The Porn Buddha + Edward Mooney House

The Rosemary was a small theater in Chinatown, which fit less than 500 ticket holders in their main room, and balcony. The cinema specialized in kung fu features and B-movie fare when it opened in 1978, but by the late 80s started showing porno on weekends. By 1990, porn flicks were their staple until they closed their doors in 1996.
Found at 133 Canal Street (between Bowery and Chrystie Street), they re-opened the following year as a Mahayana Buddhist temple.

Where there once was a canvas screen a thousand freaks freaked to, now sits a huge, golden Buddha. The statue is 16ft (5m) high, and is hollow within.

Along the walls of the main hall are lithographs depicting the Buddha's history and deeds, as well as ritual drums and instruments.
If you visit, be careful where you point your camera, as photos are not allowed in certain areas, and of certain religious objects and offerings.
After you've donated a buck, pick your fortune from the stacks of yellow bundles found throughout the place, and head a few blocks south to the corner of Bowery and Pell Street to see the Edward Mooney house.

Finished in 1789, it is now Manhattan's oldest row house still standing.
The home was constructed by affluent butcher Edward Mooney, on land confiscated from British Loyalist James De Lancey, so as to be near the slaughterhouses where he made his fortune. After his death in 1800, the joint was passed from buyer to buyer, one of which extended the structure in 1807. Since that time, the building had functioned as a saloon, hotel and even a brothel, but is now a bank.

The residence was made a landmark in 1966, and entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

7000 Oaks + High Line Park

In Manhattan, all along West 22nd Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues, is an oddity of an art project.

Titled 7000 Eichen - Stadtverwaldung statt Stadtverwaltung (English: 7000 Oaks - City Forestation Instead of City Administration), was an idea in "land art" created by German Fluxus artist Joseph Beuys (1921 - 1986).

This piece was first presented in 1982 at dOCUMENTA No. 7 - a contemporary art show held every 5 years in Kassel, Germany. In response to today's urbanization, the work has volunteers planting 7000 trees, each buddied up with a large basalt stone.

The work was inspired by Guy Debord and the Situationist International's Theses on Traffic (read that here), which was first published in Internationale Situationniste, issue #3, in 1959.

The 7000 Oaks project in New York City was funded by The Dia Art Foundation, and was first installed in 1988, with only five trees (Oak, Bradford Pear, Gingko, Sycamore, and Linden). In 1996, eighteen new trees were added (including the aforementioned, as well as Pin Oak, Elm Honey Locust, and Red Oak).

If you find yourself in the area to check these out, also take a walk down High Line Park, which is a 1.45-mile-long (2.33 km) garden park, created using a section of New York Central Railroad's West Side Line.

Originally built in 1831, most of it was demolished in 1960. Originally, it ran from 23rd Street to 129th Street, but was extended south to Spring Street in 1851.

The section that remains stretches from 12th Street to 33rd Street, but the park opened in phases, with the first being in 2009 (Gansevoort St to 20th St), then phase two in 2011 (20th to 30th St), and phase three in 2014 (finishing just before 33rd St). The section pictured first (the 30th Street Spur) will open this year.

Fort Tilden

Looking for a place to make a great dystopian music video, or film something in what looks like a Nevada nuclear test site?
Look no farther than Fort Tilden in Queens' Rockaway Peninsula.

It's an old Army base, that is now part of the Gateway National Recreation Area.
The area was first used as a United States Army installation some time during the War of 1812 (1812 - 1815). It was turned into a fort base in 1917 during the First World War, and named after 1874 Democrat governor of New York, Samuel Jones Tilden. The area was also used as Naval Air Station Rockaway, which was the departure point for the first transatlantic flight in 1919 (by a Curtiss NC-4 flying boat), as well as the US/NATO missile sites Nike Hercules (aka SAM-A-25) and Nike Ajax (aka SAM-A-7). From 1966 to 1980, the site was used to house the Army Reserve Post for 411th Engineer Brigade, plus the 187th Infantry Brigade's 5/5th Field Artillery, which had 105mm howitzer cannons active (until 1995) upon Battery Harris West...

...and Battery Harris East, which now has a public viewing platform atop.

The fort was deactivated in 1974, and turned over to the National Park Service, but it wasn't until it was officially decommissioned in 1996 that the land was open to the public.
The area is now a popular spot for birdwatchers, fishermen, and graffiti artists.

Many of the old buildings, such as the chapel, locomotive repair warehouse, and some of the plane hangars are now used as public art spaces for groups such as the Rockaway Artist Alliance, Rockaway Theater Company, the Museum of Modern Art and even punk rocker Patti Smith (whose granite cubes with etched quotes can be found throughout the entire Fort Tilden area).

It's a great place to check out some of the best up and coming artists in the New York City area, or just see the architectural future of mankind's retrogression.

Boerum Hill Mosaic House

In Brooklyn's Boerum Hill neighborhood, not far off the Bergen Street stop on the F or G line, is an art project many a local has enjoyed for almost 15 years, which all have dubbed "the Mosaic House".

Found at 108 Wyckoff Street, the project began a little after the 9/11 tragedy, when artist, and head of the Studio Program at Yeshiva University, Susan Gardner, decided to help cheer up her neighborhood.

She began by creating a large mosaic flower, and every summer since, Gardner adds a little more to the facade, in hopes to someday encase her entire brownstone in beads, glass, shells, tiles and buttons.

Gardner has claimed the work to be a celebration of life, and it has caught on, as residents of the neighborhood often leave donations of items to be added.

Before or after visiting the place, also drop by Susan Gardner's website (here) to see other wonderful works this quirky artist has created.

Airplane Crash Site + Survivor's Pocket Change

On a foggy December 16th of 1960, just before 10:30am, United Airlines Flight 826, and TWA Flight 266, collided in midair over Brooklyn.

The TWA plane crashed landed onto Miller Army Air Field in Staten Island, killing all 47 people on board.

The United Airlines plane crashed into the intersection of 7th Ave and Sterling Place in Park Slope, Brooklyn, killing all 3 crew members, and 83 of the 84 passengers.

The scattered wreckage destroyed 10 brownstones, a deli, a Chinese laundry, the McCaddin Funeral Home, and the Pillar of Fire Church, while killing 6 people from the neighborhood.

The sole survivor was Stephen Lambert Baltz, an 11 year-old boy from Illinois, who was travelling alone to visit relatives in Yonkers for Christmas.

Baltz was taken to nearby New York Methodist Hospital, where he later died of pneumonia caused by the inhalation of burning jet fuel.

There is a small memorial to the incident within the hospital's Phillips Chapel.

The memorial is a 20 x 35cm (8 x 14") plaque commemorating all 135 lives lost, using the pocket change found on Baltz, which his father had placed in the chapel's donation box after the boy's death.