There is a lot of stuff going on the City, and we can't write about it all. Here are some interesting things some of our friends have written up lately.

• Bklyner ⇒ Getaway Brings New Options for Nightlife in Greenpoint
• Brooklyn Based ⇒ Get to Know Greenpoint and a Hip Hop Throwback
• Brownstoner ⇒ Explore Brooklyn's Folk and Immigrant Traditions With a Day of Performances in Prospect Park
• Bushwick Daily ⇒ Bushwick Nightly: The Best Diverse and Intersectional Parties in and Around Bushwick
• Curbed NY ⇒ Part of Broadway Will Become an Urban Garden for the Summer.
• Daytonian in Manhattan ⇒ The 1896 F. W. Esper's Stable - 457-459 West 150th Street
• Gothamist ⇒ Man Busted in Brooklyn for Using Mannequin to Avoid Traffic
• Joe's NYC ⇒ The Hudson River
• LIC Talk ⇒ The Dog Days of Summer in LIC
• New York Times ⇒ Central Park’s Castle Gets a $12 Million Fairy-Tale Makeover
• New York YIMBY ⇒ YIMBY Tours Office Floors of One Willoughby Square, in Downtown Brooklyn
• QNS.com ⇒ Grassroots Forest Hills Film Festival Enters the Big Leagues With New Name and Scale
• Staten Island NYC Living ⇒ What to Do on Staten Island NYC This Weekend July 12,13 and 14
• The Real Deal New York ⇒ One Vanderbilt Goes Viral
• The Villager ⇒ Store About Nothing: 'Seinfeld Experience' Coming to Gramercy
• Thrillist ⇒ Everything You Need to Eat, Drink, See and Do in NYC This Weekend
• Untapped Cities ⇒ See the History of Ticker-Tape Parades Beneath Your Feet on Broadway’s Canyon of Heroes

Amorphophallus titanum is a large 6-foot plant which is better known as the corpse flower due to its putrid scent which is not dissimilar to rotting flesh. The plant's smell attracts bugs en-masse, allowing for its pollination over that short period or time. As the flower only blooms for 24-36 hours once-per-year, it can be easy to miss, so the New York Botanical Garden recently released this time-lapse video of this year's bloom, showing the complete cycle in just 40 seconds.

This year's corpse flower bloom was yet another spectacular display of what the world's largest inflorescence—Amorphophallus titanum—can do. Check out this time lapse to see how the scene played out in our Haupt Conservatory.

CBS2's Cindy Hsu has the latest on new book vending machines, promoting literacy in New York City.

Check out Soar With Reading to learn more about the program, and where you can find the machines in New York City across all five boroughs.