Empire State of Mind

Left: Empire State Building with "Canada Day" Lighting


Disclosure: This post has absolutely nothing to do with sustainability, something to do with living in a city, and everything to do with things I find mildly amusing.

The coolest thing about my bedroom is that I can see both the Empire State and Chrysler buildings in all their Art Decco-ie glory from my window. The lamest thing about my bedroom is that it is pretty much the size of a largish closet. Emphasis on the ISH. So, I regularly glance out my window at the NYC skyline as a means of reassuring myself that living in a closet is OK since the closet is located within viewing distance of Manhattan, while costing only a third of the price of renting in the city proper.

Tonight however as I gazed longingly out of my window I was somewhat shocked to see the top of the Empire State Building sporting a medley of lights that could most accuratley be described as technicolored vommit. The normally distinct trifecta of colored bulbs has been replaced by a mish-mash of clashing, blurred colors that looks more like an Empire State fuck-up than an Empire State Building! However, minimal investigation has confirmed that this cluster-fuck of colors is indeed intentional. Phew. Indeed tonight, October 19, 2009, the ESB is sporting "Psychedelic Tye-Dye Colors" in honor of the New York Historical Society's Benefit for Grateful Dead Exhibition and Archive. Uh huh. No joke. Apparently I no longer live in New York City at all, but have instead been transported to some alternate reality outpost of Burlington, VT. Mostly I'm left lamenting why they stopped at psychedelic tie-dye lighting and didn't go as far as chucking free cartons of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food from the top of the building to mark this momentous occasion.

Now, if you've been living in a cave for the past several years, or just don't frequent NYC all that often, you might not be aware that the colors of the ESB tower change to reflect holidays. Or at least thats how it used to be. You know, red/white/blue for Independence Day, orange and yellow for Thanksgiving, red and green for Christmas -- this all seems quite reasonable. But then some a-hole got the bright idea that sticking to the pallate of major American holidays, was, well frankly, quite limiting, and that the TALLEST building in the BIGGEST city in the GREATEST country in the world was capable of much, much more.

Now, I'd like to think that this bold vision came from the guy in charge of changing the lightbulbs every night --some outer-borough guy with a name like Vinnie or Joey who grew up in a house in Brooklyn with plastic on the couches and outrageously garrish Christmas decorations in the front yard, but a safer bet is probably some corporate schmuck sitting in a meeting, bored out of his mind with one finger up his nose while the other mindlessly scrolls through a Wikipedia list of bizzare holidays on his Blackberry. Oh harsh reality!

Regardless, the ESB now boasts an impressive lighting schedule, with the tower colorfully lit most nights of the week, for a multitude of obscure holidays and events. And I'm not talking Yom Kippur and All Saints Day. I'm talking Purple/Orange/White for the Cat Fanciers' Association -Iams Cat Championships as seen on this very date last year, or Blue/Green/Blue for Corporate Philanthropy Day on Feb. 23.

And my personal favorite: April 23, 2009 - Green/Green/Green for the 25th Anniversary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Also my 26th birthday. Hellz yeah.

Feeding a City

OKAY, I've been at this blog for a few months now (albeit with a month-long hiatus). The time has clearly come for you and me to sit down for a friendly chat about a subject near and dear to my heart: food.

Furthermore, lets talk about my favorite type of food: the local, seasonal, environmentally and socially friendly kind. And lets throw in urban farming just for shits sake.

If you've known me for more than...hmm...like 10 minutes, you undoubtedly learned the hard way (think extremely grouchy Gwennie with plummeting blood sugar and no snacks) the central roll that food plays in my daily functioning. My life consists of little more than a series of tasks that I perform mainly so that I can justify my next meal, and I consume a good 5 square meals a day (I don't know who invented the 3 meal ideal, but it just doesn't work for me, my metabolism or my brain). Luckily, I can now boast several worthy justifications for this pseudo-obsession, apart from the fact that my brain and body don't function well when running on empty, I'm a super geeky foodie, and I enjoy me some good eats in a serious way:

1) I live in a city that boasts 23,000 restaurants (a fact i just learned!) This means that I could eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at a different restaurant every day of the year, and it would still take me like, 21 years, to dine at every restaurant in NYC. Whoa.

2) Since August, I've been working as an urban farmer and environmental educator on The Science Barge in Yonkers, NY.

3) I'm writing my thesis on distribution networks for local, grass-fed meat in NYC. Or at least I'm THINKING about writing my thesis. Lets all cross our fingers and say a little prayer that thinking will lead to writing sooner rather than later, so that I can graduate and get the Hell on with my life.

4) I spent last Saturday picking apples upstate at Fishkill Farms. Anyone who's ever been apple picking knows that u-pick apple orchards release a dangerous brain-altering chemical which makes you unable to stop putting apples in your sack, even as reason tells you you've amassed more apples than any one person could ever naturally consume. Goddamn apples. I am now busying myself with discovering innovative ways of disposing of my glut of the forbidden fruit--but more on that later.

5) And finally, I just finished watching this TED talk on "How Food Shapes Our Cities" with Carolyn Steel, which made the geographer in me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and the environmentalist in me feel oh so inspired. You should totally watch this.


My internship on The Science Barge - a prototype sustainable urban farm and environmental education center- has solidified my belief that food is a (if not THE) fundamental component for a healthy, functional world. Food is central to our daily lives, both biologically and culturally, and as such, is critical to a sustainable future. Food has the power to transform our society on so many levels. The way we grow food, transport food, consume food and dispose of food waste has huge implications for not only our physical health, but for the health of our cultures, communities, cities and the natural world. If food is so central to our functioning as species, shouldn't we take the time to make sure we're growing and consuming it in a sustainable way? YES!

For the first time in human history, more than half of the world's population lives in an urban area. Despite this fact, almost all of the food we consume is still grown in rural areas, far, far away from these population centers. More and more, this food is being grown in environmentally damaging ways, in a system more reminiscent of a factory than a farm. Every day, family farms are losing ground to huge multinational corporations. This is not only damaging to the environment, but to the vitality of rural communities. Sadly, the mammoth monoculture farms and Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) created through this industrial system are now referred to as "conventional", while food grown responsibly is labeled "organic" -- a niche market of healthy, environmentally and socially responsible food available only to those who can afford to pay for it.

This has to change! We must re envision our relationship with food and farming so that what is now a niche market for local, organic produce and humanely raised and slaughtered livestock becomes the norm rather than the exception. One way we can achieve this goal is to improve the distribution networks between small farms and the cities they surround, so that farmers are guaranteed a market for their produce plus fair prices, while all urban consumers are granted access to safe, fresh, seasonal, nutritious food. The New York City Greenmarkets are a great example of how this can work, but they are only one answer to a problem that necessitates a variety of solutions.

Another way is to grow food where people live - in cities! Once a pie-in-the-sky Utopian vision, urban farming is now becoming the "in" thing. Prototype farms, like The Science Barge, are teaching people that food can and should be grown in cities, while commercial operations like Rooftop Farms in Greenpoint, Brooklyn are demonstrating the economic and social viability of urban farming. Cities are full of places where food could be grown to support local communities: rooftops, brownfields, vacant lots and community gardens are just a few examples. Other
people, including urban farm expert Dickson Despommier, see the future of urban farms in vertical farming and hydroponics. No matter which method suits the inner farmer in you, urban farms will be vital to the health, security and prosperity of cities in the future.

Ok, time to step down off my soapbox and get to work...tonight I've got a kitchen full of apples (local, organic, AND in season) to chip away at. Tomorrow its back to The Science Barge, where I'll do my darndest to inspire a classroom full of kids to revolutionize the way they think about their next lunch. Good eats.