You may not realize it when walking the streets of the City, but the New York City Department of Transportation puts a lot of thought into how you get around safely. One feature of NYC streets which you may have never noticed is called an Enhanced Crossing, and is designed to give pedestrians a highly-visible spot to cross the street safely, in a place where a stop sign or traffic light would not make sense.

Enhanced Crossings are marked high-visibility crosswalks on calm streets with low vehicle volumes and a strong pedestrian desire to cross. Although the crossing treatments are standard (ADA pedestrian ramps, pedestrian warning signs and high-visibility crosswalk markings), they improve mobility and accessibility of pedestrians.

See how it works in this short video from the NYCDOT.

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Could the "Blossoming Marshmallow" Hot Chocolate at Dominique Ansel Bakery in SoHo be New York City's best? If not the best, it is certainly one of the City's most unique, with a marshmallow bud that expands in the melted chocolate to reveal a truffle inside. Check it out in this short video from our friends at Time Out New York.

It looks like magic but really, it’s just dessert-world ingenuity—pastry maestro Dominique Ansel crowns his rich cup of hot cocoa with a marshmallow flower that’s wrapped in a band of chocolate. When the chocolate hits the warm liquid, it melts and the flower “blooms” and reveals a chocolate truffle in the middle