New York 2011, in Photos

January 12, 2012

Thinking back on 2011, it doesn’t feel like I had much energy or time for photography. But by Flickr’s count, three-fourths of the 3,000+ photos I have were uploaded in 2011.

I also felt that 2011 was the year I ventured least outside of my bubble since I’ve moved to New York. But even in a bubble you get to see some cool things. Hell, I survived my first earthquake and first hurricane all in the same week.

Here are some of my favorite memories in photographic form for 2011, in rough chronological order:

I don’t remember spending last New Year’s Day at the MOMA watching a guy play a piano from inside the piano, but that’s what my camera says I was doing:

I’m a Top of the Rock person myself but one of my friends wanted to do the Empire State Building for his birthday. It’s OK there:

I got the closest I’ve ever been to Staten Island; I mistakenly thought the IKEA ferry took off at the Staten Island ferry terminal.

The year’s first big snowstorm…after a string of awesome, crushing blizzards at the end of 2010. By now, Bloomberg and co. figured out how to make use of snowplows so we didn’t get to miss work this year.

Big Egypt had a revolution and Little Egypt partied:

New York Fashion Week (Fall 2011): Despite 9/11 and a more recent attempted attack on Times Square, the city took a symbolic stand and let Grand Central be taken over by a fake (but fashionable) flash mob.

I found out the Brooklyn Botanic Garden has free days but pretty much missed the peak part of the Japanese Cherry Blossom festival.

There wasn’t any loudspeaker so you didn’t actually have to hear Molly Ringwald whine here.

I found out that the Top of the Rock has a membership program: $75 for a year of free trips for yourself, half-price tickets for guests, and even a free MP3 player. Best members deal in the city:

Osama bin Laden died and Ground Zero partied:

Art was pretty popular this year. Here’s a giant head near the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park.

These guys are trying to get rid of some bees that took over a mailbox in Chinatown. My friend who was visiting from Beijing said this was the highlight of her week in New York and it was probably the high point of my year, now that I think about it:

Central Park and a sunset. This is the only photo of mine that anyone’s ever asked for me to print out so they could put on their wall so that’s worth something.

The Top of the Rock deal really is great.

The East River Ferry debuted and had two weeks of free trips. Unfortunately I couldn’t justify paying for a transit that required me to go to Williamsburg to actually catch a ferry. I did get to visit Greenpoint for the first time since I’ve lived in NY, ever since I decided to never use the G train.

The new section of the High Line Park debuted.

And I found out the West Village has a store devoted to the Big Lebowski.

BOOM

I never visited Central Park much until this year. I loved just being able to pick a direction and walk and see something brand new.

There was a Fourth of July this year.

Alexander McQueen basically owned the Met this year.

The R train home

One day, the R train just stopped working so we got a free tour of the tunnels.

The New York Summer Streets event was the best city-wide event I’ve been to and probably the most exercise I’ve ever gotten too.

I made a friend who works at the U.N. so I got to see where the worldwide sausage is made.

I also discovered Battery Park despite working here for years.

Ate a lot of Halal food.

The Naked Cowboy was one of several Manhattan businesses hurt by Hurricane Irene.

But Irene did leave behind a fantastic sunset.

I never thought I’d ever see a low-rider east of California.

Got to have a separate Fashion Week for the springtime, apparently

9/11/2011

Wall Street became much less easy to walk around due to some rumored protest.

This doesn’t look like it’ll last long…

This more-dressy version of OccupyWallStreet was my most popular photo ever on Flickr.

I’ve always wanted to know if it was possible to walk a cat on a leash…I just had to explore Central Park enough to see it.

The graffiti mecca known as 5Pointz faced an uncertain future.

In Brooklyn, Louis C.K. gave us a few chuckles for the price of $10.

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

The New Museum made us wait an hour to go on a slide. It was a pretty good slide, though.

Trivia Night at Berry Park in Williamsburg is how I’ll be spending most of my first Thursdays from here on out.

#OWS was by now bigger than the average American small town.

My 3,000th photo uploaded to Flickr.

And then #OWS was gone. In body, at least.

I’m not a fan of soft-serve but this is pretty good soft serve.

iTerminal

Went ice skating for the first time ever.

Home for the holidays is nice but it’s nice to have the city to go back to.

…And here’s the welcoming party in the subway.

Here’s to another great year!

These photos and most of my others are available under a Creative Commons License: you can view them at my Flickr account. If you’re interested in what camera I use (mostly a Canon 5d2) or settings, the Flickr entries contain the meta information (the link is usually in the top right, where it describes the camera used).