Open House New York which will be held this coming Saturday and Sunday gives New Yorkers who love their built environment the chance to get up close and personal with buildings and constructed spaces.

Guides to the house, powerhouse and walking tours will be included in Wednesday's New York Times as well as online . There are 300 places to visit which have been opened up for free for the weekend. Many require reservations. For example, the High Line; (the elevated rail tracks overgrown with weeds and rusted with disuse on the west side of Manhattan.) Many of those are already filled completely -- tours of the broken down small pox hospital on the south end of Roosevelt Island are completely booked. But many sites require no reservation.

My favorite places after the jump:  read more »

The Eagle has landed Do you love tall sailing ships? The US Coast Guard training ship The Eagle has docked at the foot of pier 17, at the South Street Seaport. The ship is great (no signs of its Nazi origin), the coast guardsmen and women charming; tours from 9:00-6:30 Sat & Sun. If you go Sat. morning, check out the asbestos decontamination exercise run by Fire at the Sanitation garage at the foot of Montgomery Street.

After years of torture and harsh confinement, US officials have decided to allow some "high value" Guantanamo detainees to lawyer-up . (Although at least one of them, already represented by counsel, has not been allowed to get letters from her).

The poor get sicker than the rich. Great and serious congratulations are due to Comptroller William Thompson who (I guess with staff support) has produced a really smart interesting and important analysis of the NYC health impacts of class and cash. Surpise!  read more »