Citicorp Queens

From a few different angles on a cold day, the Citicorp Building, aka One Court Square, aka the tether-ball pole of Long Island City, aka the Queens echo of Citigroup Center straight across the East River in Manhattan.

I know it's shocking to think that bankers could be arrogant, but isn't the arrangement of the towers -- the way they form a "Citigroup Gate" that straddles the East River like a latter day Colossus of Rhodes -- a bit grand?

The photo above is from the Greenpoint Ave. Bridge.  The one below left is from right down the street; the base of the building borders the left side of the photo, making its Manhattan cousin look puny in the gap to its right.


Then above right and below, two examples of one of my favorite types of photos, where a cloud puts the subject in the dark on a sunny day.  I like the way the steam from the power plant fizzles out near the top of the darkened tower below.

The photo below is from the Greenpoint Ave. Bridge.  The one above right is from 30th St. near 47th Ave.; the other tower in the photo belongs to a storage facility, and is no doubt painted red, white & blue because, to the owners, America Means A Place to Store Your Stuff!

Plastic-Induced Paranoia

Poison Molecule Emitted By That Plastic Building in Back
I can hear worms scrape through the dirt under the sidewalk, and both ends of cellphone conversations a block away.  Everyone's laughing at me... my blood vessels are sticking out like rope, throbbing, about to explode!

I know something's wrong.  The glue and plastic fumes from all the shiny new buildings is poisoning me, making me super sensitive, like a spider.

You see what I mean, above?  My eyes are so powerful I can pick out individual molecules in midair!  And I can hear those two-faced signs, below, laughing at me and calling me names, "U ho!  U mad!  You pathetic, ass-face freak!  Ah... ha ha ha!"


I just stole a couple 3-packs of that new instant coffee from Starbucks and poured it in my beer.  Once it kicks in and I'm back in the flow, invisible, I'm heading for Grand Central to jump a train north -- the air up there will fix me up.  I know it's cold and I only got this t-shirt, but I've been sweatin' like a pig, so I ain't worried at all...

Wall Street Flag

NYSE, Last Refuge of Scoundrels
What, you expected Wall Street to hide behind some other flag?

If you haven't been down by the New York Stock Exchange lately [map], it's still an interesting sight, with that giddy tourist-friendly anti-terror edge we just don't get enough of anymore.

There's some serious-looking security infrastructure -- its effect intensified by the narrow streets -- and at least one poor bomb-sniffing dog that looked tired of being on high alert.

There's the sculpted scene from Capitalist Heaven above the flag, left, where an apparently pregnant young woman (center) stands amid the naked rabble of industry while her mom (left) panhandles to keep them fully clothed.

Then there's the funny way that Wall Street's hustlers, free from regulation and responsibility, nearly wrecked the world economy all by themselves, without any help from Al Qaeda.  And the unfunny way they've been treated with kid gloves, while unemployment continues to grow.

Maybe most funny is the fact that -- now that any hustler with an Internet server can run their own stock exchange -- the NYSE is losing volume, and that massive flag may have to stay up permanently to hide the emptiness inside.


[ The Big Squander, Paul Krugman, NYT ]
[ Rivals Pose Threat to New York Stock Exchange, NYT ]

Downtown Survivors

Above, a clock above a doorway at 28 Broadway demonstrates Einstein's curved spacetime; I'm not sure the time is correct, but who cares?

Left, the warm lights and stone of 115 Broadway, half of a near-twin set of buildings.  My camera can barely see the assorted gargoyles on sibling 111 Broadway, below left.  And note the concrete clouds in the rendering of the huge box once planned to squat over Trinity Church just south, below right.  [Courtesy Tom Fletcher's NY Architecture]


Further up Broadway just onto Fulton, left, the big stick-on letter sign is the most official looking thing on the old building.  It looks like the facade has been pulled off to reveal the "redevelopment era" concrete slab beneath it.

And below, further up some more, just past the Office of Unbridled Development (City Hall), the poor crippled Leaning Tower of Broadway at Reade St.

A Well-lit Corner

You just have to be there at the right time; on Fourth Ave at 9th St.

Union Square - The Beauty

I keep taking pictures of this block, even though there's nothing new about it.  I'm convinced you can't take a bad picture of it.

It wears its years well and, thanks to the individually developed vertical slices it makes in the block, is friendly to the street life lived around it.  Compare it to any of the newer block-long developments, where Arbitrary Style hulks meet the sidewalk with a single bank branch or a few chain stores.


I think the whole idea of real estate in cities needs to be blown up before we find ourselves with zero street life, scurrying between massive fortresses that repel outside life and kill the surrounding public space.

And I think the simplest way to correct the problem is to force development into narrow vertical slices like we see on this block, or at least break up ground floor commercial space, and rent the majority of it at less than market rate to non-chain businesses, say through lottery.  If the city can demand those dead "public space" plazas around huge developments, why not demand that developments meet the street in a way that does not subtract variety and kill civic life?


Sure it will never happen, but I think it's a good scheme.  And if development continues as it has, we'll find ourselves in the worst of worlds, all crammed together in an environment just as sterile as the suburbs, like rootless teens at the mall.

Across the Manhattan Bridge 3

Above: The Woolworth Building and Manhattan Municipal Building in the distance.


Above left, looking over the red building's other shoulder.  Above right, Henry St., with vertical signs lined up like teeth.


Above left, one of my favorite pictures of the red building.  Above right, looking down busy East Broadway.


Near the end of the bridge walkway, above left, the graceful curve of a highrise off Division; seeing the ropes makes me wonder how window washers feel about dangling a few hundred feet up against a curve.

And above right, heading uptown on Elizabeth St., the Chapel of San Calogero.  When I looked in the open doorway, there was a man sitting at a table in a small, worn vestibule, all of it looking like it's sat there unchanged since maybe 1910.  I will leave it to a real reporter to find out if the "chapel" is just what you see in the window, or a magnificent religious chamber (or social club?) beyond the vestibule.