Super Duper Photographic

​Pat Kiernan told us once, "Being a New Yorker is a state of mind. Not something on your birth certificate. The qualifications: some combination of knowledge of the city, love of the city, length of time here, and comfort with both defending and criticizing the city." Included in part one of that clause: Knowledge of little-known, quintessential, or otherwise intriguing NYC factoids. Included in part two: Love of Pat Kiernan. (See also: "Shit New Yorkers Say.")

Now's your chance to find out how how much of a New Yorker (or at least, how much of a New York City trivia aficionado) you really are. This Wednesday, TrivWorks and the Bell House are hosting an event, "Why We Love NYC," emceed by, yes, Pat Kiernan, who will test you on all matter of city pop culture trivia. We spoke to David Jacobson, the founder of TrivWorks, to get some advance questions (none of these will be asked on Wednesday, but they're "in the style of the NYC pop culture trivia" that will be tested). Consider this your PSAT.

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Here are words we don't usually type: we can't wait to read Andrea Peyser's next column in the New York Post! Yesterday, we had the privilege to watch Peyser in action, as we were waiting at Zuccotti Park to see when it would re-open. She ambushed a Canadian dad who was there with his six-year-old son. Peyser, the lady who is the arbitrar of all things good for parents, clearly thought it was inappropriate and "dangerous" for him to bring his child to Occupy Wall Street, and tried to goad him into admitting as such.

Then, as if in a Spike Lee movie, an Asian man got in Peyser's face about why she was harassing this Canadian tourist for bringing his son to Zuccotti. "Fuck you!" Peyser yelled at him. The Asian man started calling her an "old lady," at which point we got our camera out and Peyser replied, "I'm not as old as I look."

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​Earlier in October, artist Leon Reid IV succeeded in getting permission from the city to put an "I Love NY" cap, camera, subway map, and shopping bags on the oldest statue in New York City's possession, Union Square's George Washington. (The city had previously clad the statue in a cape for an NBC show, though they resisted Reid's project for some time before relenting.) Now Reid has a new project in the works. It's called "A Spider Lurks in Brooklyn," and was inspired by his own walk across the Brooklyn Bridge in 2008, during which he wondered, "Is this what a bug feels like when it's trapped in a spider web?"

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​In New York, it's hard to get package deliveries when they arrive unless you're home sick, you live in a dorm, or you have a doorman. If you miss the package three times in a row, it's sent off to this weird warehouse far away, and you have to go pick it up, which is a pain in the ass. Just like everything else these days, there's now an app for this, or at least a service you can sign up for online. It's called Village Doorman, and it's what it sounds like: a virtual doorman. Of sorts.

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​It seems a particularly New York sort of reaction that, once you get worked up and worried enough about an oncoming storm to stand in line for several hours to buy some white bread and peanut butter and a bulk case of water, you will be, ultimately, disappointed when you don't actually have to use your supplies, or your go-bag, or your exit strategy. Like New Year's Eve or any highly anticipated night out (or in), Hurricane Irene was kind of...a let down. New Yorkers do not like to wait in line for let-downs! Or, as in the title of this New York Times article, "'Some Hurricane,' New Yorkers Grumble as Danger Passes." If we're going to "be in danger," we should be in danger! We paid for it!

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Luke Clark Tyler

​Earlier this week we talked to Luke Clark Tyler, who currently resides in a very, very "cozy" 78-square-foot apartment (there's no kitchen, and he shares a bathroom) in Midtown, which costs him $800 a month. Previously he lived in a comparably roomy 96-square-foot place. Due to our apparently growing obsession with living in small spaces, which seems to be pretty common among New Yorkers, we had to see pictures. And here they are.

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​Because we like our smells to come in books instead of from people or street corners (do we? DO WE?), or maybe because this is kind of a great gift to give some non- or former New Yorker, we're happy to write that the scratch-n-sniff book we wrote about last month has been fully funded by Kickstarter! Congrats to Amber C. Jones, 36, the book's author and a New York City hotel concierge who has been exposed to all kinds of smells. She's hit her goal of $20,000 and has also already written the text for New York, Phew York: A Scratch-N-Sniff Adventure. Tim Probert, 24, the book's illustrator, has announced on his blog that he's completed drawings for roughly half the book, reports DNA Info.

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​Some time on Monday, a bored office worker in Midtown East gazed out of his window longingly, and instead of being met with a red brick wall or a homeless man urinating, he "witnessed the makings of a pornographic film." He told Curbed that he "hit the jackpot" in "a New York lottery of sorts." Unfortunately, this afternoon as we look out of our windows, we can see only drops of water rolling down the glass. We've got a couple of the the lucky man's NSFW iPhone photos after the jump.

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Back in April, we wrote about what may be New York's tiniest actual intact walls-and-a-door apartment inhabited by an actual human individual. It was 78 square feet, and was featured on Apartment Therapy as one of the "Small/Cool" apartments of 2011. (It beat a 90-square-foot apartment, which we discussed here and which imparted a panic attack unto its own resident, by a good 12 feet.) Now, there is video of Luke Clark Tyler, the tenant, in his teensy Midtown apartment. Some of its bonuses: You can prop your legs up on the wall, and since Luke works from home (he is an architect), he doesn't need a lot of work clothes. Luke works from home. Never does New York City seem as much an exercise in tempered insanity as it does when we discuss real estate. Luke pays $800. He "kinda just swooped this one up when he found it." (He shares a bathroom.)
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Richard Caplan for Core

​We love real estate. Especially WTF/How Is This Even Possible? real estate, like New York City apartments with indoor pools and swings and slides that one can use to travel from room to room. And apartments inspired by submarines! Such an apartment is currently for sale for $1.75 million. Its broker, Parul Brahmbhatt of Core, describes it as having "a Jules Verne meets Tim Burton sensibility." The apartment was created by screenwriter Jeremy Noritz out of a two-bedroom, two-bath co-op in Chelsea. While maybe you wouldn't, or maybe you would, want to live there, it is one of the most interesting pieces of real estate we have seen in New York City. For instance, there is what seems to be a mushroom stool in the shower. It also has mini-planes, antique pipes, stainless steel appliances, installations that look like gears and cogs, and a huge technicolored zeppelin across 32 feet of ceiling. In a word, trippy. But also, kinda awesome.

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