Last night we attended the grand opening of the WIRED Holiday Store 2009, which is open November 21st through December 27th both in the form of an online store as well as a physical location in Meatpacking District of Manhattan.

Welcome to the Fifth Annual Wired Store. Here, you’ll find all that’s new & next in the world of WIRED: Cutting-edge technology & design… The latest in games & gaming… Cool new music & books… Hot new gear & gadgets… Indoor & outdoor inspiration… Products to help you lead a greener life… And the opportunity to own your very own WIRED-branded stuff.

Photo Gallery: Wired Holiday Store 2009

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photos by Scott Beale

Yesterday I stopped by the new Apple retail store in New York City’s Upper West Side. The building features a beautiful glass facade and glass spiral staircase that descends to the lower level.

Photo Gallery: Upper West Side Apple Store

See Previously: 24 Hour Apple Store in New York

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photo by Scott Beale

This is what the Empire State Building looked like tonight in the rain and fog as I walked by it on 5th Avenue last night. You know you’re in NYC when you can walk right by something as tall as the Empire State building and not even notice it, but I’m glad I decided to look up.

Here are more photo’s I’ve shot of the Empire State Building over the years.

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I stopped by the Foursquare offices in Manhattan this afternoon, where they were busy rolling out support for 50 new cities around the world. Foursquare has really been rocking it lately, going full force and getting better every day.

While hanging out there I also came across their secret product roadmap.

photos by Scott Beale

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photos by Scott Beale

I’m in New York City this week and last night I went to Diggnation NYC which took place in the beautiful Grand Ballroom at the Manhattan Center in Midtown Manhattan. Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht recorded another great episode of Diggnation in front of an enthusiastic live audience. They had fun shooting t-shirts out into the crowd with a t-shirt canon and at one point a giant remote controlled Squarespace blimp came out and flew around above the crowd.

Photo Gallery: Diggnation NYC

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Erin Jang created a special poster for her three year old nephew who loves the NYC subway system. She included all of his favorite places. Here’s a larger version.

via Coudal Partners

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guest post by RICK!

Artist Spy Emerson is in desperate needs of wooden spoons for her new art project, Pankabestia, in NYC.

SPOON DRIVE
Oct 12th-Nov 12th
Prizes are awarded to top three donators, including a special, private performance from moses+spy. Anyone (or team) can enter email: spy [at] spygirlfriday [dot] com

Spy is collecting wooden utensils to be used in an installation for the exhibition “PANKABESTIA: Punk Beasts of the Swimming Cities of Serenissima” She plans to build a giant representation of the art rafts used to crash the Venice Biennale this past summer, and needs many many wooden utensils to do it.

Ritual Roasters, Lost Weekend Video, Flora Grubb Gardens and Cafe Que Tal will be accepting spoon donations.

OR just slap a stamp on an old wooden spoon, and sends it to:

spy
c/o anonymous gallery
169 Bowery
New York, NY 10002.

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Nathaniel Kassel rides his bike around New York City giving high fives to people who are hailing cabs. The people’s reactions are priceless.

via The Presurfer

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Improv Everywhere agents take 2,000 invisible dogs for a walk in Brooklyn.

For our latest mission, over 2,000 people walked “invisible dogs” down the streets of Brooklyn on a Sunday afternoon. The leashes were on loan from the current owner of 51 Bergen Street, the factory space where the invisible dog toy was invented in the 1970s. Participants of all ages spread out from Red Hook to Brooklyn Heights, very seriously walking their very silly dogs.

photo by Chad Nicholson

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For their latest mission, Improv Everywhere installed a temporary photography studio on a random NYC subway car to take photos for a imaginary yearbook of riders.

photo by Katie Sokoler

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Activist pranksters The Yes Men have created a fake version of The New York Post with the headline “We’re Screwed” and an overall theme of climate change. This morning over 2000 volunteers have been distributing copies of this “special edition” paper on the streets of New York City.

Early this morning, nearly a million New Yorkers were stunned by the appearance of a “special edition” New York Post blaring headlines that their city could face deadly heat waves, extreme flooding, and other lethal effects of global warming within the next few decades. The most alarming thing about it: the news came from an official City report.

Distributed by over 2000 volunteers throughout New York City, the paper has been created by The Yes Men and a coalition of activists as a wake-up call to action on climate change. It appears one day before a UN summit where Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will push 100 world leaders to make serious commitments to reduce carbon emissions in the lead-up to the Copenhagen climate conference in December. Ban has said that the world has “less than 10 years to halt (the) global rise in greenhouse gas emissions if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences for people and the planet,” adding that Copenhagen is a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.”

Although the 32-page New York Post is a fake, everything in it is 100% true, with all facts carefully checked by a team of editors and climate change experts.

Last December The Yes Men created a fake version of The New York Times with the headline “Iraq War Ends”.

via TreeHugger

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“I Can Has Cheezburger: The MusicLOL!”, a musical based on the popular LOLcat blog I Can Has Cheezburger, is part of the New York International Fringe Festival with performances on August 14-28 at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village.

After being uploaded to ICanHasCheezburger.com, a young, impressionable LOLcat embarks on a journey to find his one true love: A cheezburger. Along the way, he meets a colorful cast of characters who help — and hinder — his mission.

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The Naked Cowboy (Robert Burck), who can often be found playing guitar in his underwear in Times Square, has just thrown his (cowboy) hat into the race to be the next Mayor of New York City.

Robert Burck, aka Naked Cowboy, has been listening to the needs of native New Yorkers and tourists alike for over a decade. A hard-working, self-made entrepreneur, he’s become one of the most recognizable one-man brands in the world — all with just a pair of undies, six strings and a lot of hard work. No one’s done more with less than Naked Cowboy, and now he’s bringing this special talent to the mayoral race of New York City.

With both Reverend Billy (who announced his candidacy in March) and now The Naked Cowboy on the ticket, it’s very reminiscent of when Chicken John, Josh Wolf and several other unique candidates ran for Mayor of San Francisco in 2007.

via The Art of The Prank

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Acrossair has developed an amazing augmented reality app for the iPhone 3GS, New York Nearest Subway which helps you find the nearest subway lines as you move and tilt your iPhone.

When you load the app, holding it flat, all 33 lines of the New York Subway are displayed in coloured arrows. By tilting the phone upwards, you will see the nearest stations: what direction they are in relation to your location, how many miles away they are and what lines they are on. If you continue to tilt the phone upwards, you will see stations further away, as stacked icons

It is based on the Nearest Tube app that they developed for London underground.

via Daring Fireball

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poster by Molly Crabapple & Nicola Black

MoCCA Art Festival 2009, a fundraiser for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA), takes place June 6th & 7th at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City.

The MoCCA Festival, held each June since 2002, offers a unique venue to see and purchase comics, mini-comics, web comics, graphic novels, animation, posters, prints, original artwork, and much more. Thousands of people who love cartoons and comics — from hardcore collectors and enthusiasts to the merely curious — come to the Festival each summer to meet, talk to, and purchase works from some of today’s best cartoon and comics artists, writers, editors, and publishers.

Each year, the Festival also invites dozens of well-respected creators, scholars, and other experts to participate in a two-day slate of lecture/discussion panels on a wide range of comics and cartoon topics. Scheduled to appear are John Green, Tom Hart, Charles Hatfield on Jack Kirby, Al Jaffee, Arnold Roth, Tom Kaczynski, David Mazzuchelli, Dave Roman, Frank Santoro in Conversation with Gary Panter, Seth, Raina Telgemeier, Adrian Tomine, Marion Vitus, and more. Guests and scheduling are subject to change.

Of course we love the wonderful cephalopod themed poster for MoCCA Art Festival 2009 illustrated by Molly Crabapple and designed by Nicola Black.

via Ectoplasmosis!

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guest post by Burstein!

looking uptown from 3rd and 7th

Here & There is a composite 3D image created by Schulze and Webb that borrows representations of Manhattan from maps, comics, television, and games.

The projection works by presenting an image of the place in which the observer is standing. As the city recedes into the (geographic) distance it shifts from a natural, third person representation of the viewer’s immediate surroundings into a near plan view. The city appears folded up, as though a large crease runs through it. But it isn’t a halo or hoop though, and the city doesn’t loop over one’s head. The distance is potentially infinite, and it’s more like a giant ripple showing both the viewers surroundings and also the city in the distance.

The artists have posted a long and fascinating description of influences on this project at their blog.

looking downtown from 3rd and 35th

via Warren Ellis

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guest post by Burstein!

art by Ji Lee, photo by unknown

In a beautifully flawless prank, the Public Ad Campaign refaced over 120 illegal billboards in New York City. The billboards are illegal because the parent company never received permits and there are too many of them for the city to tear them all down. That means they are open game for public art!

photo by unknown

Bravo to all those fine folks in taking citizen action against the plight of illegal billboards. Now, here is a question for you all – are there illegal billboards in the Bay Area? If so where? Mail me at mastermind [at] thoughtpolice [dot] commercial.

More Coverage: Barbara Celis, Wooster Collective, Gothamist, ANIMAL & Urban Prankster

via Urban Prankster

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guest post by Burstein!

photo by Scouting NY

Artist Marisol Escobar designed this poignant memorial to American Merchant Mariners lost at sea located on the west side of Battery Park in New York City. The imagery in the memorial is based on real pictures of drowning merchant marines taken by German U-boat sailors during World War II.

photo by Scouting NY

Scouting NY shot some truly haunting photos of the memorial

via Scouting NY

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guest post by Aaron Muszalski

On Wired’s Gadget Lab blog, Dylan Tweeny has written an excellent article on the burgeoning global DIY hackerspace movement.

“There are zillions of people around the world doing this,” says Altman, referring to the swell of interest in do-it-yourself projects and hacking. “It’s a worldwide community.”

At the center of this community are hacker spaces like Noisebridge, where like-minded geeks gather to work on personal projects, learn from each other and hang out in a nerd-friendly atmosphere. Like artist collectives in the ’60s and ’70s, hacker spaces are springing up all over.

NoiseBridge - a collectively operated hackerspace located in San Francisco’s Mission District – is extensively profiled, as is Brooklyn’s NYC Resistor.

“It’s almost a Fight Club for nerds,” says Nick Bilton of his hacker space, NYC Resistor.

See Previously:

- NoiseBridge, An Open Project Space for Hackers In San Francisco

- NYC Resistor, An Electronics & Hardware Hacker Space In Brooklyn

- Hacker Spaces, Community Operated Project Work Spaces

photos by Dylan Tweeny / Wired.com & Rubin Abdi, image by Suzanne R Forbes

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“The Lost Tribes of New York City”, a lovely short film by urban anthropologists Andy and Carolyn London who animated inanimate objects from the streets of New York using the voices of interviews with New Yorkers.

via Cartoon Brew

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