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Published on 8/29/08
Published on 8/28/08
Own This City
Video
1 Yellow cabs
2 The Pepsi sign
3 Katz’s Delicatessen
4 Wonder Wheel
5 Water towers
Sights 6–10
6 we are happy to serve you
It’s possibly the world’s most famous paper cup, carrying what is arguably the world’s worst coffee. New Yorkers tear through 180 million of these Greek beauties every year. They’re great for jangling bum change, and tourists love them too: An entire cottage industry (coin purses, ceramic collectors’ mugs, etc.) has sprung up around the ubiquitous design.
View our more tangible icons picks on a Google map.
7 Brooklyn highway signs
Who loves a stereotype? We do! We do! Borough President Marty Markowitz’s brilliant traffic signs positioned at Brooklyn’s edge—FUGHEDDABOUTIT coming, OY VEY going—salute New York’s most colorful characters. They’re a welcome laugh when you’re inching bumper-to-bumper over the Billyburg Bridge—if for no other reason than that some humorless mug in the Department of Transportation had to take Markowitz’s request seriously.
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8 Washington Cemetery
The Stillwell Avenue F line cuts a righteous swath through this massive Jewish cemetery, which was founded in the 1860s and continues to pack ’em in like peasants. (Ziegfeld Follies’ Lilyan Tashman, playwright Jerry Joseph Sterner and gangsta Eddie Fletcher are among the cemetery’s eternal residents.) The bird’s-eye view is both disarming and mesmerizing. Thank you, MTA, for reminding us of our own mortality.
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9 The Apollo Theater
What started out as a whites-only burlesque venue has become Harlem’s heppest (albeit most costly) landmark. Its neon letters stack sky-high, and the marquee continues to boast the biggest names in Saturday night soul. Can we get an Ah-men?
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10 Charging Bull, a.k.a. the Wall Street Bull
Bowling Green between Broadway and State St
This bronze bovine was created by sculptor Arturo di Modica in response to the 1987 market crash. Fine. We just love the way throngs of tourists and traders fondle the mighty beast’s enormous nuts for luck. In fact, the nads are so burnished by grubby fingers (and tongues!) that now they’re golden bollocks.
View our more tangible icons picks on a Google map.
