Empire State Extra

The needle-like Empire State Building still marks the landscape.  It will be a major crime if the proposed 1,216 foot 15 Penn Plaza plastic mirror is built a few blocks away.

Above, from the Pulaski Bridge in Greenpoint, the Empire State pierces clouds.  Just below l-r: (1) from Greenpoint again, beneath an approaching plane, (2) from the West Side Highway & Gansevoort St., (3) from 1st Ave. & 18th St.



Just above l-r (1) from 6th Ave. & 30th St., (2) from Union Square, (3 & 4) from an east side avenue.


Above l-r: (1) you can just see its needle from 39th Pl. in Sunnyside, Queens, (2) looming above Lexington Ave., (3) in the middle of construction, from the Brooklyn end of the Williamsburg Bridge.  Below left, from the bridge again, in between Domino Sugar buildings.  Below right, sticking up in the middle of a Greenpoint biofuels plant.

Fog

Above, the CitiBank Queens tower from the Pulaski Bridge.  Below l-r: (1) 47th St. east of 6th Ave., (2) the Helmsley Building from Vanderbilt Ave., (3) the Verizon tower next to the Brooklyn Bridge.

1400/1410 Broadway 1

Left: 1410 in reflected light.  Right: The Empire State's spire over 1400's shoulder
I've featured 1400 Broadway before, with its dramatic scaffolding (here) seen from 6th Ave.  It's a huge building that wraps in an L around its prettier sibling at 1410 Broadway.  I didn't understand how they fit together until I saw an aerial photo at Google Maps (3D block version to the left, with 1410 at the block's top left corner).

Both 1400 Broadway and 1410, aka the Bricken Casino Building, were designed by Ely Jacques Kahn Architects.  According to a few accounts, "In 1937, Ayn Rand worked as a typist without pay in Kahn's office to research her novel The Fountainhead."  At least Khan had the sense to not pay her.


I used the term "sibling" above because the buildings have some common underlying elements and their setbacks are nearly identical, as you can see just above, and best in this 1931 photo at Flickr [eralsoto].  Unfortunately I haven't found out where the Bricken Casino Building, below and top left, got its name.

8th Ave. & 14th St.

The Bankers Trust Company Building [NY Songlines] at 8th & 14th.  It was one color -- and looked in need of ghostbusting -- when shooting against the sun from Hudson & Gansevoort Sts., above.  It was a sunnier color shooting with the sun from 7th Ave. & 12th St., below.

Warm Water Hudson

In case you're already sick of winter, some springtime shots across the Hudson to Jersey City.


And as a bonus, upstream from the two-fer-tecture below, another set of Jersey twins.

Flag Foundation View 2

More from the Flag Art Foundation on 25th St. in Chelsea.  Above, looking straight down from the ninth floor patio.  Below left, the magnificent Starrett-Lehigh Building to the west.


Above right, the top of the huge Post Office facility on 11th Ave., with New Jersey across the Hudson.  And below, a woman stops a respectful distance away from the sun-blasted ghost tree on the patio.

Manhattan Bridge View

Above, downtown looks squeezed, with Gehry's wavy tower on the left and the curvaceous Chatham Green Houses below it, expanding toward the tanks and towers on the right.


Above left, the Gehry tower throws a big shadow on the Woolworth Building.  Above right, work goes on under the Brooklyn tower of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the white curtains outside the chutes I visited earlier hang along the middle of the bridge.

And below, the Gehry tower looks puny enough to be a muffler on the HVAC unit on top of a building on the Brooklyn end of the bridge.

Building Bridges

Some bridges between buildings.  Above, on 24th St. between Madison and Park Ave. South.

Below left, in the middle of the Manhattan Detention Complex, aka The Tombs, on Centre St. downtown.  Below right, above 15th St. near 10th Ave.


And below, my favorite, formerly bridging parts of Gimbels flagship store, above 32nd St. between 6th & 7th Aves. near Penn Station.

Empire State Light

The Empire State Building.  Softly lit above, from the Williamsburg Bridge.  Below, with its top shrouded in fog, from 8th Ave. in the high 20s.

Cluster Faves

A few of my favorite clusters of stuff.  Above, looking down Broadway from in front of the Fifth Avenue Building at Madison Square.

It's nice that the Levi's ad, left of the clock, sinks into the surrounding brown.  Too bad they had to insult us with "Everybody's work is equally important," here in the land of banker bonuses.  Are the workers in the ads socialists, or have their brains evaporated from too many 12 hour shifts in the denim mines?

Below left, the southwest corner of West Broadway and Watts.


Above right, looking west on Metropolitan Ave. from next to the BQE in Williamsburg.  And below, looking north on 1st Ave. from below 33rd St.

Leaning Tower of Confucius Plaza

Some pictures of the Confucius Plaza Apartments tower.  I liked the way the ropes seem to be pulling the tower and the white building at its feet together so much that I preserved the crookedness in these photos.

1) Above, the ropes pull the tower over like a loose fence post.
2) Below left, the tower pulls back a bit.


3) Above right, the arched back of the tower as it pulls itself up.
4) Below, the puny white building is ripped out of the ground.