Bright Sights

I feel guilty because I'm a sucker for bright vistas.  Then I get over it and look some more.  Above, the massive Moral at Fourth Ave. & 10th St. has sucked the whole corner into its dark orbit.


Above left, sadly, the big red Jack's sign at 33rd St. and Sixth Ave. looks doomed to disappear behind new construction, hidden until the new building collapses.  Fortunately the action-packed view further down Sixth, above right, will likely last longer -- who wants to live in a luxury condo where you can't sun yourself on the deck without absorbing the stink coming out a McSmokeStack?

And finally, I think I've found the material object that will satisfy all my needs and desires, below, seen just off McGuiness in Greenpoint.  Tired, bored, lost your lust for life?  Just hop on your Roadtec Rx900 and rip the pavement off some lucky block.

Yellow Skyscraper Extruder

(Pretty sure I've seen the rendering of this tower going up at the NW corner of Fifth Ave. and 35th St. -- it had a distinctively cheesy curved corner? -- but can't find it.  Oh well; all it would prove is that the new tower will never look better than it does now.)

I assume the striking yellow cap is some newfangled construction unit: a helicopter pours cement and steel into the unit, then it assembles a new floor and pushes itself up to start the next one.

Then again it could be something completely different...


[ Topics: Best Building Will Ever Look ]

Queens Means Tourism

Pedestrians are an anomaly on this stretch of Van Dam St. in Queens, so I was surprised to be joined by the group of tourists above, staying at the Fairfield Inn in Blissville.  Marriott locates the hotel in "New York Long Island City / Manhattan View" because -- just like Gertrude Stern said about one of my other favorite places, Oakland, California -- "there is no there" in this part of Queens.  [ Google map; check the Street View ]


I guess the group decided it would be more exciting to walk to the subway, a mile away on Queens Blvd., than wait for the hotel shuttle.  It was a beautiful day, and I'm sure they had a great time -- when not wondering why we were the only pedestrians on that long stretch.  They had time to study the underside of the LIE, the storage facilities and mattress warehouses, the Gulf gas station proudly flying its Gulf War flags (top and above left), and the Queensboro Correctional Facility, ominously located right next to La Guardia Community College.

We parted ways at Queens Blvd.  They turned right toward the 7 Train at 33rd, no doubt headed for an exciting time in Manhattan.  Meanwhile I turned left, headed for an exciting time in Queens Plaza, above right and below.

I have had my fill of slickly packaged plastic; there's more nutrition in the oil-soaked weeds between the LIRR, the LIE and the Queensboro Bridge than in all the patio furniture in Times Square.

Vacation Time

(For everyone but me!) 

I missed my ride to the Hamptons, above.

Then I found out someone already reserved my backup spot by parking their cart in the quiet canyon off Van Dam at the LIE in Queens, left and below.

Note the homey cave painting on the canyon wall, and the "Insurance for All" sign in the freeway support.  Summer is so fat your biggest worry is falling asleep in the sun.

The Eternal Con

Trash bunny in front of 30 Bayard in Williamsburg
"...derivatives allow risk to be shifted from those who understand it a little to those who do not understand it at all."

- Derivatives Tug of War Takes Shape, Floyd Norris, NY Times

“We just assumed he was nice because that’s the way he was acting.  I feel like I failed as a New Yorker.”

- Renters Get Swindled and Scammed, Teri Karush Rogers, NY Times

"... [believe that global warming is a hoax invented by] a vast cabal ... so powerful that it has managed to create false records on everything from global temperatures to Arctic sea ice."

(This is where all the Creationist groundwork by the GOP pays off, with die-hard morons who'd rather see the world go up in smoke than face any fact that challenges their bitter self-interest.)

- Betraying the Planet, Paul Krugman, NY Times

Box with View

I recently saw the "box apartment" plus balcony (actually on the balcony), left, at the Manhattan end of the Queensboro Bridge.

Not only does the occupant have a view of his peers across the way, below left, but a swank eagle-eye porthole view of the sidewalk far below.

A Tale of Two Entrances

A few photos that demonstrate the priorities of the building, above the Food Emporium at Union Square, that continues to cheat the city out of a subway escalator.

Above, the plush comfort of the building's auto entrance on 15th St., a pleasant place to burn some exhaust.

Meanwhile below, on the 14th St. side of the building, the fat escalator casket that clogs the subway entrance -- more than two years after the escalator died -- is still forcing rush hour crowds through a dark, narrow cattle chute of a stairwell.  And to add insult to injury, some worthless entity has turned the casket into a money-making billboard, below left.


Why does it take the city and MTA years to make the scofflaws pay up?  Forget the unmaintainable escalator, just put in some stairs.  And fine the building enough to make them gold plated.

Light Unlocks

I love it when I find myself in a spot where light unlocks the surface of the city.

Above, a remarkable combination of surface, shadow and reflection round the corner of a building on 57th near Sixth Ave.

Below, at the back of a parking lot a few blocks away, odd light turns a frog of a building into a prince for a few moments.

8th Ave Shots 2

A few more pictures from 8th Ave in the 40s and 50s.  Above, members of a construction crew at 8th and 55th stand around waiting for something to grow in the gaping hole behind them.


Above left, front to back down 8th to 41st, the Milford "M", that ugly Westin Hotel, and the new NY Times building.  Above right, at 43rd & Broadway, the Nasdaq building with the big black squares that look disturbingly dead, while every other surface in Times Square crawls with video ads.

Below left, an old ad south of the Times building that makes tourism look warm and fuzzy.  And below right, a cheesy new building above and beyond the Transit Authority that looks like it was designed with a toy set -- to match the Duane Reade sign.


[ 8th Ave Shots 1 ]