The McDonalds on West 84th Street in Manhattan is still one of my favorite branches
The $6.00 McDouble Value meal is still one of my favorites
The Mc Arabia that I had in Abu Dhabi I still think should come to the States
I have to have two of these once a year to complete my fix on the Shamrock Shake
The front of the Town Museum of Secaucus at 150 Plaza Drive in Secaucus, NJ
The main gallery of the museum
The main gallery of the museum
The front of the Library and Museum at 318 Kearny Avenue in Kearny, NJ
The Main Gallery of the Museum
The main gallery of the museum
The front of Chico’s Pizza & Restaurant at 161 Front Street
There excellent and reasonable slice of Cheese Pizza
The Sausage and Cheese Calzone
The Members of the Bergen County Firemen’s Home Association with our honorary member, Wells
Singer Gigi entertained the residents of the NJ State Firemen’s Home this afternoon
Gigi performing “More Today than Yesterday”
Gigi performing “One way or Another”
If you like the concert, here is Gigi Onofrio’s contact information for booking her.
The family members buried in the family plot
The Haring Farm Cemetery in River Vale, NJ
The site cleaned up for a walking tour of the cemetery in April 2025:
The Haring Farm Cemetery after a good cleaning
Me with my students on a tour
Our group picture
With the Hasbrouck Heights Men’s Association, once a year we honor our own and we honor those who do good in the Hasbrouck Heights community. That’s how we award members and residents who go above and beyond for our community. Every year we chose a member for “Member of the Year”, who helps build our organization and whose contributions go above and beyond and best represent the organization.
Our second award of Community “Man of the Year”’” is given a resident whose contributions benefit the Borough of Hasbrouck Heights. It is our organization’s way of saying ‘Thank you’ to these active members of the community.
For the last three years, we have enjoyed our dinner at Segovia’s Steakhouse in Little Ferry, NJ. Our evening started with a cocktail hour and members and their spouses catching up with one another. It is always a nice way to relax and start the evening.
Enjoying the start of the evening with members and their spouses
It is such a great evening for members and spouses to catch up
The food and the service at Segovia’s is excellent and the meals are top notch. We always enjoy the assortment of dishes at dinner. The restaurant celebrates classic Spanish/Mediterranean food.
My review on TripAdvisor:
The Banquet menu at Segovia’s is extensive and the dinner that night was fantastic. While many members enjoyed a drink, then we started with Tapas to start our meal. It was a combination of salads, seafoods and sausages.
Garlic Shrimp, Calamari and Chorizo sausage
Mussels in Red Sauce
Potato Croquettes with cheese
The salad
The freshly baked rolls to sop up all the juices and sauces
As soon as we finished the appetizers, the pasta course came out and we continued our meal with wonderful conversation.
The Appetizer hour is always wonderful
Then we moved on to the Pasta dish that followed the Tapas.
The Penne a la Vodka
The entrees are a classic combination of influences from Spain and Italy representing the owners background from this area of Europe.
The seafood Paella was full of all sorts of meat and seafood
The Chicken Francais
The Poached Salmon
The Grilled Beef Steak
After the main part of the dinner was over, it was time for our honorees. Before that happened, the incoming board recognized me for the twelve years I had spent on the board. My feeling was it was time to step down and let the next group of guys take over from us and keep the building of the organization.
After that it was time to present the awards to our honorees of this evening. Our ‘Member of the Year’ was long time member Ed Hauptman, who was surprised and touched by the award when his name was called.
Congratulating Ed
‘Member of the Year’ Ed Hauptman
“Member of the Year” Ed Hampton with the Executive Board of the Hasbrouck Heights Men’s Association 2025
Our organization also picks a member of the community for “Man of the Year”, who has given back to our organization and to the community at large. This year we picked Jason Catalano.
Our ‘Man of the Year’ was Hasbrouck Heights resident, Jason Catalano with his son
“Man of the Year” Jason Catalano and son with the Hasbrouck Heights Men’s Association Board
We were very proud of our winners and the contributions they make to our community. Our awards recognize these contributions the Hasbrouck Heights community. To the end the evening, it was time for our traditional group photo and dessert.
The Hasbrouck Heights Men’s Association Membership for 2025
Our traditional toast at the end of the dinner at the bar at Segovia’s
Our dessert, a traditional Cannoli Cream Cake with our town colors
What a wonderful way to end the evening.
It really was a wonderful evening for our organization, our family’s and the winners of our awards. Thank you to the Hasbrouck Heights community for supporting us and making us the success that we are as an organization.
We are looking forward to another successful year in 2025!
The front of the Boro of Lakehurst Historical Society Museum
The air transportation exhibition
The museum’s home life collection
I love being a member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art!
The Metropolitan Museum of Art at 1000 Fifth Avenue
My review on TripAdvisor:
It is especially nice when the museum is closed and you can visit the museum with all the other members in a private event just for us.
It was time for another ‘Met After Hours’ member event
I wait for these evenings as a member. It is so much fun to walk the halls of the Met after the museum closes and just relax, look at exhibitions that I might have missed on my last several trips to the museum, have a much needed cocktail (one specialty drink is more than enough) and enjoy listening to the speaker.
Entering the main hall of the museum
The beautiful Cherry Blossoms are in season in all the urns
Walking through the Greek Galleries on my way to the exhibitions that were open that evening
The Jesse Krimes Corrections exhibition
https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/jesse-krimes-corrections
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/jesse-krimes-met-museum-exhibition-1234728767/
I decided to start on the second floor of the museum since most of the members seem to settle on the first floor. My first stop was the Jesse Krimes exhibition ’Corrections’.
Krimes’s image-based installations, made over the course of his six-year incarceration, reflect the ingenuity of an artist working without access to traditional materials. Employing prison-issued soap, hair gel, playing cards, and newspaper he created works of art that seek to disrupt and recontextualize the circulation of photographs in the media (Met website).
Displayed at The Met in dialogue with Bertillon, whose pioneering method paired anthropomorphic measurements with photographs to produce the present-day mug shot, Krimes’s work raises questions about the perceived neutrality of our systems of identification and the hierarchies of social imbalance they create and reinscribe. An artist for whom collaboration and activism are vital, Krimes founded the Center for Art and Advocacy to highlight the talent and creative potential among individuals who have experienced incarceration and to support and improve outcomes for formerly incarcerated artists (Met website).
The description of the show ‘Jesse Krimes Corrections’
The art work ‘Purgatory’ where the artist put faces of the artist’s imagination while in solitary confinement.
The signage for the piece
The sculpture ‘Naxos’ with thousands of pebbles from prison yards
The signage for ‘Naxos’
I then toured through the Asian Galleries to see what exhibitions were open that evening. Some of the displays for Chinese New Year were still prominent in the galleries and I admired them in the cases.
This very evil looking statue just stares at you while you pass it
I admired the Chinese Zodiac sculptures in the Asian Wing and found my sculpture in the year of the Snake. Chinese New Year was over but the displays for the year of the Snake were still on display.
The sculptures of the Chinese Zodiac
The sign for the Zodiac animals
At the entrance to one of the galleries, one sculpture stood out to me that has been accented by peacock feathers.
The peacock sculpture ‘Mahamayuri on Peacock’
The sign for the sculpture
The piece stood out for its grace and its beauty. There was something unique about it.
I then visited the other side of the floor that was open in the Arabic Wing. I had visited the gallery in length during one of the other member nights when they officially reopened. I love all the displays of rugs and decorative objects throughout the various rooms.
Walking through one of the rug gallery rooms
What I admire the most from some of these artisans is the approach to precious items like gold, silver and jewels in the works. You could really see the amazing detail to these works.
Several decorative items in the display case
One of the special exhibitions in the Arabic Wing was the Merchant Ivory exhibition ‘Ink to Ivory’ from the Director’s private collection.
The sign from the ‘Ink and Ivory’ exhibition
This focused exhibition presents a selection of superlative drawings from the courts and centers of India and Pakistan (with a few related Persian works) dating from the late sixteenth to the twentieth century. These works are mainly selected from The Met collection in partnership with film director James Ivory, whose recent gift to the Museum of nineteenth-century photograph albums will also be featured in the exhibition (Met website).
The drawings will include fresh and informal preparatory exercises for paintings as well as beautifully finished works in their own right. The photographs will present the subject matter and styles that came about in the contexts of royal patronage and ceremony; views of architecture, cities, landscapes, and people, among others. As an artist and filmmaker, James Ivory will help us appreciate this material through his unique gaze (Met website).
The description of the show at the Met
The exhibition was a selection of drawings and photos from the British possession of India. I could see from the pictures the Caste system that had been created. The drawings though were quite interesting and showed a different perspective of Indian life at that time. I liked the mix of royals both from England and India.
When I got to the first floor, I noticed the time as getting late in the evening. This special evening was ending at 9:00pm rather than the usual 10:00pm and after the last three weeks that I had with Midterms and papers to grade and leading a recent field trip with my students. I really needed to relax and have a drink.
The Temple of Dendur gallery was lit for the evening and music was playing when I arrived. I guess all the other members felt the way I did as the place was packed. I was wondering why the halls were so quiet.
The Temple of Dendur Gallery was set up for the Members Bar
The lighting really accented the ancient temple
The crowds really packed the cocktail tables
Everyone had to get drink tickets to get a beverage and trust me this did not look like the soft drink crowd. They were featuring a ‘Berry Fizz’ as their signature drink that evening.
The signature drink ‘The Berry Fizz’
Relaxing at the end of the evening on the rim of the pool at the Temple of Dendur Gallery
Relaxing and talking to other members at the Temple of Dendur that evening
The bewitching hour of 9:00pm came and the bar area was still going strong but other parts of the museum began to clear out and close for the evening.
As we left, members of the staff handed out Chocolate Flowers that represented the Cherry Blossoms that were prominently featured all over that entrance and would be blooming all over the City in the next few weeks.
The Chocolate Flower we got when we left. I think this was a nice touch as was the pumpkin at the Halloween members night
All the Cherry Blossoms around the Great Hall entrance as I left
It was not a pleasant night as we left for the evening. It was pouring down rain and I could see this when I was in the Temple of Dendur Gallery.
I walked to East 72nd Street and had dinner at Shanghai Chinese Food at 1388 Second Avenue for dinner. This little hole in the wall restaurant has some of the best Chinese food in Manhattan.
I needed the ultimate comfort food that night and ordered the General Tso’s Chicken with Pork Fried rice. That took the gloom off this rainy evening.
https://www.mapquest.com/us/new-york/shanghai-chinese-restaurant-527392156
My review on TripAdvisor:
My review on DiningonaShoeStringinNYC@Wordpress.com:
The crispy rich sweetness of the dish is so satisfying
I love this delicious dish
Each piece was a delight
The nice part was that the staff let me relax and finish my dinner. Since I was still dressed in a suit from classes earlier in the day I just assumed they thought I worked at the hospital nearby. It is always so funny to see peoples reactions to me being all dressed up.
It was a nice relaxing evening and a great way to end the day.
The Fort Lee Historic Park Museum Main Gallery
The American Leaders in the Revolutionary War
The Main Gallery
mywalkinmanhattan 