Hookah!

On my walk home last night I caught something new, full on hookah party going on in the outdoor seating of Layla's Falafel across from Columbus Park. Anyone partaken yet?

NYC's On-Street Bike Improvements

Check out this video 101 on the different types of on-street bicycle designs that make up the New York City’s 200 miles of bike infrastructure.

Stamford is woefully behind the curve on developing a bike infrastructure. The recently completed stretch of the Urban Transitway is the only stretch of roads in town striped with a dedicated bike lane. The recently completed Traffic Calming Master Plan only peppers them sporadically and does not add up to anything cohesive you could actually use to get around. To put it into perspective, the Downtown Ambassadors, paid city employees, ride bikes on the sidewalk. That would be unheard in any kind of progressive bike plan.

What say my receny uncharacteristically chatty crew? Is every square inch of pavement needed for cars or can we make some concessions for the public looking to traverse Stamford on bike, whether for commute or recreation?

Central Hole

The infamous hole has been upgraded to Stamford’s “Central Park” apparently courtesy of Google Maps.


Since the first comment will probably be what a great idea that would be, I’ll throw out my opinion about that being a horrible place for a park. With barely a trickle of people on the streets there and walled in on ever side with buildings larger unfriendly to the street – you would basically be setting up a base camp for what Jane Jacobs coined the “leisured indignant”.

Empty Lots

Building off Streets of Stamford's post on temporary uses for empty store fronts, the New York Times recently published an piece on one solution in NYC for an empty lot delayed for development. If only there was a city nearby with that issue...

The 37,000 sq ft irregular shaped lot was loaned to the city and transformed into a temporary park and outdoor art exhibit space.

When the Trump Parc lot was waiting for development it served as a temporary pocket park landscaped with trees, paths and benches. There are a number of lots though spread out through Downtown Stamford today that could benefit from some temporary life beyond construction equipment parking or pseudo forest. While its fun to play with 3D models and renderings to imagine what might one day inhabit a spot, finding creative ways remake these dead zones in the interim is not only more pleasant for current inhabitants, but also effective for helping outsiders visualize city spaces as places they would like to be. Its kind of like one of those TV shows where a lady comes to your house and nags about rearranging your furniture and changing your paint color and then suddenly your house is easier to sell.

Downtown Stamford Workshop

Streets of Stamford & I are going to try and attend this workshop tomorrow night put on by the DSSD & URC.

From the DSSD newsletter:

Scout us out and you can buy us drinks after. For reference, here is a picture of Streets:

Blog Cure

Our friend Kevin from Always Home and Uncool has asked me to post this as part of his effort to raise awareness in the blogosphere of juvenile myositis, a rare autoimmune disease his daughter was diagnosed with on this day seven years ago. The day also happens to be his wife's birthday. Happy Birthday Mrs. Uncool.

Our pediatrician admitted it early on.

The rash on our 2-year-old daughter's cheeks, joints and legs was something he'd never seen before.

The next doctor wouldn't admit to not knowing.

He rattled off the names of several skins conditions -- none of them seemingly worth his time or bedside manner -- then quickly prescribed antibiotics and showed us the door.

The third doctor admitted she didn't know much.

The biopsy of the chunk of skin she had removed from our daughter's knee showed signs of an "allergic reaction" even though we had ruled out every allergy source -- obvious and otherwise -- that we could.

The fourth doctor had barely closed the door behind her when, looking at the limp blonde cherub in my lap, she admitted she had seen this before. At least one too many times before.

She brought in a gaggle of med students. She pointed out each of the physical symptoms in our daughter:

The rash across her face and temples resembling the silhouette of a butterfly.

The purple-brown spots and smears, called heliotrope, on her eyelids.

The reddish alligator-like skin, known as Gottron papules, covering the knuckles of her hands.

The onset of crippling muscle weakness in her legs and upper body.

She then had an assistant bring in a handful of pages photocopied from an old medical textbook. She handed them to my wife, whose birthday it happened to be that day.

This was her gift -- a diagnosis for her little girl.

That was seven years ago -- Oct. 2, 2002 -- the day our daughter was found to have juvenile dermatomyositis, one of a family of rare autoimmune diseases that can have debilitating and even fatal consequences when not treated quickly and effectively.

Our daughter's first year with the disease consisted of surgical procedures, intravenous infusions, staph infections, pulmonary treatments and worry. Her muscles were too weak for her to walk or swallow solid food for several months. When not in the hospital, she sat on our living room couch, propped up by pillows so she wouldn't tip over, as medicine or nourishment dripped from a bag into her body.

Our daughter, Thing 1, Megan, now age 9, remembers little of that today when she dances or sings or plays soccer. All that remain with her are scars, six to be exact, and the array of pills she takes twice a day to help keep the disease at bay.

What would have happened if it took us more than two months and four doctors before we lucked into someone who could piece all the symptoms together? I don't know.

I do know that the fourth doctor, the one who brought in others to see our daughter's condition so they could easily recognize it if they ever had the misfortune to be presented with it again, was a step toward making sure other parents also never have to find out.

That, too, is my purpose today.

It is also my birthday gift to my wife, My Love, Rhonda, for all you have done these past seven years to make others aware of juvenile myositis diseases and help find a cure for them once and for all.

To read more about children and families affected by juvenile myositis diseases, visit Cure JM Foundation.

To make a tax-deductible donation toward JM research, go here or here