14 Useful Mobile Apps for Walking New York City

Texting and walking at the same time is wrong. Talking on the phone while strolling down the street is wrong. Leaving the sidewalk to stop and consult the information on a cellphone, preferably while alone, is OK.

What's on Walking Off the Big Apple's iPhone: A List

Walkmeter GPS Walking Stopwatch for Fitness and Weight Loss. While out walking, Walkmeter tracks routes, time, speed, and elevation. This is an excellent app for recording improvised or impromptu strolls, especially with many unplanned detours. The GPS function maps out the actual route. The app keeps a running tally of calories burned while walking, useful for weight loss goals. Another welcome feature is the ability to switch over to other modes of activity, including cycling. An indispensable app for city walkers. $4.99 

New York City Compass, designed by Francesco Bertelli, is an elegant compass calibrated for Manhattan, with indications for Uptown, East Side, Downtown, and West Side. When facing a certain direction, the letters will turn blue. This comes in handy when stepping out into an unfamiliar neighborhood from the subway. Back in the day, all you ever needed to know about New York City could be summed in the words Uptown, East Side, Downtown, and West Side. We should go back to this way again. No more contrived names for neighborhoods. When you're watching Mad Men, for example, and someone says they're going downtown, you know exactly what that means.* Free.

NYCMate, with subway and bus maps for all the boroughs, is easier to read and use than many of the other transit maps. Free.

NYC Way could be described as an app of apps, because it contains multiple applications - everything from a list of nearby restaurants to nearby public restrooms to Wifi locations to street food. Some of the restaurant information is out of date, but it's hard to keep up a current data base with new restaurants opening and old ones closing. Favorites here include the list of free things and nearby art galleries. Free.

Urbanspoon, a longtime popular iPhone app, still comes in handy when deciding upon a restaurant. With variables for type of cuisine, neighborhood, and price, Urbanspoon spins its magic and comes up with a suggested place. Don't care for the selection? Spin again, or just shake the whole phone. Sometimes, the list of restaurants is not extensive or selected eateries are squeezed into the wrong category, but at least the app helps expand a list of options for dining out.

NYC Tip, another simple app from Francesco Bertelli. Easy way to calculate 15%, 18%, or 20% tips on a meal and split the bill by up to five people. Free.

Open Table, the website that allows diners to search and place reservations for restaurants, eventually accumulating redeemable points, has an attractive app with thumbnail pix of restaurants, availability for tables by time slot, distance, pricing information, diner reviews, and sometimes the actual menu. Click on an available opening, and you're set for dinner. Free.

Scenes from a Walk on a Windswept Afternoon

The passing of Hurricane Earl, thankfully far away in the Atlantic Ocean, kicked up powerful breezes in New York City earlier in the weekend but left a brilliant sky in its wake. The previous stretch of humid days had come to an end, just in time for the first day of a long Labor Day weekend.

The sky was crystalline, giving the the skyline's favorite star, the Empire State Building, the look of a cinematic matte shot. Approaching the building from the block of Broadway south of Madison Square Park, the scene seemed at times like a surreal photo-collage, as if the buildings were cutouts and pasted on another photograph of the sky.

1. the Empire State Building

On Saturday, I set upon a walk uptown to complete a couple of errands, but the brilliance of the day encouraged a longer excursion with additional stops.

2. Eataly. 23rd St. and Fifth Avenue.

Hundreds of people lined the corner of 23rd St. and Fifth Avenue in order to visit Eataly, the new market featuring the foods of Italy, and like a fool New Yorker, I stood in line with them. The wait was not exceedingly long. After strolling through the mega-eatery, not easy with such a crowd, I came away with first impressions - appetizing, frantic, too crowded, expensive, a little disorganized, and not all that reminiscent of Italy. As a resident of the Village, with its remaining echoes of Italian heritage, all I ever want or need is Raffetto's (144 West Houston), a small grocery store with homemade food and a big heart.

New York Museum Exhibitions, Fall 2010: A Selected List, With Openings in September, October, and November

International Center of Photography

Surveying the upcoming exhibitions scheduled to open at New York museums and art centers this fall, a few stellar exhibitions stand out from the pack. First and foremost, in late September the International Center of Photography unveils the contents of The Mexican Suitcase, the legendary boxes of images of the Spanish Civil War made by by Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, and Chim (David Seymour). Thought lost since 1939, the center acquired the suitcase in December 2007, and the unveiling will present images from the recovered negatives along with a display of magazines that first published the works. Photography historians have been waiting decades to take a look at these images. The center will also present a concurrent exhibition on the Cuban Revolution, including rare prints of Alberto Korda's iconic portrait of Che.

Among other promising exhibits, the recently renovated El Museo del Barrio, in collaboration with the New-York Historical Society, will present Nueva York (1613-1945), an examination of how Latinos and Spanish-speaking countries have historically shaped the cultural life of New York City. Beginning in October, the Frick Collection will present a significant selection of drawings from Spain, The Spanish Manner: Drawings from Ribera to Goya. At the Guggenheim, the exhibition Chaos and Classicism: Art in France, Italy, and Germany, 1918-1936 will show how artists began to once again represent the body after abandoning figurative work during World War I. At the Drawing Center on Wooster St., fans of Gerhard Richter will want to see an exhibition of fifty drawings made over five decades. The Jewish Museum presents a significant exhibition on the feminist encounter with the canvas, Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism.

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the big John Baldessari exhibit, Pure Beauty, opens October 20, the first significant survey in twenty years. The exhibit will present the conceptual artist's work over five decades. Beginning in November, the Met's photography department will exhibit selections from the museum's collection of three major photographers - Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Paul Strand. At MoMA, the museum will show its selections of the New York School with Abstract Expressionist New York.

Finally, look for the Morgan Library and Museum's exhibitions on Mark Twain, Roy Lichtenstein's black-and-white drawings, and drawings and sketchbooks by Degas. The New Museum will present The Last Newspaper, an exhibition inspired by the ways artists respond to the news media. And in late October, the Whitney Museum will present an exhibition it knows how to do best - Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time.

What follows is a list of selected museum and other art center exhibitions currently on view in New York City along with dates of upcoming exhibits (listed in bold) that are scheduled to open in the fall.

Upcoming museum exhibitions are noted in bold type.

bears in Audubon Terrace

American Academy of Arts and Letters, 633 West 155th Street (Audubon Terrace):
Annual exhibitions are held in the spring. See the nearby Hispanic Society, noted below.

American Folk Art Museum, 45 W. 53rd St.:
• Approaching Abstraction
Through September 12, 2010
• Women Only: Folk Art by Female Hands
Through September 19, 2010
• The Private Collection of Henry Darger
Through October 24, 2010
• Quilts: Masterworks From the American Folk Art Museum
October 5, 2010 - October 16, 2011
• Eugene Von Bruenchenhein
November 4, 2010 - October 9, 2011