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.

Top 5 Scaffolds of 2008

Above, first among the best, is the American Standard building on Bryant Park.  (I assume it's the company that makes urinals, that once caused a friend using one to remark "Moving up to the American Standard!")


Above left, veiled scaffolding on Broadway above Union Square.  Above right, scaffolding for the rich & famous at the Plaza Condotel (condo/hotel) at Central Park South.


Above left is my co-winner for 2008, the brooding scaffold on 38th off 6th Ave.  And just because the others here are black, white & elegant, above right is a Mad Max mess in pink from the Village.

Too Short

Ink on paper, 14 x 17 inches, by Allan Reinke
The following is stuff from a failed "essay" of mine, hopefully improved by the music links...

"Here's my chance / to dance my way / out of my constriction" - Bootsy Collins

I think the world would be a better place if we could all plug in to the cosmic current and "let it flow."  Every bit of the universe throbs with rhythm, layered & syncopated, from the pulse in your wrist to the lighthouse strobe of a pulsar, and all we have to do – to feel at home – is find the beat.  (I blame the hippies for giving cosmic talk like that a bad name, and what with the drugs, light shows and bare feet, there was no way they could find the beat.)

[ Bootsy's Hollywood Squares remix at YouTube* ]

"I can drink a whole Hennessy fifth / some call it a problem / I call it a gift" - Xzibit (pronounced "exhibit"), rapper

Now that we have the technology to become gods we choose instead to become Fantastic Voyeurs, snorkeling through the dyed hair and dead brain cells of D-list celebrities, watching them sin and suffer in our place.

I just hope Xzibit sounds as clever now as he did when he spit out those fearless lyrics, and isn't drinking generic vodka at the back of a supermarket parking lot, listening to his brain cells burst like bubble wrap.

I've been a big hip hop fan since the mid '80s.  Though too much of it is brain-dead pop music, or vicious just to make a buck, there's a huge amount of beauty if you know where to listen: to the life-affirming intelligence of the layered soundscapes, the playful boasting and bittersweet yearning.  And that's what I love about the music beyond its sound: the recognition that life is a struggle, a bittersweet thing that's trying to kill you just as hard as you're trying to love it.

[ Rhyme Poetic Mafia's bittersweet lament G Life at YouTube ]

"Life is the only thing worth living for" - Flipper, a sometimes glue-sniffingly-slow punk band

[ Flipper's Sex Bomb at YouTube ]

That might be the deepest one yet, and a good way to close – but here's just one more, from Too Short, a rapper who turned a sparse sound and dirty mind into gold, at least for a while:

"Life is / ... / too short..."

[ Too Short's Life is Too Short at YouTube ]

* Warner Music Group (WMG) made YouTube remove the video I used to link to here, likely cheating Bootsy out of some money, and certainly some glory, because listeners unfamiliar with this tune will never hear it and become fans.

There's a difference between outright piracy for profit and low-key sharing on the web, but corporations like WMG, Sony and Disney are only interested in protecting their profits, not the culture they've been allowed to monopolize and suck dry.

Macy's Holiday Display 1

The best holiday display I've seen so far this year wasn't in a window, but outside -- the virtual Christmas tree hung from Macy's Herald Square storefront.

I don't like it just because it looks great on a foggy day, but because it doesn't require a theme like the store windows, which manage to go past the Santa-centric Believe Meter, pictured above left, to mushy intergalactic bromides about the power of belief -- in the sacred power of consumerism I assume, since these displays don't pay for themselves -- to heal our inner selves and clear store shelves.

Bergdorf Goodman Holiday Windows

I only saw the windows along Fifth Ave., apparently less creepy than the others, but still strange.  Above, the window woman protects her cake from passersby.

Below left, a sophisticate puffs past the even snootier woman in the window, dressed in a whipped cream gown.  Below right, a familiar sight -- I can't think of a serious painter who does not paint by chandelier while surrounded by dead stuffed animals.


Below left, the Birdwoman of Bergdorf Goodman, staring down a cuckoo clock.  (I fear for the lawn in nearby Central Park if she has to eat her weight in worms every day.)  Below right, a stuffed woman dressed in down, surrounded by stuffed birds and a pigeon palace.  (I think the window designers went a little overboard with the pair of "egg heads" at the bottom.)


Below left, I think the woman is supposed to be surfing the bottom of the sea, under a phony waterfall of resin and seasick green lighting; the only part I like is the cutaway seabed.  And finally, below right, another angle on the scene up top, with a clear view of the aristocratically attired grinch monkey hanging by its tail, fishing for plaster frosted cake.

Mad Style

I couldn't resist taking these pictures, exploitative or not.  It was pretty obvious he was out of his mind, but he seemed to be in a good mood.


(I guess it's considered bad taste to even mention the fact that crazed people wander the streets; we'd rather act like they're invisible -- and let them range "free" -- than make hard, expensive decisions.)

At any rate, he had enough sense of self to dress in this striking black outfit -- somewhere between ninja and nun -- that seems to be made of umbrellas.