Month: June 2013

Central Park Turtle Who Loves Being Photographed

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Wandering through Central Park yesterday, I encountered this turtle. He was in the grass right off of the Turtle Pond within a foot of the fencing to protect either the grass or wildlife or both. He totally wanted his photo taken. He just sat there while people walked by and would helpfully turn his head a bit so that everyone could get his best side. Really though he was so cute, he had no worst side. Then when he had had his paparazzi fix, he walked slowly back to the water, knowledgable that at least one photographer (me) would post his photos in a blog post and at least two photographers (my sister and me) would post his photo to Twitter. Life is good when you are a turtle in Central Park.

My questions for the Internet are: Can anyone identify for me what type of turtle this is? And what is that thing beneath his mouth that kind of looks like a tongue?

Update: I’ve had a suggestion that it is red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans), which appears to be correct based on photos and NYC Central Park’s website. Still not sure what the thing below his mouth is.
Central Park turtle

Central Park turtle Central Park turtle

NY Transit Museum

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As should be completely obvious from the name of this site, I am in fact a geek. Specifically, I am a geek about about all things science and engineering. I visited the New York Transit Museum on my most recent trip to New York City, and I loved it. I can see how if you are not a geek or into mass transit, you might not enjoy it. The museum is housed, quite fittingly, in an abandoned subway station in Brooklyn.

NY Transit museum entrance

The museum starts with exhibits on how the subway tunnels were built. It does a really good job of portraying the amazing work and hardships the workers endured and how they had to fight for the pay they deserved. We now have modern tools, tunnel boring machines, and much stricter safety standards. They for the most part had picks, wood, concrete, and brute strength. It has some exhibits of the tools used including surveying tools. I took surveying in college, so I went into geek mode when I saw the below exhibit. I used a transit in surveying, but it was a more modern one. [Modern surveying is done with a theodolite, but you have to learn the basics first with a chain, transit, and plumb.] Next to the transit in the photo is a linked chain. It is labeled as a surveying chain. Personally, I think they should label it more properly and specifically as Gunter’s chain, which by the way is 66 feet long, and the tool by which much of United States and other countries were originally surveyed. I had never actually seen a Gunter’s chain before, so I enjoyed seeing one. In surveying I learn to throw a chain and survey with a “modern” chain, which is a steel tape type chain.

surveying tools

It has exhibits on how the subways are powered, including information on electricity generation and transmission.

electricity grid map

It has a history of mass transit in New York City, including the various forms of mass transit starting with horses. It also has exhibits on buses, and when I was there, it had a special exhibit on the past Miss Subways, which I had no idea had been a thing. They used to have a beauty pageant for everything I guess. As it is housed in an old subway station, on the old station platform, they have several old subway trains from the first models up to modern ones. You can walk through them, which is kind of neat.

old subway cars old subway cars old subway cars old subway cars old subway cars old subway carsAlso within the subway platform is, what I think they called, a subway switching tower. It was the control area to watch and regulate where the trains were.

subway switching tower

Finally upstairs, they have some exhibits that I am fairly sure you just have to be a geek to love. They have an exhibit of old turnstiles.

turnstilesPerhaps my favorite, is an exhibit of various subway coin slugs that people have used to try to avoid paying the fare. Some were quite inventive. Some were just hilarious.

subway coin slugsThat was my visit to the New York Transit Museum. If you love mass transit, or you are a geek, go check it out when in New York.