Stomping grounds, new and old

As the pictures show, I went to the Bronx Zoo, which I don't remember having been to before but which my parents claim I had in fact visited. It's much more of a Six Flags kind of place than the Central Park or Lincoln Park zoos, with many opportunities to buy trinkets and fried food, and with long stretches between each exhibit, that seemed especially long because I'd had the brilliant idea of wearing jeans on a day that was far, far too hot for pants. Heat and trinkets aside, the zoo was really quite amazing, with some fabulous monkeys, a red panda, a really uncomfortable-looking polar bear, and some gigantic fish and turtles.

Today, I was down by Stuyvesant for the first time in a while. The whole area has gotten really posh. Not that when I was in high school it was some kind of dump, but 9/11 seems to have, if anything, made way for a total Upper East Sideification of the area. The terrorists most definitely have not won. Grungy pizza places, a Blimpies, and the pretzel place have been replaced by a Ceci Cela patisserie, a less grungy pizza place, an expanded Bouley, and a population of well-dressed businessfolk and iPod-toting joggers, including one in a Harvard Business School t-shirt. The really filthy places I used to go for sushi and cappuccinos have been replaced by... much cleaner sushi and cappuccino places. So it's not exactly gentrification if there were sushi and cappuccinos to begin with, but it's... well, it's something.