Morning View - First & East 68th

Afternoon View - Coming Soon

It has always annoyed my visitors that the closest Starbucks were an unreasonable (by Manhattan standards) seven to ten blocks away. But not for much longer as the chain just began construction at the massive and long-empty former Citibank space on my corner.

Afternoon View - Blast Warning

Massive underground explosions continue to shake my block daily as the Second Avenue subway construction barrels on. I never hear the blast warnings but I do hear the "all clear" whistles after my furniture has stopped moving.

Japanese Diet Pills

Walgreens, Upper East Side, Monday 10pm

Old Lady: "Where can I get some of those nuclear pills?"

Clerk: "What, like, diet pills?"

Old Lady: "No! No! The ones they have in Japan!"

Clerk: "Japanese diet pills?"

Morning View - Lexington & 63rd

Back in the cold and grime. Sigh.

Afternoon View - 70th & Second

The MTA just installed eight double-stacked construction trailers at the end of my block, meaning shit's about get real for our section of the coming Second Avenue subway. The street has already been torn up here for about three years and at least a dozen shops have gone under within a block of my corner. But hey, I'll have a stop right there in...2017. Maybe.

Afternoon View - Upper East Side

My block. Embiggens nicely.

Morning View - 68th & Second

Giuliani's Daughter Busted Shoplifting

Rudy Giuliani's 20 year-old daughter Caroline was busted on NYC's Upper East Side yesterday when she tried to shoplift cosmetics from a Sephora.

She was allegedly caught by a store security camera shoplifting five cosmetics items worth more than $100 -- including Aqua Cream, Dior Skinflash Primer, Bliss hydroderm cream, a rollerball funnel and a hairnet -- and escorted out of the store in handcuffs, according to police sources. Giuliani is currently being held by police. Charges have yet to be filed, but police sources told ABC News that she is expected to be charged with petit larceny and released. She will be required to appear before a judge at a later date, sources said.

Caroline lives in an UES townhouse with her mother Donna Hanover, who divorced "sanctity of marriage" Rudy in 2002 shortly after she caught him fucking the shit out of his secretary in the basement of City Hall.

Afternoon View - Second Avenue

Only seven more years!

UPDATE: Several of you have written to point out Rachel Maddow's Geek Week story about the construction of the Second Avenue subway. The city has been trying to get the line built for 80 years. SRSLY.

You're Always Running Here And There

According to the Wall Street Journal, the construction of the Second Avenue Subway has sent an avalanche of rats into the streets, cars, and buildings of the Upper East Side.

The infestation has left residents of the East 90s along Second Avenue with what they say is the worst rat problem in decades. Things get especially ugly at night, says Walter Johnson, a 60-year-old maintenance worker. "It looks like the street's moving," says Mr. Johnson, who has lived on 93rd Street east of Second Avenue since 1976. "It's just wild. You can't imagine how infested this place became." T & Y Groceries on Second Avenue has been confronting rats since digging on the subway started three years ago, employees say. Early on, rats ate through plastic packaging to get at food stacked on shelves. Now, the store stocks merchandise in plastic bins to keep them out, says employee Harsh Patel.

Fortunately I have an in-house rodent killing machine.

Being Boring

After about two years of prep work, they've finally lowered the giant rock boring machine into the Upper East Side pit to begin drilling the next section of the Second Avenue Subway.

The machine’s 200-ton cutter head — which uses 44 rotating discs to mine through tons of underground rock — arrived at the project’s “launch box” between 96th and 92nd streets on Second Avenue on Wednesday. The entire, 450-foot-long Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) will drill nearly a mile and a half of the new two-track line’s western tunnel beginning in May, the MTA stated.

The Q line will be running under my street in just nine years! Weren't we all supposed to be using hover-pods by now?