9/11 Memorial Photo by Svein-Magne Tunli

The sights and sounds of September 11, 2001 will be forever etched in the hearts and minds of all those old enough to have understood the events of that dreadful and fateful day. On that day 2, 983 people lost their lives when terrorists with horrifyingly murderous intent smashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York; the Pentagon in Washington DC; and a thwarted third attack which took the lives of all aboard Flight 93.

In honor of their memory and the loved ones they left behind, a memorial has been established on the site where the Twin Towers once stood. In their place are twin memorial pools with the names of the murdered are stencil-cut into the bronze panels surrounding the reflecting pools. Each pool covers almost an acre in area and are the biggest manmade waterfalls in all of North America.

A few steps away from the actual memorial there is also a museum. Unlike the memorial, which is free to visitors, the museum charges an entrance fee.  The museum tells the story of 9/11 using multi-media displays, archives, narratives and an artifact collection. Guided tours are available, and films, lectures and other special events take place at the museum.

If you can visit the museum, it is highly recommended. But if you can’t, there are still many ways to take the event and create something positive. During this holiday season those at the 9/11 Memorial are asking people to become part of their #2983 Campaign. The goal is to have the community at large help to complete at least 2,983 acts of compassion, gratitude and service as a tribute to each one of those lost in the attacks. If you would like to become part of this worthwhile undertaking, visit the 9/11 Memorial website.

See the world in a nine-mile route through Queens on the 7 train

The fair borough of Queens might just be one of the world’s most diverse metropolitan areas. And a fast, New York-way to see this international smorgasbord is on the number 7 train. Hailed in 1999 by the White House as one of only 16 “National Millennium Trails,” this nine-mile route will take its passengers to Romania, China, Korea, Latin America, Nigeria and more.

Your trip will take you to stations alighting in Long Island City, Sunnyside, Woodside, Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, Corona and Flushing. Get out at some or even all the stops along the way and see up close the beauty and excitement of far-away cultures transplanted to the Big Apple.

Sample the cuisine of each ethnic group by stopping at a popular eatery in each neighborhood. Examine the local fashions available in clothing shops catering to the people of the ‘hood. Higher culture calling you? You are in luck because you will encounter some fine innovative contemporary art at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City. Who says you need 80 days to see the world? Just a few hours in Queens should do the trick.

Custom-made jeans at your service

It is hard to imagine a more dedicated spot to the beauty, wear-ability and customization of jeans than the homage to those incredible pants than at 3X1 Denim. Located at 15 Mercer Street on the edge of Chinatown, this place, and its dedication to creating the perfect pair of denim jeans, will blow your mind.

Have you ever lamented the difficulty in finding the perfect pair of jeans that fit to a tee and have that very special look that you and only you crave? Well, look no more. Born of the creative mind of Evisu designer and founder of Paper, Denim, Cloth, Scott Morrison, don’t let the simple storefront on Mercer fool you. Once inside, you will immediately know you have arrived at jean heaven.

A glance on the right will reveal all the different cuts of denim, hung in Plexiglas boxes along the wall. Jeans as art on display. At the back of the store you will most like spot one or two seamstresses in the workshop. Yes, the jeans are nothing if they are not fresh. Those tailors might even be working on your jeans at that exact moment. Smack in the middle of the room are the items with which customers make their jeans their own: rivets, buttons, pocket shapes, linings, piping, selvedge strips, and interior pocket patterns. Can you think of anything else? I can’t. The left side of the room is where the real salivation can begin. It’s the Denim Wall, and it’s more aptly described as the Denim Mountain. See spools of denim fabric stacked floor to ceiling in every color, blue to black to purple and back; every thickness, from shag rug heavy to paper thin; and anything else you can imagine, and can’t imagine.

Now head over there and have Morrison, and his denim elves, paint a pair of denim jeans onto you like you were born with them on.

Blue Apron delivers fresh ingredients, pre-measured, right to your door.

This is one of the best ideas I’ve heard of in a long time: purchasing exactly what you need, no more and no less, for a particular meal that you want to make at home. A new online company, which is based right here in New York, called Blue Apron, delivers fresh ingredients right to your door.

For a very reasonable $10 per person per meal, Blue Apron plans your menu, shops for your ingredients, measures out the quantities that you need, and then delivers it all. Then all you do is cook, relax, and enjoy your meal.

Patrons learn new, delectable recipes, and get to eat fresh and healthy meals made exactly the way you like. Each meal takes about 35 minutes to prepare, contain about 500-700 calories per serving, and come with easy to follow, easy to look at, recipe cards.

Customers sign-up online for a weekly subscription which can make as little as three meals per week for then number of people you specify. Meals are recommended each week based on what you like to eat, and no matter which plan chosen, there is no commitment. It is possible to skip any week as long as Blue Apron knows by the weekly deadline for the coming week.

Although based in New York, they are ready to deliver to customers in many places all over the country. Check out their web site: Blue Apron.

Long lines at the Empire State Building

New to New York? Time limited and you want to see as much as you can while still getting a real flavor for the city? Then there are a few activities and sites worth avoiding.

• Neither take a yellow cab or a “pedi-cab.” Only tourists take the price gauging pedal-pushing, wallet-emptying gimmicky form of New York transportation; while taxis in New York may seem convenient, but in order to get through the insane New York traffic, they may give you a heart attack. Therefore, get underground and take the beloved subway. Get there fast, get there safe, and still have some money left to actually have some fun on the other end of the ride.

• Did someone suggest visiting the Empire State Building? Well, don’t. Not unless you find long lines-five to be exact-and hard sells of stupid products like a “3-D ride over the city or an “express ticket” as some kind of fun. Consider going to the Rainbow Room instead. Trek on over to Rockefeller Plaza, 65th floor, order a drink, sit back, and for the same $20 you would have spent waiting on line at the Empire State Building, admire the exact same view.

• Dreaming of a romantic ride on one of those lovely horse-drawn carriages through Central Park? Well, you better dream of something else. The rides are nothing like what you might imagine. The horse will have no get up and go, you will travel on the same well-worn paths with little interest, the driver will talk about things of little interest, and you will spend most of the time staring at the back of the carriage in front of you.

We recommend waking up with the sun and strolling through the beautiful Central Park with your bestest friend for a real, romantic moment. Forget the overpriced horse and get real.

Its summer, yea!! Summer means the beach, the pool, air-conditioned museums, but best of all, fantastic festivals. Here is a short list of some of the city’s most exciting outdoor parties.

* In the “free department” is the Madison Square Park Kids Concerts. Beginning already in June, these high-quality, high entertainment value shows will continue throughout July every Tuesday and Thursday until August 5th. Well worth the effort, and not to mention the price.

Adventures NYC

* In Central Park, at the band-shell, kids and their families can experience the fun of the great outdoors without leaving town. Kayaking, fishing lessons and a rock climbing zone will enthrall kids of all ages. There will also be an opportunity to meet the NY Liberty basketball team. Live music free bike rentals and bike helmet giveaways make Adventures NYC an amazing activity for families. Even more amazing, it’s all absolutely free.

* Bryant Park Summer Film Festival is another free activity which presents movies on a weekly basis every Monday all summer long. See flicks like the 1940 “The Mark of Zorro,” “Karate Kid,” and “Lover Come Back.” The lawn opens up at 5pm and the film begins as the sun sets.

Modern Corset

Ever wonder what women wore under those huge dresses of the 18th and 19th centuries? The Fashion Institute of Technology has put together an exhibit which will cure your curiosity, as well as educate you on a previously little revealed subject.

Exposed: A History of Lingerie will take you on a tour of the development of women’s intimate apparel featuring more than 70 undergarments tracing their development from the 18th century until modern times.

Silk, cotton and lacey lingerie from designers such as Patricia Fieldwalker, Valerie Porr and Christian Dior will reveal the hidden secret of women’s intimate dressing world. From corsets made with whalebone to silky little nothings, come explore the wonderful world of women’s underwear.

This exhibit is free and runs from June 3rd to November 15th. FIT is at Seventh Avenue and West 27th Street. For more information contact: 212.217.4558

Late Night Basement’s Chris Rose

Did you know that Late Night Basement in Brooklyn hosts a free show once a month? Well now that you know, you still have time to check out this month’s addition on Friday night, May 9th. Chris Rose will host four fabulous comics: Jon Benjamin, Walter Martin, Michelle Wolf, and Jared Logan.

In case you missed who Chris Rose is, well, he’s the guy that interviewed Williamsburg residents about their opinion of Guy Fieri opening a new restaurant right in the nabe. (It was just a joke, so calm down.) The video of this prank went viral, and now Chris is famous. Sort of. Well, at least we know he’s funny.

While supplies last there will be a two-for-one beer offer thanks to local brewer HEAVY SEAS. DJ TREATZ will also be playing a unique mixture of indie pop and Beyonce. Late Night Basement happens at Pine Box Rock Shop at 12 Grattan Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Who can visit New York and not want to explore some of the best shopping found anywhere in the world? And where is the “best of the best?” The famous names come easily, such as Fifth Avenue, the Lower East Side’s garment district, the Upper West Side for antiques. But what do you know about one of the “World’s Top Ten Shopping Streets” according to National Geographic? That is, of course, the Flea Market in Hell’s Kitchen.

Every Saturday and Sunday from 9am to 5pm, all year long, excited shoppers converge on one of New York’s most fun places to go, the HKFM. The West 25th Street Market is an amazing place to find great bargains; the best antiques anywhere in town will be for sale in The Garage; and for furniture, there is nowhere else that can match the Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market.

Come and see for yourself. 112 Wst 25th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. For more information contact 800.780.7330

During the past ten years, and especially the last two, restaurants have been popping up like mushrooms along Frederick Douglass Boulevard between 110th and 120th Streets in Harlem. This strip of real estate has been proclaimed recently as the spot to watch as the entire neighborhood begins its inevitable transformation into a gentrified high-rent district.

Yvette Leeper-Bueno, owner of newly opened Vinateria restaurant, commented on the changing feel of the neighborhood.

“My husband Adrian [Bueno] and I have been in the neighborhood for 11 years,” she explains. “And we re-did a brownstone that’s been in the family since the 1980s. My father used to rent the rooms out on a weekly basis, and he would talk about these characters who’d stay there. At that time, the neighborhood was quite downtrodden. There were syringes in the streets, all kinds of crime, drugs, squatters, tons of problems with this specific building. Everything you can imagine.”

Vinateria

The restaurant renaissance began with baby steps with the opening of Melba’s in 2005, and Zoma, a wonderful Eithiopian eatery which opened in 2006. Leeper-Bueno says the real explosion began in 2010.

“One of the first restaurants to be of the new wave of restaurants was 5 and Diamond on 112th and Frederick Douglass,” she explains. “Then Bier International opened, and then it kind of caught like wild fire.”

Since then more restaurants have opened on the trendy street, including Cedric, Lido, a new branch of Levain Bakery, and a bar and cocktails joint, 67 Orange Street. Come visit and become a part of this trendy, up and coming, destination.