Where can you go to learn about the city? To get information, learn historic facts, and see cool things? No, this time the answer isn’t PopUp. It’s The Museum of the City of New York! They usually have some of the coolest and most interesting exhibits out of all the city’s museums [which is a lot, we've got museums for just about anything these days.] This time, we’re going back in time to celebrate the streets of New York. The actual streets. The streets known ’round the world. Our infamous grid! The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan 1811-2011 is the latest exhibit at MCNY, which brings us back in time to the early 1800s when planning of the grid first began. From now until April 15th, you can find original plans, maps, tools, and historic documents from back in the day when geniuses Morris, Dewitt, and Rutherfurd were put in charge to lay out every street from modern-day Houston all the way up to 155th Street. They decided that a grid plan would be the most efficient, saying [and I quote,] “Straight sides and right angled houses are the most cheap to build and the most convenient to live in.” And there you have it – the grid was born. Granted – Philly, Georgia, the land that would eventually become Ohio, Albany, and some land the Roman’s conquered way back when all had grid layouts. But our location next to the harbor and the canal made ours super special & convenient to live in, so New York prospered for the better due to it. Check out the exhibit at MCNY, and see the evolution of your city right before your own eyes. Now-April 15th, Museum of The City of New York 5th Ave btwn 103 & 104th St.

It’s time for my annual New Years Eve PopUp Recap Blog. Which is kind of blowing my mind right now, because it feels like I was doing this for the beginning of 2011 just yesterday. This year seemed to FLY by with lightning super-speed, but it was also one of the biggest and most productive years for PopUp New York and our whole team! It was a lot of blog writing for the first couple months of the year, but thats only because we were working on a huge deal with CBS, which we got in April! In May, it went into effect, and our segments were finally featured in the “Best Of” section on the CBS New York website. We were working like crazy and I think we churned out some of our best segments. In August, it was finally “PopUp Summer Vacation” and the whole team split to enjoy the rest of the summer doing their own thing. Since then, I’ve just been working on new blogs, nothing serious, but I’ve also been out exploring in the city trying to find things that would make for really great episodes. Thankfully, [my favorite part about this job] is that I have a lot of awesome people who send me e-mails or FB messages with some of their favorite places and little secrets to check out. Sometimes it’s even something I didn’t know about, which makes it even more special. Now that 2012 is approaching, I feel like this is going to be a big year for PopUp. Once it’s January 1st, look out for a whole bunch of new stuff on our website. Oh, and I turned 21. So now we can go to swanky clubs and famous funky bars and we won’t be breaking the law while we’re filming. Bouncers won’t be bouncing me! Ain’t that beautiful? I hope everyone has a great New Years Eve and a safe start to 2012. This is gonna be a good year, just watch. [no pun intended, but you should still go back and watch all our segments from this year! JK, go get ready to party tonight.]

To everybody who just read this, this website and this show wouldn’t be anything without you. So, thank you.

- Meagan.

We have two days left until Christmas, which means the holiday season is almost over. For some last minute fun, it looks like tomorrow is going to be a day of caroling! What better way to spend Christmas Eve than singing some classic holiday tunes?! Granted, 106.7 Lite FM has been driving me crazy since Thanksgiving playing the same songs over and over, but I have to admit that I secretly love them. So, here are three different city locations where you can grab some hot chocolate and work those vocal chords to your favorite christmas tunes tomorrow night, December 24th!

1) Candlelight Caroling in the East Village! West Stuyvesant Square Park. 2nd Ave & 16th St, near the statue of Peter Stuyvesant. Dec.24th, 6PM. FREE! Plus, hot refreshments will be provided by the Gramercy Cafe!

2) Gramercy Park! This is a huge opportunity for us New Yorkers. Everybody knows that only residents of Gramercy Park hold a key to that special secret park. For those of you who have dreamed of going in there for years, now is your chance. Every Christmas Eve, the gates are opened to the public JUST for caroling underneath their Christmas Tree! It’s a city tradition, in our favor! 20th & 21st St between Third Ave and Park. Time is to TDB, so call 212-260-3875.

3) Caroling at Washington Square Park. I told you guys about caroling there at the beginning of the month when they lit their Christmas Tree. For those of you who missed belting out Jingle Bells underneath the famous arch, here’s your second chance. Dec 24th at 5Pm.

Merry Christmas!