, Chinese heard the devil mourning, and saw crops falling like rain, as it marked the beginning of the world.

HARLEM / MANHATTAN

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:37:00 +0000

Thought to have arrived in Japan from China in the 1770s, the Ryukin fish is a beautiful variety of goldfish. They can be found in many colors: red, white, blue, calico, green, chocolate and a red and white combination as seen in this photograph.

PARK SLOPE / BROOKLYN

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:37:00 +0000

In the 1800’s, bicycles with large front wheels called penny farthings were quite common. These bicycles had no gears or chains as bicycles do today. Instead, the pedals were attached directly to the front wheel. When the pedals were pushed through one full turn the wheel would also rotate one full turn. This meant that the bigger the wheel the farther the penny farthing could go on one turn of the pedals. The penny farthing used an extremely large wheel and traveled faster than other gearless bicycles.

SOHO / MANHATTAN

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:36:00 +0000

A backwater of poor artists and small factories in the 1970s, SoHo has become a popular destination for people looking for fashionable clothing, chic restaurants and exquisite architecture.

BOWERY / MANHATTAN

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:34:00 +0000

The Bowery is the oldest thoroughfare on Manhattan Island, having been an Indian footpath which spanned roughly the entire length of the island. When the Dutch settled Manhattan island, they named the path Bouwerij road — bouwerij being an old Dutch word for farm — because it connected farmlands and estates on the outskirts to the heart of the city in today’s Wall Street/Battery Park area. In 1654, the Bowery’s first residents settled; ten freed slaves and their wives set up cabins and a cattle farm.

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT / BROOKLYN

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:33:00 +0000

Director Spike Lee has prominently featured the streets and brownstone blocks of Bedford-Stuyvesant in his films, including Do the Right Thing , Crooklyn , Clockers, and Summer of Sam. Chris Rock’s television sitcom, Everybody Hates Chris, portrays Rock’s life growing up as a teenager in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Bedford-Stuyvesant is featured in the 1971 film The French Connection, in which NYPD narcotics detective Popeye Doyle is assigned to a Brooklyn police station located here.

BRIGHTON BEACH / BROOKLYN

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:32:00 +0000

Brighton Beach was developed as a beach resort in 1868. Today Brighton Beach is dubbed “Little Odessa”, due to many of its residents having come from Odessa, Ukraine.