Shake Shack comes to the Upper East Side

Shake Shack enthusiasts, get excited! There is another location coming to town at which you can wait in line for hours for a delicious milkshake and burger. It's on the Upper East Side of Manhattan on 86th Street between Lexington and 3rd, a strip which is quickly morphing in to one of my favorite in the city. This piece of sidewalk is also home to some of my favorite stores ever including: Sephora, Steve Madden, Barnes and Noble, and the ever convenient H & M if I need a new outfit for the weekend. I walk this stretch at least twice a day.

I passed place that is to become Shake Shack on my way to work this morning, and the letters are up, it is official. The sign out front ambigiously says opening summer 2010. Here's to hoping it's sooner rather than later. I have never tried the glorious Shake Shack, and it is on my list of summer to-do's. Now that the location is so convenient, I will be stopping by as soon as I have the chance, even if I have to wait forever for my burger.

Today's Words of Wisdom

I just started reading Valley of the Dolls by: Jacqueline Susann, the pop-culture classic novel. Already by page 10, it has provided me with a fantastic quote that makes me sure it is going to be a good book.

"There was an acceptance at face value in New York, as if everyone had just been born, with no past heritage to acknowledge or hide."

So true.

The Codzilla

This past weekend I checked one of my summer goals off my to-do list. I rode the Codzilla through Boston Harbor. It was one of the highlights of my memorial day weekend.

They call it a thrill ride, and it is! The boat cruises slowly out of the harbor no speed zone, giving you a view of the city with a tour like commentary. The two guides put on a play of sorts about how a giant cod fish (aka Codzilla) may attack once we get out into deeper water. Now, while no one really understood the one guy ranting about codzilla in his faux pirate accent, it was fun to have a "scary" little story behind why we were about to speed and spin the boat around. Supposedly, Codzilla was attacking and we were trying to escape.

The boat proceeded to spin, twist, and essentially do doughnuts at high speeds near a small island. It moved in ways I didn't know a boat could move without flipping over. With all the fast about faces, the Codzilla boat created huge waves, soaking my friends, and many of the other passengers. It was like a raging river ride on a real body of water. Pick the wrong seat, and you are going to get wet. I recommend waiting for a really hot day when you want to get hit by a giant wave over and over again. Just keep your mouth closed. No one wants to be drinking that water.

I was looking at sightseeing cruises in NYC for when some relatives come to visit, and it turns out that NYC has it's own Codzilla. It's called the Beast. If it's anything like the Codzilla. I recommend. Despite being rather chilled, and much more wet that we expected, my friends and I had a great time!

Park Ave Now has Crosswalk Signals (at least at 59th street)

Waaay back in Oh-Seven, Gothamist reported that crosswalk signals were in the works for Park Avenue above Grand Central. Now, in the past 2 weeks, this battle waged over the city's sidewalks in midtown for over 100 years has finally come to a close. There are suddenly brand shiny new crosswalk signals (with buttons to push to cross) and sounds for the hearing impaired on Park Avenue at least on 59th street.

I happened to traverse this same path last week on May 19th, and there were no signals. Now, today on my way to the same Crate and Barrel the signs had magically materialized,complete with a little picture key as to what the walking figure, the blinking hand, and the solid hand really mean. Turns out that all New Yorkers have been doing it wrong for years. The flashing hand does not indeed mean: dash-across-the street-as-quickly-as-possible-before-the light-turns-yellow-when-the-hand-stops-blinking. In fact, the flashing hand means DO NOT start crossing, only finish crossing if you have already started. Who knew?

The signals are nice, and really take the pressure off while dogding traffic, but they border on annoying. They repeat over and over. Don't walk. Wait. Don't walk. Wait. Don't walk. Wait. The entire time you stand there, as if the light didn't seem long enough when you are trapped in the median in the middle of park ave because it's so wide you couldn't quite make it across in time (I HATE it when that happens)! But they are state of the art.

The reason the MTA has waited so long to install these, and risked so many pedestrian lives in the process is because Park Avenue is this segment of town is not really a road. That's right. It's an 18-24 inch thick "deck" constructed over the trains entering and leaving Grand Central, which thousands of cars barrel over at high speeds during rush hour. That makes me feel safe, I don't know about you. I mean who wouldn't want TONS of metal on top of a platform that is a mere 1.5 feet thick? Porches never collapse-right?

So, the main fear was that if the MTA dug holes in this narrow layer of pavement to install the typical traffic and crosswalk signals that it would cause massive flooding into the train tracks. Yet, the city and the MTA managed to come to a 35 million dollar solution, to overhaul the roads surrounding Grand Central. This agreement was settled in 2007. The results are just appearing around the area now. Hey, I mean at only $5.7 million put towards the traffic signals who's really in any rush to get the job done? Fingers crossed that when I take the Metro North this weekend no tunnels of water come pouring down through the new holes in Park Ave.

Junglee Juice

Did you ever notice that when people tell you that college was the best four years of their life, they seldom explain why? It’s just a simple sentence, trailing off into a nostalgic sigh and glance into the distance that commands you to have a great time, to enjoy--to make it the best four years of your life.


Now, we all take this on in different ways: drinking a lot, skipping class, just sitting around and doing nothing. But none of us really understood why college was the best four years of life--although damn fun--until it’s over.


Granted we understood that complete and total lack of responsibilities, endless free time, and living totally off our parents’ money was AWESOME while we were doing it. However, the real reason that our long hours free to spend devising new drinking games wasn’t anything more than good times didn’t sink in until we were booted out of our happy little world and into the reality of life after college.


The real reason people look so fondly upon their four collegiate years is because the next two years afterward SUCK. I mean, truly and utterly. Suddenly you have to pay for your own alcohol, get up early, brush your hair, and don’t have money for delivery at every meal.



Thanks for the warning people. Oh, and thanks for mentioning that the economy was planning to totally take a nosedive and turn the job hunt from difficult to nearly impossible.



Can we get a class, a heads up, a slight little warning? A signal that we will be shot from the lap of luxury into utter struggling with little to no transition period? A little more than a nostalgic, “Enjoy it while it lasts, kiddo,” from Uncle Mark. Maybe then, we’d take it a little more easily instead of being sent into a collective crisis at why life has suddenly become awful, and instead of being surrounded by forty of our best friends to help us cope, we have all been dispersed to different corners of the country to suffer alone, only able to respond to the question, “How’s life after graduation?” from hopeful relatives with a strained, “Fine.” And struggle not to burst into tears at how awful life has become. Maybe that’s what senior seminar should have been on.


That brings me to the url of this blog. While simply enjoyable to hear due to it’s lovely resemblance to JUNGLE juice one of my favorite college cocktails, it doesn’t stop there. Junglee is a Hindi word used to refer to wild ladies, who are not easy to control. Headstrong, confident women who refuse to take the common road, and pave their own path along the way. Dazzling, unstoppable women who move with the force of the wilderness behind them. This is the kind of ladies that have surrounded me throughout college and beyond.


Second it’s a daily juice, a day in the life of a girl trying to make in this world after college, and graduate school are over, and the economy is tanking. Getting by as a waitress in NYC opens the door to at least one funny story or encounter a day, and I plan to give you a daily injection of this junglee daily juice.