Happy 73rd Anniversary of “Bambi’s” premier, UESiders!

And the location of the film’s New York first run?

Radio City Music Hall which was at the time not even a decade old! 

Pretty incredible, yes?

(1937’s “Snow White” was the first American animated feature.) 

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As for the 7 days following August 13th, 2015:

Now to Mid-September:  Sign-Up for Fall NYBG Classes

2900 Southern Boulevard, The Bronx/20 West 44th Street

The world of landscape plants…  Botanical drawing…  Floral design…  City Roof Design(!)…  And so, so much more!!  On offer both up in the Bronx and at the Midtown outpost.  For full details…

Saturday,  August 15th:   82nd Street/St. Stephen’s Greenmarket

82nd Street between First and York, 9am–2pm

Compost & Clothes Collection – 9am–1pm 

With us be Bread Alone, Ballard Honey, Valley Shepherd, American Seafood, Samascott, Rising Sun, Garden of Spices, Gajeski, Alewife, Cherry Lane and Ole Mother Hubbert Farms! 

And, yes, our Master Knife Sharpener will be on hand… or knife, too!

PLUS…   Special guest Dana Jacobi, UES resident, uber chef, caterer, award-winning multiple cook book author and  all-around great neighbor will be on hand for another edition of “Ask Dana” during which she’ll shed light on some of the fabulous new-to-us vegs that’re now popping up on market tables! Dana’ll be with us from 11-1!

Last week’s recycling totals:  75 lbs. batteries; 14 lbs. cords, corks, cellphones and cartridges; 5 pairs of glasses; 7 1/4 compost bins;  23 bags of clothes.

Rather impressive for an August Saturday!

Saturday, August 15th:  Summer Streets 2015

Central Park at 72nd Street to Park Avenue to Brooklyn Bridge, 7am-1pm

Your last chance this summer…  Miles of NYC street free of automobiles and packed with great activities/attractions for all ages!  For further details…

Saturday, August 15th:  Fourth Annual Great Hudson River Estuary Fish Count

From Albany to NYC

And we quote, “Join naturalists from the Albany Capital Region to New York City as they explore the amazing variety of slippery, wriggly and fascinating creatures usually hidden below the Hudson’s surface using seine nets, minnow traps, rods and reels”.  Free waterproof waders for participants. All waterlife is released unharmed.  For sites and times… 

This could be you seining on the Hudson!

Saturday, August 15th:  FlyNYC Kite Flying Festival

Riverside Park South at West 70th Street, 11am-4pm

Bring your own or make a kite at the festival from a free kit!   Plus there’ll be live music all 5 hours. Doesn’t get more family friendly!  Did we say, free?  For more…

Sundays through November 22nd:  94th Street Greenmarket 

First Avenue between 94th & 96th Street, 9am-5pm

Compost Collection – 9am–1pm 

At their tables will be American Seafood, Bread Alone, Meredith’s Bakery, Wager’s Cider Mill, Ole Mother Hubbert, Stannart, Norwich Meadows and Phillips Farms…  And DePaolo Turkey returns!

Everyone’s got fantastically sweet watermelon!!

And this year’s basil seems especially flavorful!!

**COOKING WITH KALLOS COMES TO 94th STREET ON SUNDAY 23rd!!  BE THERE FOR  NUTRITIOUS TREATS AND CHAT WITH OUR COUNCIL MEMBER!!**

Last week’s recycling totals:  4 lbs. batteries: 2 lbs. corks, cellphones, cartridges and cords;   3 1/4 bins of compost.

Yes!!

Thursday, August 20th:  Sea Glass Carousel Opening!

The Battery(as the Park’s now officially named/called), 1pm-12am

A carousel of gorgeous, luminous, gigantic glass fish on the tip of Manhattan Island!!  (While they try to visit at garbage dump on us!)  We will strive to suppress our enviousness…  Tickets:  (a mere) $5.

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Coming up soon:

Saturday, August 29th:  10th Annual Shorebird Festival!

Meet at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center, 7:30am-4:30pm

A day of hiking, great lectures on a variety of wildlife subjects from Sierra Club experts (like the great Don Riepe) and good eats!   For more donriepe@gmail.com or 718-474-0896.

Saturday, September 12th:    Green Thumb Annual Harvest Fair

Diamante Garden, 305 Est 118th Street, 12-4pm

The once-a-year occasion for NYC’s great Green Thumb community gardeners show the rest of us how its done while they party down with Grammy-winning flamenco music, a fresh chef contest and a ton of fun for kids!   Free.  For full details…  

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Miscellaneous action first:

As in pressing the Governor to get NYS offshore wind up and running…  If you think that’s a good move…

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Then:

Great that an anonymous donor’s given the last $150K to make the Roosevelt Island Disabled Association’s FDR Memorial in Four Freedoms Park a reality…  (Fingers crossed the work’s better than the drawing..)  

And for a fun drawing of your own…  The outline of what you deem the boundaries of your UES neighborhood… 

In case you’re not familiar with that absolute master of design, Milton Avery, there’s this from The Times…  

One real slice of nature in another Times piece on going to sea Joseph Conrad-style…

Then there’re solar farms as seen from way high above…

Of course, our Museum of Natural History is leading the charge to get Darwin’s papers – there’re a lot of them and none dull – on line!  (Sroll down…)

Meanwhile, good on Sprint for its challenge to university students to invent new uses for turned-in cellphones…  Like a smart grocery cart!

Better on the EPA which will now embark on a study of Monsanto’s Atrazine pesticide on 1,500 species!  (High time.)

It’s that time of the year again when Grist weighs in on the most eco-friendly colleges…

And what were 300,000 students of colleges of every degree of green wearing on graduation day? Graduation gowns made of 100% post-consumer plastic bottles made by Green Weaver, that’s what! 

Can’t get enough trees this week…  Thus, up close and personal Science Talk with the Tree of Heaven…

So Anthropology replaced the once 72nd Street Theater…  Now a Barry’s Bootcamp will be taking the place of the UA Theater on Second and 64th…

Moving off the reservation:

Yes, we need to know it…  The (capsule) history of Band-aids!

In the event you’re not familiar with what the New York Review of Books’ publishing arm is up to…

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Hey, animals:

Tops in the Throw-Away-The-Key Department…  The Brooklyn seafood company that pleaded guilty to trafficking shark fins! 

A new hummingbird species has been discovered!  The beautiful Inaguan Woodstar! 

A sign of greater things to come…?  As recounted in “Fido and Forensics”…? 

Of course, your cat has favorite music!

And he/she can really enjoy it now that cats have collectively taken over the internet!  (Oh?  You need proof?) 

Squirrels eating your tomatoes?!  No app…  But 7 ways to keep the varmints at bay!

Camels in America? 

And then there’s this from the Hudson River Almanac:

7/31 – Manhattan, HRM 1: This week we finally caught some Atlantic silversides! We now have a little school of 30-40 in one of our tanks. In our sea squirt-shrouded minnow traps, we also caught two YOY toadfish (sometimes referred to as “toadlets”), each about 20 mm long, as well as a yearling striped bass.  – Jessica Bonamusa

Piping Plover Chick

See you in (green) September, 

UGS

Happy Champagne’s 223rd Birthday, UESiders!

Yup, and of course, its inventor on that happy day was none other than Monsieur Perignon!

We thank him big time!

Liriodendron tulipifera

May there be a most bubbly week ahead:

Friday, August 7th:  NYSkies Astronomy Seminar

McBurney House, 125 West 14th Street between Sixth & Seventh, 6:30-8:30pm 

Starmaster John Pazmino prepares us for the upcoming Perseid meteor shower!  And we quote, “This annual, dependible and reliable show of shooting stars comes in predawn hours of August 12th and 13th. In 2015, conditions are more favorable because there is no Moon in the sky to veil the dimmer meteors.”  Free.

Saturday, August 8th & Sunday, August 9th:  Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival

Flushing Meadows Park, Queens,  8am-5:30pm

Two days of colorful, highly contested dragon boat races…  Music…  Dance…  An ethnic food court…  And it’s all free!!  For the full, rich details (and directions)…

Saturday,  August 8th:   82nd Street/St. Stephen’s Greenmarket

82nd Street between First and York, 9am–2pm

Compost & Clothes Collection – 9am–1pm 

At their tables will be Bread Alone, Ballard Honey, Valley Shepherd, American Seafood, Samascott, Rising Sun, Garden of Spices, Gajeski, Alewife, Cherry Lane and Ole Mother Hubbert Farms! 

Samascott will have strawberries, people!

Then there’s Alewife’s beautiful romaine (both green and speckled!), their pickling melons and kohlrabi! 

Fabulous tomatoes, corn and basil on offer from Cherry Lane and Gajeski!

And the winners of last week’s Guess the Number of Plums in the Bottle will be revealed!!

(Fingers crossed that our Master Knife Sharpener will be present and revved up to hone!)

Last week’s recycling totals:  66 lbs. batteries; 12 lbs. cords, corks, cellphones and cartridges; 3 pairs of glasses; 8 1/2 compost bins;  22 bags of clothes.

Another 8-plus bin week!!

Sundays through November 22nd:  94th Street Greenmarket 

First Avenue between 94th & 96th Street, 9am-5pm

Compost Collection – 9am–1pm 

With us will be American Seafood, Bread Alone, Meredith’s Bakery, Wager’s Cider Mill, Ole Mother Hubbert, Stannart, Norwich Meadows and Phillips Farms…  And DePaolo Turkey returns!

Last week’s recycling totals:  6 lbs. batteries: 4 lbs. corks, cellphones, cartridges and cords;   3 bins of compost.

Outstanding!!

Sunday, August 9th:  Green Park Gardeners’ Monthly Volunteer Day

Andrew Haswell Green Park, East River Esplanade/60th to 63rd Street, 2-5pm

Get to know and learn from some of the UESide’s most accomplished gardeners!  Learn about the garden’s many nataive plants…  Help with weeding, watering or composting…  Or partake of all of the above!   Bring a trowel and gloves and best to wear a long-sleeved shirt.  Rain will cancel the event!

Saturdays, August 8th & 15th:  Summer Streets 2015

Central Park at 72nd Street to Park Avenue to Brooklyn Bridge, 7am-1pm

Totally free of automobiles and packed with great activities/attractions for all ages, be they propelled by foot, cycle, skatesor whatever non-car!  Better every year!! For further details…   

Saturday, August 15th:  Brooklyn Army Terminal Tour

Meet at Brooklyn Army Terminal A, 58th & 1st Avenue, Sunset Park, Brooklyn, 2-4pm

Companion piece to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, designed by Cass Gilbert and supply base for our armed services over two World Wars, today the Terminal’s home to 100-plus companies from tech to biotech to fashion to a chocolatier!  Organized by the ever-interesting Obscura Society and Turnstile Tours. $22. For more and tickets…

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As ever, pretty darned miscellaneous miscellany:

For all some whinging from those representing coal-producing states, the people of Appalachia seem to feel differently about EPA’s clean power plan…  (And if you’d like to support them…)

And where and with what forms are we presently powering the U.S.? Well, there’s a map for that! 

Meanwhile, Norway’s looking to store its overabundance of green power in neighboring nations!

Then there’s the map chronicling NYC’s subway deserts…  

No fun living in rural Minnesota and being awash in pesticides keeping future McDonald’s fries free of beetles…  (If you think that, in 2015, McD should be favoring better farming practices…)

On to the good foot:

Of course, there’ll be an appeal but, for now, the Ag Gag Law’s been overturned! 

Lest anyone wonder why Shigeru Ban won the Pritzker Prize:  His brilliant emergency/transitional housing solution for earthquake-ravaged Nepal!  

No surprise to us New Yorkers at how much trees add to our quality – quantity, too – of life…  But always nice when science underscores perception as in the recent study of Toronto and its trees! (Thanks to the great 1001 Friends for the tip!)

It did take 5 years but, at long last, Fraunces Tavern will be receiving the required federal funds to repair Sandy-caused damage!

Speaking of storms and their effects, scientists are hard at work creating an army of oat grass plants to defend our coastline!

Got a way to go till it’s ready for prime time in our homes, but one of the these days we could be reading by algae – yes, algae – light!

An 8-week online urban food growing course?   Bring it on!  

Amazing it didn’t exist before, but it’s in development now…  A braille smartphone!

Then there’s an Uber-like adaptation for tractor use in Nigeria!  (And it boosts farm productivity as much as 200%!)

And the 12 longest inhabited cities in the world are…

(And NYC’s most expensive hotel rooms…!)

A first for us, too…   Voting in Green America’s People & Planet Green Business Awards!  To cast your ballot…

Going micro:

And the 12 most desirable yard sale items are…

Colorful…  Thought-provoking…  Temporary…  And seen on the sidewalks of the UES… 

eriogonum-kennedyi

In the critter department:

If it’s August, the Maine Puffin Cam’s up and running!

In the Just Deserts Department:  A man shoots an armadillo and…  You’ll see!  (Thanks to reader Carol Rinzler!)

Yes, people!  Williams-Sonoma is now selling chicken coops!

Those funny speckles/bumps you see on leaves of bushes and trees?  Baby gall wasps waiting to born!  (Thanks to Christine LeBeau for the insight!) 

Whew!  California’s just and finally banned bobcat trapping!

Another NYC cat cafe’s soon to open!  (Making 2, both downtown…  How about cat folks on the UES?  Our cup runneth over with Biscuits & Baths!)

Love that a bunch of our city bees tried to consume a bike…

NYPD’s on the case of the 100 pigeons missing from Washington Square Park! 

Always good to wind down with a tidbit from the Hudson River Almanac:

7/21 – Manhattan, New York City: Found a red-eared slider today underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Someone’s recently-released pet? Escapee from a freshwater park pond? I wondered if the turtle could survive in the highly brackish water. At the Brooklyn Bridge, there’s wide variation in salinity: On an incoming tides, water from the Hudson can make it somewhat fresher – 15 parts per thousand [ppt]. However, on the outgoing tide (I was there at 5:30pm) it may have been as high as 23 ppt. (72% of seawater salinity). The turtle may have been there for a while or came out because of the shifting salinity, but I doubt that a small animal has much power against East River currents.  – Kate Boicourt, NY-NJ Harbor and Estuary Program

[The red-eared slider is native to southern U.S., but is a popular pet and is widely established through releases. Multiple references in the literature cite their ability to tolerate brackish water with comments such as “occasional” or “for short periods of time”.  That may be what we saw here. Tom Lake.]

In everlasting greenness,

UGS