We know we're missing so much on and about New York City's sidewalks that deserves attention. So please contribute your own photos and words and we'll post them on HilaroiusNYC.com. Thanks! Send your pics, stories, and insights to editor@hilariousnyc.com.
We love unique people here at Hnyc, and we’re guessing not many 5-year-olds have sat on their grandfather’s knee, and said, “Granpy, when I grow up, I want to be the anthropologist-in-residence for the New York City Department of Sanitation.” But that is exactly what Robin Nagle grew up to be, and we couldn’t be happier. Anyone who loves NYC’s trash as much as we do, and finds meaning in it, is a friend of ours.
Congratulations Dr. Nagel, and we’re looking forward to the release of your book “Picking Up.”
This morning legendary and controversial New York Yankees‘ owner George Steinbrenner died at the age of 80. A notorious competitor and champion of New York City, he also had a less public generous side. RIP Mr. Steinbrenner, and thank you.
After nearly six hours of intense concentration on a hot afternoon and fighting off impulses to blink, Lenin finally managed to focus his hatred for capitalism like a magnifying glass and set ablaze a neighboring building in the East Village.
Odds are Alejandro, from Queens, will be picking up Ms. GaGa around 5am.
Here at Hnyc, we like to think we’ve got the New York City trash can beat covered. It’s a niche category, and we feel like we do trash better than anybody, but apparently we missed this one: Lady GaGa in an NYC trash can.
Thanks to our reader, Lauren, who turned us on to this CocoPerez.com photo featuring the uber-creative pop star in one of our city’s most artistic mediums.
Considering that we’re sidewalk anthropologists here at Hnyc and study human life through the lens of trash and general hilarity that is New York City, we are very familiar with the work of De La Vega. In fact, he’s one our favorites.
De La Vega’s work is whimsical but serious, and offers penetrating social commentary without sounding pedantic, self-indulgent or angry. The message is sincere and accessible — indeed, anyone who chooses trash as a canvass isn’t exactly squirreled away in some commissioned Chelsea studio with a bag of weed, bottle of Grey Goose and some cryptic yet staid interpretation of corporate greed and racial injustice. Yawn.
De La Vega brings art to the people, and like people his art is ephemeral — it gets rained on, snowed on, thrown into garbage trucks, smashed into bits and buried in land fills. It’s there on a mattress, on a bookshelf, and then it goes. It dies. But like true art it lives on in the people who experience it.
Indeed, when I took this photo last night, this woman walked up to me and said, “You know, I was going to do the same thing. Isn’t that wonderful?”
There she was. Just a stranger. Her head probably filled with thoughts about work, family, the electric bill, those old carrots in her refrigerator that she should throw out. And then it hits:
We all know that diversity is a good thing, and no place is more diverse than New York City. Need some evidence? Well, today millions of Puerto Ricans paraded down Fifth Avenue, and shortly after, the city hosted another year of The Tony Awards celebrating Broadway’s best and brightest.
